Dangerous driver arrested in front of children

PALMER — A man here faces grand jury charges, filed Friday, that he endangered his children, court documents show.

At 4 p.m. Sept. 13 Palmer Police responded to a Report Every Dangerous Driver Immediately report of an apparently intoxicated driver at the Carrs gas station, near the intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and the Glenn Highway. Officer Kristi Muilenburg responded, she wrote in documents filed in court.

Witnesses told dispatchers a man in an orange shirt “spent 40 minutes trying to connect an air hose to his truck and kept stumbling away,” Muilenburg wrote. “His two young kids got out of the truck … and were trying to help him.”

She made contact with a 1997 blue Ford pickup in the area of the nearby Atrium Building, where she identified Jesse W. Skaggs, 31, of Palmer standing between the truck and a UHaul in the parking lot of the federally owned building wearing a bright orange sweatshirt with two boys, ages seven and 10 in the bed of the truck.

“Skaggs had slow lethargic movements,” Muilenburg wrote “When he was talking his head would tip back and his eyes would roll up in his head.”

Skaggs also had numerous scabs and injection marks on his hands and arms, the affidavit continues. When asked if he had injected heroin, Skaggs initially said he had, a week ago, according to Muilenburg. Later, when separated from the kids, Skaggs admitted to injecting about 11 a.m. the same day, in the bathroom of the Eagle Hotel, but not in front of the kids, according to Muilenburg.

Skaggs performed poorly on a series of field sobriety tests, but a breath alcohol content test registered a .00 result.

“I started to search him and I asked him if he had any needles on his person,” Muilenburg wrote. “He said no. When I looked down towards the front pocket on his hoodie, I could see the end of a needle.”

The syringe contained a brown liquid that later field-tested positive for heroin, according to the affidavit. Police executed a search warrant on the truck, Muilenburg wrote.

“During the search I discovered a drug kit in a blue glove sitting on the floorboard in the front center of the truck,” she wrote. The kit contained an Altoid container. “Inside the small Altoid can that was inside the glove was a 0.5-gram glob of heroin.”

Skaggs faces one count of fourth-degree drug misconduct, one count of driving under the influence, and two counts of first-degree child endangerment, according to the indictment. Authorities transported him to Mat-Su Pretrial where he remained on $5,000 cash and corporate bail Monday evening, with a court-appointed third party requirement.