What began as a routine attempt to recover stolen property Friday ended with the evacuation of a Camp Leach Road home and the arrest of two people — all because an officer recognized the signs of methamphetamine production.

Herbert Lee Garriss, 46, and Angela Garriss, 44, both of 2145 Camp Leach Road, were arrested by Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office investigators. Herbert Lee Garriss was charged with manufacturing and possession with intent to sell meth, among other charges; Angela Garris, with possession/distributing methamphetamine precursors — the ingredients needed to make the drug.

According to officials, late Friday afternoon, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Corporal Cody Burroughs escorted representatives with a local business to a residence where they believed stolen equipment might be located. But as Burroughs took a look around the property, he saw clear signs that sent up red flags for law enforcement: evidence of the production of methamphetamine, according to Capt. Russell Davenport, head of the agency’s drug unit.

“He walked into the barn, saw a one-pot method of cooking meth, which is pretty much a plastic drink bottle, ammonium nitrate and some liquid,” Davenport said. “It was consistent with meth manufacturing.”

That’s when Burroughs called in drug unit investigators, who already had an eye on the residents of the home, as the couple’s purchases of pseudoephedrine — a key ingredient in meth production — had come to their attention through a national tracking system called NPLEx, Davenport said. NPLEx is a real-time database that monitors purchases of cold and allergy medicine to help identify people who are buying abnormal amounts of over-the-counter medicine, a sign it could be being used to make meth.

Once drug unit investigators arrived, the Garrisses, a 15-year-old female and the people who had come in search of stolen equipment were evacuated from the property. Methamphetamine production is a highly volatile process involving a variety of toxic chemicals that can ignite or react. In November of 2013, a Duplin County man died from injuries sustained in a meth lab explosion; in January, a Lenoir County man was arrested after his home burned due to another.

For the past decade, meth use and production has slowly crept eastward across the U.S., but it’s only been within the last six months that the drug has had a more noticeable presence in Beaufort County. The increased number of incidents has led the sheriff’s office to take a proactive stance in the county. After a large meth bust on Carrow Road in Chocowinity in January, deputies and investigators were invited to attend an SBI-led training last month where the trends, dangers and signs of production were introduced. Because of the daylong course, Burroughs was able to recognize the signs of meth production at the Camp Leach Road residence, according to Davenport.

“Educating our deputies and officers is crucial to finding these things,” Davenport said. “And it’s why we’ve been finding more of them.”

Davenport said the next step is more training — to get every drug unit investigator clandestine-lab certified so that when a meth lab is found, they’ll be able to process the scene quickly. Currently, when labs are discovered, SBI clandestine-lab agents are not immediately available and may take several hours to travel to a scene.

“Normally, it will be three or four hours, but sometimes it will be the next day, especially this late at night or on the weekend,” Davenport said. “It’s an epidemic now and the SBI has limited resources. They have to work the whole state.”

He said that having clandestine-lab certified investigators within the sheriff’s office would speed up the process, though the SBI would still be responsible for collecting evidence and disposing of the hazardous materials.

“If certified, we’ll be able to go in and help the SBI,” Davenport said. “We would still need a chemist and a head agent, but we wouldn’t have to pull people from across the state.”

At the Camp Leach Road residence, a search of the Garriss property turned up evidence of several one-pot meth labs, meth precursor chemicals and solvents, three grams of prepackaged meth, digital scales and other paraphernalia associated with the use of the drug, according to a press release from the drug unit. Eleven firearms were also seized from the property.

Herbert Lee and Angela Garriss were confined at the Beaufort County Detention Center; Angela Garriss under a $10,000 secured bond. Herbert Lee Garriss was held under no bond, as determined by a North Carolina general statute that states in cases of methamphetamine use or production, a magistrate can deny bond as a matter of public safety.