Thursday, Nov. 18 — A 3rd District judge issued a search warrant for a home on the east side of Salt Lake County where police suspect methamphetamine is sold and made. A confidential informant told police three men and a woman in the house are making meth and have a number of guns, including rifles, shotguns and several handguns.

Also this week, Utahns followed the well-publicized case of little Jocelyn, a 2-year-old found wandering barefoot on State Street.

The girl's mother, Holly Lowe, 23, allegedly left her daughter with an acquaintance at the Alta Motel and Lodge, 1899 S. State, Wednesday. Officers found the so-called baby sitter drunk and passed out in the hotel room.

Police located Lowe a day after the child was found wandering. She was arrested for investigation of child abuse, child neglect and an outstanding warrant. Officials said privately the woman was believed to be using meth.

Also in the past week, a man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for stabbing two women in the throat while suffering from methamphetamine psychosis.

A judge sentenced Joe Ignacio Perales Jr., 25, to consecutive 1-to-15-year prison terms for the August 2003 attacks of women in South Salt Lake and Kearns. The women knew Perales and were talking to him when he suddenly attacked them with a knife.

One week before the Generation Meth series began, three people in Layton tried to cover up meth possession and an identity-fraud operation by hiding evidence — and dirty meth syringes — in their underwear. They were caught by a Davis County sheriff's deputy, who stopped their car and found multiple needles and instruments for forging fake documents.

The other female passenger, an 18-year-old from Ogden, was hiding two syringes in her bra and two forged driver's licenses in her underwear. Police found forgery-making equipment in the car's trunk, including a digital camera, transparent numbers and letters used to create false IDs, cutting instruments, specific paper used for the license itself, packaging tape for lamination and sandpaper to take away the shine.

Davis County prosecutors charged the three people Monday with multiple felony counts, including third-degree possession or use of a controlled substance, third-degree identity fraud, third-degree theft by receiving stolen property, third-degree forgery and third-degree possession of forged writing or device for writing. He was also charged with three misdemeanors.

The officer found an uncapped, used meth syringe in the pocket of a 23-year-old female passenger during a search, he wrote in his police report. "I don't know how I avoided being stuck by her dirty syringe."

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