Volkswagen Bug Breaks Down So Alleged Drug Dealer Can't Finish Meth Run

A Wyoming drug dealer couldn’t finish his methamphetamine run from Colorado last month because his purple Volkswagen bug slowed to a crawl and spewed black smoke when he reached Chugwater, Wyo., court documents allege. 

Wade Earl Schear, 41 of Gillette, faces one felony charge of possessing methamphetamine with the intention to trade it and another of knowingly possessing a felony amount of methamphetamine. The first count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $25,000 in fines while the second carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and $15,000 in fines. 

Schear’s case rose to the felony-level Platte County District Court last week. 

On The Radar

Schear was already on the radar of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), which named him a person of interest in a March 2024 meth-market investigation project, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed June 24 in Wheatland Circuit Court. 

On June 22, Platte County Sheriff’s Deputy Cody Keller pulled over on South Chugwater Highway near 1^st Street in Chugwater to check on a purple Volkswagen Bug bearing Wyoming plates. The car was traveling between 20 and 30 mph with its flashers on and was spewing diesel smoke, the affidavit says. 

Keller reportedly found Schear in the driver’s seat and no one else in the car.  

“Schear appeared to be extremely nervous during the contact,” the affidavit says. 

Platte County Sheriff David Russell arrived on scene with his K9 partner Toro to conduct a free-air sniff of the vehicle. 

The affidavit says Russell told Keller that Toro alerted deputies to the presence of drugs in the car. 

Sheriff’s personnel asked Schear to exit the vehicle. Deputies searched the car and found a meth pipe, syringes, one ounce of marijuana, $811 cash bound by a rubber band and 871 grams of methamphetamine in a backpack in the back seat. 

Just For Trade

DCI agents arrived, read Schear his rights and interviewed him, says the affidavit. 

The document says Schear told agents he was returning from a meth purchase in Colorado and was headed back to Gillette when his car broke down.

He’d taken $2,000 or $3,000 to Colorado to buy the meth, the affidavit relates. 

Schear denied being a meth dealer but said he’d trade the drug for things. He said he started using and distributing meth after he lost his job, the affidavit says. 

Keller and the DCI agents took Schear to the Platte County Detention Center, where investigators also weighed and tested the suspected meth and marijuana. They yielded a presumptive positive result for their respective substances, the document says. 

Schear’s case is ongoing. The Platte County Public Defender’s office did not immediately return a voicemail request for comment Wednesday. 

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.