Gordon Todd Skinner

Gordon Todd Skinner
Skinner in 2024
Nationality	American
Known for	Drug manufacturing
Criminal charges	Kidnapping, assault with a dangerous weapon, and conspiracy to kidnap
Criminal penalty	Sentenced to life plus 90 years
Criminal status	Convicted
Parents	Gordon H. Skinner (father) Katherine Magrini (mother)

Gordon Todd Skinner is an American former drug manufacturer and convicted kidnapper who was involved in the world's largest LSD manufacturing organization in the late 1990s and 2000. He worked with chemist William Leonard Pickard and their associate, Clyde Apperson, to make and distribute LSD in and from Aspen, Colorado; Sante Fe, New Mexico; and two former missile silos in Salina and Wamego, Kansas.

Skinner grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and started manufacturing and dealing various drugs in high school—despite his stepfather's employment by federal drug enforcement agencies, which had agents working in their house. In the 1980s, Skinner became an informant for multiple law enforcement agencies.

Around 1997, Skinner met Pickard; they and Apperson made tens of millions of dollars through LSD distribution over the following years. He grew paranoid of Pickard and, in 2000, Skinner informed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the operation. This gave him immunity from prosecution for his involvement. On November 6, 2000, the DEA seized the organization's property as a part of their investigation Operation White Rabbit; the administration claimed this led to a 95% decline in worldwide LSD availability by 2004.

Pickard and Apperson were sentenced to decades in prison, though Pickard was eventually released. In early 2003, after the trial, Skinner continued drug dealing with his wife, Krystle Cole, and their apprentice, Brandon Green. In July, Skinner kidnapped and tortured Green in a Tulsa hotel. Skinner's associate, William Hauck, drove Green to Texas, where a policeman found Green. Skinner was given a life sentence plus 90 years.