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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Armendaris, who lives across the road from the Seipels, said she often called them when she needed help with a leaky kitchen sink or some other problem. One of the Seipels -- Sam; his father, John H. Seipel III; or Sam's 16-year-old brother, Johnny -- would respond. Not long before the crash, Sam gave Armendaris a live chick, thinking it would please the children in her home day care. He built a chicken coop, too.

"He was always knocking at the door, asking if I needed anything," Armendaris said.

Interconnecting trails lead across town to the Jasiens' home, where the only clutter on a spacious lawn is a soccer net and ball, which suggest that children live there, too.

"I'm sure they're pretty torn up about this because their boys were friends," Town Council member Charles Rusnak said.

But talk always comes around to the chain.

"It's seldom up," Rusnak said. "The only time I've seen it up is when [the Jasiens are] on vacation. In the last month, it's been up a lot. I don't know what changed."

Rusnak said he suspected the Jasiens put up the chain to block people in Glencairn from using the path as a shortcut to town -- a concern Rusnak said was shared by many townsfolk, who have always opposed allowing traffic from the development to use the path as a shortcut.