NICEVILLE — A report was released Tuesday that sheds more light on events before and after a fatal boating accident at the Mid-Bay Bridge late Dec. 4 or early Dec. 5.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office released documents concerning the wreck that killed 47-year-old former Bay High basketball coach Robert Williams, 21-year-old Jamilia Beltz and 18-year-old Taylor Evanoff. All three were from Niceville.
Beltz’s boyfriend told investigators he last saw the young woman Dec. 4 as he was leaving for work. When he returned home, he found two cold drinks on the kitchen table and Evanoff’s purse.
“He thought the two had gone out to a local nightclub because this was a normal activity for the two women,” according to the Sheriff’s Office report.
Two days later a pair of fishermen discovered Evanoff’’s body in Choctawhatchee Bay near Niceville. Her body bore multiple bruises and cuts.
A fiberglass boat drawer was floating nearby. Investigators also noted stamps like those used to identify bar patrons on her hands and breasts.
In Evanoff’s back pocket they found a card for Emerald Coast Cab with the name of a cab driver. The driver told investigators from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that he had taken three people to Legendary Marina on Okaloosa Island about midnight.
He told the officer that “it was an older man and two … very young females,” the report said.
Williams’ body was found the morning of Dec. 7 near his wrecked 336 Cobalt boat, which had crashed into a piling of the Mid-Bay Bridge.
Williams, a father of five, had been reported missing by his fiancée Dec. 5 after he failed to return home. She said Williams had told her he “was going to a Choctawhatchee High School basketball game … and was going to meet a friend,” the report said.
There was no game that day. The friend Williams said he would meet told officials he hadn’t seen Williams that night, according to the report.
On Dec. 7, Evanoff’s sister went to Beltz’s home to pick up her purse and told Beltz’s boyfriend that Evanoff’s body had been found the previous day.
The man called local hospitals and law enforcement agencies to try to find Beltz and reported her missing.
Beltz’s body was found that night on a beach behind homes in the area of Sixth Street and Beach Drive in Destin.
The FWC is continuing to investigate the crash.