Two chemistry professors, neither named Walter White, busted for allegedly brewing meth

In Arkansas, Henderson State University chemistry professors Terry D. Bateman, 45, and Bradley A. Rowland, 40, were charged on Friday with making methamphetamine. They had been put on administrative leave on October 11. From the New York Times:

(Tina V. Hall, a university associate vice president of marketing and communications) said the school’s Reynolds Science Center had been closed on Oct. 8 because of “a report of an undetermined chemical odor.” Testing revealed an elevated presence of benzyl chloride in a lab, she said…


Stephen J. Madison, who is on the chemistry faculty at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said that benzyl chloride could be used to help make methamphetamine…


It was not clear whether the chemical smell in the school building had prompted the investigation by law enforcement.