Family charged in Chestnuthill meth lab case
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A father and son have been charged after evidence of methamphetamine production reportedly was found in their Sun Valley Estates home in Chestnuthill Township in June.
Charges were filed Oct. 13 against Dennis Scott Smith, 51, and son Dylan Scott Smith, 21, both of Barry's Road. However, as of Oct. 20, neither had undergone the arraignment process necessary to schedule a district court hearing to determine if the charges should be sent to county court for trial.
Both Smiths are charged with making, delivering or possessing meth with intent to deliver, operating a meth lab, possessing ingredients for making meth, risking a catastrophe, unregistered possession of a controlled substance, drug paraphernalia possession, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct.
At 9:41 a.m. June 9, police responded to a report of a woman being held against her will, injected with heroin and raped at the Smith residence.
When arriving there at 10:13 a.m., police encountered Devin Franco, no age or address listed. Franco told police his friends, the Smiths, lived there and that they had gone out for a drive.
Franco told police he didn't know when the Smiths would be back and that he alone was in the residence at the time. This proved false when police noticed someone else's hand pulling back a bed sheet covering a window and heard a noise indicating other people were in the residence.
Police entered the residence and encountered the Smiths, but did not find the woman who supposedly had been held captive there. Police detected a powerful chemical smell, coming from a bedroom, similar to a smell one of the troopers had detected on a previous date at a mobile meth lab in Dorrance Township, Luzerne County.
A Savage 111 .270-caliber rifle, later found to be stolen, was leaning against one living room wall. Dennis Smith told police Larry Kitchell, no age or address listed, had brought the rifle there.
Franco told police he had come to the Smith residence to get high and that he'd been buying meth from them for several days prior to police's visit. He said Dylan Smith had been cooking meth and disposing of paraphernalia by burning in the front yard.
Franco told police the supposedly captive woman had left the residence prior to police arriving and that five more guns from Kitchell were in Dennis Smith's bedroom.
Dennis Smith told police he had been using heroin and meth and that marijuana, possibly along with some heroin and meth, were in his bedroom. He said Kitchell had brought five or six guns there a few days prior.
Smith told police he didn't know the guns were stolen and that he had planned to go shooting with them later that day. Franco and the Smiths all showed signs of meth use and admitted to being heroin users as well.
At 4:09 p.m. that day, police executed a search warrant at the Smith residence, finding evidence of meth-making and three more guns. Some of the evidence was sent to a state police crime lab for analysis, after which an Aug. 23 lab report confirmed meth had been made at the residence.
As of Oct. 20, Franco had not been charged in this case and the Smiths had not been charged with unlawful restraint or rape.
Court records show a Larry L. Kitchell, 38, of Albrightsville, awaiting district court hearings in a December robbery case in Tunkhannock Township and a July drug case in Hamilton Township. It's unknown if this man, who as of Oct. 20 was listed as being in Monroe County Correctional Facility in lieu of a total of $100,000 bail on both cases, is the same Kitchell who allegedly brought the stolen guns to the Smith residence.
Story from the Pocono Record
