Sentinel -- Sunday, June 20, 1999

by Christine Hanley

The Associated Press

MODESTO -- Carol Sund was so meticulous that she used an Internet mapping service to plan a scenic vacation through the Central Valley to Yosemite National Park. The itinerary also took Sund and two-teenage-girls through a booming center for the nation’s methamphetamine trade. ‘’I know she wasn’t aware of that. She never would have gone. The danger’s there -- why take a chance?’’ said the slain woman’s father, Francis Carrington.

The federal task force investigating the sightseers’ murders has focused on a loose-knit band of meth-using ex-convicts, exposing the drug’s local criminal subculture like never before. And now, finally local law enforcement is getting more help. ‘’The investigation has brought a magnifying glass to a problem that has been hiding under the rocks for too many years,’’ one federal law enforcement official said Wednesday, the day after the Justice Department promised an immediate infusion of $800,000 to coordinate a regional crackdown.

The nine-county Central Valley’s designation as a ‘’high intensity drug trafficking area’’ also could bring up $2.5 million in the next fiscal year.

Federal officials won’t say whether the scores of FBI agents who descended on the area to help solve the disappearance and murders of Sund, her daughter Juli and their Argentine friend Silvina Pelosso made the difference in getting the money. But the attention didn’t hurt.

Local officials, whose similar request for the special drug designation was turned down last year, say the case has raised public consciousness about the diabolical effects of meth, a mind-altering drug known for triggering paranoia, psychosis and particularly violent acts.

‘’The Yosemite murder-kidnapping has certainly demonstrated the gravity of the meth scrough,’’ said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also known as crystal, speed, ice or glass, meth can be made by amateur chemists anywhere, using lab equipment and chemicals readily available in stores. But is particularly pernicious in the Central Valley, where the Mexican drug rings have pushed aside outlaw biker gangs and made the trade more profitable than ever.

These rings rely on ranch hands and crew leaders to find and guard remote fields or abandoned barns, where mobile super-labs can pump out nearly 100 pounds of meth in less than a day. These caches are then shipped around the country through well-established cocaine distribution networks.

Law enforcement officials say the Mexican rings are responsible for most of the meth hitting the streets. But less than 20 percent of the 1,596 seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration last year were super-labs.

The hired helpers who are caught are usually too loyal, too scared, or too far down the chain to provide information. And they are readily replaced by others willing to overlook the risks for the easy money.

But cranksters also can turn to so-called ‘’Beavis and Butthead’’ labs set up by small-time dealers brewing their own supplies, a source that has become more pervasive with the Internet, where cooks even compete for best recipes.

These smaller labs represent 80 percent of the busts. In many cases, they are discovered only when the ingredients -- which include hydrochloric acid, iodine, Drano and lighter fluid -- explode or poison the cooks.

No charges have been filed in the sightseer murders and no one has disclosed a motive, nut in their effort to solve the case over past four months, FBI agents have entered a netherworld of low-income neighborhoods, trailer parks and mountain hideouts that have long been familiar to deputies serving search warrants for these suspected meth labs.

The task force has been interviewing witnesses and suspects in crumbling houses, littered with the remnants of meth labs, dirty laundry and garbage, whose lives have been destroyed by the drug.

Key grand jury witnesses who have helped the FBI build its case have memories clouded by meth, even when sober. They have slept around, leaving single moms raising kids with different fathers. Usually jobless, they rely on welfare, robberies and other crimes to get by and stay high.

Some have resorted to making and selling the drug themselves. And the FBI has unearthed other violence: petty thefts, domestic abuse, child neglect, attempted murder.

‘’The public needs to understand the devastating impact that methamphetamine is having on everyday society. The consequences of not getting it under control are severe,’’ said FBI Agent James Maddock of Sacramento, who is in charge of the task force.

In the Central Valley, meth busts have become so common that, like traffic accidents, they generate little news coverage unless they are big. So authorities have adopted a new strategy: targeting the rogue chemical companies and stores selling cold and flu tablets in bulk out their back doors.

The pills contain pseudoephedrine, an over-the-counter chemical twin of ephedrine, a key meth ingredient that is tightly controlled. And the dramatic jump in bulk pseudoephedrine imports is an indicator of the meth boom: From 1990 to 1998 imports more than doubled from 247 to 546 metric tons.

‘’And it’s not because people are suffering from colds more often,’’ said U.S. Attorney Paul Seave, who oversees California’s Eatern District for the U.S. Department of Justice.

The new federal money will pay for a computer system to coordinate the work of local drug task forces, as well as public awareness campaigns, new hires, training and special protective gear for dismantling the labs, which leave hazardous waste.

It is welcomed help for the local law enforcement, which put methamphetamine at the top of its agenda for long before Mrs. Sund, Juli and Silvina made their ill-fated trip.

‘’People don’t think about it if they don’t encounter it firsthand,’’ one such official said on condition of anonymity. ‘’In the crank trade, generally they are preying on other people in the drug community. Sometimes, they go outside, with violent consequences.’’