This is a made-for-TV type of story right here. Check it out:
So yeah, this guy, Brendan Doyle, he used to teach down in Louisiana at Nicholls State in Thibodaux. Not only did he teach at the school, but he ran a meth lab under a bridge nearby. Not kidding.
In March 2020, Lafourche Parish sheriff's deputies found a meth lab "under a bridge over a canal" with "smoke coming from a bucket," according to a press release from Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre.
The deputies soon connected Doyle — then a professor at Nicholls State University — to the lab and obtained arrest warrants, but discovered he had fled the state.
Months later, they arrested Doyle after he was seen packing a moving truck at his residence. He was charged with "creation or operation of a clandestine laboratory for the unlawful manufacture of a controlled dangerous substance," according to the release.
Wow, you'd think after this his career in academia would be over, right?
Not so fast.
The Lafourche Parish Sheriff's office claims their records show Doyle was "found guilty and served a sentence," but yet, somehow, this never showed up on his background check at Michigan State. Doyle had altered his name when he applied to the school to read, "B. Michael Doyle," so I'll assume that's what got him past the background check, but I'm really not sure.
However, Doyle's Kinesiology students immediately became suspicious of him when on the first day of class he burst out into a yelling fit after students asked about MSU's assignment software. Apparently he didn't know how to use it, and was probably hungover from drugs. Doyle also canceled class frequently, claiming to be sick.
Well, one day, students discovered his full name on the school's student response software, iClicker, and they did what anyone would do and typed it into Google. And once the results showed up with his mugshot and the news of his meth lab under the bridge in Thibodaux, they alerted the Kinesiology department.
Before the next class, they received an email from Department of Kinesiology Academic Specialist Andrea Childress, who said class would be temporarily canceled "due to a health-related issue of the instructor," according to a copy of the email.
And then, inevitably,
Olsen, the MSU spokesperson, said Doyle is now on leave. He declined to say whether the leave is paid, citing "legal and privacy concerns."
Yeah man, somebody needs to write a book about this. And then somebody needs to turn that book into a film. This is super embarrassing for Michigan State, but it's just one of those stories that everyone can enjoy. I mean, how was MSU supposed to know that B. Michael Doyle was a guy who'd operated a meth lab under a bridge in Thibodeaux, Louisiana? He seemed like a nice guy.
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