When a 15-year-old boy won a half-million-dollar wrongful death civil award in 1994 against the man who murdered his parents, it seemed the end of a long and tragic story. Not a happy end, by any means, but at least an end that blended life imprisonment for the killer and some recompense for the surviving victim into some semblance of justice.

It is shocking, seven years later, to find that is not the case. The $513,320 judgment young Michael Phillips won against Richard Uffelman was never paid. Not one cent of it was ever paid, despite evidence of substantial assets. Equally damning is the evidence that officials of the justice systems in two states have been long aware of this miscarriage and have done nothing to rectify it.

In 1991, Richard Uffelman was convicted for the murder of his neighbors, Michael and Florence Phillips, young Michael’s parents, two years earlier in Machiasport when the boy was 10. These were the infamous “videotape murders”- a camera the Phillipses had set up in their kitchen to record the constant harassment they said Mr. Uffelman was inflicting from across the road recorded instead the barrage of gunfire that erupted from the Uffelman house as they went for an evening walk. The trial revealed that the Uffelman household was a hideous place, a heavily armed camp with daily military drills and rampant paranoia, and an even more hideous truth about the murders – Richard Uffelman had so indoctrinated his young sons in his monstrous lifestyle that they, children of just 10 and 12 years, joined him in ambushing the Phillipses.

After the deaths of his parents, young Michael was raised by his adult sister in Indiana and from there they mounted the civil wrongful death lawsuit. Represented by attorney Norman Toffolon of Machias, they won the suit in Washington County Superior Court in 1992 and also had declared fraudulent Uffelman’s attempt to transfer his property to his father in New Jersey. The damage amount, plus interest, was fixed two years later and attached every conceivable asset and source of income of the entire Uffelman family.

Sometimes damage awards are meaningless because there are no assets. In this case, it has proved meaningless because there were assets – such considerable assets as the insurance settlement on the Uffelman house that burned mysteriously shortly after the murders, extensive collections of guns, cars, coins and military memorabilia and the estate of Uffelman’s father, who died shortly after the trial – but they have been allowed to disappear into some justice-system chasm between Maine and New Jersey.

Young Michael Phillips, now 21, and his sister have tried tracking the assets for years. They have been joined now by his future mother-in-law, but all they have to show for it is a huge stack of documents, mostly vague assurances and empty promises, from myriad local and state officials in both states. To his credit, attorney Toffolon has tried as well, and did pay out his own pocket for several years the taxes on the vacant Uffelman lot, but there is a limit to what legal novices in Indiana and a lawyer in Machias can do.

This is not a job for an attorney in private practice. Michael Phillips had a lawyer, filed suit and his attorney won in highest trial court in the state and an award was set by a justice of that court. It is now up to the state to demonstrate that its court decisions mean something. Many fingers have been pointed at Mr. Uffelman’s trial attorney, Kevin F. Wall, who was disbarred in New Jersey in 1996 for professional misconduct – not crime – unrelated to this case. Mr. Wall may make a convenient scapegoat for the disappearance of a half-million in assets (Mr. Uffelman’s estimate), but that is unfounded, uninvestigated speculation. Given that Mr. Uffelman tried to shield his assets with that fraudulent transfer, that he somehow managed to put his two sons in college and that he so far has kept his prison-job wages and his veteran benefits (contrary to stipulations of the judgment), it is time for an investigation.

The Maine Attorney General’s Office should immediately begin working with its counterpart in New Jersey to ascertain where these assets have gone. Tax officials should be interested in who has an unearned, unclaimed half-million dollars. Corrections officials should make certain that the rights of the victim are fully exercised.

It remains to be seen whether Michael Phillips will get the award to which he is entitled, but there is no reason he should not get the answers – and the justice – he deserves.