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Tollkeeper's plunge ruled accident
By LEANORA MINAI © St. Petersburg Times, published January 8, 1999 The death of William Dusty Sallee, the pier toll operator who drove off the South Skyway Fishing Pier into Tampa Bay, has been ruled an accident by the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office. Without a suicide note or witness who heard Sallee threaten to kill himself, there is no evidence that Sallee intended to take his life, said Dr. Russell Vega, the associate medical examiner who performed the autopsy. "My point of view here is that without pretty strong evidence that a traffic crash is a suicide, we're going to call it an accident," Vega said. Sallee suffered trauma to the chest and abdomen when his speeding GMC Jimmy hit a Honda Accord at the end of the pier. He crashed through a foot-thick concrete wall and plunged 15 feet into the water. "He primarily drowned," Vega said. Toxicology tests to determine whether Sallee had alcohol or drugs in his system will be ready today. Fishermen said Sallee, 38, was jittery and complained of stomach problems when they paid their entrance tolls. "I know he had a few beers the day before, but not that day," said Greg McElwaney, 40, his roommate in Tampa. Sallee had just finished his midnight to 8 a.m. shift Dec. 31 when he climbed into his truck and drove down the pier. Witnesses said Sallee was driving 70 mph and staring straight ahead before he reached the end of the pier. The Florida Highway Patrol has not finished its investigation. "The story that I had at the time was that he collided with a car, which caused his car to go off the pier," said Vega, the medical examiner. "I didn't hear a story that he turned his car to intentionally head off a pier." However, Vega said, the crash is odd. "I would admit to you that you have to wonder why somebody would be driving like that, and I don't have a good explanation," he said. "He might have been thinking about something. Maybe he does have some substances in his body causing him to act irrationally." McElwaney, Sallee's roommate, said he thinks Sallee suffered a stroke. "He had every intention of coming home that morning," said McElwaney, who knew Sallee for six years. The medical examiner said strokes do not show up in an autopsy, and other than signs of some heart disease, Sallee did not appear chronically ill. McElwaney and Sallee's family plan to spread Sallee's cremated remains over a forest. "It's hard," McElwaney said, "because I have to walk through the same doors he did every day."
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