Attention makers of methamphetamine: do not leave the meth lab in your apartment unattended to go on a spring break vacation in Cozumel, Mexico.
Caldwell County, N.C., teacher’s assistant Marc Hodges failed to heed this sage wisdom from The Daily Caller, and now he’s paying the price.
Federal marshals arrested Hodges, 50, at the airport in Charlotte, reports local ABC affiliate WSOC-TV. He had been under investigation for several weeks and is now charged with felony manufacturing methamphetamine (among other things).
“Hodges was literally arrested from his seat in first class after landing,” notes WBTV, Charlotte’s CBS affiliate, quoting from a press release.
Hodges made a few mistakes that Walter White — the fictional high school chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-dealer in AMC’s Emmy-winning series “Breaking Bad” — just wouldn’t make.
For starters, he allegedly purchased over 1,000 boxes of matches and peroxide from a local business. He also left various meth-making ingredients in the trash bins of his apartment complex. A neighbor found the material while searching for aluminum cans.
“Books of matches and balloons and two-liter bottles that had some weird stuff inside,” the unnamed neighbor said, according to WSOC.
The clinching error for Hodges, though, was also tossing utility bills with his name on them in the garbage. Police found those.
Students told WSOC they were surprised at the news.
“I liked him. He wasn’t that bad of a teacher,” student Anthony Large told the station. “He was nice and all.”
The case of Marc Hodges certainly is far from the first time a teacher has been busted for meth. The basic story involving a teacher facing meth charges is sadly pretty common around the country. Most often, charges are merely possession-related. Occasionally, though, production and sales enter the equation.
In September 2012, for example, chemistry teacher William Duncan, 43, was arrested when he allegedly sold some crank to undercover officers in the parking lot of Mae Luster Stephens Junior High in Linden, Texas. The Daily Mail has that story.
In December 2011, 75-year-old Boston University professor Irina Kristy was busted for allegedly running a full meth lab out of her home, according to The Boston Globe.