JOSHUA WHITTIER

My son, Joshua Whittier, 21, was found dead at 6:30 A.M. on February 18, 2007, in Navarre Beach, Florida.  His body was lying face down in the sand at the water’s edge near Juana’s Pagoda Bar.  His chin, knees and wrists were scraped as if he had been dragged there.  A pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Corona beer were close by.  His wallet, that earlier had contained $900 from a newly cashed paycheck, was found farther up the beach.  It was empty.

The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office closed Josh’s death as an accidental drowning. They speculate that Josh, who had been drinking heavily, walked out to the end of the pier and fell into the water. That scenario doesn’t make sense for a number of reasons.  If Josh had fallen off the pier, the tides and fierce winds would have swept his body in the opposite direction from where it was found.  The cigarettes and the beer bottle would not have been next to him, and there would not have been wounds on those particular areas of his body.  The autopsy report makes no mention of water in his lungs.

 

Two witnesses who were there when police found Josh’s body have told us that Josh wasn’t even in the water.  They say his clothes were not wet, just damp from the sea wind, and there was a drag mark in the sand, (which is obvious in scene photos, but has been ignored by investigators), that indicated he was dragged to the place where he was found.  He apparently was dragged by his feet, since his shirt and jacket had ridden up over his head.  The cell phone in his jacket pocket was working perfectly.  Obviously, it had not been submerged in salt water. 

 

The past weeks had been busy ones for Josh.  He had just signed with Ford Models of Miami and spent three weeks there, putting together his modeling portfolio. He, then, got a job in Gulfport, Mississippi, doing construction work.  He came home to Navarre on weekends, and this particular weekend was a special one, as he’d just turned twenty-one.  Since he now was legally able to go to bars, he decided to spend Mardi Gras weekend partying with friends.

 

Josh and his companions started their drinking spree at 12:30 P.M. on February 17 and continued on into the early hours of the next morning.  Diane McCouch, a real estate agent, who was at Juana’s Pagoda with a friend, noticed Josh at about 7:30 P.M., drinking a Corona and obviously intoxicated.  Concerned about his condition, she asked him if he was okay and if he had friends with him.  He pointed to a table of six young men. It’s since been determined that four of those men were Chris Patton; Thomas Brennan; Ricky Clark and his stepbrother, Davey Singstock.  At least two of those kids were underage and should not have been served liquor, and one -- Ricky Clark -- was under house arrest.  When Diane and her friend left the bar, they offered to drive Josh home, but he declined their offer.  He was seen leaving the bar with Davey Singstock and one of the other men at about 1:30 A.M.

 

At 3:30 A.M., a woman and her husband, who were delivering newspapers to Juana’s Pagoda, were startled when two men suddenly stepped out from under the Tiki style roof.  The couple became nervous and got into their car and drove off. When David Craig of “Reality News” showed this woman pictures of Josh’s companions that evening, she identified Davey Singstock as one of the men she had seen on the beach.  She had not seen the second man well enough to recognize him.

 

Two weeks after Josh’s death, the case detective, Melissa Sloan, gave me Josh’s State ID, which had been found in a truck owned by Shaun Cypret, the brother of a police officer. (Shaun has since left the state and, the last I heard, was in jail in Missouri, serving time for domestic violence and destruction to the jail.)   She told me that normally they would keep this ID as evidence, but she thought that I might like to have it.  That’s when I realized police were disposing of evidence, which had to mean that their investigation was over even before they received a report from the Medical Examiner.

 

I contacted the ME, Dr. Andrea Minyard, and she told me she suspected foul play.  Because she suspected that Josh had been held down and suffocated, she had taken nasal swabs, which she’d sent to a lab to determine if Josh’s nose was filled with sand.  When I told her how frustrated we were with Detective Sloan’s investigation, she suggested I speak with Sgt. Panchaud in the crimes division unit. 

