By Stephen C. Fehr, Brian Mooar and Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 3, 1999; Page A01

It was a simple trip on roller blades from an American University dormitory to a Tenleytown mini-mart to buy a phone card. But it ended tragically when 18-year-old Matthew O'Dell was struck from behind by a truck whose hit-and-run driver slammed O'Dell 30 feet into a tree. He died of head injuries 50 minutes later.

Since that Jan. 28 night, no one has been charged. The investigation has been shrouded in controversy and confusion over the handling of evidence, among other issues. Now, law enforcement sources said, the probe into O'Dell's death is part of a broader internal police review of the work done by a veteran traffic detective assigned to the case.

D.C. police officials have launched a review of Detective Milton A. James after federal prosecutors complained that he mishandled evidence and failed to properly interview witnesses in several fatal accidents, including O'Dell's.

Law enforcement sources said U.S. Attorney Wilma A. Lewis met with Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey on Wednesday to voice concerns about detective James. At the meeting, "Ms. Lewis raised her concerns with the chief about the officer's performance -- or lack thereof -- in conducting numerous investigations that hampered the ability to prosecute the cases fully in courts," said a law enforcement source speaking on the condition of anonymity.

An internal memo written by prosecutors who have worked with James accused him of failing to interview witnesses in some accidents and of losing or mishandling evidence in others, according to sources familiar with the memo. Both issues have been raised in the aftermath of the death of O'Dell, an AU freshman who was roller-blading with a friend in the 3800 block of Nebraska Avenue NW when he was hit.

In an interview with The Washington Post, the friend with whom O'Dell was roller-blading said that minutes after the fatal accident, Detective James cut him off as he was explaining what happened. The friend, Jeremy Woodrum, 22, of Loveland, Colo., was the only known eyewitness.

"As I was telling the detective what happened, he told me, 'That's enough,' " Woodrum recalled. "I really didn't get to explain everything."

No one from the police department has contacted Woodrum since the accident, Woodrum said. "I left two messages for the detective, but he never called me back," Woodrum said of James. "I have yet to talk to anyone from the police. I was really surprised."

James said in an interview last month that he wouldn't discuss the O'Dell case.

Meanwhile, police officials said that crime lab tests link a white truck owned by a Northwest Washington man to the O'Dell accident. They said hair samples taken from the 1998 Ford Ranger, which was impounded by police a day after the accident, matched those of O'Dell.

The truck's registered owner is Shane Simeon Deleon, 45, a self-employed carpenter living in a friend's MacArthur Boulevard NW home. He has not been charged in the accident. Police sources said investigators have been able to place Deleon in the truck about a half-hour before and after the 7 p.m. accident.

After the truck was impounded, Deleon went to police to deny his involvement in the accident. Deleon has at least three drunken-driving arrests in Maryland and the District since 1993, court records show, leading to the revocation of his Maryland license five years ago. D.C. motor vehicles officials later issued Deleon a driver's license, even though he noted on his application that Maryland had pulled his license.

A man at the MacArthur Boulevard home who answered a reporter's request to talk to Shane Deleon on the telephone said, "I didn't do anything," and declined to talk further. No one answered the door there yesterday.

"We have tried to talk to him but when detectives bore down on him, he requested a lawyer and left," a police source said.

Chief Ramsey has initiated a review of several cases handled by James, and before the Wednesday meeting, some of the detective's cases had been reassigned to other investigators within the Major Crash Division.

Ramsey would not discuss details of the meeting with Lewis but expressed frustration that word of their talk had leaked to the media. "We're just looking to make sure that all the proper steps were taken, and if not, we want to know why not. I can't say what happened right now because I just don't have enough information."

Ramsey said he talked to the mother of Matthew O'Dell on Thursday to assure her that the investigation of her son's death was moving forward.

Among allegations made by prosecutors about Detective James's performance investigating the deadly cases, law enforcement sources said, are that he:

Failed to interview key witnesses and follow leads in the accident that killed O'Dell.

Lost track of a car and mishandled evidence in an Oct. 7, 1998, accident that fatally injured a deaf pedestrian at the intersection of Florida Avenue and Sixth Street NE.

Failed to collect the victim's clothing and failed to interview some witnesses and did cursory interviews of others in a May 24, 1997, accident that killed a pedestrian in the 3000 block of V Street NE.

Detective James did not respond to calls left for him at his office, through the police public information office and the office of the chief of police seeking his comment on the allegations by federal prosecutors.

