Meth-related crimes filling court dockets

December 27, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

On Aug. 16, 2003, a Palmer man tried and failed to cash a forged $145 check at the Palmer Carrs.

A Palmer police officer later found Traves Wilhoyte, 28, hiding behind shrubs at the First National Bank branch on Cobb Street and discovered 164 tablets of Sudafed, a bottle of Heet, a bottle of fingernail polish remover, a battery, several hundred matchbook covers and a chemistry book tucked in his backpack.

Police found pieces of the check near the under-construction Fred Meyer. It belonged to a woman who hadn't written a check to Wilhoyte and didn't know who he was.

The woman was just one of the unwitting victims of the meth-related crimes that have clogged Palmer courts in recent years - cases that involve not only meth possession and manufacturing, but other cases police and prosecutors say are the direct result of meth use: home invasions, forgeries, thefts, domestic violence and child sex abuse.

Meth is the No. 1 drug in the Valley, according to Sgt. Robert Langendorfer, an investigator with the Mat-Su Narcotics Unit.

&#8220It's hard to separate this as a drug problem from violent crime,” Langendorfer said. &#8220People will do anything to have more. The result of their violent paranoid behavior is something the whole Valley has to deal with now. We suspect a meth habit when someone breaks in and steals property.”

Assistant District Attorney Curt Martin handles most of the drug cases in Palmer Superior Court. Any case labeled misconduct involving a controlled substance, MICS, goes to Martin. He's a busy man.

&#8220The reality is, with 150 active drug cases, you just can't take each one to trial,” Martin said. &#8220Each trial would take at least a week. So you make what you think is an offer good enough the defendant couldn't beat it at trial. Typically, if they get off with probation, and adult probation is very onerous, they have the opportunity to fly right or do time.”

Martin explained the number and severity of his cases.

First-degree MICS is a special class, an unclassified felony that involves making and selling meth to someone who is underage or particularly vulnerable.

The one first-degree MICS case now in Palmer Superior Court has two defendants who were scheduled for sentencing Dec. 2, after accepting a plea agreement in August. But now, Terria Creech, 32, and Gregory Lee, 23, are going to trial Jan. 9 because Creech successfully rescinded her agreement after two tearful court appearances in November.

Creech and Lee were arrested in January in their alleged meth-lab bus in Big Lake, released on bail facing four felony drug charges, and arrested in the same bus in Houston in March, with a runaway teenage girl involved. The second bus bust netted them two first-degree MICS charges. According to court records, Creech and Lee have had at least 13 court appearances this year, and Martin or another attorney from the eight-attorney office had to be present at each one.

Second-degree MICS, a class A felony, means a person was making meth in quantities large enough to sell. Usually, according to Martin, the situation would mean several people are involved, each bringing in some of the ingredients needed to make meth, and getting money or product. The minimum sentence on a class A felony in Alaska is five years, the maximum 99.

Martin's caseload includes 26 second-degree MICS cases, with 40 defendants.

Martin has 11 cases, with 17 defendants, for third-degree MICS, a charge usually lodged against someone caught with multiple baggies of meth, and maybe some cash. And for fourth-degree MICS, a charge against someone who maintains a dwelling and allows illegal drugs on the premises, Martin counts 30 or 40 cases, with at least 54 defendants on his schedule.

In the Valley, second-degree MICS cases are what Martin calls, &#8220Beavis and Butthead shops.”

&#8220These people aren't chemists,” Martin said. &#8220They can carry a hot plate and flasks in a tote and the cooking can be done in stages. They don't need a garage, they can do it in a hotel room. It's not hard, it's very easy.”

The Mat-Su Narcotics Unit has five law-enforcement officers - three troopers and one officer each from the Palmer and Wasilla police departments. Thorough November, they busted 27 labs, according to trooper statistics, and arrested 123 people.

At each lab busted, Langendorfer said, they typically find weapons easily accessible to the paranoid, violent people inside the lab. No one can say definitively why 2004 saw 15 more labs busted than in 2005.

&#8220It could be a little bit of everything,” he said. &#8220They get locked up and are out of the loop for a while. But getting locked up and clean is not what we've seen. They learn the game - that's a weak word for it, though. After each bust, the bad guys learn and we have to find a new way, we have to be open-minded. And we could find five meth labs next week.”

The relatively rural population in the Mat-Su is one of the reasons meth cooking is so popular here, according to Harvey Goehring, special agent in charge at the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Anchorage.

&#8220As a general trend for meth, more rural is better than having neighbors right next to you, especially because of the smell,” Goehring said. &#8220As the Valley gets more populated, maybe they'll move further out.”

Although most of the people busted in the Mat-Su face state charges, DEA is involved at some level most of the time. It provides training for local cops who travel to FBI training headquarters in Quantico, Va., and get Occupational Safety and Health Administration certifications on how to secure and process meth labs, Goehring said. His officers help with investigations, securing search warrants, taking photos and samples at the scene and then doing the initial cleanup of the site.

&#8220All the glassware and batteries, we pay for the cleanup crew to take those things out and destroy them,” he said. &#8220That's your federal tax dollars at work. Then the poor homeowner gets stuck with the rest of the cleanup.”

DEA also scoops up some defendants, depending on their criminal history, especially prior convictions for meth, Goehring said.

A big difference between federal charges and state charges is that the feds can charge someone for the amount of meth that could have been there, based on the amount of ingredients and trash, while the state is more limited, both Goehring and Martin said.

Martin said some people who seemed so be getting a really good deal from the state on their drug charges have federal charges pending against them.

&#8220Life isn't about destroying the lives of others through drug use,” he said. &#8220People of the Valley don't like meth labs.”

Mike Anderson, a toxicologist with Environmental Compliance Consultants, the state-contracted company that cleans up meth labs, echoes law enforcement claims that the number of meth labs busted this year is lower than last year's. The most recent meth lab cleanup he did in the Valley took place Oct. 19, he said, when three labs were busted in one night in the Butte. Those were the only Valley labs cleaned up in October, Anderson said, compared to seven labs the company cleaned up in October 2004.

&#8220From this summer on, we've had a sharp decrease in labs,” he said. &#8220They tend to think the new regulations about cold tablets, where a lot of places like Carrs take it upon themselves to put the product behind the counter, might have scared a few people off who didn't want to take the chance. You have to pick up a card and go up to the counter to get it. If someone goes in to buy the drain cleaner, Coleman fuel, people in these establishments know what to look for, are on the lookout for some of the items people use.”

The number of labs may be dwindling, but Anderson said meth is still on the street.

&#8220The risk of buying these chemicals and cooking it yourself is not worth the reward,” he said. &#8220Maybe they're getting a little savvier, realizing people are onto them and being more careful about what they're doing. There might be a fall in labs and a rise in the amount of meth users as long as it's available. Superlabs in Mexico and the U.S. cook as much meth as 50 of the smaller labs. [Police] need to get to the source - take down the big producers. ”

For Martin, meth remains a scourge.

&#8220It's not like in the good old days of cocaine, where you'd see a nice house, a Jacuzzi and snowmachines,” Martin said. &#8220With meth, there's nothing to collect. The houses are filthy dumps. For one pound of meth, there's three gallons of toxic liquids. They're not taking the stuff to a hazardous material site. They pour it out and contaminate the sewer system or the septic system or, say, the Lake Lucille aquifer, with the toxic mix.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.