Brian Woodson
A Huntington, West Virginia, resident led Kentucky State Police troopers on a chase through a hollow in Hardy before stopping at a dead end on Oct. 29, police said.
Following the pursuit, Brian Eugene Woodson, 45, of Fourth Street, Huntington, was charged with a variety of violations including two counts of drug trafficking and multiple traffic violations, according to KSP.
According to a citation written by KSP Trooper M. Cornett, he and Trooper H. Smith were conducting a traffic safety checkpoint in the early afternoon of Oct. 29 in Hardy community. When Woodson’s vehicle came through the checkpoint a strong odor of marijuana allegedly came from the vehicle and Woodson was asked to pull into an adjacent parking lot.
“While approaching the vehicle, this driver accelerated in a reckless manner, spinning tires and taking off,” Cornett wrote. “Myself and Trooper Smith pursued the vehicle down Ky. 319 and turned onto Narrows Branch.
“While pursuing this vehicle, he was driving recklessly through a work zone endangering the lives of eight workers,” the citation continued. “Once the vehicle was stopped at the end of Narrows Branch, a felony traffic stop was conducted. Located under the hood of the vehicle was roughly a quarter pound of a white, crystal rock-like substance wrapped up in a sock.”
Cornett wrote while logging in the evidence from the search, “a bag of green, leafy substance believed to be marijuana and a small bag of a white powder-like substance believed to be fentanyl” was also found in the sock.
Woodson was arrested and lodged in the Pike County Detention Center on the following charges:
• First-offense trafficking in a controlled substance (carfentanil or fentanyl derivatives);
• First-degree trafficking in a controlled substance (methamphetamine, first offense);
• First-offense DUI;
• Possession of marijuana;
• First-degree fleeing or evading police; and
• Seven traffic violations with three of them involving a work zone.
As of presstime, Woodson remained in custody at the PCDC.
