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Target of drug sting crashes car, kills two

St. Petersburg man flees from a drug bust and rams into a car waiting at a stop light, Clearwater police say.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published March 4, 2005

[Times photo: Edmund Fountain] Gina Deppert, 42, glances down at a tissue Thursday she is using to wipe her eyes in her Pinellas Park apartment. Her son, Matthew Deppert, 20, was killed late Wednesday along with a friend when the vehicle they were traveling in was struck by a car driven by a drug suspect fleeing police in Clearwater.

[Photo: Andrew Semon] Firefighters and police stand near the Saturn that was rammed by a Ford Explorer Wednesday night at Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and Keene Road in Clearwater. Two people in the Saturn were killed and two were injured.

Matthew Deppert, 20, died on impact.

Keo Young of St. Petersburg was the driver of the getaway car, police said.

CLEARWATER - Undercover detectives set up a drug sting in a Ramada Inn parking lot along Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard.

Keo Young, 19, of St. Petersburg, pulled up in a blue Ford Explorer at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and handed two grams of crack cocaine out his car window, police said.

Detectives gave him $200 as squad cars swarmed in.

Young, realizing police were surrounding him, hit the accelerator.

Less than a mile away along Gulf-to-Bay, four young friends in a Saturn sat idling at a red light.

Among them was 20-year-old Matthew Deppert, a Clearwater High School dropout. He recently had moved back in with his mother and seemed ready to grow up, she said.

He was planning to get his diploma through correspondence courses and considered studying cosmetology.

On this night, his friends had picked him from his job at Steak 'n Shake. Now, heading south on Keene Road, the four of them waited for the light to change.

Young raced between two police cars, jumped over a curb and crashed through a line of hedges into eastbound lanes, said Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor.

Officers lost sight of the vehicle. "Mr. Young was determined to get away," Shelor said.

Young switched directions, turning west on Gulf-to-Bay, while cruisers raced the other way, Shelor said. Young barrelled down the middle lane - well above the 40 mph speed limit - and swerved into the right lane.

Over the radio, officers asked, "Where did he go?"

At that moment, the SUV Young was driving entered Keene against the light and crushed the Saturn.

In the backseat, Deppert was killed on impact. Next to him, 17-year-old Justin Barr, of North Port, was ejected from the car and later died at the hospital.

"They didn't even have a chance," Shelor said.

Stephen George, 19, the driver, and Amanda Bott, 18, a third passenger, were taken by helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg. George was in fair condition and Bott was in critical condition Thursday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

After the collision, Young and his two passengers jumped from the SUV and ran, Shelor said. They were captured moments later as police officers converged on the crash scene.

Young has been charged with possessing and selling cocaine and leaving the scene of an accident involving death. Records show that he was arrested in 2001 and 2004 on drug charges. The disposition of those cases is unknown.

Young is being held in Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $110,500 bail.

Undercover officers and the drug dealer together selected the hotel lot as the site of the deal, said Shelor, stressing that the Ramada Inn did not have a drug problem.

"This was an arrangement made by some people in St. Pete to deal drugs," Shelor said. "They agree to a mutual site that's easy to get in and out of."

Such transactions also frequently take place in department and convenience store parking lots, he added.

But hotel owner Manisha Patel, of Palm Harbor, did not appreciate the intrusion.

She was at home sick during the drug deal, leaving her managers to deal with the hotel's guests.

"We had no clue they were going to do that," Patel said of the bust. "They had not told us and I wish they had not done that on our parking lot. I don't know why it was done at a hotel parking lot where there are families staying."

Police did not release the names of Young's passengers and they have not been charged.

Gina Deppert, 42, was sound asleep at 4 a.m. when she was awoken by knocking.

She assumed her son, Matthew, had locked himself out. But she went to the door to find three police officers. Her heart sank; three was too many.

"I knew he was dead before they told me," Deppert recalled through tears.

She spent Thursday piecing together facts. Against friends' advice, she watched TV coverage of the crash. She talked with the medical examiner. She called Matthew's employer in Clearwater and learned that his car was still in the parking lot.

His friends must have picked him up after work, Deppert reasoned. "He was a social butterfly," she said.

"He was funny and sensitive - and kind, I'm proud to say," Deppert said.

Matthew had moved back in with her on Sunday and finally seemed ready to grow up, Deppert said. He had dropped out of Clearwater High School, but was planning to get his diploma through correspondence courses. He considered studying cosmetology.

"He was finally thinking, "What am I going to do with my future?' " Deppert said.

Police said the Saturn had Michigan plates and investigators assumed it belong to Amanda Bott, who has a driver's license from that state.

Efforts to reach her family or the relatives of others in the car were unsuccessful.

Deppert bought Matthew to Florida from Plainfield, Ind., four years ago "for the sun, the beach . . . paradise."

Now she said she will never forget the name of the man who came to Clearwater to sell drugs and ended up taking two lives.

"He's probably looking at some jail time," the mother said, "but that's not enough."

Times staff writer Adrienne P. Samuels contributed to this report. Jacob H. Fries can be reached at 727 445-4156 or at jfries@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 4, 2005, 21:18:16]