Disciplining or removing James could be a problem, law enforcement sources said, because he remains an important witness in a variety of cases. In his role as a traffic investigator, James works with the U.S. attorney's office on the most serious cases, while also cooperating with the D.C. corporation counsel's office, which handles most traffic offenses.

The family of the pedestrian killed in the 1997 hit-and-run on V Street also is upset with James. Linda Walters said James failed to collect her son Brian's clothing, which might have contained flakes of paint or other key forensic evidence. Six months later, Walters said, James assured the family that he had collected the clothing, but Walters said she had given the D.C. morgue permission to throw it away on the day of her son's death.

"I'm not an investigator and I didn't know it was evidence," Walters said. "I'm not supposed to know that. I'm just a mother."

O'Dell's mother was so frustrated trying to monitor the progress of the investigation into her son's death that she hired her own attorney and private investigators.

"It became very clear early on that they didn't know what they were doing," said Kathleen O'Dell, of Vorheesville, N.Y., outside Albany. "The whole thing has been disheartening."

Crime scene technicians from the 2nd Police District, who are less experienced than the department's mobile crime scene technicians at investigating deaths, were sent to collect evidence on the night of the accident. The evidence -- blood, hair, glass and fiber -- sat for almost two weeks before it was forwarded to the FBI for analysis.

Assistant Chief Ronald Monroe said mobile crime was too busy to work the scene; Assistant Chief Brian Jordan said his nine mobile crime scene technicians on duty that night weren't busy, and weren't called. Sources said another detective mistakenly ordered the technicians from the 2nd District to collect the evidence.

"It should have been crime technicians from mobile crime," said 2nd District Cmdr. Shannon Cockett.

What happened to the evidence after it was collected also is in dispute.

Cockett said once the evidence was collected, her technicians called mobile crime and asked what they should do with it. "We were told to hold it until they called for it," she said. "The call didn't come." On Feb. 18 -- nearly three weeks after the accident -- it was sent to the FBI lab.

"It wasn't a matter of delay," Jordan said. "It was only because we wanted to send the evidence together." Jordan said the department doesn't have a written policy on how quickly evidence should be sent for processing.

"There usually isn't a problem, but in this particular case, there was," Cockett said. "It is the investigator's responsibility to make sure evidence is processed in a timely manner. The family has a right to be upset with us."

Deleon's troubles with alcohol-related traffic arrests began in the early 1990s, court records show. In February 1993, he was stopped by Anne Arundel County police and charged with driving while intoxicated and three other violations. He was found guilty by a jury in August, fined $400 and placed on probation for a year. He was also ordered to attend alcohol counseling.

Two months after his conviction, he was stopped again and charged with drunken driving and three other violations, records show. A judge found him guilty in March 1994 and sentenced him to a year in jail. The judge suspended nine months of the sentence and ordered Deleon to serve three months under house arrest.

The two convictions prompted the revocation of Deleon's Maryland license on March 29, 1994, according to court records and the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.

He was eligible to apply for reinstatement in Maryland six months later, but chose instead to apply for a District license. He received one despite noting that his Maryland license had been revoked, a police source said.

D.C. officials should have denied the application at that point, officials said.

In March 1997, Deleon was charged with driving while intoxicated in the District. He pleaded not guilty and the case was dismissed, D.C. Superior Court records show. But on Feb. 3 of this year, six days after the hit-and-run accident, the corporation counsel's office reissued the citation, and a court hearing on the matter is scheduled for May 13, records show.

Henry Lightfoot, acting director of the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, confirmed that Deleon was issued a D.C. license and said the matter is under investigation. "If it's our fault, we're going to say it out loud. We are going to make sure the public is protected," Lightfoot said.

Two years ago, the agency issued a driver's license to a Maryland truck driver who had amassed at least 31 traffic tickets in three states over nine years. The records of the tickets were not in the D.C. motor vehicles computer because the agency lacked the staff to enter the data, officials said. The truck driver ran a light at a Northwest intersection, slamming into a car driven by a 17-year-old high school student, who died. The truck driver was convicted of manslaughter.

Against the backdrop of questions over the handling of the O'Dell probe, students on the AU campus who knew O'Dell best are still grieving his death and are puzzled the police haven't charged anyone.

Michael Belitzky, 19, of Tallahassee, one of O'Dell's two roommates, said: "I think about it every day. Every time I walk by the site it makes me remember Matthew. It angers me nothing has happened. It would mean so much to his mom and to us if it gets resolved. It would bring closure for all of us."

Staff writers Peter Slevin, Linda Wheeler and Maria Elena Fernandez contributed to this report.