We'll keep digging deep

An N&O series that starts Sunday grew out of the murders of two college students.

Abhijit Mahato, a Duke graduate student, was killed in January.

Eve Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president, was killed in March.

Laurence Alvin Lovette is charged with murdering both. His friend Demario James Atwater has been charged with murdering Carson.

Lovette and Atwater were convicted of previous crimes and were on probation when Mahato and Carson were murdered.

Shortly after Lovette and Atwater were charged in the deaths of the two students, The N&O reported problems with the supervision they received.

The probation officer in charge of keeping track of Lovette never met with him. Atwater had no contact with his probation officer for more than a year.

After discovering the problems with those two cases, we wanted to dig deeper. We did. We've spent much of this year evaluating how probation works. The result is the series "Losing Track: North Carolina's Crippled Probation System." It starts Sunday and continues Tuesday and Thursday.

You will be shocked.

And angry. And scared.

Since 2000, hundreds of murders have been committed by probationers under the state's watch. The computer system for keeping up with probationers is a relic -- and a key state official turned down a proposal to use effective, inexpensive modern technology. Written warnings about out-of-control probationers sit unread in a file cabinet.

After The N&O reported problems in the Carson and Mahato cases, state Secretary of Correction Theodis Beck told legislators in October he was surprised.

Referring to the approximate number of people on probation in North Carolina, Beck said, "We're here because of the failure of two cases out of 117,000."

Our reporting shows that's not close to being true. The state doesn't even know where nearly 14,000 of the probationers are.

The kind of reporting we've done for this series is under siege. It's expensive. Reporters Anne Blythe, Joseph Neff and Sarah Ovaska and researcher David Raynor spent a combined total of a year working on the series. That doesn't include the efforts of photographers, graphic artists, page designers and editors.

Our readership is higher than ever. But newspapers have been slammed by a loss in advertising. We've been forced to lay off employees, including journalists.

But we remain committed to investigating. We believe it is a central part of our mission. So when Pat Stith, our top investigator for 37 years, retired recently, we named a replacement -- J. Andrew Curliss, who has worked for The N&O since 1997. Curliss will work with Steve Riley, senior editor for investigations.

No matter where you work -- business, government or nonprofit -- you know 2009 is going to be a difficult year financially.

I hope you will stick with us. Because we are going to stick with our investigative efforts. After reading "Losing Track," I think you will agree this is a problem North Carolina needs to fix.