ANDOVER — The elderly owners of a Lowell Street house, where their son operated a crystal meth lab, have moved out of town and are planning to sell the residence.
Meanwhile, their son Jay Keough and codefendant Ryan Emmett are scheduled to be sentenced March 11, almost one year after they were arrested in a raid on the house at 487 Lowell St.
They pleaded guilty in September to manufacturing methamphetamine and were originally scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Boston for sentencing yesterday. But the hearing was postponed to March 11. Keough, 42, and Emmett, 30, have been detained by U.S. marshals since their March 25 arrest and face up to 20 years in prison.
The town condemned the home on April 1, and ordered property owners Walter and Gertrude Keough to make a number of repairs and hire a consultant to conduct air sampling in the room where the crystal meth was cooked. Town records show that such tests revealed no remnants of harmful chemicals.
Walter and Gertrude Keough have since moved out of Andover and plan to sell the house, according to their son, Bradley Keough, Jay Keough's older brother.
"My parents are settling down in an apartment and doing well," said Bradley Keough. "The whole thing is pretty traumatic. ... Parents always love their kids."
Bradley Keough, who now lives in Kentucky, said he and Jay grew up together in Wilmington before the family moved to Lowell Street. He said his parents are in their late 70s.
According to a court affidavit written by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Keough and Emmett cooked methamphetamine every four to five days at 487 Lowell St. and threatened to kill anyone who told police about the drug lab hidden there.
But Bradley Keough said his parents have told him a much different story.
"My parents never made any indication to me that they were threatened in any way," said Bradley Keough. "In fact, Jay was doing a lot of work on the house for them, trying to get things cleaned up for them."
At the time of their arrests in March, Jay Keough was on probation in Florida and Emmett was wanted on a warrant in Hawaii for a probation violation.
Court documents show that Jay Keough had been living at his parents' home for 18 months, along with his sister and her two children.
Over a four-year period beginning in 1984, Keough was charged with assault and battery, assault and battery on a police officer, operating under the influence, and a restraining order violation.
Before returning to Andover, he lived in Florida for 13 years, where he was charged with battery, aggravated assault with a weapon, and trespassing.
Emmett has lived in Andover, Lawrence, Somerville and Hawaii in the last decade.
In the mid-1990s, he was charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, forgery and larceny greater than $250, and possession of a class D substance.
He was arrested on theft charges in Hawaii four times between 2002 and 2004 and also charged with criminal property damage and burglary. Emmett also was charged with motor vehicle violations and larceny by check in 2007.
According to their plea agreements, Keough and Emmett admitted that they began cooking methamphetamine at 487 Lowell St. in early 2008.
Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant of the central nervous system that can be smoked, injected, snorted or ingested orally. Meth labs have been known to explode.
The drug is commonly made by distilling ephedrine from cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine.
Under federal limitations enforced at pharmacies, individuals cannot buy more than nine grams of pseudoephedrine within a 30-day period. But despite those guidelines, in the year before they were arrested, Keough and Emmett were able to purchase 133 boxes of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine at 15 different pharmacies in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including in Andover, North Andover, Lawrence, Methuen and Haverhill, according to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration review of pharmacy records.
Keough and Emmett cooked the drug using the cold medicine and materials purchased at area Home Depots, including plastic tubing and hydrochloric acid, according to court documents.
