Roy Shepard Popular Books

Roy Shepard Biography & Facts

Gordon Todd Skinner is an American former drug manufacturer and convicted kidnapper who, in the 1990s and 2000, was involved in the world's largest LSD manufacturing organization. He worked with chemist William Leonard Pickard and their associate, Clyde Apperson, to manufacture and distribute LSD in Colorado, New Mexico, and in two former missile silos in Salina and Wamego, Kansas. Skinner grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and started manufacturing and distributing various drugs in high school, despite his dad's relation to federal drug enforcement agencies. In the 1980s, he became an informant for multiple agencies. Around 1997, he met Pickard, and the two made tens of millions of dollars in LSD distribution over the following years. Skinner grew paranoid of Pickard and, in 2000, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which gave him immunity from prosecution for his involvement. The DEA seized the organization's property during their investigation "Operation White Rabbit", which lead to a 95% decline in worldwide LSD availability by 2004. Pickard was given two life sentences in prison, and Apperson was given 30 years. In early 2003, after the trial, Skinner continued drug dealing with his wife, Krystle Cole, and their apprentice, Brandon Green. During the Fourth of July weekend, Skinner kidnapped and tortured Green in a DoubleTree hotel in downtown Tulsa. Skinner's associate, William Hauck, drove Green to Texas City, Texas, where a policeman found him. Skinner was given a life sentence plus 90 years. Early life Gordon Todd Skinner, who was known by his friends as Todd, grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His biological father was Gordon H. Skinner, a chiropractor. Skinner's mother was a businesswoman named Katherine Magrini, who ran a spring manufactuer, Gardner Springs Company, and a candy company, Katherine's Spring Gourmet Chocolates. She divorced Gordon H. Skinner after she caught him molesting a child for the second time, and then married William Inholf for 18 months. Afterwards, she married Gary Lee Magrini, who in the late 70s, was a special criminal agent with the Department of the Treasury, which performed drug investigations at the time, as well the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Enforcement Agency and the Northern District of Oklahoma's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Skinner went to Cascia Hall Preparatory School, a Catholic private school. Skinner was good at math, chess, and chemistry, and had an understanding of molecular structures. At the age of 15, Skinner started being obsessed with drugs. At 16, he started extracting psychedelic tryptamines from plants, and gave drugs to his friends and classmates, studying their reactions. He often brought a tank of nitrous oxide to school, which he and his friends inhaled from. He bought many books on drugs from Tulsa's Peace of Mind bookstore. Though federal agents (of the Customs and Border Protection, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and IRS) visited his home consistently to meet with his stepfather, they either "didn't notice or didn't care" that Skinner was making drugs. His friend's father caught the two synthesizing DMT in Skinner's basement, and they were warned that it was dangerous. At 19, he acquired 10,000 peyote buttons from a Native American church in Laredo, Texas, and stored them in the trunk of his car. He extracted alkaloid from them, for the purposes of synthesizing mescaline to sell back to the Navajo Nation. First, he wanted to sample it, and got more into drug use after trying it. He tried over 163 types of drugs in his life, according to the testimony he gave the court. Some of the drugs were entheogens, which he took irregularly because they are "very spiritual and sacramental things." His method of ingesting them was through "The Eucharist", a communion wafer tainted with lysergamides like ALD-52, extract from morning glory seeds, and ergot wine. He ingested the Eucharist with his friends in special ceremonies involving a sacrament. He was often referred to as "the Buddha". After graduating high school in 1982, he studied at the Schiller International University in Germany, but failed his first semester. He returned the U.S. and worked at Gardner Springs Company. Government informant career In spring 1984, Skinner became a government informant by calling the Tulsa FBI field office. He told the agent who responded that he had made a deal with a con artist in Texas, Sam Merit; he told Merit he was the heir to Gardner Springs Company, and offered to loan Merit $300,000 to invest in a Caribbean charter airline and build a fake gold mine in Arizona. The FBI found his scheme to be true, and Merit eventually fled to South Africa after he and five co-conspirators were indicted for a penny stock fraud. José Abello Silva operation Skinner spent the mid-80s between Hot Springs and Little Rock, Arkansas, and Tucson, while working as an informant for the Department of Justice. Skinner was arrested twice for selling marijuana, in an area of Mexico near the border town of Sells, Arizona, and in Boston. He was helped minimize the fallout of those arrests by contributing to the downfall of the Colombian Medellín drug cartel. He had befriended a Colombian cocaine dealer named Boris Olarte, who had purchased a business from Skinner's mother, a custom chocolate brand named Okie Power. After purchasing this, Olarte had been arrested and put in a Tulsa County jail. Skinner used Magrini's connections to convince the DEA to put Olarte in witness protection, and use him against the cartel. Olarte worked with the Office of National Drug Control Policy's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Group #2, in a sting operation which lead to the arrest of Olarte's supplier, José Abello Silva, a major Medellín dealer. Olarte's wife, Clara Lacle, who lived with Magrini, flew to Aruba with FBI agents to set up Silva. His arrest in 1989 lead to the downfall of the cartel. Skinner used his time as an informant to gather intelligence on how the government investigates drugs. New Jersey operation On January 26, 1989, Skinner was arrested in Camden, New Jersey for trafficking 42 pounds of marijuana with a friend. They were caught by undercover cops, and Skinner's bail was set at $1 million. Skinner spent a year in the state waiting for trial. His father convinced him to make a deal with authorities. In jail, Skinner had met John Worthy, who said he had 50 pounds of marijuana he was going to sell. Skinner went to the district attorney and made a deal, which reduced his bail to half a million. He returned to Tulsa, where he recorded his phone calls with Worthy. On the call, Skinner agreed to meet with Worthy at a hotel in Vineland, New Jersey. Skinner sold 30 pounds of marijuana to Worthy, his wife Willie Mae, and partner Lamont Briscoe. He was wearing a wire, and was eavesdropped by the New Jersey Narcotics Strike Force. Worthy was arrested at the hotel, and a da.... Discover the Roy Shepard popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Roy Shepard books.