Drowning victim was a strong swimmer

Those who knew the New Port Richey woman wonder how she got in trouble so quickly floating in the familiar waters of the Weeki Wachee.

By JOHN FRANK and THOMAS LAKE, Times Staff Writers
Published September 25, 2007

WEEKI WACHEE - Kimberly Klopp loved to swim. It's what makes the details of her death hard to fathom.

The 34-year-old New Port Richey woman was last seen floating on her back in the cool, crystal waters of the Weeki Wachee River, singing aloud as she enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon with family.

Minutes later, bystanders saw her body, submerged in 6 feet of water with the current forcing her into a tree along the banks of the narrow, winding river.

Spring Hill resident Logan Emerson, 21, and two friends were cruising the river in his parents' boat when he saw a woman on shore shouting into a cell phone and pointing toward the water.

Emerson said he saw a body and dived in. "The current pushed her under a tree trunk so it took a while to get her free," he said.

Dragging her to the river bank near the Christian Camp property, he helped perform CPR.

Paramedics arrived just before 2:30 p.m. and took Klopp to Oak Hill Hospital in Spring Hill. Doctors pronounced her dead about 11 p.m. Sunday, as family members huddled near.

Donna Black, a spokeswoman for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, said investigators are still gathering details and awaiting results from an autopsy. It is being ruled an accidental drowning, she said.

The incident came exactly a week after two teen brothers, Tommy and Kevin Wohnsen, nearly drowned in the Weeki Wachee River near Rogers park. Investigators are looking into the possibility that lightning or some other electrical source shocked the brothers, who are still recovering at a Tampa hospital.

Witnesses told investigators Klopp was alone, floating without a raft or personal flotation device. A relative lived about 100 yards up the river from where she was found. Family members said she went to play in the water nearly every weekend.

Her boyfriend of 10 years, Todd Wagner, said Monday that she and her two children, Savana, 15, and Dakota, 12, lived with him in New Port Richey. The children were with Klopp at the relative's house Sunday.

Klopp worked at Mapleway Community Inc. in Tarpon Springs, a day training center for developmentally disabled adults. She took clients bowling and taught them life skills, he said.

"She was the most loving, caring person," he said as he sat at a picnic table on his back patio.

Wagner, a 42-year-old surveyor, met Klopp when he went to buy beer at a convenience store where she worked. "She had this gap in her teeth," he recalled. "And she was always smiling."

"She was really a saint," echoed Ray Cross, 47, a truck driver and Wagner's best friend.

Klopp was a diver and a strong swimmer, they said. She liked to swim with the manatees that frequent the river.

Wagner said she also was a big music lover. On Saturday nights, they would turn up the radio in the garage and drink and dance all night.

He last saw her Sunday morning.

"I gave her a kiss and told her I loved her," he said. "The last words I spoke to her that she was aware of."

Staff writer Logan Neill contributed to this report. John Frank can be reached at jfrank@sptimes.com or 352 754-6114. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified September 24, 2007, 22:35:14]