When my niece was killed by a hit and run trucker at the age of seventeen, law enforcement dropped the ball. One would hope that police officers of all people would know how to investigate pretty much anything, let alone a suspicious death. Unfortunately, Columbo wizards seemed to be somewhat outnumbered in the local ranks by Don Knotts bumblers.

I got the call from my sister at about 1:30 a.m. It was a good thing I was wide awake and alert at the time, pecking away on the computer, because she was difficult to understand through the sobbing. Before long, though, I'd come to understand that her youngest child, my youngest niece, had been killed on the freeway east of their home town.

"I'll be there in forty-five minutes," I told her. We hung up, I gave my mostly bedridden wife what details I had, and hit the door. We lived about thirty miles apart at that time, albeit with one twisty mountain pass in between. Despite the highway being a two lane road, I pulled into their driveway at just nine minutes past two. Every light in the house was ablaze. My brother in law met me at the door, and we went from there.

Over the next few days, we came up with a crystal clear picture of what had happened. The only trouble was that our vision did not match law enforcement's version. We knew that our departed darling had been headed home at about 10:15 p.m. on that pitch dark summer night when her life suddenly unraveled. In all likelihood, a deer or possibly an elk had suddenly loomed in her headlights. This girl was unafraid to hammer down; running at a speed of 80 mph or so would have allowed for little reaction time.

Yanking the wheel to the left avoided the (probable) animal but put her little red car into the median ditch. Still on its wheels, the vehicle hurtled up toward the eastbound lanes, and that's when she lost it entirely. No race driver, she had to have overcorrected in an attempt to avoid simply launching across those lanes and down the embankment on the other side. That was too much for the car, which rolled three times, coming to rest on its wheels in the far ditch between the freeway and the southside fence.

Stunned and in shock, she then turned off the ignition, turned the lights down to "park", and climbed out to find her cell phone. What with no flashlight and no moon (it would be up shortly but was at that time still hidden behind a mountain ridge), that could take a while. Feeling around on the asphalt of the deserted freeway, she gathered up one after another of her belongings that had flown everywhere when the car rolled. She was working a section of the fast lane when she became aware of danger.

Spinning up to her feet, facing the onrushing lights, she found she had too little time left to avoid impact.

Trouble was, law enforcement was buying a different version. A trucker at the scene swore he'd seen her roll the car and seen her ejected from the vehicle while it was still in motion, and that the truck ahead of him--the truck running ahead of his rig--had run over what was most likely already a dead body. Never mind that her family knew full well that this was one driver who always used her seat belt. To make things worse, we heard word on the street that some people were theorizing she'd committed suicide.

This was unacceptable. My niece deserved a clean legacy. Her death was bad enough; her memory was not going to be tainted by whispers and suspicion. It did not look like law enforcement was going to Git 'R' Done. That left the family, and we had some specific ideas on how to do the job along with the determination required for such a task. We were about to investigate...and then investigate some more.

The body had been dragged down the pavement for a good ninety feet, leaving the face unrecognizable...but the first deputy on the scene knew our family and whose red car was sitting in that ditch. From a small town area surrounded by ranches and a few mines, he was used to dealing with drunk drivers and yes, a car wreck every now and then. Even a fatality here and there. But nothing like this. The same could be said about most if not all of the other deputies and the highway patrolmen who came later. Perhaps that excuses their failure to follow logical police procedure at the crime scene and at other points, but it was like they didn't know how to write up a proper report, gather information, much of anything. Death or no death, we felt that if they couldn't take the heat, they should get out of the kitchen. Here's the "can you believe this" list:

1. Two big rigs were parked at the scene and their drivers were guarding my niece's body when the first deputy arrived about fifteen minutes after the event. The lawman did get one driver's name, address, and phone number...but that was all he got. He did not identify the other driver. He did not inspect either truck for blood or damage or to see if their tire patterns matched the skid marks. He did not take down license plate numbers, the makes or models or colors of the truck tractors or semi trailers, the names or D.O.T. authority numbers of the trucking companies printed on the sides of every door by federal law. He took no pictures whatsoever of the crime scene.

