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“Covered Up Quick”: How a Fatal Panhandle Crash Involving a Drug Task Force Officer Was Investigated - Oklahoma Watch.Eight-year-old Petronila Ramos-Mejia didn’t want to go to her babysitter that evening.She wanted to stay with her grandfather, Juan Mejia–Garcia.Juan and his wife, Petronila’s grandmother, Daniela Manea, worked opposite shifts at one of two meat-processing factories that sustain the economy of this dusty community of 12,000 inhabitants, the only city in Oklahoma with a majority Hispanic population.It was Aug.Juan and Petronila, members of the city’s community of 1,600 Guatemalan immigrants, left their home on the south side of Guymon to visit relatives who lived closer to where Daniela was completing her shift.It was dusk when they picked Daniela up to return home.They took a shortcut: Mile 33 Road east of Guymon avoided the stoplights downtown.Juan knew the route well, south to U.S.412, then west toward home.Sunset glowed on the horizon, tucked beneath a shadowy approaching storm.There was still light, but Juan had the Corolla’s headlights on.The car was on loan from the family’s pastor; Juan was driving the speed limit.Petronila was in the back seat.Daniela, exhausted from her shift, drifted off to sleep as a few raindrops pattered the windshield.At the same moment, a Chevy Tahoe driven by law enforcement officer Eldon “Len” Halliburton, a member of the District One Drug Task Force, sped west on U.S.412, approaching the intersection at Mile 33 Road.The timing was perfect, it had to be — two wrong things happening in the most catastrophic way.First, for reasons unknown, Juan drove past the stop sign at the corner of Mile 33 Road and U.S.412, where he knew to turn for home, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol records.Instead, the Corolla shot into the intersection at between 50-60 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, according to a statement from District One District Attorney George “Buddy” Leach, who controls the drug task force of which Halliburton was a member.Second, the Tahoe driven by Halliburton, which five seconds earlier had been traveling at 85 mph in a 70 mph zone, according to the vehicle’s Crash Data Retrieval file — a “black box” of information — entered the intersection and slammed into the side of the Corolla.The vehicle’s dash camera revealed a clear view of Juan’s car on a collision course.The Tahoe appeared to drift slightly toward the shoulder and neither skidded nor swerved, slowing only slightly before impact, the black box data shows.The Corolla spun and flipped on its side and wound up in a ditch on the south side of the intersection.The Tahoe skidded wildly and careened off the road 80 yards farther west on U.S.Juan and Daniela were grievously wounded but remained in the Corolla.Petronila was thrown violently through the rear window, and came to rest about 40 feet from the car on an embankment of scrub grass.Halliburton was injured, as well, less seriously.Daniela recalled almost nothing from the moment of impact — she was asleep — but she woke to see Juan hanging from his seat belt, unconscious.She reached to jostle his shoulder.She remembered nothing more.The next 38 minutes of law enforcement and medical response have, for the most part, remained a void.The details of what happened after that, pieced together from documents, interviews and law enforcement records, paint a disturbing picture of an investigation that was haphazard, incompetent or hasty by design.An investigation by reporters with Oklahoma Watch and The Oklahoman, one that was stalled by a months-long court battle for open records and stymied by systematic denials of requests for interviews with those who could fill in the gaps of what happened, provide the clearest look yet at the accident and its aftermath and raise troubling questions about law enforcement’s response to a tragic accident involving one of their own and an immigrant family.In a statement to the news organizations, Leach said the highway patrol had complete control of the investigation, adding: “There is no evidence of criminal conduct, impairment, or reckless behavior by Mr.Halliburton.” But the investigative records turned over to the news organizations by Leach and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety show irregularities in how the investigation was conducted.The highway patrol collision report said there were no photographs taken of the scene, though gathering photographic evidence is standard protocol in highway fatality investigations.Department of Public Safety staff initially said there was no dash camera or body camera footage from any of the four Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers who responded to the incident or from the DA-owned Tahoe.The first logged action after a trooper arrived on the scene — 38 minutes after impact — was to call for a wrecker unit to tow away the Corolla.Both cars would be removed within an hour, and it would be a half-hour more before the trooper assigned to investigate the fatalities would be recorded as en route to the site.A collision report required by law bears a stamp saying “investigation incomplete.” Juan and Daniela were taken to separate hospitals; Juan died 90 minutes after the crash.Halliburton was treated and released that same night.As troopers canvassed the crash scene that evening, there would be one more hint of a rushed investigation.They failed to discover the 8-year-old girl lying in the grass just 40 feet away from the Toyota.Her body would not be discovered for six hours.Justice in No Man’s Land In February 2025, after an Oklahoma Watch investigation uncovered a multimillion-dollar District One Drug Task Force ticketing scheme, the news organization received a deluge of tips from the Panhandle, a region once known as No Man’s Land, with dozens of residents coming forward to complain of abuses in the administration of justice and a long-standing culture of impunity ruled by family dynasties.One tip from a person who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal described a multiple-fatality accident on the edge of Guymon that killed an 8-year-old girl.Close to two years old but fresh in local memories, the incident had not been properly investigated, the person claimed.“This was covered up quick, quick, and I didn’t understand why,” the person said in an email.Public records and local media accounts of the crash showed inconsistencies.Early reports of the incident named Juan Garcia and Daniela Manea but failed to include the name of the young girl killed or the extent of Daniela’s injuries.Halliburton was named in one account, but none identified him as a law enforcement officer.Official accounts of the accident, including highly redacted Oklahoma Highway Patrol collision and investigation reports and an incident report featuring a truncated moment-by-moment listing of law enforcement activity from a few minutes after the collision to the following morning, raised as many questions as they answered.According to local authorities, the highway patrol was the first to respond to the scene and exercised sole jurisdiction throughout the matter.The collision occurred at about 8:39 p.m., according to the highway patrol’s investigation report, which indicated that the Corolla had failed to yield at a stop sign.Eleven minutes later, OHP dispatchers logged the incident, and 30 seconds after that a flurry of entries in the span of a second established the location of the collision and sent Trooper Austin Lozano to the scene.It is still unclear how authorities were notified of the incident, though it’s clear they knew a drug task force unit was involved before arriving at the scene, dispatch records show.Following the trooper’s arrival, there was an additional 20 minutes of dispatch silence before Lozano called for a wrecker unit to take away the Corolla.Thirty-eight minutes had passed since the incident was first logged.A few minutes later, the trooper sent an initial incident report to DPS, noting that Juan Garcia was in critical condition and en route to the hospital.