FLORIDA: The Man Who Wept

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Kathy, he said, began the day at Miami's Macfadden-Deauville Pool trying to do a difficult dive—a back one-and-a-half layout—off a 33-ft. board. She failed, hit "perfectly flat on her belly" and complained that her back hurt. Then he took her to the Treasure Isle Pool, where the children did conditioning work five days a week. Lifeguard Dick Kohler reported that she had "bruises all over her" and "wasn't feeling well." Russ fed her a can of baby soup. She vomited. Then Russ told her to go into the water. She did. the lifeguard recalled, although she cried while she was swimming and didn't stay in long.

The little girl went home at noon, went into convulsions at midafternoon and was dead at 6. After an autopsy, Homicide Detective Chester Eldredge announced that she appeared to have been brutally beaten, had died from a ruptured intestine, internal bleeding and an infection. Russ was charged with second-degree murder. He wept, and cried, "I blame myself." But he said he was sure that it was only the dive that caused Kathy's bruises.