Evidence was insufficient to press charges in case.

HELENA — Investigators suspected an attempted cover-up to shelter Gov. Judy Martz’s policy aide in the wake of his drunken driving wreck that killed a key state legislator, but they didn’t find enough evidence to make any charges stick, court files released Wednesday reveal.

Witnesses reported several startling things they saw during the wreck’s immediate aftermath, according to accounts of the four-month-long criminal investigation into the late-night crash that killed House Majority Leader Paul Sliter, R-Somers.

Besides the fact that Martz policy adviser Shane Hedges repeatedly denied driving that night, the witnesses said Hedges’ friends at the accident scene — other top advisers to Gov. Judy Martz — tried to hide the fact Hedges was even involved in the wreck. Witnesses said those same people even denied knowing Sliter, their colleague and friend. And, the witnesses reported, Hedges’ allies may have tried to spirit him away from the scene and get rid of beer cans before police arrived.

The allegations were all refuted and what emerges from the court files is a convoluted picture of a confused, crowded accident scene that the key players knew would carry major political fallout.

“Certainly, there are statements that there were efforts to conceal Hedges and evidence at the scene, but on the other hand, there was evidence that they did not,” Lewis and Clark County Attorney Leo Gallagher said in an interview Wednesday.

“What I personally believe, or don’t believe, is irrelevant — other than what I believe is that I would have been unable to obtain convictions against someone for obstructing justice or obstructing a peace officer,” he explained of his decision not to press charges against anyone other than Hedges.

A top Martz administration official who found the Hedges-Sliter car wreck that night adamantly denied there was any attempt to obscure what happened.

Leo Giacometto, who found the accident scene and is at the center of the much of the investigation, said in a telephone interview said there was “absolutely no” attempt to conceal the truth about the wreck. He said he didn’t instruct Hedges to deny driving, nor did he try to get rid of evidence.

“I saw Shane moving around, so I wasn’t so concerned about him,” said Giacometto, former U.S. marshal for Montana and now a member of the Northwest Power Planning Council. “All I was focused on was trying to save my friend (Paul Sliter). That’s where my focus was.”

Hedges, 28, was leaving a jovial Republican-elite get-together late Aug. 15 at Marysville House, a popular steakhouse some 25 miles from Helena, when he lost control of his car on the winding dirt road. The ensuing rollover wreck killed his passenger and best friend, House Majority Leader Paul Sliter, R-Somers, 32, and landed Hedges with a felony negligent homicide conviction and a term in pre-release.

The tome of investigation files released on Wednesday following a media lawsuit to open the case shows that law officers and prosecutors focused their investigation on whether top Martz aides and allies tried to hide Hedges’ involvement in the hours that followed the fatal crash. Several witnesses who don’t work for the Republican administration made jarring statements to the Highway Patrol about what they encountered when they arrived at the crash scene.

But perhaps the most striking thing to emerge from the files was the complete air of confusion surrounding the car crash and its immediate aftermath.

Hedges and Sliter first left the restaurant early, leaving Giacometto and Martz’s two national political consultants at the steakhouse, then turned around and went back. In his interview with the county prosecutor, Hedges recalled going back to the bar at Sliter’s urging.

“I remember specifically looking at the clock, because when I was arguing with him, it was a playful argument, I said, ‘It’s 9:30, I know that’s not late, but I’m tired and I want to go home,’ ” said Hedges. “So we turned the vehicle around and went back to Marysville and that is...where everything starts to get real fuzzy for me.”

Their second trip down the hill was the fatal one for Sliter, who was also drunk that night. Hedges’ blood alcohol content was 0.15 percent, while Sliter’s registered at 0.16 percent, according to the files. The legal limit for driving in Montana is 0.10 percent.

When the Marysville House bar shut down, Giacometto left with Jim Innocenzi and John Maddox, the two national GOP consultants who helped Judy Martz get elected governor. The three men had also been in the group eating and drinking with Sliter and Hedges.

On their way down the mountain, Giacometto told authorities, they saw headlights coming from off the side of the road. Giacometto said he stopped, got out of his truck and heard Hedges calling for Sliter. Giacometto then found Sliter and began trying to revive him, without success. Local “emergency responders” arrived on the scene and Giacometto left to call for help with Maddox. Innocenzi stayed with Hedges.

At this point in the narrative, differing stories emerge about what happened next.

The two local men who arrived and offered medical assistance told officers they believed the people at the accident scene were trying to obscure the fact that Hedges was involved, and that they may have tried to leave the scene with Hedges before police arrived. The local witnesses, whose names were not released by the court, also described a tense fight with Giacometto when he returned to the accident scene after calling 9-1-1 in Marysville.

