GARNTO CASE HAD PROFOUND IMPACT

Started With Holiday Traffic Accident

It began as a routine traffic accident story in The News-Press. One
dead, three injured on Fourth of July weekend, 1998.

The story probably would have ended there if I'd missed a call a
couple of days later.

It was my retired cop friend. He said we needed to dig deep on the
accident. Otherwise, he said, everything would be covered up.

What we found and exposed over the next few weeks convinced three
members of Congress to ask for an investigation, forced changes in
federal and Hendry County drug enforcement policy and cost a U.S.
Drug Enforcement agent his job in Fort Myers.

The News-Press findings also caused local prosecutors to drop charges
against a major drug dealer.

The names of the dead and injured weren't prominent. Just four
unfortunate young people victimized by a drunk driver. The drunk
driver's name also meant nothing. At least that's what we thought.

The dead woman was Kristina Waddell, 21, of Cape Coral. She was a
single mom with a 6-year-old son.

Our initial inquiry found that the drunk driver, who was only
slightly injured, was well known by cops in Hendry County. His name
was Terry Garnto, a career criminal whose arrest record stretched
over three pages of single spaced printouts -- 66 arrests for 88
criminal charges in a span of 18 years.

Garnto was supposed to be in a Clewiston jail cell, not partying at
Fort Myers Beach, when he killed Kristina Waddell.

Kristina's father, Larry Waddell, had questions.

Why was she dead? Why was Garnto out of jail?

Why had he told traffic cops at the scene that he worked for the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration?

All good questions, Metro Editor Joe Fenton and I agreed.

Hendry County Sheriff Ronnie Lee and DEA officials refused to answer
my questions about their relationship with Garnto. My editors grew
more suspicious.

Was Kristina Waddell dead because two law enforcement agencies
screwed up? As more information was uncovered, it began to look like it.

Like all good stories, public records, and even records not so
public, slowly unfolded some of the details. In page after page, the
circumstances leading to Kristina Waddell's death became indisputable.

Garnto was serving a one-year sentence for assault, but Sheriff Lee
let him out after six months. Garnto was to roam the streets buying
cocaine and help Lee's officers and the DEA run a drug sting.

Records contained in state cases in LaBelle against some of the drug
dealers Garnto set up provided important parts of the story. As we
published our findings state and federal prosecutors were forced to
drop all 26 cases Garnto had made for them as an informant. His
testimony would no longer be credible, they said.

Eventually, Garnto told the feds he'd been invited to join the man
they wanted most at Fort Myers Beach over the Fourth of July weekend,
records showed.

But the feds didn't show up. They weren't there to watch their star
perform and record his meeting with the man they were after.

At the beach, Garnto learned the target was suspicious. He was
beginning to think Garnto was an informant.

After a long day of drinking, Garnto panicked. He leaped into his
girlfriend's car, sped across the Matanzas Pass Bridge, pushed the
accelerator to the floor down San Carlos Boulevard and slammed into
Waddell's car.

As we continued to publish stories that dug deep into the dark
circumstances leading to the crash, the articles were given to
Florida's two U.S. senators, Bob Graham and Connie Mack, and to U.S.
Representative Porter Goss. All sent letters to then-DEA
Administrator Tom Constantine, asking him to look into the case. Goss
said he was deeply disturbed by The News-Press findings.

"Constantine came up to the Hill and cooperated fully. We had a
candid meeting," Goss told me after the stories were published.
"Something will come out of this."

He was right.

- -- Lee Melsek was an investigative reporter for The News-Press for 32
years. His series revealing the circumstances leading to Kristina
Waddell's death won the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors Gold
Medal for Public Service.