Police investigating suspected psychedelic drug lab in Cottonwood Heights

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — A call to Cottonwood Heights Police for a possible burglary in progress revealed a suspected psychedelic drug lab.

Daniel Orton, 37, has been arrested. Police say his partner, who is six months pregnant, had to receive care, but she too faces charges.

Lt. Dan Bartlett says when police arrived to the area off of Union Park Avenue, instead of a burglary, they found a couple moving out of their Waterside Cove apartment. He says they were evicted.

Police got a search warrant for their car, with a mattress tied on top, when they noticed some suspicious items.

“When they got in the vehicle, the officers started getting sick, headaches, burning their throat, burning their nose, their lungs, and they saw a bunch of glass wear,” said Lt. Bartlett.

That’s when they called in Unified Fire Authority’s Hazardous Materials Team, who believe it’s a DMT psychedelic drug lab.

“No risk to the public. We’re getting it off the street. It’s not like a meth lab where the danger of explosion and stuff like that. I mean there’s some harmful chemicals we got to pull up, but as far as hazmat was concerned, we were good. The health department is with us over there. We are going to get everything collected up and off to where it needs to be,” said. Lt. Bartlett, who adds he hasn’t seen something like this.

“I haven’t seen a DMT lab like this before. I mean guys are making all sorts of stuff. It’s just unfortunate that we have it here and we’ll deal with it,” he said.

Cottonwood Heights is currently waiting for a search warrant for the couple’s apartment.