TARGET OF DRUG STING CRASHES CAR, KILLS TWO

CLEARWATER - Undercover detectives set up a drug sting in a Ramada Inn
parking lot along Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard.

Keo Young, 19, of St. Petersburg, pulled up in a blue Ford Explorer at
10:30 p.m. Wednesday and handed two grams of crack cocaine out his car
window, police said.

Detectives gave him $200 as squad cars swarmed in.

Young, realizing police were surrounding him, hit the accelerator.

Less than a mile away along Gulf-to-Bay, four young friends in a
Saturn sat idling at a red light.

Among them was 20-year-old Matthew Deppert, a Clearwater High School
dropout. He recently had moved back in with his mother and seemed
ready to grow up, she said.

He was planning to get his diploma through correspondence courses and
considered studying cosmetology.

On this night, his friends had picked him from his job at Steak 'n
Shake. Now, heading south on Keene Road, the four of them waited for
the light to change.

Young raced between two police cars, jumped over a curb and crashed
through a line of hedges into eastbound lanes, said Clearwater police
spokesman Wayne Shelor.

Officers lost sight of the vehicle. "Mr. Young was determined to get
away," Shelor said.

Young switched directions, turning west on Gulf-to-Bay, while cruisers
raced the other way, Shelor said. Young barrelled down the middle lane
- - well above the 40 mph speed limit - and swerved into the right lane.

Over the radio, officers asked, "Where did he go?"

At that moment, the SUV Young was driving entered Keene against the
light and crushed the Saturn.

In the backseat, Deppert was killed on impact. Next to him,
17-year-old Justin Barr, of North Port, was ejected from the car and
later died at the hospital.

"They didn't even have a chance," Shelor said.

Stephen George, 19, the driver, and Amanda Bott, 18, a third
passenger, were taken by helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St.
Petersburg. George was in fair condition and Bott was in critical
condition Thursday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

After the collision, Young and his two passengers jumped from the SUV
and ran, Shelor said. They were captured moments later as police
officers converged on the crash scene.

Young has been charged with possessing and selling cocaine and leaving
the scene of an accident involving death. Records show that he was
arrested in 2001 and 2004 on drug charges. The disposition of those
cases is unknown.

Young was released from county jail Thursday morning after posting
$20,000 bail.

Undercover officers and the drug dealer together selected the hotel
lot as the site of the deal, said Shelor, stressing that the Ramada
Inn did not have a drug problem.

"This was an arrangement made by some people in St. Pete to deal
drugs," Shelor said. "They agree to a mutual site that's easy to get
in and out of."

Such transactions also frequently take place in department and
convenience store parking lots, he added.

But hotel owner Manisha Patel, of Palm Harbor, did not appreciate the
intrusion.

She was at home sick during the drug deal, leaving her managers to
deal with the hotel's guests.

"We had no clue they were going to do that," Patel said of the bust.
"They had not told us and I wish they had not done that on our parking
lot. I don't know why it was done at a hotel parking lot where there
are families staying."

Police did not release the names of Young's passengers and they have
not been charged.

Gina Deppert, 42, was sound asleep at 4 a.m. when she was awoken by
knocking.

She assumed her son, Matthew, had locked himself out. But she went to
the door to find three police officers. Her heart sank; three was too
many.

"I knew he was dead before they told me," Deppert recalled through
tears.

She spent Thursday piecing together facts. Against friends' advice,
she watched TV coverage of the crash. She talked with the medical
examiner. She called Matthew's employer in Clearwater and learned that
his car was still in the parking lot.

His friends must have picked him up after work, Deppert reasoned. "He
was a social butterfly," she said.

"He was funny and sensitive - and kind, I'm proud to say," Deppert
said.

Matthew had moved back in with her on Sunday and finally seemed ready
to grow up, Deppert said. He had dropped out of Clearwater High
School, but was planning to get his diploma through correspondence
courses. He considered studying cosmetology.

"He was finally thinking, "What am I going to do with my future?' "
Deppert said.

Police said the Saturn had Michigan plates and investigators assumed
it belong to Amanda Bott, who has a driver's license from that state.

Efforts to reach her family or the relatives of others in the car were
unsuccessful.

Deppert bought Matthew to Florida from Plainfield, Ind., four years
ago "for the sun, the beach . . . paradise."

Now she said she will never forget the name of the man who came to
Clearwater to sell drugs and ended up taking two lives.

"He's probably looking at some jail time," the mother said, "but
that's not enough."

Times staff writer Adrienne P. Samuels contributed to this
report.