ByALICIA CALDWELL
Tampa Bay Times
Published Dec 29, 1999
The beauty of Lisa resonated in the small things:
The way the young woman and her father still could enjoy the same movies together.
The time she always had to talk to her older neighbors about their grandchildren.
The bond she forged with her little dog Meeka, which she rescued after the Shih Tzu-poodle mix was abandoned at a veterinarian's office.
Lisa Marie Peterson died earlier this month, apparently from a massive heart attack. It shouldn't have been, say her friends and family. The Clearwater woman appeared healthy. She worked out all the time.
She was only 26 years old.
"It seems unbelievable," her mother, Linda Peterson, said in a recent interview. "There should have been some kind of sign.
The official record thus far is devoid of absolute answers in the matter of Lisa Peterson's death.
Final autopsy results still are pending. And police still are investigating the death of the marketing specialist who worked at Raymond James Financial in Carillon, so many documents are not available for public inspection.
"I will tell you this," said Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor. "The Clearwater police detectives have discovered nothing giving us reason to think this was a suspicious death."
There was nothing out of place, Shelor said. No robbery. No apparent trauma. No signs of illegal drug use.
"There was nothing," Shelor said.
Meanwhile, her parents grieve and wait for the medical examiner to get toxicology test results. So far, authorities have told them that one of Peterson's coronary arteries was almost completely blocked. She had never had any hint of heart trouble, her parents said.
"She was never sick," said Linda Peterson. "It's been so very difficult."
John and Linda Peterson met on a blind date in August 1971. They went to a party and ended up playing basketball in the back yard. The chemistry was instantaneous and undeniable. Their souls connected. They were engaged in November and married by February.
"It was kind of a whirlwind thing," said Linda Peterson, squeezing her husband's hand and indulging in a smile, a rarity these days.
Linda Peterson had been told she never would have children, so the couple were stunned to learn several months later that she was expecting.
"We always called her our miracle child," she said of Lisa.
As the child grew up, the Petersons said, they spent nearly all their free time together as a family.
"We took Lisa with us everywhere," said Linda Peterson, who for nearly 12 years has been a teacher at Canterbury, a private school in St. Petersburg.
Lisa graduated from Canterbury in 1991 and then studied for a year at St. Petersburg Junior College before going to Troy State University in Alabama, from which she received a bachelor's degree in marketing in 1996.
After college, she got her own place and began working as a marketing specialist for Raymond James, a firm she had interned with during college.
To say that Lisa Peterson was close to her parents doesn't begin to touch on how enmeshed their lives were.
They talked on the phone every day. The daughter and her mother took their dogs to obedience school together. She and her father ran the 3.1-mile Turkey Trot race together just days before her death.
They rolled through life as something of a three-wheeled family unit. They were all they had. But they were all they needed.
"We kept in touch every day," said John Peterson. "We weren't possessive of her. We were just friends.
The last time John Peterson talked to his daughter was the afternoon before she died.
She called him at work and asked if he would stop by her condominium and feed her dog on his way home. Lisa Peterson was going to get her hair done and wouldn't be home until 6 or 6:30 p.m. Her father, who is 51 and owns his own wholesale mattress business, said it would be no problem.
"At 6:30 we called," John Peterson said. "No answer. I saw the answering machine later. I called 19 times. At 10 o'clock, I said, "Look, there's some reason she's not returning our calls.' "
He drove from the home he shares with his wifein Ozona to Lisa's condo. Her car was there. The doors were locked and the television was on. No one answered when he knocked.
"I assumed at that time that she was taking a shower," John Peterson said.
He went home. When he tried calling her at work the next morning and was told she hadn't arrived, he knew something was terribly wrong.
He drove to her condo, arriving about 10:15, and looked in a window. He saw her feet. John got a screw driver and broke in a window, avoiding the deadbolt on the front door.
He found her in the kitchen. Clearwater police said she was eating a banana when she died. John Peterson said Lisa's dog, Meeka, was standing guard over her body.
"This is just one of those unusual incidences where a young person dies unexpectedly," said Detective Juan Torres, the lead detective on the case. "There were no indications of any kind of medications or illegal drugs at all."
Her parents said Lisa Peterson recently had dedicated herself to a regimen of exercise and had retrained her palate.
"She looked great," said Linda Peterson. "She had taught herself to eat healthy foods."
Lisa worked out at Bally Total Fitness every day, and had enrolled in a weight loss program. During the last 18 months, she had shed 40 pounds, said her parents. At the time of her death, she was 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighed between 130 and 140 pounds, said Linda.
"She ate a lot healthier than she used to," said her best friend, Laura Williams, who is majoring in architecture at Auburn University. "She wouldn't touch anything that was fried."
Everyone connected with the case mentions Lisa Peterson's dramatic weight loss as they struggle to explain her sudden death. But authorities say they have no reason to believe at this time that it was connected to the heart blockage, which appears to have caused her death.
"The preliminary physical autopsy indicates she may have died of a heart attack brought on by a coronary artery occlusion," Shelor said. "That's what they've found so far. We will now await toxicology reports.
The upper school of Canterbury, in north St. Petersburg, is an intimate place. There are just 240 student in grades six through 12. Spend any time there, and eventually you'll hear teachers and students refer to themselves as a family.
Word of Lisa's death spread quickly there.
"Total shock," said Carole Rosario, an art teacher at the school, in describing the atmosphere on campus. "Total disbelief. It hit us so hard. We had such concern for Linda and John."
Parents and faculty organized meals to be delivered to the Peterson's house. On their own, students began collecting money for funeral flowers. John estimated between 300 and 400 people attended the service at All Saints Catholic Church in Clearwater.
Linda said she came back to work within a week of Lisa's death because there was no place she'd rather be.
"It feels good to be here, to be around my friends and my Canterbury family," said Linda, 51, who is technology coordinator and chair of the science department.
Now, Linda and John wait and hope the medical examiner can give them a more definitive answer as to why their daughter was taken from them.
"It may turn out to be an anatomic malformation," said Larry Bedore, director of operations for the Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner's office.
However, it could be months before toxicology reports are in and the case is wrapped up. That, Bedore said, is standard procedure.
"That's what the most stressful thing is," said Laura Williams, 23, who was Lisa's best friend. "They're going to have to sit around and wait."
Meanwhile, Linda and John try to recall and keep alive in their memories every nuance of the last Thanksgiving they had together, just the three of them.
They remember the days that Laura spent with them after Lisa's death, telling them stories about their daughter.
The night after the viewing, Linda said she and Laura stayed up until nearly 2 a.m., talking about Lisa.
"We were cackling," Linda said. "I could do that with Laura."
"Her coming was a great comfort," said John. "It was a blessing."
Laura had kept in touch with Lisa over the years, trading e-mails or phone calls every day. Laura said she and Lisa were the sisters that each never had.
They talked about the day each of them might eventually marry, and that they would be each other's maid of honor.
"She was my best friend," Laura said. "She is irreplaceable."
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