The news of the drowning of a woman and a girl in North Wildwood reached Jesse Watkins in prison Tuesday night, and as he watched the TV report with a cell mate, he reminisced about the times he'd gone fishing there, his son said.

Yesterday, Watkins learned that the woman who drowned was his daughter, Jamilah Watkins, 27, of Grover, N.C.

North Wildwood police said that she and Shayne Hart, 15, of Middletown, Conn., drowned about dinner time as they swam near Hereford Inlet, at 1st and Surf avenues.

Jermaine McNeil, Jamilah's brother, said that a relative broke the news to their father at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, where Watkins, from Middle Township, is serving a 45-year-sentence for killing a cousin.

"He said from what he could remember, she could swim like a fish," McNeil, 29, said of Jamilah.

McNeil said that his sister, who had three children, was spending the summer at the Shore with him and their grandfather. On Tuesday, she took his four young children and Hart, who McNeil said was a cousin, to the beach.

"They were just going to the beach for a fun day," he said. "It was beautiful."

McNeil said that the group stayed at the beach for hours, and that his 13-year-old daughter wanted to take one last dip before heading home, even though lifeguards had left at 5 p.m.

"She's blaming herself for the incident," he said.

About 5:55 p.m., North Wildwood police received 9-1-1 calls reporting three swimmers in trouble at the beach. When officers arrived, they found McNeil's 13-year-old daughter on the beach but Jamilah Watkins and Hart were missing, police said.

"My daughter said it just changed suddenly," McNeil said. "They were further out than they thought and the water was deeper. She saw Shayne go under and Jamilah was floating away."

Hart was rescued within minutes, police said, but was pronounced dead at Cape Regional Medical Center, in Middle Township. Jamilah's body was found by rescue crews 90 minutes later. McNeil's daughter was not injured.

Jesse Watkins will be allowed to attend his daughter's funeral, said his father, the Rev. George H. Watkins, an associate minister at the First Baptist Church of Whitesboro, in Cape May County.

"It is horrific," said Watkins, 90. "Lord, help me hold out until my day is done."

Jesse Watkins was convicted in February of the murder of his cousin, Craig White, in 1990 over a woman. White's body was never found, and Watkins' family maintains a Web site that proclaims his innocence.

McNeil said that investigators told the family that there were rip currents along the beach Tuesday night. Rip currents are narrow and powerful currents, often created by shifting sandbars, that pull swimmers offshore and quickly exhaust them.

Jon Miller, a professor and coastal expert at the Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, said that most swimmers panic and swim against the rip current rather than swim parallel to shore.

"Even an Olympic swimmer can't outswim a rip current," he said.

Miller and the New Jersey Sea Sciences Consortium are spearheading a campaign to raise awareness of deadly rip currents, including posting signs on beaches. North Wildwood Beach Patrol officials could not be reached yesterday for comment.

For more information about rip currents, visit www.njmsc.org/Sea_Grant/

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