Realtor presumed dead after falling from boat

Gary and Susan “Denise” Fox had just about reached Carlin Bay on Lake Coeur d’Alene Friday evening when everything went deathly wrong.

The couple had slowed their 54-foot boat and were nearing the docks when Denise Fox came up from below into the captain’s chair. But she couldn’t find Gary, his best friend, Bruce Mathis, said Saturday. As far as Denise knew, Gary had been putting out the bumpers before they reached the docks.

“She was looking for him,” Mathis said. “That’s when she heard him cry out and saw him in the water.”

Denise Fox grabbed a rope and threw it to her husband, who was wearing a jacket, sweatshirt and jeans. But Gary simply could not reach the line, Mathis said.

Denise Fox then maneuvered the boat so that she could throw him the rope again. Gary could not reach the rope the second time, and he slid below the surface of the cold water, Mathis said.

“Gary was an incredibly good and careful boater,” his friend said. “He takes every precaution possible.”

But he had just waxed the boat, which may have contributed to him slipping off the side, Mathis said.

Denise Fox called the authorities, and members of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office Recreation Safety Division arrived. But silt in the water from spring runoff made the water too cloudy to see very well, Capt. Ben Wolfinger said in a press release.

Divers were unable to recover his body Saturday. Water in the bay is anywhere from 100 to 120 feet deep, Wolfinger said. The search will resume when the county can obtain a sideways-looking sonar, which is being sent from Boise this week, Wolfinger said.

The temperature of the water Saturday was 43 degrees, he added.

Mathis was with Denise Fox and her family Saturday evening and spoke on her behalf.

“It’s very tough,” Mathis said. “She has a lot of people supporting her, but there is a lot of pain right now.”

Art Sharpe, 53, of Spokane, started selling real estate about the same time as Gary Fox in the late 1970s.

“We competed against each other. I’ve got a million stories,” Sharpe said. “The real estate industry is going to miss a knight in shining armor. He was a great one.”

Mathis said Gary and Denise had been married for just over 20 years. Gary has a son, Russell, from a previous marriage.

On Friday, the couple was heading to Carlin Bay for a yacht club function. They almost made it.

“The boat was not under power. She didn’t see him go in,” Mathis said.

Once Denise Fox saw her husband in the water, she frantically tried to save him. “And he just went under.”