Two men and a woman were arrested and charged with manufacturing methamphetamine Tuesday night in a mobile home at 273 Moon Road near Mt. Zion.

Seven members of the Aggressive Criminal Enforcement team arrived at the site around 5 p.m. after receiving a tip from a confidential source. After knocking on the door without response, officers walked around to a detached garage, where Investigator Shane Spradlin said he smelled a distinct chemical odor.

“After that we backed out of the walk and talk because we knew we could use that information to secure a search warrant,” Spradlin said.

Arrested were 24-year-old Brian Harris, Brandon Sprewell, 26, and Jennifer Farmer, 27.

Three months earlier Spradlin, along with other members of the ACE team, had started tracing this group of alleged meth manufacturers when they received a tip from an informant about active labs in mobile homes on Faulkner and Moon roads. However, when they arrived at the properties, the structures had burned and been abandoned.

Carroll County Fire Chief Tracy Smith reported that the cause of the fire on Moon Road is still under investigation.

The prior meth lab investigation information along with the smell from the garage gave a judge enough probable cause to issue an arrest warrant around 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Investigators returned to the house with the warrant and once again knocked on the door. After there was no response, the team went through the unlocked door and found Harris asleep on a couch and Sprewell asleep in a back bedroom, according to the Sheriff’s Office report. Agents found a gun in the closet next to the sleeping Sprewell, who was also charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to the report.

While searching the house, the task force identified a suspected “shake and bake” meth lab in the freezer and some pink-colored meth in the master bathroom. ACE members also found a large quantity of suspected meth-related items in an attic space above the detached garage, according to the report.

While authorities questioned the two men, Farmer, who is reportedly in a relationship with Sprewell, pulled up on the property. She was immediately interviewed and arrested based on her own admission that she was aware of the drug manufacturing, the report said. She said that she and her three children, ages 4,7 and 9, had been living in the mobile home.

“The condition of the house was beyond pathetic,” Spradlin said. “You could hear crunching with every step from the cockroaches covering the floor.”

The children were not at the scene but authorities still notified the Division of Family and Children Services about the situation.

After an initial search of the area, the ACE task force called the Drug Enforcement Agency to test samples of the substances and clean the area.

Capt. Shane Taylor of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said that the ACE team, made up of two investigators and two deputies from the Sheriff’s Office and two investigators and two officers from the Carrollton Police Department, deal with a variety of criminal activity, but 90 percent of their work is drug-related.

“We used to find a meth lab every four or five months but now it seems like there is one every other week,” Taylor said. “There used to be specific areas known for drugs but meth can be anywhere. It affects so many people, not just those directly involved.”

Harris, Sprewell and Farmer are being held at the county jail pending first-appearance hearings before a judge.