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Assisted living resident found dead in lake

The 75-year-old man wandered from the Beckett Lake Lodge facility while walking with an employee on Oct. 17.

CLEARWATER - A body found in a Clearwater lake Monday has been identified as a 75-year-old assisted living facility resident who disappeared into a patch of woods Oct. 17 while he was out on a walk.

Pinellas sheriff's deputies found the body about 2 p.m. Monday in a lake near the 2300 block of Montclair Road. Detectives later identified the body as that of Walter Cox, a resident of the nearby Beckett Lake Lodge assisted living facility.

There were no immediate signs of foul play, though an autopsy is scheduled for today, sheriff's officials said.

Cox disappeared Oct. 17 while on a walk with a facility nursing assistant, said Michael Payne, the administrator at Beckett Lake Lodge.

Cox was only a couple of hundred yards from the facility when he walked into the woods and disappeared, Payne said. The area is near the On Top of the World senior community.

Police said facility officials told them Cox had minor Alzheimer's disease and had been at the facility since June 2003. Payne said on Monday that Cox had minor confusion, but still was able to recognize his whereabouts.

Police and facility officials said Cox walked by himself nearly every day. Police said facility officials told them Cox had gotten lost the day before he disappeared. Payne said Cox had asked for directions while on his walk, and that a person brought him back to the facility.

Area resident Bob Lee said he often saw Cox walking in the area.

"He's been up here a couple of times, lost," said Lee.

A 30-year-old nursing assistant accompanied Cox on his walk Sunday. Payne said Cox then walked into the woods, where he leaped a small creek and ventured deeper inside.

Payne said the woods are very dense.

"She was afraid to go in and he kept walking," Payne said.

After losing contact with Cox, the woman returned to the facility and told the nurse on duty. They called police, then returned to the woods and caught sight of Cox again. They tried to coax him out of the woods, but they lost contact with him, Payne said.

Cox was last seen about 50 yards deep into the woods, walking north, police said.

"From what everybody said, he was a pretty spry older man," said Clearwater police Sgt. Doug Griffith. "He went back in there pretty far."

Police arrived minutes later, about 2:30 p.m.

Three Clearwater police officers and three sheriff's deputies searched the woods. A deputy with a police dog also was called in, as was the sheriff's office helicopter.

After about two hours, the search was called off. Police said the woods are very thick and dotted with several lakes. In some spots, the woods were too thick for officers to penetrate.

One officer had trouble finding his way out of the woods, Griffith said.

"We didn't do anything differently than we would have in any other missing adult case," Griffith said.

Five days later, Clearwater police issued a media release on Cox, asking for the public's help finding him.

That same day, the Sheriff's Office helicopter, the Clearwater Fire Department and a search dog went back out to the woods, but still could not find Cox.

On Monday morning, police returned with a boat and helicopter. They later found Cox's body in a thatch of cattails in a lake.

-- Times staff photographer Doug Clifford contributed to this report. Chris Tisch can be reached at 445-4156 or tisch@sptimes.com