“The one curious thing that I didn’t mention before, when I first got there they were telling me they didn’t know who the individual (Paul Sliter) was, but they, the gentlemen, said they stopped because they saw Hedges walking around on the side of the road,” one witness said.

“But then they also stated that this guy (Sliter) was alone and they didn’t want me to search for any individual,” the witness told a Highway Patrol officer. “... at one point they said they stopped because they saw this guy (Hedges) wandering in the road, but they were telling me there was no other occupants in the truck and don’t bother looking.”

Another witness, a man who was applying for a cooking job at the restaurant that night and stopped at the accident scene on his way down the road, raised the same question. He said that he and the medical responder — a firefighter from Marysville — on the scene “asked at the same time if the gentlemen that was laying on the ground (Sliter) was riding solo and both of their responses to us was that “Yes, he was riding solo.”

The pair asked Giacometto and the others two more times if Sliter was alone and were told “yes,” the witness said.

“And the firefighter and myself looked at each other and went, ‘Yeah right,’ ” he said, then added that they started searching the area for other survivors.

In another report, Highway Patrol Officer Mike Swingley describes an interview in which a witness said Hedges appeared to be hiding in the bushes. In another report about interviews with Maddox and Innocenzi, the political consultants who found the wreck along with Giacometto, an officer notes that the local man who arrived on scene to help believed someone was trying to leave the scene with Hedges in Giacometto’s truck.

The witness “stopped a vehicle, which was attempting to leave the scene, and discovered Shane Hedges in the vehicle,” the officer wrote.

Maddox told the officer, however, that he didn’t believe Hedges was placed into Giacometto’s truck to rest until after the police arrived. And Giacometto said nobody attempted to leave, even though Hedges asked to be taken to the hospital before an ambulance arrived.

What Giacometto does acknowledge is a confrontation with the local men who said they would administer first aid on Sliter when Giacometto went to call for help. The men said they had forgotten their protective mouthpieces, that Sliter was already dead and they decided not to try to resuscitate him.

“This was a very messy scene, and I can understand why those volunteers were a little apprehensive,” said Giacometto.

Still, he told an investigating officer, when he returned and found they hadn’t tried to resuscitate Sliter, Giacometto became angry and “questioned their manhood had some not nice things to say to them.”

Giacometto now says he believes that altercation led the witnesses to say false things to the police and try to make it seem like there was a cover-up going on. In addition, he said, things were just generally confusing and when the witnesses asked Giacometto and others if there was anyone besides Sliter involved in the wreck, they may have been saying “no,” because nobody was trapped in the car and Hedges wasn’t severely injured.

Again, the complete air of confusion becomes evident.

“You had four or five conversations going on,” recalled Giacometto. “A lot of people showed up and none of them were familiar to me.”

“Shane Hedges is the injured party that survived the crash,” the officer said, requesting a blood-alcohol test on Hedges. “He’s reported to be the passenger. Until proven otherwise, he has to be considered to be the driver.”

Indeed, Hedges denied all that night that he was behind the wheel. When questioned, he told investigators and his friends that Sliter had been driving. At one point, when asked by a deputy sheriff if he had been drinking, Hedges replied, “Not as much as the driver had.”

In truth, the eight men partying at Marysville House that night put back at least 30 drinks, according to the bar tab. It’s not clear whether all members of the group were drinking, however, and the bar tab doesn’t include the two six packs of beer that Hedges, Sliter, Innocenzi and Maddox bought before leaving Helena to drink on the way to Marysville. Besides beer, the bar bill included shots of hard liquor and mixed drinks.

Hedges eventually acknowledged that he was behind the wheel during the wreck, and pleaded guilty to negligent homicide for Sliter’s death. In October, he began serving a suspended sentenced with a mandatory six-month pre-release center stay. His attorney, Jim Hunt, said Wednesday that Hedges was not happy the full details of the accident and its aftermath had been released to the public.

Hunt said Hedges was not looking to protect himself, but he doesn’t want still-fresh wounds of the Sliter family and others re-opened. He said Hedges did at first deny driving, primarily because had been drinking, his best friend was dead and he couldn’t really remember what happened. But, Hunt said, Hedges did take full responsibility.

“The distressing thing about this is the documents have been released and other people’s lives have been exposed,” said Hunt. “(Hedges) feels very strongly that he’s the only one who’s done anything wrong here.”