1 Dead After Car Drives Off Skyway Pier

A 52-year-old Eustis man is dead following a Wednesday afternoon incident on the south Skyway fishing pier.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Richard K. McCrocklin pulled up to the pier on the Hillsborough County side and around 2 p.m. and got out of his car. McCrocklin, a highway patrol report said, stood outside the vehicle for a time and then got in. He proceeded, for “unknown reasons,” to drive “north through the barrier wall and off the end of the south Skyway fishing pier,” a patrol report noted.

McCrocklin’s vehicle became fully submerged, the agency noted.

Divers from St. Petersburg Fire Rescue were able to locate the vehicle and recover it. McCrocklin was pronounced dead at the scene.

Photo courtesy of the Florida Highway Patrol