A two-year-old girl was treated for exposure to methamphetamine after being found in a home where the highly toxic drug had been produced.

This was the second incident involving endangerment to a child in Wayne County this week.

Both 45-year-old Paul Sweet Sr. and 24-year-old Samantha Carter were charged by Operation UNITE with manufacturing methamphetamine and child endangerment (meth).

“Our investigation is continuing and additional arrests are likely,” said Dan Smoot, deputy director for UNITE.

Deputies with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department were following up on “numerous tips and calls” about Sweet late Thursday, September 29, and went to Sweet’s and Carter’s residence on Bell-Phipps Road around 11 p.m.

After receiving permission to search the home, deputies discovered between one and two grams of finished methamphetamine, remnants of a one-step lab, lithium strips and pills containing pseudoephedrine–the main ingredient used to create meth.

There were three other adults and the child at the residence in addition to Sweet and Carter, police said.

The child was taken to the Wayne County Hospital Emergency Room for treatment of exposure to chemicals used to make methamphetamine.

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A pregnant woman was treated for exposure to methamphetamine after the discovery of a working lab in Wayne County Monday, September 26 that resulted in three arrests. Charged by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office with one count of manufacturing methamphetamine were 38-year-old Lenny Lunsford, 39-year-old Angela D. Wallace, and 35-year-old Joseph “Wally” Wallace. All are from Monticello.

They were lodged in Wayne County Detention Center.

The woman, 30-year-old Shelley Parrigin of Monticello, was treated at the scene by UNITE detectives before being transported to Wayne County Hospital by Wayne County EMS personnel.

Parrigin, who is about eight months pregnant, was treated in the emergency room then transferred to a Lexington hospital.

Her condition was not immediately available.

Around 8 p.m. Monday, members of the Cabinet for Human Resources, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force were conducting a home check on Joseph Wallace and found him in a garage apartment at a friend’s home on Lovett Lane just north of KY 90.

Officials discovered the four individuals inside along with an active one-step meth lab, HCL generator, pills containing pseudoephedrine, lithium batteries, coffee filters stained with meth residue and approximately one gram of freshly made methamphetamine, said Dan Smoot, deputy director for UNITE.

UNITE detectives, who have taken over the investigation, spent about four hours cleaning up the scene.

Additional charges against the three and Parrigin are expected after UNITE presents the case to a grand jury.

“This is the fourth methamphetamine lab discovered in this general location,” Smoot said. “Children play in this neighborhood and are being endangered by these meth makers.”

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The trial for four men charged in the 2009 death of a toddler was continued last month and now the proceeding has been severed, and each will be tried separately, according to action taken in Wayne Circuit Court last week.

Bryan Daniels, the father of 20-month-old Kayden Branham, who died in May 2009 after he drank drain cleaner that officials allege was used to make methamphetamine, will be the first of the four defendants to be tried. That trial is set for jury selection to begin on April 19, 2012 at 9 a.m., according to court records.

Daniels is charged with murder, manufacturing methamphetamine, controlled substance endangerment to a child and engaging in organized crime.

Those are the same charges that James Hunt and Danny Ray Anderson II face as well. Trial dates for Hunt and Anderson have not been set yet, but motions in both cases will be heard in Wayne Circuit Court on October 21 at 2 p.m.

The toddler’s grandfather, Larry Branham, is charged with controlled substance endangerment to a child, complicity to manufacture methamphetamine and engaging in organized crime. His trial date has been set for jury selection on June 18, 2012, according to court records.