The brick is probably suffering from lawn mower syndrome. I think that it is likely that someone started the motor and shut it off before it warmed up.

You could look inside the cylinders with a scope. Would the rope trick work?
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96 855R, 95 855,854, 90 744 Ti - 366,000 Volvo miles put on 7 bricks

If the t-belt timing is OK, then it's probably due to lifters that lost oil (leaked down). Try cranking the engine for several minutes and see if compression then returns as the lifters get oil pressure.

If you've got no compression at all I'd say there's a problem with the timing gearing or belt. Are you sure that the timing belt and/or one of the gears was not broken or damaged when the car was hit? No compression is either a) blown rings (unlikely just from sitting) or b) the valves are not opening and, more importantly, not closing properly on the compression stroke. Those valves are driven by the cam, which is in turn driven by the timing belt off the crank. I would pull the oil filler cap off and have someone crank the motor while you look inside the filler hole. See if you can confirm that the cam is indeed spinning. If not then thats where to start.