Amphetamine King

Contents

GOD’S DESIGN FOR LIFE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

HEADSHOP MANAGER

CHAPTER 2

CHICO, TEXAS

CHAPTER 3

UNITED STATES VS JACKY RONALD PACE

CHAPTER 4

THE SUNFLOWERS

CHAPTER 5

STEPPING ON TOES

CHAPTER 6

BUSTED IN HILL COUNTY, TEXAS

CHAPTER 7

THE WHODUNITS (THE MUCKERS FROM TARRANT COUNTY)

CHAPTER 8

THE KIDNAPPING

CHAPTER 9

MICHAEL TONEY—THE LAKE WORTH, TEXAS BOMBING

CHAPTER 10

HARDWARE HANK

CHAPTER 11

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

CHAPTER 12

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

CHAPTER 13

TAKE THE FIFTY YEARS OR ELSE!

CHAPTER 14

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS: THE WALLS UNIT

EPILOGUE

THE REBEL RETURNS

GOD’S DESIGN FOR LIFE

ECCLESIASTES 3:1–11

[1]A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil?

10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

PROLOGUE

My name is Alexander Garcia Gonzales. This is a true-life story about my career as an amphetamine manufacturer. According to law enforcement officials, I was one of the biggest dealers and manufactures in the state of Texas during the 1980s.

I grew up on the north side of Fort Worth, Texas, in a neighborhood referred to as cow town (Funky Town). Because I was the youngest male in a family of twelve children, my mom raised me with one of the best set of values and moral standards a child could have. My mom had to endure the hardship of being a single parent, and she taught all of us the difference between right and wrong. As a family, we had to stick together for survival, and some of my brothers and sisters helped my mom pay bills and put food on the table. We had a solid family unit, and my mother bestowed upon her children the need to know Jesus Christ. We were a Catholic family and attended All Saints Church. It was very important to my mom that we always included God in our daily lives.

At the age of thirteen, my girlfriend invited me to her church. Rosen Heights Baptist Church was where I was converted from Catholic to Baptist, and I later became a dedicated member. I decided to join the youth choir, and we did many performances at numerous coffee houses and churches. Each year we put on a big musical called Joy for the youth congregation. Many young people were saved as we spread the word about the King of Kings, our Savior Jesus Christ. Later during that time of my life, our youth minister, Ron Vomar, and his wife Kathy tried many times to encourage me to seek the Lord’s calling. They said I should go into the ministry because they saw something in me. They were greatly saddened that I didn’t listen; I merely set the Lord on the back burner, put God on hold. However, I kept being blessed throughout my life in many ways.

Blessings came in abundance throughout my early childhood.

During 1965, at the age of seven, my brother Richard and I built a couple of shoe-shine boxes and went out to earn ourselves some money to join the Fort Worth Boy’s Club. We were even able to put some money aside for sports equipment so that we could engage in every sport the club had to offer. The club was originally founded by Ms. Hazel Vaughn Leigh on February 1, 1935. We were all fond of Ms. Leigh; she was like a second mother to all of us and dedicated her life to combating juvenile delinquency. [2]According to data and statistics from The Texas State Historical Association, juvenile delinquency increased during the 1930s and 1940s. This was the era of World War II. However, in the first year of the Boy’s Club establishment, delinquency had dropped by more than 75 percent. The club received staff help from the National Youth Administration, one of President Roosevelt’s depression recovery programs. Thanks to Ms. Leigh’s great concern for the underprivileged youth on the north side, in 1937, the Boy’s Club became a United Fund Agency.

My brother and I were good at every sport we tried. We received many ribbons and trophies for football, basketball, baseball, and swimming. Richard even went on to win a gold medal in the Junior Olympics. Ms. Leigh was so fond of Richard that she made it possible for him to obtain a scholarship to Texas Christian University, where he later joined the university’s swim team. While Richard, who is a year and a half older than me, was in high school pursuing his dreams as a swimmer, I was achieving the honor of being named the captain of the J. P. Elder Middle School football and track teams. I set city records for the best times in the mile run, the half-mile run, and the mile relay. I also placed second in the high jump and long jump. In football, I was considered the best defensive end on the team. The team’s coaches had me playing throughout the whole game, giving me time to rest only during halftime. Sometimes, just so I could get a break for a few plays, I would act as if I had the wind knocked out of me so that Coach Schultz would send in a second string. During my eighth grade year of playing football, I managed to score three touchdowns against Leonard Middle School, who had for the two previous years been city champions. I accomplished this by intercepting three passes that were thrown into my zone area. That year, my school became all city champions, and I received a letterman’s jacket with honors in track and field, basketball, and football. I also received the MVP trophies in all three sports. During a huge ceremony, the coaches gave me the opportunity to present a gigantic trophy that our school received for being all city champions. I have to admit that even to this day, it was one of the happiest times of my life and one of my proudest moments.

During my freshman year at North Side High, the mile relay team, of which I was a team member, set a state record. I also continued to be a first-string starter in every sport I went out for. During my sophomore year in high school, scouts from Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, and New Mexico State University had all come to try and recruit me to their schools. Then one day, I went to a special track and field exhibition held at Herman E. Clark Field in Fort Worth. The people sponsoring the exhibition were from the United States Marine Corps. This group of marines showed us all their gold, silver, and bronze medals, which they had won in the Mexico City Olympics. I was so moved by their stories and speeches that I decided to quit school, get my GED, and join the U.S. Marine Corps. I was really nervous because I was only sixteen and knew I had to tell my mother about my decision—plus I needed her signature as well as her blessing. When I told my mom, she got very upset and asked me what had happened to my dreams of finishing college and becoming a pro football player for the Dallas Cowboys. She tried to change my mind and asked my brother Arthur to talk to me. That was all fine and dandy, but no matter what anyone in my family did or said, I had made up my mind. I was dead set on quitting school and serving my country. I talked to a Marine recruiter named Sgt. Miller and asked if he would talk to my mother. Until this day, I don’t know how he did it, but my mother agreed and signed the release papers for me to join the Marines in 1975.

