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RICHARD DANIELSONThe boating accident July 30 left Anthony Stevens, 26, dead. Randall L. Peacock, one of his friends, has been charged in his death.
TARPON SPRINGS - A 42-year-old Tarpon Springs man has been charged with manslaughter and boating under the influence of alcohol in a crash last year that killed a close friend.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrested Randall L. Peacock on Sunday, 81/2 months after the July 30 accident that drowned Anthony Stevens of Palm Harbor.
Peacock was charged with drinking and driving a 21-foot Mako boat that slammed into channel marker No. 38, about a mile west of Tarpon Springs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Stevens, 26, was thrown overboard. He suffered a broken collarbone and a skull fracture that medical examiners think caused him to drown, according to court records.
Now state officials have charged Peacock with causing Stevens' death, saying he had five to nine beers before the accident and was at the helm when the crash occurred.
Peacock's attorney said his client was not driving the boat and would plead not guilty.
"He really does feel bad about what happened because Mr. Stevens was one of his best friends," Clearwater attorney George Tragos said Monday. "A terrible way to arrest somebody is to make a guess, and that's what's they're doing is making a guess."
In the crash, the marker, on a 10-foot steel post, ripped into the right side of the hull, cutting through the fiberglass and leaving a gash 3 feet deep and a foot wide. Neither man was wearing a life jacket.
At the marker, the gulf is 11 to 14 feet deep, but court records show that the boat drifted about a mile to the north after the collision. Stevens called a friend around dusk the night of the accident to say that he'd be at the dock in 20 minutes. Peacock's distress call to the Coast Guard came in about 10:04 p.m.
In court documents, a wildlife officer said Peacock gave rescuers and investigators conflicting accounts of how much he had drunk and who was driving the boat.
Based on a blood sample from Peacock taken 41/2 hours after the accident, investigators estimate that his blood-alcohol level was 0.11 to 0.18 percent at the time of the crash. Florida law presumes someone with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent to be impaired.
Considering how much time had passed, Sunday's arrest was unexpected, Tragos said.
"I think if they had a good case, they should have arrested him when it happened instead of trying to create a case," he said.
Fish and Wildlife Commission spokesman Gary Morse said he couldn't discuss the investigation in detail. He did say investigators used the same techniques that are used to reconstruct what happens in auto accidents to determine what happened in this collision.
"We ascertained that Peacock was at the helm because of the way the injuries occurred," Morse said. "The injuries could not have occurred that way if Peacock was not at the helm."
In a sworn statement, Fish and Wildlife Commission investigator James Manson said Peacock gave different accounts of what happened that night to rescuers and investigators.
To Pasco County Fire Rescue personnel, Peacock said he had drunk about nine beers, Manson said. But to a Coast Guard official, he said he had five. Rescuers did find four empty beer cans on the boat, a half-full can of Budweiser in a cupholder next to the steering wheel and about 36 unopened cans of beer. They found drops of Peacock's blood on the center console and a large pool of his blood in the front of the boat.
Peacock told interviewers that he had not taken any medicine or drugs, but a test after the crash found lidocaine and hydrocodone in his urine, according to Manson's five-page statement.
During an interview at Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital, Manson asked Peacock if he had been at the controls of the boat.
"I don't know; I don't think so," Peacock answered, according to court records.
Peacock went on to say that he was standing just left of the center console facing the bow of the boat and that Stevens was steering.
But in a recorded distress call to the Coast Guard, Peacock said he was the operator of the boat, Manson said.
Peacock was released from the Pinellas County Jail on Sunday after posting $100,000 bail. On Monday, a woman who identified herself as Peacock's wife told a Times reporter who called that neither she nor her husband would discuss the accident.
The week of the accident, the Times reported that Peacock told his wife, Shannon, that he was thrown into the front of the boat and knocked unconscious. He came to later to find himself covered in blood. The crash left Peacock with a concussion, whiplash, bruises and a cut on his forehead that took 10 stitches to close.
In an interview a day after the accident, Mrs. Peacock said her husband told her that after he awakened on the boat, he searched for Stevens, then dived overboard and swam around looking for him, returning to the boat when it started to drift away. He had to work on the damaged radio to call the Coast Guard, she said at the time.
The Peacocks own Peacock's Professional Cleaning, which cleans newly built houses. Stevens had worked for the couple on and off for three years.
On Monday, Stevens' father said the family does not blame Peacock for their son's death.
"We don't," said Donald Stevens, 57, of Palm Harbor. "They were very good friends. They were very close friends. They were both out on the boat drinking that night, and it could have been the other way around."
Sunday's charge came as an unwelcome surprise, he said, because "it's almost been a year, and we thought it was beyond us."
"We're just sorry that it had to come to this," Stevens said. "I'd really rather it just go away because we've been suffering for a long time."
- Richard Danielson can be reached at 727 771-4311 or Danielson@sptimes.com