Life Imitating Art? Two US Chemistry Professors Arrested for Making Meth in University Lab

Two Arkansas college chemistry professors have been arrested on charges of making meth, in an apparent case of life imitating art.

The Clark County sheriff’s office says Henderson State University professors Terry David Bateman and Bradley Allen Rowland were arrested Friday on charges of manufacturing methamphetamine and using drug paraphernalia.

It wasn’t clear if they remained in jail Sunday, and a jail official said he couldn’t give out that information.

Tina Hall, a spokeswoman for the Arkadelphia-based school, says Bateman and Rowland have been on administrative leave since Oct. 11. She says three days earlier, police investigated a report of a chemical odor in the campus science center. She says the building reopened Oct. 29 after a company filtered the air.

The arrests drew comparisons to the central character in the hit TV series “Breaking Bad,” in which a high school chemistry teacher began making methamphetamine.