Investigators have identified two suspects in the accident that killed Xavier Fuentes, 16, of Turner.
The Oxford County District Attorney’s Office is considering whether to seek indictments against two people in the hit-and-run death last year of 16-year-old Xavier Fuentes.
The transfer of the case from police to the district attorney represents a new development, after months of silence in the investigation.
Acting Paris Police Chief Jeffrey Lange confirmed Wednesday that the 15-month investigation by his department has identified two suspects.
Lange said his department turned over all its investigatory materials, including case notes and reports, to Oxford County District Attorney Andrew Robinson this month. It is up to Robinson’s office to decide whether there is enough evidence against the two suspects to present the case to a grand jury when it convenes in August.
“There are two suspects,” Lange said. “One is definitely not going anywhere (the person is in jail, according to Lange) and we are keeping tabs on the second suspect.”
Fuentes, who lived in Turner, had been watching a movie with family members at the Flagship Cinemas in Oxford the night of March 15, 2014, but left the theater on foot following a disagreement. He was walking along Route 117 in Paris toward his grandmother’s house in Turner when he was struck.
Police investigators said the boy was hit by a vehicle large enough to possibly have a snowplow attached to it. A passing driver found Fuentes in the westbound lane around 8:30 p.m. The boy, who was still alive, was taken to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, where he died.
The stretch of Route 117 he was walking on was narrow because of snowbanks pushed up against a guardrail.
Lange, who was a detective at the time and has since become the Paris Police Department’s lead investigator in the case, told the Portland Press Herald in March 2014 that police learned about two people of interest “from tips we received from either the Internet or email or phone calls.”
In May 2014, Paris police told the Press Herald that the department subpoenaed records from several companies, including social media websites and cellphone providers, as part of its investigation. That led investigators to search a residence and to seize a vehicle from a home in Lewiston. They also seized a rental car from Hertz at the company’s Bangor location. Those vehicles were taken to the Maine State Police Crime Lab for analysis to recover and process evidence.
Lange said it took more than a year to analyze evidence taken from the cars because of a backlog at the state lab. Lange said the evidence has been analyzed and turned over to his department.
But Lange said new information has emerged, which resulted in the involvement of the DA’s office.
“It is not a forgotten case,” Lange said Wednesday. “Just because things were dormant doesn’t mean that the case has been closed. We found new evidence that led us down a different road.”
Fuentes’ family has established a Facebook page called Justice for Xavier Fuentes. A message posted on Facebook on March 16 reads, “It is hard to believe you have been gone for one year now. Rest in Peace Xavier. We will find the person that did this.”
Anyone with information concerning the case is being asked to contact the Paris Police Department at 743-7448.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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