Crewman: I struck captain with pipe

The fishing boat captain, found dead in the gulf, had flown into a rage, the crew member says.

By CANDACE RONDEAUX
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 11, 2002

MADEIRA BEACH -- The Silver Star fishing boat was just three hours into its two-week run last Friday when the captain, Garth Spacek, awoke in a foul mood.

Spacek began arguing with his girlfriend, a woman named Lisa, according to crew member Luke Whitmire.

Spacek grabbed some knives and destroyed two radios, Whitmire said.

"He was screaming, 'We're going to do things my way around here,' " Whitmire recounted.

Whitmire said Spacek was brandishing one of the knives when he confronted him on the portside deck. Whitmire hit him in the head with a length of pipe used to hold an ice chest shut.

"I just grabbed the first thing I saw. It was there on the ground when he turned on me with the knife in his hand," Whitmire said.

Spacek, 43, went overboard. His body was found floating about 20 miles offshore on Monday. The FBI is investigating the death.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," Whitmire said.

Whitmire said he spent several hours answering FBI investigators' questions about Spacek's death and that the agency cleared him of all charges.

FBI spokeswoman Sara Oates said no one had been charged in the case. She would not confirm whether Whitmire had been cleared, and she would not release Lisa's full name. "It's an ongoing investigation," Oates said.

The Silver Star and its three-member crew were heading south to fish for grouper Friday night when the fight broke out between the couple.

Whitmire, a bearded fisherman with faded tattoos of angel wings on his arm, said he had worked on the boat for about three months.

He said he saw the couple fight frequently but that was the first time he saw it get physical. He couldn't understand why Spacek suddenly "went into a rage."

"We were all laughing and joking and having a good time before he woke up from his nap," he said.

But things got serious fast when Spacek began to beat his girlfriend on the bow of the vessel and nearly threw her overboard, Whitmire said.

According to Whitmire, a native of Texas who says he previously worked for a local fence building company, the fight quickly traveled from the front of the boat to the back when he got between Spacek and his girlfriend.

Spacek then stormed into the ship's cabin and disabled the Silver Star's radios. Darrell Knepp, the boat's owner, recalled Wednesday: "Two of my radios got ripped apart. He (Spacek) didn't want them to have contact."

Whitmire couldn't remember what caused Spacek to lunge for the four 8-inch-long boning knives kept near the ship's wheel for shark fishing excursions. But Whitmire said Spacek turned on the two crew members, knives in hand, and threatened to kill them.

"He was saying, 'You better not go to sleep tonight because you're not going to wake up alive tomorrow,' " Whitmire said.

Whitmire said that after Spacek went overboard, he and the girlfriend sent up flares and chased down another boat so they could radio the Coast Guard.

The FBI is handling the case because Spacek went overboard in international waters.

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