APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – We’re learning more about what was inside a south side Appleton apartment after a 32-year-old man was arrested Thursday for breaking into a neighbor’s apartment during a drug-fueled episode.
Police say investigators obtained search warrants to look through Steven Meyer’s electronics to see if he had any plans to use the chemicals inside the apartment in the 2600 block of S. Kerry Lane.
FOX 11 reports that one of those search warrants reveals that investigators uncovered several glass containers and bottles, some with labels, including “acetone”, “sulfuric acid”, and “red-flammable”. Also found inside Meyer’s apartment was marijuana, a pipe and a gas mask.
“The chemicals themselves are not illegal to possess,” Appleton Police Capt. Todd Freeman told FOX 11. “While they might not be something you find in every house, with a lot of these cases it comes down to what was the plan, if any, to use them.”
Authorities’ say they still can’t rule out the chemicals could have been for drugs.
“There may be some odd nexus that we’re not aware of,” said Freeman.
Meyer was arrested early Thursday for breaking into his female neighbor’s apartment. Officers found him in the hallway, half-naked and sweating. The search warrant indicates the suspect said, “he had taken one Oxycodone pill and one unknown pill.”
While Meyer remains in the Winnebago County jail, a neighbor of his who calls him a friend, says the chemicals are part of a harmless hobby.
“He likes chemistry,” Rick Wells told FOX 11. “He likes to look at that and stuff. He likes buying and selling it on the internet. That’s what he does.”
Wells says his neighbor showed him the chemicals.
“He told me which ones were bad, which ones were good, the ones that if you do this or do that,” said Wells. “He knows about it otherwise he wouldn’t have it.”
“He wouldn’t go out and blow people up or make bombs,” said Wells. “He just likes that stuff. He’s got foreign money up there, he likes collecting foreign money. He likes collecting these little vials of stuff like that.”
(Additional reporting from FOX 11).