 

Sgt. Panchaud was not receptive to my concerns.  He told me that I had misunderstood Dr. Minyard.  He, then, apparently had his own discussion with the Medical Examiner, because she did a total about face.  In the report she filed three months later, Dr. Minyard called the manner of death “accidental drowning.”  She also had the toxicologist at the University of West Florida destroy the nasal swabs, because, according to her, they weren’t labeled properly.

 

Dr. Minyard assured me that if we came up with more evidence she would consider changing her ruling.  Well, we’ve now obtained 50 pieces of new evidence, but Dr. Minyard refuses to look at it.  She now says she bases her reports on what she is told by the Sheriff’s Department and will not review information from any other source.

 

The new information we have is powerful and convincing.

 

The Sheriff’s Department released Josh’s belongings to us prematurely.  Those items included his clothes and cell phone.  On the front of Josh’s pants there is a blood stain.  There’s no mention of that stain in police reports or in the ME’s report.  There were no wounds on Josh’s body to coincide with that blood stain.  A former FBI agent, with 22 years experience, has examined that stain.  She tells us the blood is on the outside of Josh’s pants.  Our question is, whose blood is it, and how did it get there?  Why has no one in authority acknowledged its existence?  And if Josh was in the water for any prolonged period, why wasn’t that blood washed away?

 

Soon after my conversation with Dr. Minyard, I received a phone call from a young person who said they’d been at a party and overheard two of the men who were with Josh that night bragging about killing my son.  They said, “It was a drug deal gone bad, and we ended up killing him.” 

 

It’s painful to say this, but Josh did attempt to buy drugs that night, and apparently, on at least one occasion, succeeded.  Blood tests showed that he imbibed cocaine shortly before his death.  There is also information in his case file that, earlier that evening, Josh paid Ricky Clark $100 for marijuana.  Ricky took the money but did not deliver the drugs, which suggests a possible reason for a physical confrontation. There were 79 calls on Josh’s cell phone, made between midday and 1:41 A.M.  Undoubtedly some of those were catch-up calls to friends he hadn’t talked with for a while -- but 79 of them!!!  Detective Sloan didn’t check out any of those phone calls, and she didn’t follow up on information from other sources.  I know for a fact that three people made a total of 22 calls to the Sheriff’s Office in an effort to provide information, and those calls were not returned until seven months later. By then, of course, the case had long since been closed.

 

What do I personally believe happened that night?

 

From the facts of the case and from all the new evidence that David Craig and I have collected, I’ve become convinced that this was a “drug deal gone bad,” just as the informant told me.  I don’t necessarily believe Josh’s murder was premeditated.  Those kids were very drunk, having been served liquor for over twelve hours by irresponsible bartenders.  I believe that a fight broke out, and it probably involved drugs.  Josh delivered some blows that resulted in the blood that splashed on his pants, and his opponents knocked him down and shoved his face into the sand, holding him down longer than they meant to.  But even if his suffocation was unintentional, that doesn’t mean that his killers should not be held accountable. And it doesn’t mean that the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Department and the Medical Examiner should not perform the jobs with which they’ve been entrusted.

 

And what about the other suspicious deaths that Dr. Minyard has labeled “accidental drownings”?  There have been at least four that I know of, and the families of the other victims are as outraged and heartsick as we are.

 

Despite his immature actions on the final day of his life, my son was a fine young man with a promising future.  He graduated from high school with a 4.0 average and already was launched in a career as a professional model.  He was warm and funny and personable, and the extent of his popularity is evidenced by the large number of friends and supporters, who turn out for rallies and demonstrations, carrying signs that say “In Memory of Josh”, “We Love You, Josh!” and “This Wasn’t an Accident – This Was Murder!”

 

Those people want justice for Joshua, just as we do.  But, more than that, we want accountability from law enforcement.  This kind of atrocity must not be allowed to continue on the sands of a beach that’s been christened “Florida’s Best Kept Secret.”

 

Melody Schmitt  (Joshua’s mother)