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Cops work to ID skeleton found on boat
"Sea Sprite" once hailed from Punta Gorda
Author(s): GREG MARTIN
Staff Writer Date: December 16, 2005 Section:
A forensic anthropologist has begun a bone-by-bone examination of a human skeleton found in a sunken sailboat in the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers earlier this week.
Heather Walsh-Haney, an assistant professor of forensic anthropology at Florida Gulf Coast University, is looking for clues to determine who the bones belonged to and how the person died.
The skeleton was discovered Monday by a crew hired by the city of Fort Myers to remove sunken vessels.
The boat, named "Sea Sprite," had one possible clue painted on its back:
Detectives checked one clue that was painted on the back of the boat: its home port of "Punta Gorda, FL."
But Fort Myers police detectives Barry Lewis and Mark Chitwood already know the deceased isn't the boat's last owner. The detectives contacted the owner by phone in Texas.
It's too early in the investigation to say whether foul play was involved, Lewis said.
The boat had no Florida registration number. But the detectives used the vessel's serial number to trace some of its previous owners.
The last owner who held a title to the boat was a Wisconsin resident who bought the boat in Punta Gorda and sailed it to Stuart, Fla., said Lewis.
That person was contacted in Colorado. He told the detective he sold it to another man who motored the boat from Stuart to Fort Myers, Lewis said.
Detectives then contacted that man in Texas. He told detectives he anchored the boat in the Caloosahatchee, locked the hatches and left town.
That was in February.
Detectives believe the boat sank in July, Lewis said.
The last owner reacted with "a little bit of a surprise" when detectives told him the boat had sunk and a skeleton had been found on board.
"He was surprised that the boat was actually sunken," Lewis said.
The boat went down just north of Loften Island, located between the Edison and Caloosahatchee bridges.
"Loften Island always has been pretty prolific for vagabonds," Lewis said.
One theory that detectives consider "plausible" is that a vagabond broke into the boat to pilfer it or sleep on it, Lewis said.
He said the rear hatch was not found with the boat, even though the owner claims he locked it before he left.
Also, other boaters contacted at a nearby yacht basin told detectives the boat had been sitting lower and lower in the water for some time before it sank, indicating it was going down slowly.
"We still have a dilemma," Lewis said, adding that the bones still need to be identified.
Fortunately, the police department now has a local expert to turn to for help in solving that mystery.
Walsh-Haney, a forensic pathologist for the past 10 years, moved to the Fort Myers area just four months ago. In addition to teaching students forensics skills, she's on call for area medical examiners' offices.
Normally, area police agencies would have to send skeletal remains to the University of Florida, where Wash-Haney was trained, for such examinations.
Walsh-Haney said she has analyzed skeletal remains in hundreds of cases, but never one retrieved from a sunken sailboat filled with mud, crabs, fish and other marine creatures.
"The muck was deep, dark, black and brown," she said. "To get everything out of the boat, we had to drain it. ... I've never recovered bones from that context before."
Also found in the boat were a blue-plaid sleeping bag and about a dozen cans of food. The sea had tarnished the cans, and some of the bones, to the color of soot.
The bones were rinsed and placed in a tub full of water to prevent them from drying out, warping or decomposing, Walsh-Haney said. About 90 percent of the skeleton was recovered, she said.
"I will macroscopically, with my own eyes, examine each and every bone, all of the bone surfaces, making note of anything that is an indicator of this victim's ancestry, sex, stature, health and age," she said.
She'll also look for unique signs of trauma or disease, characteristics that detectives could use to confirm an identification, once they identify a possible victim.
The sex or approximate age of the deceased remained unknown Thursday, Walsh-Haney said. Her examination is expected to take two weeks.
News of the skeleton's discovery washed through Punta Gorda's sailing circles like a storm tide Thursday.
"I'm sure I've seen that boat anchored off Cayo Costa," said Dennis Peck, a youth sailing club organizer. He said he last saw the boat some three years ago.
The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office has not been notified to assist in the investigation, said Bob Carpenter, spokesman.
You can e-mail Greg Martin at
gmartin@sun-herald.com.
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Copyright (c) 2005, Charlotte Sun
