Small Town Grapples With Teen's Death in ATV Crash

Sam Seipel, 14, was killed when his ATV hit this chain in Clifton. Some residents ask why the chain was strung across the path or why some kind of warning, like the four traffic cones, wasn't there earlier. Others want to know why a boy of Sam's age was riding such a powerful machine on someone else's property. (By Fredrick Kunkle -- The Washington Post)
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"They're the nicest people in the world. They'll do anything in the world for the town," said Richard King, a retired federal environmental analyst who has served on the town's planning board.

"It wasn't like somebody put up barbed wire across the trail," said King, who lives near the path. But King, 61, also wondered about the wisdom of allowing a boy to operate a four-wheel machine that, according to published reports, packs about 40 horsepower.

The Jasiens have not responded to calls or answered the door at their home. Mark R. Dycio, a lawyer in Fairfax County, said the family had no comment.

Officer Eddy Azcarate, a spokesman for the county police, said officers have closed the investigation and found no criminal violations.

ATV operators are required to wear a helmet, as Sam was. But Virginia law says someone Sam's age should not have been driving such a powerful ATV, as anyone younger than 16 is allowed to operate only ATVs of 90cc or less. The machines are not allowed on public roads, except to cross them, and operators are supposed to have written permission to drive them on other people's property.

The last census counted 185 people in Clifton, which styles itself as "Brigadoon in Virginia." If not for the fact that Clifton lies about 20 miles from the glass towers and traffic jams of Tysons Corner, the sleepy little town might be in the deep South.

Main Street, which covers the distance of a well-hit fly ball, contains a general store ("GOOD HOT FOOD," its sign says), a restaurant, a toy store, an ice cream shop and Clifton Baptist Church, where veterans of Mosby's Raiders long ago bowed their heads. Outside town, houses and horse farms luxuriate among fields and wooded hills protected by zoning laws that require dwellings to have no less than five acres of land, a measure designed to preserve the Occoquan River watershed.

Sam lived north of town on Newman Road, in a stucco house whose yard spills over with a collection of junk as wondrous as the contents of Huck Finn's pockets.

Birdhouses, including multistory apartment-style dwellings, sprout from eaves, fence posts, a grape arbor. There are boats that look as if the only water they have seen in years was rain falling where they sit. Cars are parked every which way, up on blocks and in various states of repair, including a 1972 Chevelle that Sam was rebuilding. A pogo stick leans against a fence beside an upturned skateboard in the weeds. There are several treehouses and a trampoline. In a community where many households have Wiis and computer games, Sam and his friends disappeared for hours in the maze of junk.

"He was a special kid. I don't think anybody didn't like Sam," said his mother, Sharon W. Seipel, 39. She referred further questions to J. Robb Cecil, a lawyer in Laurel. Cecil did not return several calls.

Her son's idea of a shopping trip involved scouring the junkyard at Willow Springs Towing in Chantilly for lawn mower engines and other parts.

Tow truck operator Michael Lee "Tiny" Jordan, 51, said he came to know the boy so well that he let Sam help him with his Pontiac Astro dragster. Sam worked on the motor and spritzed the hot engine with water to cool it off between heats at the Old Dominion Raceway in Manassas.