Shore death still a mystery

THE SMILE ON Tracy Hottenstein's face disappeared on a cold February morning during a festive weekend in Sea Isle City, and the Conshohocken woman's family thinks someone else was there when it happened.

"There's someone out there who knows more than anyone else does," Charles Hottenstein told the Daily News in his first interview since his only daughter's death.

Friends snapped a photo of Hottenstein on the Sea Isle boardwalk Feb. 14, the day of the city's Polar Bear Plunge. Smiling, with the ocean calm and the beach deserted behind her, she wore the pink plaid hat, pink scarf and black vest that authorities say she still had on when surveillance footage captured her leaving the Ocean Drive bar at 2:15 the next morning.

Her father said he was told by investigators that during the next few hours Hottenstein somehow wound up in the frigid water of a back bay near a city marina, about six blocks from the bar.

But the puzzle pieces that her relatives have been given create a painful and incomplete picture, and they don't know if she slipped, jumped or was pushed into the water.

Sources close to the investigation say a man who was with Hottenstein that night, considered a "person of interest," had been interviewed by investigators and was to be interviewed again this week.

Her father said authorities told him that Tracy had suffered cracked ribs and leg injuries. He thinks she then pulled herself out of the water, wiped her muddy hands on her jeans and collapsed on the bank.

"Nobody believes she was on that marina by herself," said her mother, Betty, also speaking with a reporter for the first time.

In March, the Daily News reported that a law-enforcement source confirmed that Tracy had not drowned. Authorities still have not released the cause and manner of her death, citing pending toxicology results. A law-enforcement source said those results are complete, but the Hottensteins said they haven't seen them and don't believe that the findings will be surprising.

"I know that my daughter wasn't doing anything besides drinking," Betty Hottenstein said.

Her daughter, who would have turned 36 a few days after her death, had been a standout athlete at Souderton Area High School and the University of Delaware.

Although she was in Sea Isle to attend the festivities, her father said she had not taken part in the plunge, an annual event that draws thousands to the resort town to charge into the frigid Atlantic, pack the bars, run in charity races, and spend money at craft and food fairs.

A fisherman found her body about 8 a.m. Feb. 15, lying on the mudbank near the city-owned marina on 42nd Place, a quiet street of fishing boats and restaurants where few people live. According to the National Weather Service in Atlantic City, temperatures dipped to 25 degrees that day.

Her parents got the call four hours later at their Montgomery County home. And although they express confidence in the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office, they wonder about those missing puzzle pieces.

"The toughest fight for us is the unknown," Betty said. "It goes through our minds every day."

Last Sunday on 42nd Place in Sea Isle City, the rain created a puddle around the daisies and carnations placed in Tracy Hottenstein's memory among the mud, reeds and mussel shells.

A major construction project is under way at the marina, including an elevated walkway that will pass directly over the spot where her body was found.

In March, when the Daily News spoke with marina supervisor Frank Edwardi Sr., he pointed to fluorescent paint on one of the docks, a spot he said investigators marked after finding Hottenstein's pink hat there.

Charles Hottenstein said he and his wife walked on those same wobbly docks in an effort to understand what had happened, and his wife nearly fell in.

Lynanne Wescott, an attorney representing the Hottenstein family, said she recently sent a letter asking the city to stop the construction, fearing it could disrupt how the area looked the morning Tracy died or disturb evidence.

Hottenstein's parents said that she had left her pocketbook in the Ocean Drive bar, but that other belongings are still missing, including an Ugg boot, a camera and her pink scarf.

Authorities gave Betty Hottenstein her daughter's sorority bracelet, a gift that Tracy and her sorority sisters from the University of Delaware had bought each other for their 35th birthdays.

The Cape May County Prosecutor's Office did not return phone calls for this report, but have declined in the past to comment on specifics of the case, citing the ongoing investigation. Prosecutor Robert Taylor has said he would not label the incident as suspicious.

The Hottensteins said that the pace of the investigation, now closing in on its 12th week, has been grueling but that investigators at the prosecutor's office remain in constant contact.

Charles Hottenstein said he asked investigators whether it would be possible to offer a small reward with money taken from Polar Bear Plunge proceeds.

"They told me they would approach the town fathers about that, but I never heard anything more," he said. "We haven't had so much as an 'I'm sorry for your loss' from the city or council."

Mayor Leonard Desiderio, who is also a Cape May County freeholder and owner of Kix McNutley's bar and liquor store in Sea Isle, has steadfastly declined to comment. Managers and owners of the Ocean Drive, once partly owned by New Jersey State Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

At the La Costa, a popular bar across from the Ocean Drive that hosted a post-plunge party, owner James Bennett, also the plunge coordinator, declined to comment, citing the "official investigation."

In the city's news release prior to the Polar Bear Plunge, Bennett said he was expecting at least 30,000 spectators. Published reports afterward claimed that at least 1,000 people paid $25 to charge into the icy Atlantic. Those fees support a summer trolley that transports visitors around town to "better enable them to patronize local businesses," the news release stated.

Wescott said she believes that the city has remained silent on the death due to legal advice, but that Hottenstein and the future of the Polar Bear Plunge are on everyone's mind.

"It's a real shame that somebody had to die to force the city fathers to take a closer look at this event, so that nobody else is injured ever again and that Tracy's death wasn't in vain," she said.

Rain also fell in Philadelphia on Sunday. By Mile 9 of the Broad Street Run, participants were staring trancelike at an approaching hill and forging ahead on the wet, black pavement.

But one face was laughing: a joyful moment in Tracy Hottenstein's life, caught on camera and printed on dozens of T-shirts worn by runners, some of whom smiled and waved at Tracy's parents who stood on the sidewalk wiping away tears and raindrops.

Dozens of Hottenstein's relatives and friends lined Broad Street, cheering on those who raced in Tracy's honor, before assembling for a barbecue in FDR Park.

Some said Hottenstein's personality made it difficult to believe that her death was entirely accidental.

"She did everything right, and it doesn't add up," said Katie Wolven, a former Sigma Kappa sorority sister at the University of Delaware who drove up from Maryland to run Sunday. "Her parents deserve more than this."

Besides being scared of the dark and of water for most of her life, Betty Hottenstein said, her daughter was cautious and responsible, a consummate professional who paid her mortgage, held a steady job as a pharmaceutical sales rep with Daiichi Sankyo, and even found time to coach youth lacrosse in Conshohocken.

"She was absolutely always in control of her life," Betty Hottenstein said. "This is why this is so out-of-character for her."

Seeing Lincoln Financial Field, where Tracy and her dad both had season tickets for the Eagles, was a reminder. Seeing runners compete, just as Tracy had in the past, was another.

"It never goes away," Betty said. "You're constantly reminded she's gone."

The runners passed the Hottensteins for more than an hour, and Charles couldn't help but compare it to the numbers that descended upon Sea Isle City for the Polar Bear Plunge.

"Can you believe that? And no one has come forward," he said.

Tracy Hottenstein was a smiling face in both crowds, but sometime between 2:15 a.m. and 8 a.m on Feb. 15, in the darkness of a frigid morning in Sea Isle City, her smile became a memory.

Anyone with information about Tracy Hottenstein's death can contact the Sea Isle City police at 609-263-4311 or the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office at 609-465-1135.