 29-year-old Stephen Smith and 25-year-old Jessica Stanley were indicted this week in relation to a meth bust last week at the couple's residence at Venters Lane in Pikeville. In addition to manufacturing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia charges, the couple is also facing a charge of controlled substance endangerment to a child in the fourth degree. The first time such a charge has been handed down by a Pike County grand jury in the law's 11-year existence. Because of the dangers of that meth and the manufacturing, the chemicals involved and the reaction, if you endanger a child during that process, that is a specific crime. In this case, luckily, the child was not injured. It was taken to the hospital to be checked out, but the child in this case was very young, received no injuries, but that is still a class D felony under our statute. Now if the child had received an injury, the penalty would have been larger, and if the child had received a serious injury or actually had died, the penalty escalates in each of those instances as well. The investigation into the alleged meth manufacturing operation, utilizing one-step meth labs, resulted from anonymous tips to the Coal Run Police Department. Officer Anthony Maggard, who testified before the grand jury in the case, said officers were aware that there was a child in the residence where the meth was being made. We notified those services, and they arrived on scene with us when we executed the search warrant, and took care of the small child that was actually found in the residence. Although the controlled substance child endangerment charges new ground to cover in Pike County, authorities say it's a very appropriate charge in this case. Anytime there's manufacturing of meth and phenomine or any controlled substance, like in this instance, we take this extremely serious, extremely dangerous to the child. Being there around these substances, being made, just the chemicals that make these meth labs are a danger in their self. You know, it's one thing if these people want to get in a home and make meth and burn their own noses and bodies up, but when you place a child in that kind of situation, you're looking at real serious prison time, and I'm sure there's not a jury in this state that'll take a case like that lightly. Both Stanley and Smith remain lodged in the Pike County Detention Center on separate $20,000 cash bonds. Reporting in Pike County for EKB News, I'm Chris Anderson.