FLOYD COUNTY, KY — What kind of person steals a man’s cheese grater? Or an empty bottle of Lysol spray? A meth head, that’s who, claims Mason Tackett, who saw an unusual assortment of his belongings stacked up outside his Floyd County home, as if in preparation for a yard sale.
Tackett explained it all in an interview with television station WYMT that has gained traction on social media. And though methamphetamine use — still a problem after the issue faded from public view after raids in the 1990s shut down multiple labs in Kentucky — is nothing to joke about, Tackett’s interview is worthy of a stand-up comedy gig.
That is, the story is funny until Tackett gets to the part where his cousin, Phillip Hagans, allegedly pulled a gun on him. Hagans, who is charged with receiving stolen property and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, is being held on $25,000 bond, the report said. His preliminary hearing is set for Tuesday in Floyd County District Court.
The TV station’s report said Tackett confronted Hagans after neighbors alerted him they someone carrying items out of his house — though for the life of him, he can’t figure out what prompted the alleged thief to take certain items.
“What got me the most was my soap. He stole my soap. Who steals soap?” Tackett told the television station.
“It’s the most random assortment of things. It looked like he was getting ready to go to a pallet sale,” he added. “Must have been a bad batch [of methamphetamine] around here ’cause Floyd County has gone crazy in the last four days.”
Tackett said that when he confronted his cousin, “he was lying, throwing his hands, saying stuff like ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.’ “
“You know, how rogues do and blame it on everybody else,” Tackett continued. “He did pull a gun on me when I got back around the house because I guess he thought I was upset with him.”
Kentucky was ranked among the top 10 states for meth production labs in 2014 by Real Clear Politics. To counter the problem, a 2012 law restricts the amount of over-the-counter allergy or cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine Kentuckians can buy each year. Officials have said that law precipitously decreased the number of meth labs in the state.
However, meth is the drug of choice in some areas of the state because it’s cheaper than others made on the street and delivers higher levels of dopamine — a naturally occurring chemical that transmits signals between nerve cells — than cocaine. Users can experience euphoria for many hours or go on days-long binges when they don’t sleep at all.
WYMT video and image via YouTube