Trial continues for man caught with mobile meth lab

PALMER — When a Wasilla man was pulled over in a pickup found to contain what appeared to be the makings of a meth lab, prosecutors said it wasn’t the first time.

Billyjack Wiglesworth, 34, was arrested in 2007 after troopers pulled him over in a truck heading from Wasilla to Willow. In the back they found multiple meth ingredients as well as two two-liter bottles containing liquids mixed up in one step of the meth-making process.

Wednesday, the jury heard of a similar stop in March 2001.

According to Alaska State Trooper Lt. Pat Davis, who was the sergeant in charge of the troopers’ narcotics unit at the time, Wiglesworth was in a car troopers pulled over after a tip from an informant there were drugs inside.

“The driver eluded us and, a short time later, put the vehicle in the ditch,” Davis said.

The driver, Davis said, took off but Wiglesworth stayed behind.

“It appeared to me that he was high on something and/or intoxicated,” Davis testified. “He was fairly un-compliant with our orders to exit the vehicle.”

Davis said a search of car’s backseat floorboard turned up acetone, iodine, matchbook striker plates and Pyrex dishes — all commonly found in meth labs.

The dishes, he said, contained a white sticky substance that later tested positive for meth.

Davis said he eventually had to leave the scene to go track down the driver, who they found at a nearby home, where Davis interviewed him.

“He referred to [Wiglesworth] as ‘BJ’ and that he had picked him up on Church Road and that the items in the back were BJ’s,” Davis said.

Superior Court Judge Vanessa White, saying that Davis was in court to testify to Wiglesworth’s knowledge of the meth-manufacturing process and not of any evidence he used the drug – eventually told the jury to disregard the statement about Wiglesworth being high.

But she did allow the jury to hear the charge Wiglesworth was eventually convicted of — possessing a small amount of meth.

Wiglesworth’s attorney, Abigail Sheldon, pointed out that there may have been a different reason for Wiglesworth’s incoherence – he had been hospitalized with a head injury when the car hit the ditch.

“It seems to me that he did, that he had struck his head,” Davis testified under questioning from Sheldon.

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