10:25 p.m. - Jan. 3, 2012BERWICK -- Barry Zwalkuski was holding down a steady job at Berwick Offray and cooking meth on the side at the home he shared with two children, police say.
When he was done, he allegedly left the drug waste by the curb with the household trash for weekly pickup.
His cousin and roommate Tracie Jo Zwalkuski, 41, supplied him with pseudoephedrine, a necessary ingredient, in exchange for the drug, court papers add.
But as they sat before a judge dressed in white HazMat suits just like the officers that had dismantled the alleged lab at their 405 E. Sixth St. home Thursday morning, their stories diverged.
Mr. Zwalkuski, 49, admitted to using the drug as he was questioned by District Judge Richard Knecht
"I have a little (addiction)," he told the judge. "I can live without it."
"I think you're going to have to," Knecht told him.
His cousin Tracie, meanwhile, claimed she had no knowledge the home where she was raising her 9-year-old daughter could also be a methamphetamine lab.
"I don't know, how with us in the house, how he could get away with it," Ms. Zwalkuski told a reporter. "I'm shocked just, I mean, I don't know what he was thinking."'Just nuts'The raid came as a surprise to neighbor Monty Labour, a Berwick High baseball coach, who watched the scene unfold from his porch.
"Happy New Year, huh?" he said with a sigh.
In the summers, the Zwalkuskis hosted pool parties, said Labour, 60. They lit off fireworks on the Fourth of July. They seemed average. "I always considered myself a pretty good judge of character."
But perhaps most surprising to Labour was the appearance of an alleged meth house in a neighborhood where a police officer lives just down the street. "It's just nuts," he said. "Knock me over with a feather."
Labour has lived in the neighborhood since 1973. In recent years, some younger couples have moved into the 400 block, spending their money to fix up homes on the stretch.
He never suspected the Zwalkuskis were involved with drugs. He remembered when Ms. Zwalkuski's parents moved into the home when she was just a teen, though he admitted he didn't know them well.
Police say a seventh-grader was also living in the home, though Ms. Zwalkuski's daughter and the middle schooler were in class at the time of the raid. A third adult woman living there was detained, but not charged.Battering ramIn recent weeks, a tipster said someone at the home was making daily batches of meth, said Berwick Police Chief Ken Strish. "There was a lot of risk that this was going to be active," he said.
Through investigations over the holidays, Officer Brandon Shultz gathered enough evidence for a search warrant.
But when authorities -- including about two dozen officers from Berwick, the Attorney General's office and State Police -- showed up to the Zwalkuski home, no one answered the door.
Officers used a battering ram to shatter a glass storm door, sending shards showering onto the porch that still displayed a light-up Santa.
Police collected Coleman fuel containers, a gas generator, burnt foil, coffee filters, and containers of liquid in a garage and in a trash can outside, an affidavit says. But there were no drugs cooking, Strish said.Police: She knewPolice say Mr. Zwalkuski admitted cooking the drugs in the home, with the help of his cousin and other sources for the pseudoephedrine.
He traded Ms. Zwalkuski meth and money for the ingredient, police allege.
Police say Ms. Zwalkuski knew her cousin was cooking meth, and admitted as much during an interview.
But Thursday night, Ms. Zwalkuski denied even knowing pseudoephedrine was a meth ingredient.
She saw the bottles of Coleman fuel, but assumed they were being used when Mr. Zwalkuski took camping trips with his nephew, she added.
Ms. Zwalkuski also claimed her cousin helped her pay the bills at the house, but didn't pay her for cold pills. She lost her job at Sykes in July.
But Mr. Zwalkuski has been at Berwick Offray for 33 years, he told a judge.
Ms. Zwalkuski faces charges of possessing meth precursors and criminal conspiracy to manufacture meth. She was jailed under $125,000 bail.
Mr. Zwalkuski faces the same charges and additional counts of risking catastrophe, possessing and manufacturing meth. He's in jail for lack of $150,000 bail.
Police were assisted by Berwick firefighters who helped secure the area for two-and-a-half hours while the lab was dismantled. Press Enterprise reporter Kristin Baver can be reached at 387-1234 ext. 1310 or kristin.baver@pressenterprise.net. Or follow her online at www.twitter.com/KristinBaver and www.facebook.com/ByKristinBaver.For all breaking news alerts and updates, follow us on Twitter.