PARIS — New evidence into last year’s hit-and-run death of 16-year-old Xavier Fuentes will be reviewed by prosecutors, authorities said Tuesday. 

Acting Paris Police Chief Jeffrey Lange said Tuesday that the Oxford County assistant district attorney’s office had not determined whether the case would be presented to a grand jury.

“We did the investigation as far as we can go, put the facts together and sent it to the DA’s office for grand jury review,” Lange said. 

Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor confirmed the case was under review.

“When you have a serious case like this, it will be reviewed by the three (Oxford County) assistant district attorneys, and then we’ll send it to Andy,” O’Connor said, referring to District Attorney Andrew Robinson, who supervises cases in Franklin, Androscoggin and Oxford counties. 

Fuentes, a student at Leavitt Area High School, was killed in a hit-and-run accident on Route 117 in Paris on March 15, 2014. 

On the night he was killed, Fuentes was watching a movie with his family at Flagship Cinemas in Oxford. After a disagreement, he left, walking toward his grandmother’s house in Turner. He was found on an unlit stretch of road by a passing motorist near the Brett Hill Road intersection on Route 117, about 4 miles from the movie theater. 

Emergency responders took him to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, where he was pronounced dead. 

Police have pursued leads as Fuentes’ family has repeatedly called for those involved in the incident to step forward to bring them closure. 

Last May, police said they’d identified two suspects living in the Lewiston-Auburn area, though no arrests were made. Evidence taken from cars belonging to the suspects was sent to the Maine State Crime Lab in Augusta, where it was tied up because of a backlog for over a year. Lange said those individuals remain suspects. 

The grand jury will rise in mid-June and again in August.

Lange said police received evidence from the Maine State Crime Lab, but the new information being presented to prosecutors comes after “other events occurred which allowed the police department to move forward and present the case to the district attorney’s office for them to present to the grand jury.”

Lange said he submitted the new information to prosecutors several weeks ago.

O’Connor said further meetings with police were pending, and prosecutors had not yet determined if or when the case would be presented to a grand jury. 

“There’s no set period of time.” O’Connor said. “Jeffrey Lange in Paris has worked very, very hard on this. He’s done a vast amount of good police work.” 

Lange said the case has struck a personal chord and that he’d advised Fuentes’ family, Greenwood residents Ron and Sheila Cole, of the situation. 

“We’re a small-knit community,” Lange said. “Everyone knows Ron and Sheila. Anytime someone loses a child, it makes it personal.” 

ccrosby@sunmediagroup.net 

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