Suspected meth-lab makings found in truck

Karen Zekan

Thursday, Sept. 3, 1998 | 10:54 a.m.

A pursuit to stop a motorist who had made a wrong turn on Boulder Highway ended with the Nevada Highway Patrol taking a female passenger into custody and seizing from the vehicle what authorities believe to be the makings of a portable methamphetamine drug lab.

The pursuit lasted fewer than three minutes late Tuesday night as the NHP trooper tailed the white 1997 Ford pickup back and forth across the highway, through neighborhoods and light traffic before ending up outside an apartment complex off Tropicana Avenue, where the male driver took off running, authorities said.

The man was still at large this morning. Local law enforcement believe he is the same fugitive federal authorities are looking for in connection with a separate drug case.

The woman he left behind, 24-year-old Margaret Gilliam Cenami, remained in the Clark County Detention Center today on a single count of manufacturing methamphetamine.

Cenami told authorities at the time of her arrest that she and her boyfriend had mixed a batch of chemicals to make methamphetamine earlier that night inside a trailer at the Sam's Town trailer park on Boulder Highway, the NHP said.

The arresting trooper said Cenami and her boyfriend were heading out to another location to cook the toxic liquid substance into its more common whitish, gritty form when they noticed the lights and siren behind them.

The couple's Ford had caught the patrolling trooper's attention at 11:37 p.m. when the driver pulled out of the trailer park's driveway onto the highway, allegedly turning left despite the posted right-turn-only sign.

The trooper followed the truck from the highway through neighborhoods off Harmon Avenue, Vegas Drive, and Tropicana, the pursuit at one point reaching a top speed of 70 mph, said Trooper Scott Flabi, NHP spokesman.

The driver leaped out of the truck and hopped a wall, disappearing into the darkness, Flabi said.

The suspected methamphetamine chemicals, along with tubing, glass beaker-like containers and various heating elements, were recovered from an unlocked footlocker in the bed of the truck, the NHP said.