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"Very optimistically, I'd say it's six to eight weeks away," said Jefferson County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Davis Wednesday. "Very optimistically," he added. "I'm thinking more."

For five solid months now, the sheriff's department has remained a "month or two" away from releasing its report on the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., a shooting spree that left 15 dead, including the two teenage attackers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The report is intended to finally clear up the perpetual misconceptions about the April 20 massacre. Since mid-September, Davis has said that the investigation is virtually complete, with the top brass focused on how to present the 200 to 300 pages of material.

Officials at other local agencies are loath to go on the record criticizing the department, as they're counting on early warning from the department to prepare for both the community turmoil and the fresh media onslaught the report is expected to trigger.

But privately, grumbling over the perpetual delays has been mounting, and the sheriff's department has grown increasingly isolated, facing attack from all directions.

The latest challenge came two weeks ago, when the parents of Brooks Brown, a Columbine student who says he was warned by Harris to leave the school shortly before the massacre, announced they were organizing a committee to force a recall election against Sheriff John Stone. In order to do so, they will have 60 days after they file official papers to obtain nearly 42,000 signatures -- one-fourth of the votes cast in the election Stone won in 1998.

Even those who once supported Stone have grown frustrated by that 10 months of stonewalling by the department, which has left much of the public with wild misconceptions about the basic facts of the case.

And many Columbine residents have been even more infuriated by the steady trickle of leaks from the investigation: the Harris journals in September, the surveillance video footage in October, first glimpses from the suicide-message videos in November, the full contents of those tapes in December, which Time magazine revealed in a cover story. With each leak, families, students and support agencies have been caught off guard. On top of it all, the timing of the video release just before Christmas and final exams was particularly galling.

Increasingly, community leaders are concluding that the only way to wrench this soap opera out of the news cycle is to get the information out into the open. That way, investigative reporters will soon have dug through every scrap of information promising enough to pursue.

"Everything you do in the meantime, you create new little brushfires," said a major community leader who requested anonymity. "It just hasn't been planned out very well."

The publicity surrounding each minor disclosure often inspires a fresh round of mischief -- like the Internet threat that closed the school the week of the Time cover story. That event was finally resolved Wednesday, when Michael Ian Campbell pleaded guilty to one felony count of communicating a threat across state lines. He will be sentenced April 28, and could receive up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors recommended leniency, however, and probation is expected.

In many people's minds, the mystery and information vacuum created by the ever-impending report just opens up fresh opportunities for additional bursts of coverage. None of the blockbuster revelations of the past several months would have been news, they argue, if the report had already been released.

But the sheriff's department has responded by continuing to delay, rather than expedite its report. Attacks against the department were relentless and withering in December, and sources close to the investigation say it has responded with a bunker mentality. They say investigators are reassessing every section of the report to insure it can withstand attack from every corner. "But of course you can never cover all the bases," one insider said. "You just have to get it out in the open and take your lumps."

Next page | Legal conflicts may delay broadcast of the tapes for a long time