2. That same driver who was a supposed witness to the accident was reported as being extremely nervous and jumpy, yet officers accepted his version of events and--simply because he said he wasn't the guy who hit the victim--they took him at his word. Neither he nor the other driver were tested for alcohol or other drugs despite the fact that he was acting like someone wired to the gills on methamphetamines.

3. When a sheriff who did not have jurisdiction offered his highly skilled assistance at one point, he was rebuffed.

4. When we-the-family clearly identified the hitter and an anonymous witness even sent a letter identifying the same man as such, the Highway Patrol did call that fellow...but then commented, "He says he didn't do it. Not much else we can do."

5. When a key witness called the sheriff's office that did have jurisdiction and offered important additional information, the sheriff himself did absolutely nothing about it.

6. And one item not pertaining directly to law enforcement: When a doctor who was supposed to be a forensics expert performed a so-called external autopsy on the body, he stated there was nothing to indicate our girl had not been ejected, thus no proof she'd been wearing her seat belt...despite the fact that even a layman who read the doctor's report could see otherwise.

Even so, the family solved the case and found resolution. Here's how we did it.

The contributions to the overall investigation were many and varied. By the numbers:

1. My sister (a lifetime Registered Nurse) and I were the only family members emotionally capable of inspecting the body at all, let alone with "forensic eyes". Sis also served as a central focus for all incoming information and held war council with all of us on a regular basis. She forced the Highway Patrol to fork over copies of their reports and the one video interview of Mr. Nervous Trucker they did eventually record. All in all, she became the heart and Soul of the entire operation.

2. My eldest niece, another Registered Nurse, is also a crack photographer who put that skill to good use in piecing together a photographic record of the accident scene and the condition of the wrecked car.

3. The middle sister, a highly competent businesswoman as well as an extemely attractive blonde, faced the TV cameras to send out an appeal to the public for information regarding the accident.

4. My brother in law did what he could despite appearing to be by far the most traumatized family member of all.

5. My wife Pam, though disabled, is something of a real life Ghost Whisperer who met out-of-body with the dearly departed on several occasions and brought back real information to add to the picture. She also psychically sensed the description of the truck that had done the deed, which eventually led to our identifying the specific truck line for which the hitter drove. Added to on-the-road observation efforts by my Sis and me, it was finally enough to pin down the exact truck that had done the deed. Never discount the paranormal.

6. The finest reporter in three counties wrote a sympathetic piece asking for witnesses to come forward. Her article was picked up by AP and resulted in major breakthroughs.

7. The "Good Sheriff" whose offer of help had been spurned was more than cordial when I stopped by his office to ask for a copy of the original 911 call. That call happened to reach his department, although the accident occurred in a neighboring county. My study of that report led to my eventual ironclad belief that the man who made that call was in fact the hitter although he posed as a driver who had come through the area after the dust settled. He claimed those at the scene had told him to go on, only asking that he call 911 when he got out of that "Dead Zone" area of no cell service.

8. Next to my sister, I did the most active investigating. This made sense, since I was semiretired and thus had the time and was also the family member most active on the Internet. Nothing I did was all that difficult. I called my major suspect, telling him I just wanted to touch base and thank him for calling 911, pumped him as I could, and made notes. I called the couple who called the sheriff in response to an appeal poster.

They had come through the area no more than sixty seconds after impact. Three trucks were parked there at that moment. Two drivers were walking back toward the body, and she clearly heard one of them say,

"That wasn't a deer! That was a $#^&!! BODY!!"

