Witness Details Failed Effort To Save Swimmer In Gulfport

GULFPORT - The body of a 27-year-old St. Petersburg man was found early this morning in Boca Ciega Bay, roughly five hours after he leapt off the city's pier to swim, authorities say.

Alexander Pickett disappeared about 7 p.m. Tuesday, said Lt. Howard Coombs of the Gulfport Police Department. Pickett had been with a friend and family fishing from the Walter & Bert Williams Fishing Pier.

With him were his brother's fiancée, Aretishia Barker, Barker's two adult children and a friend, Barker said today. She said they were fishing and that Pickett had been saying for about a week that he wanted to go swimming in Gulfport.

They were gathering their things to walk roughly 200 yards on the pier to shore when Pickett announced he was going to jump off the pier and swim back, Barker said.

"I said, 'Alex, can you swim? Boy, don't get in the water if you can't swim.'

"He said, 'I can swim.' "

"He gets in the water. First he starts out a little slow. Twenty, thirty feet out he turns over on his back. I say, 'What you doing?' He says, 'I'm floating,' " Barker said.

"I said, 'Alex, are you OK?' He didn't say nothing," Barker said.

That's when Barker turned to her son - Donell Barker, 23 - and told him Pickett was in trouble. He took off his clothes and jumped in, she said.

She said her son swam to Pickett and Pickett started fighting him. Her son repeatedly told Pickett to calm down. At one point, he went under Pickett's arm to start the process of bringing him in, but both men went under. Her son brought Pickett back up, but then Pickett looked as though he was trying to climb out of the water on her son, and her son went back under, she said.

When her son came back up, he said, " 'Mom, we're gonna drown. We're gonna drown.' So I told him to cut him loose," Aretishia Barker said. When Donell Barker tried to free himself from Pickett, Pickett tried to grab his shirt.

Her son, by then exhausted, swam to a pier piling, which he held on to until he was rescued. Pickett went under again, came back up for about 20 seconds, and then submerged for good, Aretishia Barker said.

Lt. Coombs said other people had jumped into the water to save Pickett.

Pinellas sheriff's divers found him this morning at 12:32 a.m. near where he vanished, said Coombs and Pinellas sheriff's officials. They did so by using a side-scan sonar system, which detects sizeable objects in the water, said sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda.

Investigators learned that he wasn't a strong swimmer or couldn't swim, Coombs said.

He only swam 20 to 30 yards of the 200 yard distance to shore, Aretishia Barker said.

Pickett stocked shelves and worked a cash register at a Dollar Tree store, Aretishia Barker said.