RALEIGH - Last month, state probation chief Robert Lee Guy stood in the glare of the television lights, saying he was embarrassed at how his division's Wake County office bungled the case of Demario Atwater, a suspect in the slaying of UNC-CH student body president Eve Carson.

But documents and interviews show that Guy had known, at least since 2004, about shoddy work in Wake County that could threaten public safety. Officers were leaving in droves and weren't being quickly replaced, so that hundreds of convicted criminals lacked significant supervision.

Beginning in 2001, files at the Division of Community Corrections show a series of warning signs from the Wake office, which watches more than 7,500 offenders, including drunken drivers, sex offenders, wife-beaters and thieves.

Top-level management teams parachuted into the Wake office in 2004 and 2006 to untangle the problems. High vacancy rates meant overburdened probation officers juggled large numbers of offenders, who often got little supervision. Probation officers spent too much time in the office and not enough checking on offenders in their homes or workplaces.

Each time, the office imposed a crisis plan to sort out the mess. One plan encouraged managers to serve punch and snacks to boost recruitment.

A 2006 internal audit revealed the Wake office was failing basic tasks such as filling out time sheets, making work schedules and tracking state-owned cars and office supplies. Subsequent audits found that many problems went unsolved.

The problems in Wake's office, now with a staff of 153, went unnoticed by the public until Atwater was charged with Carson's murder. Laurence Lovette, who is also charged in the Carson case and in the killing of Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato, was supervised in Durham County.

Guy went before the cameras at his news conference to release a report about the probation cases of Lovette and Atwater. It said that Atwater's probation officer had failed to contact him for more than a year, while Lovette never met his probation officer.

Guy told gathered media that he had questions about why things went wrong.

"As many of 10 staff including officers, supervisors and managers, touched this [Atwater] case and saw these deficiencies and red flags and did not address them," Guy said. "That is unacceptable."

But, as he acknowledged this week in an interview, he and his staff have seen the red flags for years.

"I'm very shocked it's back in here again," he said. "We're through trying to come in and put Band-Aids on this and two years later it's right back where it was again. I thought we addressed it. Maybe it's on me."

The state legislature, which convenes Tuesday, is expected to review recommendations on how technology could help probation officers. Guy said an internal review of the breakdowns in Wake and Durham counties will be finished within two weeks.

No other county, save Durham, has had the history of problems that Wake County has, Guy said. Other urban areas in the state, including Charlotte and Winston-Salem, have the same heavy volume of cases but don't buckle under the stress.

"I don't have these problems in other areas," Guy said. "You don't have the problems floating up like I've seen in the last four years in Wake County."

Distress signals

One of the first warning signs was an action plan drawn up in 2001 by Doug Pardue, the manager of the Wake County office, also known as District 10. Pardue, who had spent three years in the job, wrote to reassure management of his commitment to District 10 and to prevent "future shortcomings." Among other things, Pardue promised to improve his management, to "refrain from making excuses or 'passing the buck,' " and to "take ownership in District 10's operations and strive to correct deficiencies."

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