Hardly an appropriate response to just having killed someone. But I had many qualifications to be an investigator on this case in addition to the fact that I knew how to do a few things on the Internet. Even in addition to the fact that death is something I handle well, at least most of the time. One of those qualifications was the fact that I'd been a truck driver myself. If you're driving a longnosed Peterbilt truck tractor down the highway, you're probably not going to see a girl jump to her feet at the last second. You're going to see something, and then you're going to be watching the rest of the road as you hope the impact doesn't throw your rig into the ditch.

One key element I personally added was the aspect of Internet investigating. By using some of the 411 type sites and a couple of the online tools designed to ferret folks out, I was able to unearth some interesting information. Mr. Hitter had been through a divorce and bankruptcy in Wyoming not that many years prior to my niece's death, following which he'd moved back among his own family members in a Wisconsin city neighborhood. Mr. Nervous lived in New Jersey and had a spotty credit record.

In the end, through massive effort by more than a dozen key people with a boost from many more who helped put up appeal-for-info posters, aided by my  in depth knowledge of long haul truckers and how they work, we knew we had it right.

The death happened in September. By mid-December, we were at a crossroads. My sister and I, co-spearheads of the investigation, had done most of what we knew how to do toward bringing the hit and run driver and the coverup conspirators to justice. We knew my niece had been wearing her seatbelt: The autopsy referenced a broken collarbone and abrasions on the front of both hip bones, clear indicators of damage done by the belt itself when she wrecked her car. We knew the car's lights had been found set on "park", not bright.

Furthermore, we'd proved there'd been a three truck convoy and that the lead truck had in fact been the one to hit the young human scrabbling on the asphalt to find her cell phone. True, there was one trucker left unidentified, but even my dreams confirmed our belief that we knew who had made impact (Mr. Wisconsin) and who had handled most of the coverup (Mr. New Jersey). We did have to guess at their motive for what they did, but it was an educated guess: At the least, they could have lost their jobs for running in convoy formation, which is illegal. At the most, there was something in one or more of those trucks that would not stand up under inspection--guns, drugs, illegal immigrants, whatever, but something.

These men had committed, at the minimum, one misdemeanor and two felonies:

1. Running trucks in convoy formation: Misdemeanor.

2. Killing someone while performing an illegal act: Felony.

3. Leaving the scene of a fatal accident: Felony.

Except. In our state (where Pam and I lived at that time), law enforcement officials advised us that nothing more than a misdemeanor had been committed according to state law. In Colorado, where we later lived for over two years, it would indeed have been a double felony situation.

No wonder that even if they knew how to investigate, death or no death, the county sheriff who had jurisdiction and the State Highway Patrol both declined to exert themselves beyond a given point. With all of that, there came a day when my Sis called to ask if I thought we should keep on hammering a dead horse or call it a day. I told her it was her daughter and therefore her call...and that whatever she wanted to do, I would back her to the hilt.

She made her decision. We let the rest of our family, friends, and supporters know that we were dropping the investigation. But she was not quite done with the truckers just yet. She waited patiently until one fine day in February when her husband was gone and she had the home to herself and her mind was just right for the task. Do you believe in fate? Destiny? I do. How else to explain that when she called Mr. Wisconsin and then Mr. New Jersey, she caught both of those long haul truckers who were never home...at home.

In each case, the call proceeded in the same fashion. She identified herself and, without taking too long about it, let the man on the other line know that we knew. That the mother of the victim, who was right then talking to them, knew exactly what they'd done. In each case, the fellow sputtered and tried to present the agreed upon cover story, that her daughter had been ejected and--and right there she calmly but firmly cut him off, describing in detail the way we knew it had gone down. No, we weren't going to pursue the matter any further. She just wanted it understood that we knew. Each of them listened in stunned silence.

She then made a third call. To me.

This did not bring our girl back to this world, of course, but it did provide a measure of resolution for our family. In closing, I'll simply say: If any of you involved in the Convoy Coverup happen to stumble upon this bit of writing, Mr. Wisconsin or Mr. New Jersey or even Mr. Only Partially Identified, just remember...we know.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32