In the nine months since a U.S. postal carrier was shot to death in the Crafton-Ingram Shopping Center, Bill Hall did whatever he could to help investigators.

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As the manager of an apartment building on Ingram Avenue that overlooks the shopping center's parking lot, Hall ushered postal inspectors through vacant units as they searched for clues. He let them onto the roof. He answered their questions about tenants.

From time to time, as the investigation into the slaying last June of Clayton J. Smith stretched into Ohio and West Virginia, inspectors would visit Hall to check up on things.

On Friday, three inspectors dropped by. Their questions were unusually focused. Hall recalled that they asked specifically about the residents of Apartment 5 -- Latoya Burnette, her young son and daughter, and her live-in boyfriend.

Hall said he had a gut feeling the inspectors were getting close to cracking the case. He was right. That day, court documents state, inspectors learned from a building resident that Burnette's 10-year-old son had admitted to shooting Smith by accident with his mother's gun.

On Saturday, inspectors tracked down Burnette, 30, in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, where she had gone with her son and daughter after her son had blurted out his involvement.

They charged her with illegally possessing a gun. Convicted felons cannot have firearms, and Burnette has a criminal history, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed yesterday.

It has not been decided whether Burnette's son, who was 9 at the time of the shooting, will be charged. Investigators are comparing statements from the fourth-grader that he shot at a tree to other information to determine if more charges will be filed.

"I never heard that they were trouble. The seemed like they were nice kids," Hall said yesterday about Burnette's children. "I find it hard to believe a 9-year-old kid wouldn't show signs that something was wrong."

Smith, 45, of Colliers, W.Va., was shot once in the back on June 23. He was standing next to his postal van in a shady spot at midday, leading investigators to believe he was taking a break from the heat.

The next day, investigators learned from an autopsy that Smith had been shot with a .380-caliber bullet. Later, the Allegheny County coroner's office said the bullet came from a Bryco pistol.

Richard Merriam, who has the apartment above where Burnette lived, said postal inspectors did not start canvassing his building at 105 Ingram Ave. until the day after the shooting.

Merriam said inspectors asked him if he shot a gun from his window, based on information they received from Burnette. Another building resident who did not give his name said postal inspectors also asked him if he had shot a gun from his window.

As the months passed, postal inspectors and county homicide detectives kept coming up empty-handed. They spent 18,000 hours investigating the case. They conducted 1,800 interviews. They distributed nearly 12,000 leaflets in the Ingram area and another 60,000 near Steubenville, Ohio, because leads indicated the gun came from there. A $100,000 reward was offered. Thick foliage was cut down in the area where Smith died to ease the search for evidence.

But it wasn't until Thursday that investigators got a significant break tying the homicide to the half-vacant, three-story brick building atop a small hill only about 100 feet from where Smith fell.

On that day, Burnette appeared before Crafton District Justice Dennis Joyce on an aggravated assault charge. She was accused of slashing her boyfriend, Lawrence McGirt, in the face with a razor on March 8.

At the hearing, Burnette told Ingram Police Chief Jack Dougherty that McGirt had stolen her Bryco .380-caliber pistol two weeks earlier. She gave Dougherty a receipt for the gun from a pawn shop in North Carolina.

Burnette had bought the weapon in January 1999, nine months before her arrest and subsequent conviction in North Carolina on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. It was not clear yesterday why she was still in possession of the gun following her sentencing.

Burnette's hearing before Joyce was postponed until next month because McGirt couldn't be found. But Burnette's claims about her gun resulted in two things: Ingram police filed theft and other charges against McGirt, and Dougherty called postal inspectors to tell them about Burnette's .380-caliber gun, the same type of gun that killed Smith.

It was the first time inspectors had heard of Burnette's gun.

"We weren't aware of this firearm until March 18, 2004," U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said yesterday.

Postal inspectors searched Burnette's apartment. They found the gun box, unspent rounds and an extra magazine clip in a bedroom safe.

On March 19, the day after the hearing, postal inspectors spoke with Burnette's downstairs neighbor, Penelope Pillette. She told them about a conversation she had a day earlier with Burnette and Burnette's son.

The talk revolved around Burnette's gun. According to an affidavit, the conversation shifted to Smith's death and the fact that he was killed with the same kind of weapon. Pillette told inspectors that Burnette said her children were home at the time of the shooting and the gun was in the house.

"Pillette asked Burnette if she thought that her kid might have shot the mailman, and Burnette said she was not sure, but that she hoped not," the affidavit said.

Burnette spoke with her son in another room of her apartment. Pillette said that Burnette came out crying. She asked Pillette to speak with the boy, explaining that he lies to her. But before Pillette could, the boy started to cry.

"He then blurted out that 'he didn't mean to, the thing just blew out,' " the affidavit said.

Burnette is now in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, but Buchanan declined comment on where she was or on the whereabouts of Burnette's children.