Two Vicksburg men were charged with manufacturing crystal methamphetamine and child endangerment Tuesday, a week after a Vicksburg couple was sent to prison for a combined total of nearly 60 years after pleading guilty to similar charges.

Jimmy Cogan II, 30, 119 Lovers Lane, and Sherman Brewer Jr., 28, 1208 Mallet Road, were arrested at Cogan’s home at 2:15 p.m., after Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agents and Vicksburg police investigated complaints of a meth lab at Cogan’s home, said Vicksburg police Lt. Bobby Stewart.

Cogan’s 4-year-old son was at the home when officials arrived and found the two men cooking the highly volatile drug, Stewart said. The child’s mother was not identified by police and was not at the house.

“It was an active lab,” Stewart said.

About two and a half hours later, Brewer was also charged with felony escape after running from patrolmen who were taking him to the Warren County Jail. He was captured near the jail at Cherry and Grove streets, Stewart said.

Cogan and Brewer were being held without bond at the Warren County Jail pending a hearing.

In last week’s case, Charles Dudley White, 27, and his wife, Bethany White, 25, were sentenced by Circuit Judge M. James Chaney after admitting cooking and possessing meth in the Cherry Street home they shared with their two small daughters.

The Lovers Lane operation was a smaller lab, Stewart said, but the arrest was significant because “both individuals were involved in meth prior to now,” but not in the presence of children.

Authorities did not say where the 4-year-old was taken after the arrests.

Brewer had been released on bond from Hinds County on a previous meth manufacturing charge, Stewart said, and Cogan just completed a probation period in Warren County on the same charges.

On Cherry Street, Warren County deputies and MBN agents found evidence in the home and in its backyard of 23 previous “cooks” of the drug, which involves caustic and explosive chemicals.

When the Whites were arrested Oct. 21, their children, then ages 1 and 4, were playing near the meth lab area and close to unlocked, loaded guns, an MBN agent said. Meth was found in the kitchen and also near baby hygiene products and children’s toys.

Both Dudley and Bethany White pleaded guilty July 13 to possession of crystal meth, possession of precursor chemicals used in its manufacture and child endangerment.

Other meth-related arrests in Warren County in recent months have been made in the Redwood community north of the city, near Nailor Road in the southeast part of the county and at several local hotels.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com