LUCERNE – LAKE COUNTY – Sheriff’s deputies doing a follow up investigation on a local young woman found a honey oil lab set up in her home. Honey oil, or hash oil labs have been in the news a lot lately due to their extremely dangerous volatility, as the home made labs have a tendency to blow up or catch fire as the user tries to extract high potency concentrated cannabis from marijuana leaves using butane gas in the process.
Neighbors on 1st street may have noticed activity from drug sales at South’s house over the past 2 years.
On Friday, August 15, sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of 22-year-old Jessica Louise South, in the 6000 block of 1st Street in Lucerne, a home just two blocks from the north east shore of Clear Lake. They were following up on an unrelated case involving Ms. South.
Jessica South had been arrested in October 2012 at the same home with two others, Joel Langan and Nickolas Delisle, who also resided there. Detectives had found psilocybin mushrooms, methamphetamine, marijuana, pills, and cash while serving a search warrant at the home. Langan was alleged to be selling drugs out of the home. South and Delisle were also arrested for possession of narcotics, drug paraphernalia, and cultivating marijuana, according to a story in the Lake County Record-Bee. South was also arrested earlier this year on a bench warrant related to possession of a controlled substance and providing a location to prepare or store controlled substances.
On Friday the 15th, at 9:00 am, as the deputies arrived at the house to follow up on the cases involving South, they found evidence of an active butane honey oil lab. According to Lt. Steve Brooks of the Lake Sheriff’s office, on that discovery the deputies summoned the Narcotics Task Force detectives to investigate the scene. They interviewed South and another man who was there, 38-year-old Raymond Stroud Bowman who stated his residence as Nice, a town near Lucerne on the furthest north shore of Clear Lake. She and Bowman both said that he did not live at the Lucerne house. She showed the detectives the room where the deputies had found the lab, stating that most of the property there belonged to previous tenants (Langan or Delisle, perhaps), but that some of it was Bowman’s.
Evidence seized from the house from Bowman’s nightstand.
The room had an active BHO (butane honey oil) lab going, with a glass extraction tube filled with marijuana, and a glass dish with extracted honey oil. There were several bags of processed marijuana and “shake” – leftover material from trimming the plants. It was later weighted in at 25.8 pounds. A digital scale and extraction filters, along with a large box with cases of butane canisters were stored in the same room. All of that was seized as evidence.
As the detectives continue to discuss the matter with South, while Bowman was detained elsewhere, she told them he had brought some of his stuff to the home. She said that she and he were in a relationship, but he had not moved in. Detectives then showed her a stack of Bowman’s personal paperwork found in the room, and she then came clean. She said that Bowman had moved in, but he had insisted she not tell them, believing they would not be able search the house if a warrant on him had been issued. She also claimed she had told Bowman he could not run a honey oil lab there, a request he had apparently ignored.
Bowman also had meth and a syringe on him when searched.
Bowman, however, denied that he lived there, and had only brought some of his things to the spare room. Turning their attention to the master bedroom, reportedly shared by the couple, detectives found in a nightstand 21.3 grams of honey oil, two digital grams scales, two meth pipes and 8.5 grams of meth, .2 grams of heroin, eight LSD pills, five diazepam pills, and evidence of narcotics sales. The nightstand was said to be on Bowman’s side of the bed. There was also a small crop of marijuana growing in the backyard.
Detectives found cause to arrest Raymond Bowman, but not Jessica South. He was also found to have just over a gram of meth on him, and a hypodermic needle and a blue plastic cap with a dried cotton ball. He was charged with manufacturing a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and controlled substances for sale, possession of ammunition by a prohibited person, cultivation of marijuana, keeping a place to sell narcotics and parole violations. He was booked at the Lake County Hill Road Correctional facility.
Read More:
Lake County Record Bee (2012): Three arrested, variety of drugs seized at Lucerne home
