After months of behind-the-scenes wrangling, the Hamilton County prosecutor's office Wednesday finally opened to the public "Case File: Twitty."

It is an ugly document, embarrassing not just for Lt. Col. Ronald Twitty, but also for the police and prosecutorial apparatus that generated it.

For despite its massive size - it's more than a half-foot thick - it contains little of substance and much of tantalizing, yet inconsequential, detail.

It turns out the file never does solve the main mystery: What happened to Twitty's city-issued Ford Taurus, which sustained $3,000 in damage last July 4?

Twitty, a former assistant police chief, had been Cincinnati's highest-ranking black officer. He reported that his car was hit by an unknown driver in front of his home just before 6 a.m. on July 4.

Police investigators didn't believe it was a hit-skip.

They said it looked like his car had been driven into a concrete or stone object.

They said Twitty lied.

What followed was a criminal investigation that took down Twitty's community credibility, straining race relations and police relations. What's worse, after a grand jury indicted Twitty on four criminal counts, they were set aside when it was revealed that the grand jury foreman was an assistant city solicitor - an obvious case of conflict of interest.

Twitty eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and resigned. But his investigative case file remained the subject of speculation. Just how strong was the case against Twitty? What important facts did investigators know that we in the public did not?

We're still wondering.

Dust and scrapes

The case against Twitty still rests on flecks of a dusty substance and abrasions that investigators found on the damaged vehicle. City and county investigators said the substance is proof that the car hit concrete.

Add to that a lack of debris or paint flecks under or around the vehicle - the usual evidence of hit-and-run collisions - and it looks like Twitty lied.

Surely within this super-sized dossier there's more. Perhaps photos of the real accident scene, interviews with a witness who saw something.

After all, this was the police department's - and later the sheriff's department's - most notorious case. A top priority.

There were some interviews of bar patrons and people who set up a cookout at a park. Some of them said they saw Twitty out late that night.

Some interviews contradicted others.

There also were two interviews that seemed to back up Twitty's story.

A man swore in an affidavit that he saw a hit-skip accident on Twitty's street.

A police recruit said her mother told her of a friend who saw someone sweeping up debris in the area.

Neither of those interviews went into depth in the case file.

Instead, investigators worked hard - and succeeded - in linking Twitty, who is married, to at least two other women.

One woman admitted he drove her to her car the night of July 3 and that he followed her home briefly.

But she changed her story at least once in interviews with investigators.

Special file

Other stuff in the case file was pure privacy invasion. There was a sheet that listed the totals for grocery store purchases made by someone at the Twitty household in June and July.

But the file fails in its most important job, to bring us closer to the truth.

It was a waste of time, talent and resources.

Now that I'm done with it, I plan to file it in my special file, which closely resembles a trash can.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8396