Services set for student killed at Jersey Shore

By Leslie A. Pappas
Inquirer Staff Writer

Robert Peper “Bo” Fisher could crack up a room full of classmates, his smile could melt a rival’s anger, and his laugh – which sounded like a cross between an old lady and a duck – could make everyone around him laugh, too.

Tomorrow and Saturday, friends and family will pay their respects to the 17-year-old gentle giant from Richboro.

Fisher was killed Saturday when he ran into traffic while fleeing a police officer in Sea Isle City, N.J.

The accident has shocked students and faculty throughout the Council Rock School District, where Fisher attended Council Rock High School North before transferring to South this year.

Eric Reinbold, a social-studies teacher at Council Rock North, said students were devastated.

“He was the kind of kid that everybody liked,” Reinbold said. “Everybody would gravitate toward him.”

Police say Fisher was drinking beer on the beach with three friends around 9 p.m. Saturday when an officer from the Sea Isle City Police Department approached on an all-terrain vehicle and the boys ran.

Fisher hid in weeds behind a dune, but Officer William Bradshaw waited until he came out, then confronted him about drinking and led him to 13 beer cans the boys had left in the sand. When asked the name of his legal guardian, Fisher bolted.

Seconds later, he was struck by two cars as he tried to cross Landis Avenue. He died at the scene.

Why Fisher ran is a question “that will haunt me for the rest of my life,” said his father, Donald.

The teen, an honors student who excelled at football and lacrosse and scored 1,500 on his SATs, had just applied to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. He dreamed of serving with special-operations forces.

His mother, Danette Fisher-Hill, thinks he ran from the police to save his military career.

“If there is even so much as an indication that you were interrogated for any reason, it jeopardizes the application,” she said.

But Bradshaw had no intention of arresting Fisher, Sea Isle City Detective Jon Gansert said. “That’s the saddest part of this whole incident.”

Gansert said that after the funeral police would interview the other three boys who were on the beach with Fisher.

Whether Fisher was drinking is unclear; his friends have told his family that he was not, but Bradshaw reported smelling alcohol on his breath.

“I don’t consider the officer a liar,” said Greg Hill, Fisher’s stepfather. The family is Mormon and does not drink, but Fisher had stopped going to church, he said. Hill said Fisher, who could finish a 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds, might have thought he could outrun the officer and save himself from getting benched from the football team, disappointing his mother, and messing up his record.

“If I were a kid, that’s the way I’d think,” Hill said.

Toxicology reports could take six weeks, said Chief James Rybicki of the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office, which is also working on the case.

Family and friends say it doesn’t matter whether he was drinking.

Scott Freeman, 17, a friend and fellow football player, said he hoped people would not dwell on Fisher’s death, but would remember how he lived.

“He was the kind of person that most people want to be,” Freeman said. “The most selfless person I ever met.”

Standing 6-foot-2, with a clean-shaven head, and weighing more than 220 pounds, Fisher was “sort of intimidating” when you first met him, Freeman said. But underneath was someone who was down-to-earth, easygoing, willing to “take the heat” for you in bad situations, and always ready to have fun.

Step-sister Anna Hill, 16, remembers bear hugs that would lift her “three feet off the floor” and make her feel “like a million-bazillion bucks.”

Step-brother Gordon Hill, 14, remembers that Fisher would invite him to play poker with Fisher’s friends, even though he was younger.

“He taught me so much about how to treat people,” Hill said. “It’s kind of scary. With him gone, the world is a worse place.”

The viewing tomorrow will be at the Joseph A. Fleuhr 3d Funeral Home, 800 Newtown-Richboro Rd. in Richboro, after 6 p.m. The funeral is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John’s United Methodist Church, 820 Almshouse Rd. in Ivyland. The family has also establisheed a memorial Web site: www.fisherspoint.com.

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Contact staff writer Leslie A. Pappas at 215-702-7822 or lpappas@phillynews.com.

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