FROM THE BLOTTER: Mother-son team arrested on drug charges

WASILLA — Alaska State Troopers announced Wednesday that a marijuana growing operation found off of Church Road yielded about 16 pounds of weed. According to a trooper press statement, officers with the Mat-Su Narcotics Team and the National Guard’s Counter Drug Support Program served a search warrant at 3345 N. Church Road at 7:50 p.m. on Tuesday.

Investigator Mike Ingram wrote in an affidavit he filed that when troopers arrived they saw a man and a woman apparently taking down a marijuana grow. Both had little pieces of marijuana sticking to them, he wrote. The man was drenched in sweat.

Those two people were identified by troopers as Jane C. Cain, 51, of Wasilla, and her son, Katsuhige C. Lewis, 29, of Palmer.

“Ms. Cain (declined) to speak with me directly, but did make some random statements in the presence of investigators that she was responsible for what we found in the house. Mr. Lewis only spoke with me for a short period of time and did tell me that he did not live there, but was only there to help his mother,” Ingram wrote.

Troopers say they searched the home and turned up several trash bags stuffed with marijuana that had recently be cut down. Ingram writes that the fact that the plants had been cut down presented something of a conundrum.

The bags weighed 94.54 pounds, but the weed was still wet. In theory, he said, investigators would probably consider the marijuana “processed” since it had been harvested. But when investigators find live plants, they usually cut the plants down, weigh them, and divide that weight by six. Applying that standard to the bags of weed yields an estimated processed weight of 15.75 pounds.

Cain and Lewis were both arrested and charged with multiple counts each of drug misconduct. Both were jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $30,000 bail. Jail records show both have made bail.

Woman hit at

Wasilla intersection

WASILLA — A pedestrian was hospitalized with minor injuries after she was hit by a car Monday.

According to a Wasilla Police Department press release, Jean Wolfe, 63, of Wasilla, was hit at the corner of Knik-Goose Bay Road and Parks Highway at about 7:30 a.m.

Police say Wolfe was taken to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center with injuries they descried as minor.

They identified the driver who hit Wolfe as William Prater, 39, of Wasilla.

Firefighters save

burning home

PALMER — In what officials have called a “good save,” firefighters were able to contain a blaze in a home off of Smith Road to the room it started in.

The call to respond to the home on Byers Circle came shortly after 4 p.m. Firefighters arriving on scene quickly learned that no one was inside the house.

Palmer Fire Chief John McNutt said the blaze started in a room in the rear of the home, near a hot tub. He said investigators haven’t decided on a source for the fire.

He said firefighters went into the house to put out the flames, but also attacked it from outside.

“The crews did an excellent job,” McNutt said. “They went around back because they couldn’t get to the room easily and they had to trudge through some pretty deep snow to get there but they did an outstanding job.”

The borough’s deputy director of emergency services, Clint Vardeman, said the fire was contained within about 20 minutes of firefighters arriving on scene.