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Dad, 62, killed in crash at TIA

A 41-year-old son waits hours to be picked up at the airport, but his father, a retired piano salesman, never shows.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published June 30, 2005

TAMPA - In the early morning hours Wednesday, Craig Osborne stood outside at Tampa International Airport, waiting and waiting for his father to pick him up.

Hours passed. "I was the only one left at 3 o'clock in the morning, standing there," he said.

Finally he dialed his dying cell phone and got the terrible news: 62-year-old Richard Osborne of St. Petersburg was driving into the airport on the George Bean Parkway at 12:30 a.m. when his 2002 Mitsubishi smashed into a sign, crossed over two lanes and hit a guardrail.

Tampa International Airport police found Osborne dead at the wheel, the walker he used to get around sitting in the back seat, his prescription medications nearby.

"None of this is happening," Craig Osborne said in disbelief Wednesday afternoon, fighting back tears.

His father suffered several health problems but still always managed to visit his wife in the hospital, where she is being treated for brain cancer, the son said. He was supposed to sign papers to sell his home Wednesday.

The family thinks he may have had a heart attack.

"He was just overstressed," his son said.

Richard Osborne, a retired piano salesman, was a self-taught piano player, his family said. Too poor to afford one when he was young, he would take the bus to play in hotel lobbies in Chicago.

He also collected art and once owned a business called Precious Gems Ltd.

"But Richard never wanted to sell any of the precious gems he had, so that business didn't last," said his daughter-in-law Lea Osborne.

He moved to St. Petersburg from Minneapolis in 1996, when his soon-to-be wife got a job in cancer research at a local hospital. He thought it was nice to finally live closer to his 95-year-old aunt so he could care for her, his son said.

The couple loved to sit in the back yard of their St. Petersburg home and watch the sunset, surrounded by banana, orange and papaya trees.

Osborne soon began battling diabetes that left him with sores on the soles of his feet.

"He could hardly walk," his son said. His father also had stents placed in his heart and suffered from palpitations.

Still, Osborne pushed through the pain, used his walker and drove regularly to the hospital to see his wife, Debrah, who found out in January that she has had a tumor growing on her brain stem for 20 years.

Craig Osborne, 41, a quality assurance manager who lives in Minneapolis, had flown down to to help his father and stepmother move out of their house at 6234 22nd Ave. N and into a two-bedroom apartment.

TIA police said they recovered "large amounts of prescription medication" from the car, including a nebulizer that Osborne used for breathing treatments, his son said. The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office has been given the medications and will determine a cause of death.

On his way to TIA Wednesday afternoon to pick up his wife, Craig Osborne wept again as he drove past the spot where his father died.

--Times researcher Cathy Wos and staff writer Emily Anthes contributed to this story. Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 30, 2005, 00:58:11]