The man who Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Dept. deputies found sleeping in a car with a brewing meth lab beside him in the passenger seat has been formally charged after being released from the hospital.
Keith Barton Baker, 37, of Kimmel, faces a single charge of felony dealing methamphetamine, nearly two weeks after he was found by deputy Travis Shively sleeping inside his tan Pontiac Sunfire just before 5 a.m. in the 11900 block of North Fuzzy Bear Road, Cromwell - a laptop on his lap, a live meth lab cooking in the passenger seat and a fake gun in the back seat, authorities said.
Baker has been in Kosciusko Community Hospital since that June 17 arrest, taken for treatment as a result of his exposure to the lab - which ruptured and leaked fumes inside the closed coupe. Hospital officials said that as they were treating Baker, they believed he might have suffered a stroke at some point days before his arrest, so he was kept for extended evaluation.
Baker told police that he had parked the car along North Fuzzy Bear Road to use an available Wi-Fi connection, but fell asleep at some point in the June 16 evening. He was exposed to the lab’s fumes for a full night.
