Drugs found on infant, local mother arrested

WASILLA — A mother who blew through an accident scene Wednesday was arrested later after allegedly trying to stuff methamphetamine and heroin inside her infant son’s shirt.

According to an affidavit Trooper Joel Miner filed in the case against 29-year-old Houston resident Amy Padie, the accident in question was at Seward Meridian Parkway and Bogard Road.

According to Alaska State Troopers press releases, shortly after 9:30 p.m., Sherie Olson, 52, of Wasilla, crashed head-on with Jacqueline Valenzuela, 21, Wasilla. Olson was trapped in her 1995 Ford sedan and was flown to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, where she was listed in fair condition Friday, according to a hospital spokesperson. Valenzuela was taken from her 2008 Dodge pickup and transported to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. The Ford was totaled. Valenzuela was cited for not yielding and summonsed for driving on a suspended license out of Idaho.

A half hour later, Padie’s car drove past. Not only did Padie not slow down or move over as she drove past the scene, Miner wrote, she actually sped up. So troopers pulled her over.

“Upon contact with Padie, I immediately noticed obvious signs of impairment,” Miner wrote.

Those signs included pupils that would change size without a change in the light and Padie’s seeming erratic attitude changes from excited to “being ‘on the nod’ and lethargic.”

Miner decided she was on a central nervous system depressant and Padie admitted to having snorted a crushed Vicodin pill, the trooper writes in his affidavit.

Miner wrote that before he arrested Padie and while they were waiting for someone to come get her 1995 Plymouth Neon and the infant, he let her console her 18-month-old son and give him a bottle.

“While consoling the infant, she attempted to hide and conceal a pink drug pipe protector case and when I asked to see it she opened the case and hid a glass meth pipe behind the child. She handed over the empty case, and when I told her to stop hiding the pipe she then threw a glass meth pipe out of the car off the side of the roadway,” Miner wrote.

He told her to put the infant down so he could arrest her.

“I observed Padie shove something up the shirt of the infant as she struggled and resisted arrest,” Miner wrote.

With help from a sergeant, he cuffed Padie then checked the infant. Miner wrote that he found a green pouch under the boy’s shirt, behind his back and against his skin. The substances inside tested positive in the field as heroin and methamphetamines.

Padie was arrested for driving under the influence of a narcotic, resisting arrest, evidence tampering, endangering a child and drug misconduct.

One of the allegations Miner lists in charging documents and in a press release, first-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, is an unclassified felony in the same category as murder for sentencing purposes. It is reserved for providing hard drugs to young children.

That charge didn’t survive Padie’s first court hearing, according to court records.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.