Emerald’s Lexie Rae Spannagle in court for trafficking meth

A drug trafficker whose dogs were kidnapped and held to ransom was also threatened to be killed by the same supplier over “significant debts”, a court heard.

A drug trafficker whose dogs were kidnapped and held to ransom was also threatened to be killed by the same supplier over “significant debts” which she took very seriously, a court heard.

Lexie Rae Spannagle, 22, sourced methamphetamines from drug kingpin and former boilermaker Luke Wicks so that she could supply her eight customers in the Central Highlands region, the Supreme Court in Rockhampton heard on May 13 as she was sentenced for her trafficking offending.

Wicks was sentenced in February 2025 to nine years prison.

Justice Graeme Crow said Spannagle wasn’t a primary target of Operation Victor Coup which was set up to target drug movement from Brisbane to the Central Highlands and trafficking in the region in 2023.

He said the primary targets were Wicks and Nyah Ann Spence, who was sentenced in December.

Justice Crow said Spannagle’s street level trafficking offending was detected as police intercepted communications between William ‘Billy’ Francis Neasey (sentenced in August) and accused trafficker Wayne Giltro Wilson (yet to have his charges finalised).

He said Spannagle’s and her co-offender’s, Matthew Ross Shambler, trafficking businesses were street level with Spannagle having eight customers who she supplied 0.1 gram to 3.5 gram of meth with 16 supplies totalling 9.5 grams for $7,250 between April 13 and September 19, 2023, in Emerald.

Her deals were communicated via SMS, SnapChat and phone calls.

Lexie Rae Spannagle, 22, sourced methamphetamines from drug kingpin and former boilermaker Luke Wicks so that she could supply her eight customers in the Central Highlands region, the Supreme Court in Rockhampton heard on May 13 as she was sentenced for her trafficking business.

Justice Crow said both she and Shambler were users and portions of the meth they sourced were consumed by them rather than sold.

During Wicks’s sentencing, the court heard Wicks resorted to dognapping drug dealer’s dachshunds for ransom in an effort to recoup some of the tens of thousands owed to him down the supply chain.

The court heard Wicks supplied the drugs to Spannagle and two others – Neasey and fifth generation cattle farmer and Rockhampton Grammar graduate Shambler.

Increasingly frantic and threatening messages are exchanged in the lead up to the dognapping as Wicks warns Neasey: “Things are about to get a lot worse. Tell Lexie to contact me … because she’s got till tonight, and it’s not my problem. What happens Billy, I know what farm and where it is that she’s been at Springsure and the other houses that are there and in Emerald, so it’s up to you c*** if you want to do things the easy way or the hard way”.

The court heard Wicks and another man broke into Spannagle’s residence one night as she slept, entered her bedroom, flicked on the light and demanded the $4000 that she owed.

Luke Craig Wicks, 33, can be revealed for the first time as the "main supplier" in a trafficking ring where drugs were moved from Brisbane to Central Queensland mining towns

Spannagle told Wicks she didn’t have the cash at hand, the unknown man struck her at least twice.

She managed to organise $2000 to be paid to Wicks straight away and he took her two dachshund dogs as ransom, telling her to meet him at a specific location at a specific time with the rest of the money, which she did, the court was told.

During her sentencing this week, Justice Crow said Spannagle also received a death threat from “the top drug supplier” which she took “very seriously, as she should have because people do get killed when they don’t pay their drug debts”.

He said tick sheets found by police when they raided her place on September 18, 2023, revealed she owed $5,150 to her supplier at that stage and at one point, she owed $17,600.

Defence barrister Joshua Morris said his client’s childhood was “extremely prejudicial and involved intimate personal violence and her sister dying by suicide a week before her 20th birthday.

Justice Crow said Spannagle’s father was a drug user and Spannagle started abusing alcohol and marijuana when she was 12 years old.

“She was a woman who was entirely incapable by her own immaturity, age, lack of education, lack of life skills, incapable of dealing with the circumstances she found herself in, particularly when she was using methamphetamine to suppress memories of intimate personal violence,” Mr Morris said.

Justice Crow said 80 per cent of the people he sentenced had prejudicial backgrounds and Spannagle’s was “probably worse than most”.

Mr Morris said Spannagle has refrained from using any illicit substance since her arrest and for the past six months, she has worked full time at Thomas Borthwicks and Sons in the rendering sections of the meatworks where she is being considered to be trained for a promotion.

Justice Crow described the rendering job as “dirty, stinky” where Spannagle was “covered head to toe in cows blood” starting at 5.30am daily.

He said the letter from her workplace provided to the court showed that she had discussed with them her charges and offending, showing remorse and describing that period in her life as being “young, stupid” and hanging with the wrong crowd.

“I do not take the view that you are an evil person,” Justice Crow said.

Spannagle pleaded guilty to one count each of trafficking drugs, contravening police requirement, possession items used in trafficking drugs and possessing a document instructing how to produce a dangerous drug (meth).

Justice Crow sentenced her to a five-year prison term, with two-days presentence custody declared as time already served, and the prison term wholly suspended with a five-year operational period.

Neasey trafficked drugs between May 3 and September 19, 2023 and had 30 customers who he supplied to at least 20 times.

He pleaded guilty on August 20 to four counts of supplying drugs and one count each of trafficking drugs, possessing a mobile phone used in the connection of supplying drugs, possessing a drug, possessing items used in a drug crime and possessing used pipe.

Neasey was sentenced to 4.5 years prison with 337 days presentence custody declared as time already served, with the sentence suspended after 337 days and an operational period of five years.

Shambler trafficked drugs between April 13 and September 19.

He pleaded guilty on August 21 to one count of trafficking drugs, one of armed robbery in company with personal violence, two of possessing a thing used in connection with trafficking and one of possessing a dangerous drug.

He was sentenced to 4.5 years prison for the trafficking offence and it was suspended after 12 months with an operational period of five years.

Shambler was also sentenced to three years prison for the armed robbery offence and given parole release on September 7, 2024.

Mr Wilson, 34, of Emerald, has been charged with one of possessing more than two grams of a schedule one drug.

He has not entered a plea and his charge will next be mentioned in the Supreme Court in Rockhampton on May 19.