DEA AGENT SUSPECTED OF KILLING COLLEAGUE

KnightRidder News Service

MIAMI A veteran DEA agent who has worked undercover in some of the most
deadly circles on earth was shot and killed by a fellow agent who woke from
a drunken stupor as the two rode home from a Christmas party late Friday,
police said.

Shaun Edward Curl, 39, was shot three times and crashed the car he was
driving into a tree, police said.

The suspect 33year DEA veteran Richard Fekete later told police he
didn't remember leaving the party and offered no explanation.

``Who did I kill tonight?'' an inebriated Fekete reportedly asked Miramar
(Fla.) Police, who were dispatched after Curl's Jeep Cherokee went out of
control and hit a tree on U.S. 27, just north of the county line.

The news sent an earthquake through Drug Enforcement Agency headquarters in
Miami, where both men were very popular and known for their dedicated work
and long hours. DEA spokespeople said the shooting has nothing to do with
any investigations.

Fekete, 55 whose history as a drug fighter stretches more than three
decades from New York, to Mexico, to the jungles of Latin America
recently filed for his second divorce and was bedeviled with a ``huge
drinking problem,'' sources say.

``There has to be some sort of extenuating circumstances,'' said his first
wife, Margaret Fekete of Cherry Hill, N.J. ``He is one of the most
dedicated and brave men I know. I can't believe this is happening. This
can't be Dick.''

Both men were popular, both good at their jobs. They worked together on the
same 10member DEA team. But while Fekete's problems away from the
highstress job might have been too much to handle, Curl was described as
solid.

``He's got two kids who adore him,'' said Curl's sisterinlaw, Pamela
Lang, of

Phoenix. ``I can't believe they don't have a father anymore.''

His wife Kathleen, surrounded by a gauntlet of DEA agents at her Coral
Springs, Fla., home, tried in vain to stifle tears as she talked about her
husband a ``hopeless romantic'' who hated drugs and was proud of his job.

``The first thing he'd do when he walked in the door was to give us all a
big kiss and hug and ask us about our day,'' she said. ``Then it was off to
play a mean game of basketball in the driveway.

``He swept me off my feet from the first time I met him,'' she said,
choking back tears. ``We knew from our first date we were meant to be. We
got married two months later.''

Both men had been celebrating with friends at a Christmas party in Miami,
when Curl and others noticed Fekete had become too drunk to drive home.
They loaded him in the passenger seat of Curl's DEA takehome car just
before 10 p.m. Curl then left the party to drop Fekete off at his western
Pembroke Pines, Fla., home before heading home to Coral Springs himself,
sources say.

Along the way, something went wrong.

At 10:23, Miramar police were sent to the accident, where Fekete still held
his recently fired gun, according to Det. Tim Nevins of the Miramar Police.

Fekete ``appeared to be intoxicated and was very combative and
uncooperative,'' Nevins wrote.

Curl was already dead, slumped in the driver's seat with one shot in his
right temple and two more in his upper body.

Only five bullets remained from a magazine of 12, reports say.

Fekete was taken to Memorial Regional Medical Center in Hollywood, Fla.,
for a minor head wound from the accident.

There, he told investigators he had been ``drinking a lot.'' He also told
police he

remembered nothing about leaving the party or with whom he'd left.

``He did remember being on U.S. 27 and crawling out of a vehicle,'' Nevins
wrote. Fekete ``also stated he was not driving the vehicle ... that he was
in trouble and (asked,) `Who did I kill tonight?'''

Investigators speculate Fekete might have awakened from a drunken stupor
disoriented and angry at being forcibly removed from the party and not
allowed to drive, sources say.

Fekete was booked into the Broward County (Fla.) Jail around noon on a
charge of firstdegree murder. No bond had been set Saturday. Toxicology
results from Fekete's blood test are expected within days.

``We're all just in a state of shock here,'' said DEA spokeswoman Pamela
Brown. ``It's very devastating, especially since both of them were so
wellliked and very dedicated.''

Fekete's history is long and illustrious, working highprofile DEA
investigations in Philadelphia (where he grew up), New York, Mexico,
Panama, and finally Miami.

``He did wonderful and dangerous things,'' said Margaret Fekete, who's been
divorced from Richard for eight years and has maintained little contact
since. ``This is a guy who was put in the jungles to do things no one else
would.

``He is not the kind of guy, drunk or not, who would do something like this.''

Fekete filed for divorce from his current wife of four years, Leigh Ann
Fekete on Nov. 25. The divorce was set for a hearing in January. She did
not return telephone messages left with her mother in New York.

Curl, who grew up and went to high school and college in Arizona, dreamed
of being a federal agent his entire life, family members said. After
spending a couple

years with a sheriff's office in Arizona, he got his wish. Most of his
8year DEA career was served in the Bahamas, often working undercover.

``His whole goal in life was to be a federal agent,'' Kathleen Susan Curl
said Saturday. ``It's easy to be swayed by power and money. Sean always
demonstrated the right thing to do always.

``He believe so deeply in what he was doing, that he was there because
society needs good guys to care for the rest of the good guys,'' she said,
crying. ``He'd always say: ``The truth might no always be pretty, but it's
always the truth.''

A memorial service for Curl will be held Tuesday at the Kraeer Coral
Springs Funeral Home, 1655 University Dr., in Coral Springs, Florida. No
time has been set yet.