The Kitchen Guy
12-27-2007, 10:41 AM
Bones ID'd as man missing for 15 years
Link: Palm Beach Post (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/south/epaper/2007/12/27/s1b_BONES_1227.html?imw=Y)
By Michael LaForgia and Kevin Deutsch
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Fifteen years ago, Barry Fish disappeared. Struggling with an addiction to prescription painkillers, Fish, 42, left his parents' suburban Boca Raton home one day, driven out by an argument with his father. He got in his silver 1986 Mercedes coupe and drove to Deerfield Beach, where he checked in at the Wellesley Inn on Southwest 12th Avenue.
His family, who reported him missing on Nov. 11, 1992, never saw him or his car again. For closure's sake, Fish's parents went to court and had their middle child declared dead in 1997. Even so, Sidney Fish, who loved his boys more than anything and was dogged by guilt over that final confrontation, and his wife, Sara, lived out the rest of their lives not knowing their son's fate.
"I'm sure that they lived and hoped and prayed that one day he would walk in the door, as we all did," Fish's older brother, Robert, said Wednesday.
After the couple died last year, uncertainty remained. Those closest to Barry - especially Robert Fish, his younger brother, Larry, and Robert's wife, Lana - sometimes got together and hashed out theories about what had become of him.
"There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think of him and wonder what happened," Larry Fish said.
Nothing was certain, they told each other. He might turn up yet. They hired a private detective. Asked the State Department to flag his passport. In spite of the odds, their quiet brand of hope held out until authorities stumbled across a little silver coupe at the bottom of the Hillsboro Canal on Dec. 4.
A search for a white car used in the August murder of Broward County sheriff's Sgt. Chris Reyka led deputies into the dirty brown water off Lox Road. Working by touch, a diver connected a winch to what felt like a solid part of a submerged car. Soon after, a Mercedes roiled to the surface.
Inside, still buckled in to the driver's seat, deputies saw a set of human bones.
Palm Beach County sheriff's Detective Michael Bianchi ran the car's registration and pulled Fish's missing persons report before consulting an expert for a final confirmation. In one of life's twisted little ironies, it fell to Barry's brother, Robert, a forensic dentist who works in Broward County, to compare his brother's dental records with the skull from the sunken Mercedes.
Here at last was the concrete evidence they had pined for all these years. There could be no more doubt: Barry Fish, scratch golfer, A-student, best-looking of three boys, was gone. Authorities said the death appeared accidental.
Now all that's left is a dull pain, accompanied by the knowledge that, all these years, as they had pictured him off and wandering in some far-away city, Fish had been just a few miles west of his parents' suburban Boca Raton home, hidden under 8 feet of murky water.
After absorbing the news, Robert and Larry Fish set about making final arrangements. They plan to bury their brother near their childhood synagogue in Zanesville, Ohio, alongside their mother and father.
Then, Robert Fish said, "He will finally be at peace."
Link: Palm Beach Post (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/south/epaper/2007/12/27/s1b_BONES_1227.html?imw=Y)
By Michael LaForgia and Kevin Deutsch
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Fifteen years ago, Barry Fish disappeared. Struggling with an addiction to prescription painkillers, Fish, 42, left his parents' suburban Boca Raton home one day, driven out by an argument with his father. He got in his silver 1986 Mercedes coupe and drove to Deerfield Beach, where he checked in at the Wellesley Inn on Southwest 12th Avenue.
His family, who reported him missing on Nov. 11, 1992, never saw him or his car again. For closure's sake, Fish's parents went to court and had their middle child declared dead in 1997. Even so, Sidney Fish, who loved his boys more than anything and was dogged by guilt over that final confrontation, and his wife, Sara, lived out the rest of their lives not knowing their son's fate.
"I'm sure that they lived and hoped and prayed that one day he would walk in the door, as we all did," Fish's older brother, Robert, said Wednesday.
After the couple died last year, uncertainty remained. Those closest to Barry - especially Robert Fish, his younger brother, Larry, and Robert's wife, Lana - sometimes got together and hashed out theories about what had become of him.
"There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think of him and wonder what happened," Larry Fish said.
Nothing was certain, they told each other. He might turn up yet. They hired a private detective. Asked the State Department to flag his passport. In spite of the odds, their quiet brand of hope held out until authorities stumbled across a little silver coupe at the bottom of the Hillsboro Canal on Dec. 4.
A search for a white car used in the August murder of Broward County sheriff's Sgt. Chris Reyka led deputies into the dirty brown water off Lox Road. Working by touch, a diver connected a winch to what felt like a solid part of a submerged car. Soon after, a Mercedes roiled to the surface.
Inside, still buckled in to the driver's seat, deputies saw a set of human bones.
Palm Beach County sheriff's Detective Michael Bianchi ran the car's registration and pulled Fish's missing persons report before consulting an expert for a final confirmation. In one of life's twisted little ironies, it fell to Barry's brother, Robert, a forensic dentist who works in Broward County, to compare his brother's dental records with the skull from the sunken Mercedes.
Here at last was the concrete evidence they had pined for all these years. There could be no more doubt: Barry Fish, scratch golfer, A-student, best-looking of three boys, was gone. Authorities said the death appeared accidental.
Now all that's left is a dull pain, accompanied by the knowledge that, all these years, as they had pictured him off and wandering in some far-away city, Fish had been just a few miles west of his parents' suburban Boca Raton home, hidden under 8 feet of murky water.
After absorbing the news, Robert and Larry Fish set about making final arrangements. They plan to bury their brother near their childhood synagogue in Zanesville, Ohio, alongside their mother and father.
Then, Robert Fish said, "He will finally be at peace."