Troopers raid Butte home with small meth laboratory

BUTTE — Alaska State Troopers arrested four people in a Butte apartment alleging they took part in operating a methamphetamine laboratory.

Investigators arrived at the apartment on North Old Glenn Highway at 12:08 a.m. Monday, according to an affidavit investigator Mike Ingram filed with the case.

Neither Ingram nor his supervising sergeant were available for comment Thursday.

“It was small,” said AST spokeswoman Megan Peters of the meth bust. “It was the type of meth lab where it’s consumed or sold as quickly as it’s made.”

Ingram says in his affidavit that as soon as he entered the residence he spotted Randell D. Bradshaw and Gene Martin Jr. trying to leave out the back. Both were immediately arrested.

Donald Wiggins was in the kitchen, stomping on something, which he later said was a meth pipe, and trying to rinse something else down the drain, Ingram says. Tina Foley was also in the apartment. According to his affidavit, Ingram interviewed all four suspects.

• Wiggins said he bought two boxes of cold medicine at Fred Meyer for use in the meth lab.

• Bradshaw said he was high on meth when talking with the investigator and said Wiggins was teaching him to cook the drug.

• Martin told Ingram he was “just hanging out and did not really know or see anything.”

• Foley said she’d helped make the meth and had purchased some cold medicine. She said Martin drove them around to pick up supplies.

Foley, Ingram says in the affidavit, was the apartment’s tenant.

“Ms. Foley told me that she typically only uses meth about three times a year, but had ingested about two lines of meth earlier in the evening,” Ingram says.

Ingram found various apparatus commonly used for meth manufacturing as well as the fuel additive Heet, and a quart-sized container of paint thinner, stained coffee filters and dinner plates stained with iodine. A field test on a suspected meth pipe and some plastic bags turned up positive for meth.

“I have been involved in investigations of about 50 meth labs and I know from my training and experience that there is no other reason to have the above listed items in the combination and quantity I found them in except for the sole purpose of manufacturing meth,” says Ingram, a three-year veteran of the Mat-Su Narcotics Team.

Troopers also turned up a stolen gun.

Foley, Bradshaw, Wiggins and Martin were all jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility, each charged with four counts second- and one count fourth-degree drug misconduct. Wiggins is also charged with evidence tampering.

Martin is charged with second- and third-degree weapons misconduct and second-degree theft. Ingram says he believed the jacket in which the gun was found belonged to Martin.

Foley was charged with a second count of fourth-degree drug misconduct for keeping a home in which to manufacture meth.

All are being held in lieu of $150,000 bail and will have to find third parties to watch over them when released..