I can't get the meth outta my head. Meth labs in houses that are confiscated suggest larger quantities of ingredients in bulk instead of buying a few bottles of cough syrup or ephedrine products. People that make it from allergy tabs & small bottles of ammonia usually mix it in empty soda bottles somewhere nobody else is but the people they're getting high with. Manufacturing meth in a house suggests to me that it's cooked on a stove & larger quantities of ammonia would be used. In such a rural area, there'd have to be a major fertilizer manufacturer around. Something's just itching me, I can't place it...
"Meth Lab" is just a place where meth is made. It can be a house, a trailer, a hotel room....they've busted meth labs in people's cars before. It doesn't have to be a huge scale operation. It's not like Breaking Bad or anything.
And there are large scale fertilizer manufacturers (well, distributors) all over the place here. That's why meth is such a problem here, because the ingredients are plentiful. It's nothing that needs to be thought out too hard- meth is made here because this is a farming area with lots of readily available chemicals.
In the pics on his FB he was wearing what looked like a uniform. It has his name Jake and then Brown's on left side. Former military, I'm guessing a security job of some kind.
If he had a job before he left, the company he worked for has to have a job for him when he comes back. However, he may not have had a job before he left- he would have only been 18 or 19 at the time. Maybe the military has been his career for a while; I don't know.
****As far as wild animals...besides humans, the only critters normally found in this area that would be a threat is a cottonmouth/water moccasin...venomous snake. There may be big cats of some kind....occasionally, but I would think they would be just as afraid of you as you are them. Maybe if there was food left out, etc. Since the migration of the wild hog, that may be a reality also, but I haven't lived there for very long time and hopefully you can comment more on this 88? .....AND there was a supposed sighting in Murphysboro awhile back of BIGFOOT. lol (directly west...almost to the Miss River) TIA
We have Cottonmouths/Water Moccasins, Copperheads, and Timber Rattlers. But they're not that common- I've never seen any of them, nor have I ever heard of anyone getting bitten by one. There have been rumors (which I personally believe) of cougars being in this area now, but again- no one has ever been attacked by one. We do not have wild hogs here, unless someone's farm hogs get loose.

We have coyotes, but they probably won't attack unless you're already injured or dead.
Bigfoot is seen occasionally in Southern Illinois and Northern Kentucky. And there is the
Murphysboro Mud Monster. 
Bottom line, I don't think anyone is going to die from animal attack around here.