A retired New Jersey police detective says there's a very good possibility that two Regent youths were chased to their deaths and that poor police work failed to get to the bottom of things.

David Heater, a career officer and a retired chief of detectives from Warren County, N.J., took a year to analyze the investigation into the deaths of Louis Jahner, 19, and Kjirsten Carlson, 16, who died in October 2005 in a rollover crash on a gravel road north of New Leipzig.

He issued a 65-page report last week.

His conclusion: "I'm not one to pick on cops, but this was horrendous." He said the investigation was flawed from the start, the crash scene was never protected, the reports were riddled with missing, lost or destroyed documents, few interviews were done immediately after the crash, or in person, and the wrong questions were asked of people who might have known or seen something that night.

Heater said he didn't take pay for his work, done at the request of Louis Jahner's father, Roger Jahner, and would be willing to appear at any meetings in North Dakota to explain what he thinks could still be done in the case.

He said there are still avenues that could be followed, even though the North Dakota Highway Patrol officially closed its investigation more than a year ago.

Since the accident, Roger Jahner, a dairy farmer from north of Regent, hired retired North Dakota Highway Patrol chief Norm Evans to conduct a private investigation, brought in a psychic whom he saw on a televised detective program and contacted Heater, who agreed to take his own look at the accident information.

Roger Jahner believes his son, who was driving Carlson home in her vehicle from a party 20 miles south of New Leipzig, was being chased by one or more vehicles after some heated words were exchanged between him and other males back at the party.

Heater's report reinforces Jahner's belief, and Jahner said he'll push for a meeting with Gov. John Hoeven to get the matter reopened. "As a father, I need to protect my son, even through death. If he died of his own actions, then I owe the state of North Dakota an apology," Jahner said.

The North Dakota Highway Patrol said its investigation into the case was one of the most extensive it has ever done, including dozens of interviews, a reconstruction and polygraphs of some young people at the party and in particular, one young man who was seen arguing with Louis Jahner and left the party before Louis Jahner and was seen by a witness back at the party shortly after the crash occurred.

The polygraph did not find any inconsistencies with the young man's statement that he was home by the time the crash occurred, Heater acknowleges.

The patrol concluded that the accident was a one-car rollover and that Louis Jahner was never really in control of his vehicle after sailing through a paved intersection onto the gravel surface, farm-to-market road at approximately 1 a.m.

Col. Mark Nelson heads up the Highway Patrol now, but did not at the time the accident was under investigation.

He said he stands by the investigation, most of it done by two patrolmen with more than 50 years' experience between them.

Nelson said he would not answer Heater's analysis point by point and said his troopers are the best trained in crash investigation and are called statewide to help local officers. He said the accident was reconstructed by an experienced reconstructionist who is frequently used as an expert witness in court.

He said the patrol would look at any new information in the case, but it's "not going to come from us."

Roger Jahner said he and the people of North Dakota deserve to know why important clues from witnesses - clues he tried to get the Highway Patrol and the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to follow - were never investigated.

"Their claim that this was their most exhaustive investigation ever is so far from the truth, it blows my mind," Jahner said.

Jim and Sallee Carlson, of rural Regent, said they've always believed it is possible that Louis Jahner and their daughter were being chased down the gravel road when Louis Jahner lost control of the vehicle, even though nothing conclusive has ever come to light.

They said if Heater's concerns are legitimate, they should be looked into.

"All the questions we have may never be answered," they said in an e-mail.

Nelson said his officers were caring and sincere with the families involved. "We never tried to hide anything," he said.

Louis Jahner's blood alcohol was .16 percent or twice the legal limit at the time of his death. Carlson's was .20 and Louis Jahner, a farm neighbor of the Carlson family, had called her folks to arrange to drive her and her car home because of her inebriated state at the party.

Roger Jahner, Evans, the retired Highway Patrol chief, and Heater all think North Dakota law enforcement, led by the Highway Patrol, failed to adequately explain other tracks at the crash scene. They've referred to those tracks as "mystery tracks," saying the tracks were in the ditch and up on the roadway, alongside the vehicle Louis Jahner was driving that night.

Roger Jahner thinks kids from the party blocked the paved highway his son would normally have turned onto to go west to Regent, forcing him straight ahead onto gravel, then dogging him in pursuit.

Based on photographs from the scene, official reports and his own analysis of the crash data, Heater agrees.

"I believe somebody was really up his butt, possibly one or two other vehicles on the side and one in the ditch. That's my belief," Heater said. He said police should have closed the road immediately after the scene so it could better preserve the track evidence before it was damaged by curiosity seekers, onlookers and local traffic after the crash. "Once the evidence is gone, it's gone," he said.

To explain some of the tracks, particularly one set in the west ditch, the Highway Patrol does have a sworn statement from a New Leipzig woman, who claimed five months before the accident, she made tracks in the same ditch when she swerved to miss a deer and struck a hay bale.

Heater also said the Highway Patrol's formula of working backward from the crash to calculate the speed of entry on the roadway was flawed. He said had Louis Jahner been traveling at 87 mph when he crossed the paved intersection onto gravel, "the vehicle would have never survived a vault at that speed, nor a yaw (sideways) in the west ditch and would have tripped, or flipped, or rolled � never allowing the vehicle to cross the road and enter the second ditch."

Instead, the reconstruction shows that Louis Jahner hung along the shoulder of the west ditch for more than 150 yards at about 30 mph, went up on the roadway and into the east ditch before flipping three times.

Heater conferred with forensic pathologist Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, of Warren County, N.J., who agreed with Heater's speed calculations, but said without being able to date the "mystery tracks," he couldn't say whether Louis Jahner was trapped and chased by other vehicles.

Heater believes law enforcement didn't press witnesses or ask the right questions in the polygraphs, conducted too many interviews by phone rather than in person, and that overall, too many documents were missing, destroyed or lost.

"It was odd that no formal sworn statements were taken from anyone, particularly in a case where deaths were involved. Interviews over a telephone were simply unacceptable," he said in his report.

He said he would have sent officers to pick up or call in anyone identified as being at the party to get statements as soon as possible.

Heater said it may never be known whether there was a chase, or whether the accident went down as the Highway Patrol concluded.

He said investigations need to be done thoroughly, which he believes didn't happen in this case.

"To the victims, you owe the truth," he said. "To the survivors, you owe the answers."

(The full resume of ex-detective David Heater is available for viewing at www.bismarcktribune.com/photos/heater.pdf .)