News - Featured Story

Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

Police flooded with calls about day-care meth lab (Updated 1:45 p.m.)

OCEAN SPRINGS — Police today were advising parents to take their children to a doctor if they had been kept at the Stennis Avenue home day care where a meth lab was raided Tuesday.

Det. John Flowers said the police department office has been flooded with calls from worried parents, because Brenda Sumrall, 64, arrested Tuesday night in connection with two meth labs found on her Stennis Avenue property, has been keeping children in her home for many years.

Adult pornography was also discovered at the home, police said, in the bedroom of Henry Alfred Sumrall, 67, Brenda Jane Sumrall’s husband, and in a semi-attached apartment where their 45-year-old son lived. Police said there was no indication that the children being kept in the home were exposed to the material. There were no sexually explicit pictures of children found in the home, police said.

However, police are conducting a thorough investigation on that issue as well, an investigation that could take months, Flowers said.

Police are recommending children kept in the home anytime within the last year be taken to their family doctor for a check up, Flowers said, because of the possibility they were exposed to the dangerous chemicals used to make methamphetamine.

City code enforcement officials late Tuesday inspected the house and condemned it. Flowers said the condemnation is a precaution until it can be determined whether harmful chemicals are in the structure.

Neighbors were stunned last night and this morning when the home, which sits at an angle on the corner lot in the residential neighborhood, was raided by drug enforcement investigators and police.

The Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County, acting on a tip about the Sumralls’ son, Mark Timothy Sumrall, 45, being a meth cook, waited until the son left the home and raided it around 7 p.m. Tuesday.

They found two inactive, “shake and bake” meth labs and an inactive HCL generator and assorted precursors for making methamphetamine.

In the semi-attached apartment where Mark Timothy Sumrall lived on the property, agents found drug paraphernalia, hypodermic needles and spoons associated with intravenous drug use. They also found adult pornography.

Mark Sumrall has been charged with one count of manufacturing methamphetamine within 1,500 feet of a day care; one count of generation of hazardous waste in the manufacture of methamphetamine; and nine counts of felony child endangerment.

Henry Sumrall, Brenda Sumrall and 46-year-old caregiver Carolyn Annette Godkin were arrested and each face nine counts of felony child endangerment.

Eight children were being taken care of at the day care, with a ninth child being Mark Sumrall’s, whom had been adopted by Mark’s mother and father.

The people charged in this case are making an initial appearance at 1:30 p.m. today in Jackson County court.