“This is the largest methamphetamine seizure in EPD history,” Elkins Police Chief Travis Bennett said. “I’m very proud of my officers for their work on this investigation and for shutting this operation down.”

The street value of the alleged methamphetamine is approximately $85,000, police said.

Eric Lynn Armstrong, 38, Roger Lee Ware, 43, and Krystal Ann Dellagatta, 30, were all transported to Tygart Valley Regional Jail Monday. No bond amounts had been set by press time.

According to the criminal complaint, while on routine patrol on River Street in Elkins Monday morning, Patrolman First Class D.T. Sayre and Patrolman N.G. Elbon observed Armstrong and Ware walking away from the officers. Sayre “observed an abnormal bulge in the waistband of (Armstrong’s) shorts and began to ask him if he had any weapons on him and would consent to a pat search of his person.” During the pat search, Sayre found a loaded firearm in Armstrong’s waistband, along with two rubber containers.

Shown are drugs, guns, bullets, digital scales, baggies and cell phones seized from two men who were arrested Monday by the Elkins Police Department. The 1.7 pounds of methamphetamine seized Monday is the largest in EPD history, officials said.

When Sayre asked what was in the containers, Armstrong said “he had found them along with his backpack,” according to the criminal complaint. One of the containers held a “white crystal-like substance consistent with methamphetamine.”

As officers were speaking with Armstrong, Ware allegedly ran away from officers “refusing the commands to stop,” the police report states. Elbon and other officers began to pursue Ware as he attempted to flee on his bicycle.

Meanwhile, Armstrong told Sayre that he “had stolen the backpack from a residence by a red truck around the area of the ‘Central Towers,'” according to the report. Inside the backpack was a Crown Royal bag containing “two fist-sized baggies of a white, crystal-like substance consistent with methamphetamine,” and “two golf-ball sized baggies” containing the same substance.

Also inside the backpack were a digital scale, a baggie containing pills, additional baggies with the methamphetamine-type substance, and other baggies “containing a brown, powdery substance consistent with heroin,” the complaint states.

By this time officers had detained Ware, who had “wrecked (his bicycle) in an attempt to evade officers,” according to the complaint. Officers said Ware “was found in possession of a clear container” holding a methamphetamine-type substance. Inside Ware’s backpack were a digital scale, and baggies containing what appeared to be methamphetamine and heroin.

Ware

During a search of the residence Armstrong shared with Dellagatta, in Heavener Acres, officers found ledgers, scales and other items consistent with drug distribution, a city press release states. Dellagatta “directed officers to three safes hidden under a bed and containing additional amounts of a white crystalline substance consistent with methamphetamine,” the release reads.

Armstrong

Dellagatta