rescue workers had to rip apart the Taurus to free him. No one in the car had been wearing a seat belt.

Police apparently had a routine, if gruesome, accident on their hands. There was no reason to suspect foul play. Although official reports state that officers noted a strong smell of alcohol at the scene, it remains unclear whether or not Dai was drunk.

A few days later, after police received a tip urging them to look into the relationship between Watkins and Dai, investigators focused on the possibility that Dai had committed suicide. Richard Zakrajsek, who knew both men, told the cops Dai was upset about the theft of drug paraphernalia from his apartment and suspected a woman he had dated two weeks before the crash. In ataped statement, Zakrajsek told a Margate detective: "All this stuff, and stuff being stolen, maybe having your heart broken, and it just seemed to me like he finally went off the deep end."

When police inventoried the Taurus after the crash, they found a loaded .22-caliber handgun on the floor near the driver's seat, a gym bag containing 380 grams of marijuana and a scale in the trunk, and a small stash of cocaine in the ashtray. They conducted additional interviews, revisited the crash scene, and finally ruled the cause "undetermined."

Peter Crompton recalls his first visit with Lee after the crash: "When I got to the hospital I just collapsed. His brain was sticking out, it was unbelievable.... [Doctors] didn't even give him a chance. They even signed him