William Leonard Pickard

William Leonard Pickard (born October 21, 1945 in Mill Valley, California) is one of two people convicted in the largest lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) manufacturing case in history. In 2000, while moving their LSD laboratory, Pickard and Clyde Apperson were pulled over while driving a Ryder rental truck and a follow car. The laboratory had been at a renovated Atlas-E missile silo near Wamego, Kansas but the two men had never actually produced LSD there. One of the men intricately involved in the case but not charged due to his cooperation, Gordon Todd Skinner, owned the property where the laboratory was located; he approached the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about working for them. According to court testimony, they would produce a kilogram of LSD approximately every five weeks. The U.S. government contends that following their arrest there was a 90% drop in the availability of LSD worldwide.