Orangeburg-area motel room burns; deputy: meth making could be the cause

Deputies believe a woman may have burned a motel room while she was making methamphetamine, according to a sheriff’s office incident report.

The manager of the Days Inn, located at 3402 Five Chop Road, called deputies at 3 a.m. Thursday to report a suspicious fire in one of the rooms.

Surveillance video allegedly shows the woman carrying a bucket and a plastic bottle, which were on fire, out of her room and setting them on the ground by the dumpster before she left in a black sedan.

As she was “speeding away from the motel in her vehicle, fire can be seen coming through the doorway of the room she was renting,” a deputy wrote.

Both the bucket and melted plastic bottle had a “white chemical residue and liquid leaking out of them,” the report states.

The deputy believes they were used to “make what is called a ‘one pot cook’ for producing methamphetamine,” according to the report.

The Orangeburg County fire marshal allegedly discovered drug paraphernalia and a number of chemicals consistent with making methamphetamine at the scene, the report states.

The motel room was a total loss. The estimated damage is valued at $20,000.

The motel’s manager said a woman had been paying her rent in cash.