[3]A short time after the United States had pulled out of Vietnam; the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez was seized by Cambodian Forces on May 12, 1975. The Mayaguez’s crew was charged with spying within Cambodia’s territorial waters. [4]By evening, an assault force of 221 U.S. Marines had arrived. Many of the marines were already in the vicinity of Southeast Asia on their way back from Vietnam. Others were deployed from Okinawa, Japan. The following day our forces reached the island of Tang (an island approximately 27 miles southwest off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand), where the Mayaguez was being held. Our forces began sinking Cambodian vessels that were on the way to remove the thirty-nine hostages on the mainland. The Mayaguez crew of thirty-nine was freed on May 14 in a U.S. military rescue operation that my division was involved in. This was the last official battle of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Casualties during the operation were 14 Marines killed or missing, two Navy corpsmen killed, and two Air Force crewmen killed. Thirty-five Marines and 6 airmen were wounded. Also during the operation, an additional twenty-three men died when a helicopter crashed in Thailand en route to the rescue. The operation received unanimous approval by U.S. citizens. The names of the Americans killed are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

By the time I got out of the marines with an honorable discharge, I decided to move to Lordsburg, New Mexico. To my surprise, I had finally met my father, who had abandoned me and my siblings as little ones. My mother always told us that he left the family because he had to kill a couple of men for the Mexican Mafia. I was trying to look for a job, but there were none that paid well. However, there was an opening with the highway patrol, and I decided to submit an application. My father informed me that he was still mob connected and that he was doing illegal activities in Lordsburg. He asked whether I would arrest him if I became an officer of the law. My answer to him was a firm yes. After we had this conversation, we never saw eye to eye again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the patrol job and ended up moving back to Texas. I began to hang out with my old high school friends who were now smoking marijuana and experimenting in the use of LSD. After a little persuasion, they managed to talk me into using drugs. Since that time, my drug addiction only got worse, and the desire to manufacturing amphetamines was no better than my addiction. If someone would have told me during the 1970s that I would someday turn out to be a renowned amphetamine manufacture and dealer, and that I’d go to prison, I would have laughed in their faces. In 1982, my story began by being introduced into the drug world as a headshop manager and later meeting a man by the name of Jacky Ronald Pace

CHAPTER 1

HEADSHOP MANAGER

Early in 1982, I worked as a head shop manager at Trinity River Trading Post. My long time friend Jim Thomas owned the head shop, which was located in Camp Bowie.

I first met Jim in 1970, when I visited the original Trinity River Trading Post, which in those days was located at the corner of Northside Drive and Jacksboro Highway. As a youth, I would go there to purchase posters, incense, T-shirts, beaded jewelry, and the ever-famous Fabulous Furry Freak Brother’s comic books.

The 1970s were the days of Guru Timothy Leary. Dr. Leary earned his nameplate in pop culture by advising the world in 1967 to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Dr. Leary also embarked on controlled experiments with psychedelic drugs. Later, Dr. Leary would be sent to prison on a ten-year sentence for the possession of two marijuana joints. The 1970s also bore a different type of people, the flower children, who were in their own way considered hip. Music lyrics spoke of death and destruction and of peace and love.

I really enjoyed visiting the head shop. There was a long-haired hippie who worked behind the counter, and after a few months, he spoke to me every time I would come in. We became good friends, and on occasion he would ask if I wouldn’t mind going across the street to the Lone Star Café to pick up his chicken fried steak dinners. Because there was no one else at the head shop to tend to the customers, I gladly picked up his food a few nights a week.

Before I knew it, my new buddy would tell all his hippie friends and customers that I was his little compadré, his friend. As time passed, Jim Thomas would always ask if I was ready to go to work for him, because he needed someone who was trustworthy. He wanted to operate his new business venture, a hang-glider shop, of which he had named Armadillo Aviation. Armadillo was located down the street from the head shop on the corner of Henderson Street and White Settlement Road.

Though I had always dreamed of someday managing the head shop, I knew I would have to ultimately decline his offers of employment because I had been working for the City of Hurst Public Works Department for six years. I also had a family of my own to support.

During the end of my sixth year with the City of Hurst in 1982, two employees that I worked with on a daily basis were busted for possession of a quarter pound of marijuana. The City of Hurst narcotics officers alleged it was hidden under the dash of the city van unit #806. Both of my co-workers went to prison as a result. After their arrest, I found myself being harassed by the city’s narcs and one of the city’s animal control officers by the name of Steve Albritten. Steve had started false rumors among the employees. He had made numerous erroneous statements that I also should have been busted; he claimed that I was in cahoots with both of my co-workers, Billy Sutton and Royal Lane. Steve also believed that I was involved in the sale of drugs from the city van—and on city time, no less! After a few months of listening to the defaming rumors that were constantly being spread among my new co-workers, I finally decided to quit my job with the City of Hurst. This was music to the ears