Losing their son and oldest grandson in a car accident last year was bad enough. But when Gary and Lillian Pyle read in the newspaper that prosecutors had placed their son, Gary Pyle, Sr., in the driver's seat, they were devastated.

For 13 months, Mrs. Pyle had been calling Wood County sheriff's deputies to ask about the investigation into the one-car crash on Poe Road near Tontogany. Investigators initially said they weren't sure who was driving the pickup truck but promised her they'd get to the bottom of it.

"They told me, we'll know. It will take a while but they'll know who was in what seat. They have ways of finding out. They can place each person," recalled Mrs. Pyle, who lives in Columbus. "Of course, that never happened."

Killed in the Feb. 17, 2006, crash were Mr. Pyle, Sr., 51, of Weston, and his son, Gary Pyle, Jr., 31, of Monclova Township. The owner of the pickup, John B. Spencer, 37, of Bowling Green, survived the crash with minor injuries. Mr. Spencer said from the beginning that he was the middle passenger and that his friend, Gary Pyle, Sr., had insisted on driving after the three of them had a few drinks and then left the Sitting Bull bar in Tontogany that night.

Still, more than a year went by before the Wood County Prosecutor's Office advised the Sheriff's Office to charge Mr. Spencer with wrongful entrustment, a first-degree misdemeanor that alleges he allowed Mr. Pyle, Sr., to drive his vehicle while knowing that the driver's license of Mr. Pyle, Sr., had been suspended.

To the Pyle family, authorities were placing the blame for the fatal crash squarely on Gary Pyle, Sr.

"They couldn't place Spencer in the driver's seat, but they placed Gary in the driver's seat by Spencer's word," Mrs. Pyle said.

Assistant Wood County Prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers, who reviewed the case and recommended the charge, said she had no other option.

"The only thing I have to go on is I have one person who is a witness to that accident," she said referring to Mr. Spencer. "That's what I'm stuck with."

Diana Goebel of Toledo, sister of Mr. Pyle, Sr., does not buy that statement. She wants investigators to take a closer look at the physical evidence from the crash - evidence she believes puts Mr. Spencer in the driver's seat.

"There are just a lot of unanswered questions," Ms. Goebel said. "And if they didn't have the answers, why didn't they keep investigating?"

She questions a number of factors:

. Sheriff's reports indicate a driver-side airbag deployed when the truck went out of control and into a plowed field, struck a ditch, and overturned.

Ms. Goebel wonders why, if her brother was behind the wheel, the airbag didn't save his life. Instead, she said, he and her nephew were dead at the scene and Mr. Spencer sustained only minor injuries.

Wood County Sheriff's Deputy Scott Koch, one of the first at the scene, said the truck had "basically come down on them and they couldn't breathe." The coroner's reports list compressive asphyxia because of entrapment beneath an overturned pickup truck as the cause of death for both.

. Lab tests conducted on the airbag by the Ohio Bureau of Identification and Investigation found Mr. Spencer's DNA on the front of the airbag, Mr. Pyle, Jr.'s DNA on the back. The same report shows no indication of Mr. Pyle, Sr.'s DNA on the airbag.

"John Spencer walked out with a black eye and bruised ribs. Wouldn't you think he got hit by the airbag?" Ms. Goebel asked, adding that the DNA evidence would seem to back up her theory. "I assume Junior's blood is there because he hit the windshield and it splattered on the back of the airbag."

Her mother wonders the same.

"They tell you DNA proves all this stuff, yet they're not taking the DNA to prove anything," Mrs. Pyle said. "You hear this all the time: They convict someone because of DNA."

. Ms. Goebel was told the Pyles' clothing was thrown away after the crash. She wonders why it was not tested for evidence, such as airbag dust.

. The Pyle family also questions why the investigation moved so slowly. Deputies did not obtain a search warrant for the vehicle until March 30, 2006. DNA standards from the Pyles were not submitted to the BII lab in Bowling Green until April 20, and Mr. Spencer's DNA sample was not obtained and submitted until Aug. 3 - more than five months after the crash.

DNA delays
Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said investigations are always delayed when DNA evidence is involved because BII has "such a big caseload. They are very busy, and DNA things take a long time."

Lt. Chuck Frizzell, who worked on the case, conceded the sheriff's office did not ask for help from the Ohio Highway Patrol, which has troopers trained in accident reconstruction and investigation.

By all accounts, their expertise may have helped.

Deputy Koch recalled that Mr. Spencer's truck was in such a bizarre position, it was difficult at first to tell the driver's side from the passenger side.

The truck had traveled airborne across a wide ditch, and when the front of the truck hit the side of the ditch, it flipped backward, landing upside down.

He said Mr. Pyle, Sr., was partially ejected out the back window, and his son was partially ejected through the windshield. Mr. Spencer, he said, was partially in the middle, partially in the driver's seat.

"At the force they were going at - and none of them wearing seat belts - everybody could've gone anywhere," Deputy Koch said.

He noted on his initial report that at the accident scene while the three men were still trapped inside the wreckage, Mr. Spencer told him he was the middle passenger and Mr. Pyle, Sr., was the driver.

Mr. Spencer repeated the statement to staff members at the hospital emergency room and told Deputy Koch at a subsequent interview that Mr. Pyle, Sr., had insisted on driving and, because he "didn't appear to drink too much," he had let him.

Mr. Spencer's own blood-alcohol concentration was 0.21 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent for driving under the influence.

Never convinced
Deputy Koch said he was never convinced for sure who was driving.

"From what we all could tell, and several of us have looked it over, it's just inconclusive," he said, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if civil litigation resulted from the case.

"I completely understand the family's feelings on this," Deputy Koch said.

"We do our job as far as we can go with what knowledge we have. It's not going to hurt my feelings if they are going to subpoena me into court."

Ms. Howe-Gebers said last week that she planned to meet with the sheriff's office again to review the case. In the meantime, Mr. Spencer is scheduled for a pretrial hearing in Bowling Green Municipal Court on the wrongful entrustment charge today.

Ironically, his attorney, Bruce Stevens, said he has some of the same concerns the Pyle family has.

If investigators can't prove who was driving, how can they prove Mr. Stevens entrusted Mr. Pyle, Sr., to drive?

"That's some of the concern I have about the charge itself," Mr. Stevens said.

"How can you convict someone of wrongful entrustment if you don't know who was driving? To prove wrongful entrustment, you have to prove my client wasn't driving."

He said the Pyles were Mr. Spencer's friends too.

"I completely sympathize with them," Mr. Stevens said. "This was a tragedy for everyone involved."

Ms. Goebel said the whole situation is frustrating.

"This just breaks my heart. There's nothing I can do to make it go away," she said. "It's bad enough they're gone."