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Last updated on Monday, November 30, 2015
(BROWNSTOWN) - A Brownstown man facing 13 years in prison after he accepted a plea deal on three separate cases, including one related to a meth lab explosion that left his wife with severe burns.
Jackson County Circuit Court Senior Judge Bill Vance approved plea agreements this month against 41-year-old Keith Warnock of Brownstown.
The most serious charge Warnock faced involved the meth lab explosion September 7, 2014, at a home he shared with his wife and other family members.
On that day, firefighters were called to a house fire at 500 West Spring Street in Brownstown. The home was engulfed in flames. Officials determined the fire was caused because someone was cooking meth.
Warnock's wife, 39-year-old Jill Warnock, was asleep at the time of the fire but woke up to smoke and flames. She attempted to put the fire out with what she thought was water, but was actually a chemical to make the drug, which caused an explosion.
Warnock suffered severe burns and was treated at Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis and was released.
Then in January 2015, Warnock was arrested following a high-speed chase through the northwest part of Jackson County.
According to a news release from Jackson County Officer Rick Meyer, a Seymour officer alerted other agencies that a stolen maroon 2002 GMC with a broken tail light had been stolen from a home in the 300 block of East Sixth Street in Seymour.
Deputy Meyer says he was sitting in the parking lot of a business on the east side of Freetown when he saw a vehicle matching the description of the stolen vehicle traveling west on State Road 58.
Deputy Meyer activated his lights, to pull the vehicle over and that is when the driver sped way heading west on county roads, eventually working his way back to State Road 58 to Norman, where he turned south. The chase, which reached a top speed of 80 mph, ended when the driver lost control of the vehicle and hit a tree in the 10000 block of County Road 400N, west of Clearspring.
The driver then took off on foot. Officers followed and caught the driver 50 yards from the crash site and Warnock was arrested.
A 26-year-old female passenger in the vehicle complained of pain and was taken to Schneck Medical Center in Seymour. She was later released.
Drug paraphernalia was found during a search of Warnock and the vehicle.
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