01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, March 14, 2006

BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
Journal Staff Writer

Two years ago, The Journal launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Brigid Kelly, a college student from Newport who was killed by a man driving a stolen van.

From all appearances the case was closed. Three years had passed since Kelly's death and the driver of the van, who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and was sent to the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Through my contacts in law enforcement, I learned that a state trooper's failure to broadcast the 911 calls may have played a role in the fatal crash. But, I ran into a roadblock: A state law passed in the late '90s prohibited journalists from gaining access to the 911 emergency recordings that would detail how the trooper responded.

I recently revisited the investigation of the Kelly case to focus attention on the second national Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations to address the growing problem of government secrecy. I found a way around the restrictive 911 law and got copies of the explosive telephone calls. Had I not, the public would never have learned what had happened in the final hours of Kelly's life.

Until 1996, journalists and members of the public could examine the 911 telephone logs to learn who reported an emergency, when they called and where the call originated. Tapes and transcripts of the calls were also public.

That spring, two bills wended their way through the Rhode Island General Assembly that blocked public access to information about the people who place 911 calls and what they report.

Some legislators who opposed the legislation said it was merely an effort to protect public officials from embarrassment. The legislation was prompted by a local television station's report on a 911 call made by the wife of Michael F. Burns, then a top state prosecutor, reporting a case of alleged domestic abuse.

In May 1995, the month after Burns had become chief of the attorney general's criminal division, Patricia Burns called a 911 operator in Johnston crying, "My husband just beat on me." The investigation was dropped, the police said, because Patricia Burns declined to cooperate. A month later, Burns, who was never criminally charged, filed for divorce, just nine months after he was married.

In August 1996, the General Assembly, citing the Burns episode, and then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond, approved a law that sealed the 911 tapes and transcripts from the public.

Burns -- who had been dogged by accusations of prosecutorial misconduct -- committed suicide in 1997.

Three years after Kelly's death on Dec. 1, 2001, I received information that Rhode Island State Trooper Eve Marani's failure to broadcast two frantic 911 calls may have been a factor in the young woman's death.

At the time, Marani was in hot water. A little over a year after Brigid Kelly's death, Marani was arrested on Feb. 5, 2003, for assaulting an East Greenwich police officer in a drunken brawl. A month later, she pleaded no contest to charges of simple assault and resisting arrest.

The state police moved to fire her. Twice, the state police held closed hearings under the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights to terminate her. Twice, separate boards of police officers voted that she should keep her job.

In August 2004, I met with my editors and told them about Brigid Kelly and Marani. We decided to make a formal request for all records from the investigation through the newspaper's lawyer, Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr. We also asked for the transcripts from the 911 calls.

On Sept. 17, 2004, we received a response. Carol Wolff Fallon, legal counsel for the state police, informed us that "a review of calls to the State Police concerning [Wayne P. Winslow, the intoxicated driver] driving erratically or in connection with the accident indicates that the calls were received through 9-1-1."

". . . those calls are confidential by law and exempt from disclosure," the letter stated.

A few days later, I received a bundle of investigative reports from the state police. Some of the information was helpful, but much of it was useless as key portions of witness statements were redacted.

There was one 911 tape that included only broadcast reports in the moments after the fatal car crash. I was hell-bent on getting the tapes, but I didn't know where to turn.

I decided to call John J. Barton, the lawyer for Brigid Kelly's estate. We met in his downtown Providence office. He said he had the tapes, but under state law, he did not believe he could give them to me.

I asked him whether he would ask Brigid's mother, Ellen M. Kelly, if she would authorize me to have copies of the tapes. He agreed. The next day, Barton called me and said Mrs. Kelly gave me the OK.

He made copies of the tapes and handed them to me. I hustled back to the office, slipped on a pair of headphones and listened. The recordings were chilling.

Margaret "Meg" Duhaime, of North Kingstown, frantically calls 911 around 8 a.m. to report that a blue van careened toward her where Route 4 becomes Route 1 and nearly struck her minivan.

DUHAIME: "There's a blue van going south on Route 4. He's passed over the Route 138 ramp. . . . He's drunk or on drugs! He crossed both lanes. . . . He almost had a head-on with the northbound. . . . He almost hit my car and he almost hit another car!"

Marani calmly answered the call at Wickford State Police barracks and she promised to "put that [call] out."

Minutes later, Duhaime, as she continued driving south, saw a marked state police cruiser traveling in the northbound lane of Route 1, at a normal rate of speed without emergency lights on.

Why, she wondered, wasn't the cruiser turning around to stop the van?

Again, Duhaime called 911 and talked to Marani.

After a brief exchange, Duhaime asked the trooper whether the police had stopped the van. "Yes, ma'am," Marani replied.

About 30 minutes later, the blue van crashed into the rear of a minivan, sending it spinning across the median divider and into the northbound lane of Route 1. Brigid Kelly crashed her Toyota Corolla into the side of the minivan. She was killed instantly, just two weeks after she celebrated her 20th birthday.

In May 2004, the state police had a reenlistment hearing to bar Marani from continuing her service as a state trooper. Part of the damning evidence was her failure to broadcast the 911 calls.

On June 27, the panel issued its unanimous ruling that Mariana was unfit to serve as a trooper and should be dropped from the state police force.

As a result of the newspaper's investigation and story, the state police were added as defendants in a lawsuit that was filed by the Kelly estate. Last December, the estate accepted a $1.25-million settlement, including $625,000 from the state.

And today, the law has not changed. The 911 calls remain sealed from public scrutiny.

FIND MORE Journal stories on efforts to keep government open, and online resources for Sunshine Week, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2006/sunshineweek/