Questions remain in wake of fatal bridge incident

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Sophie Isherwood

The question lingers.

How did a 24-year-old female passenger in a pickup crossing the Anna Maria Island Bridge wind up being run over and killed by the same truck?

Sophie Louise Isherwood died at 2:43 a.m. March 3 at Blake Medical Center from injuries resulting from the crash at 12:22 a.m.

According to preliminary Florida Highway Patrol reports, a Ford-150 pickup driven by James Richard Fetters III, 28, of Holmes Beach and Fort Madison, Iowa, ran over Isherwood after she fell from the truck.

Fetters and Sophie lived together for about three-and-a-half years, traveling between Florida and Iowa, following Fetters’ welding jobs, according to her father, Stephen Isherwood, of Tewkesbury, England.

Stephen Isherwood said, “From what I can piece together,” just before the incident, the pair left Fetters’ parents’ home.

They were residing on North Point Drive in Holmes Beach with Fetters’ parents at the time of the incident, Isherwood said, adding Sophie may have been in the process of moving to her mother’s in Bradenton.

According to an obituary for Sophie, she was employed at the Seafood Shack Bar & Grill in Cortez.

According to Stephen Isherwood, Fetters couldn’t recall his conversations with his girlfriend leading up to her death when he spoke to him at his daughter’s March 9 funeral.

Isherwood wants facts — and closure.

He’s spoken with law enforcement officials, emailed the medical examiner and continues to follow information on the internet from England.

“She was very popular, bubbly, vivacious. It’s an absolute tragedy she was cut off in her prime,” he said.

He said his daughter was born in Gloucester and moved to Florida when she was 19 and worked as a waitress.

Isherwood said he believed Fetters was planning to leave for Wisconsin “imminently — maybe the week after the crash,” to start a new job and his daughter was planning to move back with her mom in Bradenton.

“I’m just looking to build a picture. That’s how I can get closure. I may not want to hear it. It may be my worst nightmare. But I’d rather know what happened than struggle with a theory,” Isherwood said.

He has two questions:

“Why would you want to venture out at midnight unless you really had to?

“And why would one feel compelled to leave a moving vehicle?”

An initial FHP report indicates the truck was traveling east at 35 mph, the posted speed, when Sophie fell from the vehicle, spun around and was hit by the right rear of the truck.

Passengers who fall from moving vehicles oftentimes travel as fast as the vehicle for several seconds according to the laws of physics.

The preliminary report also indicates Fetters is not suspected of using alcohol and a drug test was not administered to the driver.

“It sounds like she did it on her own,” Holmes Beach Detective Sgt. Brian Hall said, “but I don’t know if FHP will come up with anything different,”

HBPD assisted at the scene with traffic control.

At the request of Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, Holmes Beach police were sent to speak to Fetters’ parents and observe their home in the 600 block of North Point Drive.

Officers Christine LaBranche and Jason Higgins went to the residence the night of the incident at 1:24 a.m. Fetters’ father told the officers he last saw his son at 8 p.m. and had not heard of any disturbance.

However, Isherwood said this doesn’t jibe with information he heard from Fetters — that the couple returned to the parents’ home at about 10 p.m. after dining out with Fetters’ mother and then going to a sports bar.

LaBranche reported seeing the “son’s bedroom” from the threshold of the door at his parents’ home. She described it as messy, with piles of clothes on the floor, but no sign of a struggle or blood.

The officer relayed her findings to the MCSO, which advised the HBPD that the FHP would be taking the case.

Attempts to contact James Fetters and his parents were unsuccessful.

FHP Lt. Greg Bueno reported March 16 the case remains under investigation.

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