A DEATH: ONLY THE HORROR IS CLEAR

Everybody was in bed in the house at the corner of South San Joaquin
and Motes streets when they heard the tires squeal.

"Then I heard the crash," said Adriana Martinez, whose bedroom was
closest to the racket a week ago tonight. "I thought it was gang members."

Moments later, Adriana, 25, realized the men outside were law
enforcement officers. The bleeding, motionless figure on the grassy
curb was a teenage girl.

The next morning, authorities said a Drug Enforcement Administration
agent shot the 14-year-old in self-defense.

But by week's end the city was still sorting out the events that put
young Ashley Villarreal in San Fernando Cemetery No. 2.

The main eyewitness accounts seemed as much in conflict as the
vehicles that collided at the West Side intersection. Meanwhile,
bystanders such as Martinez offered no clear resolution.

The bits and pieces they heard and saw bolstered aspects of the
official version, yet raised questions about others, particularly an
element of the self-defense claim.

Few details are uncontested:

The DEA agents were looking for Ashley's father, a drug suspect named
Joey Villarreal. They were outside the family's house waiting in the
dark when, a half-hour before midnight, a car left the driveway.

Agents in unmarked automobiles tried to stop the vehicle. The autos
crashed and agents fired into the darkened car, although which
happened first varies by version.

What is missing is an explanation of why the encounter between armed
officers and an adolescent escalated into a deadly clash.

Police and DEA investigators are reviewing the case. Until they
finish, details remain confidential.

Javier Pe=F1a, the agent in charge of the local DEA office, said he
believes the findings will support the agents' actions, even though
everyone regrets Ashley's death.

"It's traumatic," he said. "But we were out there doing our
job."

The stakeout

Investigators had been building a case against Ashley's father at
least since Nov. 7, when they tapped a phone call between suspected
cocaine dealers and someone named "Joey."

That afternoon, agents assert in court documents that they took 4
kilograms of cocaine and a cell phone from one of the suspects. The
phone held the number for the Villarreal home.

Joey Villarreal surfaced on law enforcement's radar more recently
when, on Feb. 7, Kerrville police arrested him for a minor drug
possession charge.

Last weekend, DEA agents said, they received information that
Villarreal had been shaken by his arrest and was going to flee to Mexico.

By 10 p.m. Sunday, agents secreted themselves outside the house on San
Joaquin where Joey was believed to have visited earlier that afternoon.

DEA agents have said several details cast suspicion on the car Ashley
drove. A passenger who appeared to resemble Joey Villarreal climbed
into the car, which started to drive away with its headlights off.

Officials said that when the agent's unmarked vehicle blocked the
car's path, it tried to ram the agent's car. He fired twice in
self-defense without knowing who was at the wheel.

Ashley's car struck the unmarked vehicle, then started to reverse,
threatening a second agent behind it, who fired two more shots.

Daniel Robles, the passenger at Ashley's side, contends the unmarked
vehicles charged at them, sandwiching their car so it could barely
move. The agents, he says, never identified themselves until after
they shot.

Earwitnesses

When the gunfire popped in front of Adriana Martinez's home, her
mother rushed in and told her to get on the floor. After four or five
shots, she heard voices yelling. One commanded, "Get down to the
ground now." She heard the passenger Robles scream, "You shot a little
girl."

Her mother was too scared to look, but Adriana slowly crept to her
window and peeked out. She saw an officer check Ashley and holler for
an ambulance.

She doesn't remember if the agents wore, as officials insist they did,
black vests emblazoned with the gold-lettered words "Police" in front
and "DEA" on the back.

>From the rear bedroom, Adriana's father, Manuel, also peered out a
window. His account basically matches his daughter's. Lying in bed, he
heard the crash, then in a matter of seconds, gunfire.

"I heard them call to 'Stop! Don't move,'" he said. "I didn't hear
them say they were policemen."

Moments later, Manuel saw a third man pull up and get out of car on
San Joaquin Street with his weapon drawn. He didn't have a DEA vest
on, but the other two did, Manuel said.

On the opposite side of San Joaquin, one of Ashley's teenage friends
heard tires screech and then the shots. So did Joy Sifuentes down the
street.

In this detail, their accounts contradict what officials said and
raise the question: How was Ashley threatening to run down the agent
if she had already crashed into his vehicle before he fired?

A possible answer is that the two events happened so quickly that the
agent, Bill Swierc, decided to shoot before the impact but pulled the
trigger an instant later. However, officials declined to discuss the
discrepancies.

DEA spokesman Robert Paiz noted that eyewitness accounts often vary
from person to person and said the agency would not "debate" other
versions.

He said the agency based its account on the best information it had
early Monday. Then he added a caveat.

"It's too early to make a definitive statement of what went on out
there," Paiz said. "That's the whole point of the investigation."