DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Miami, Florida - 1953)

Dad RUSSELL TONGAY was a big new item back in the early 1950s. He was convicted of manslaughter in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, a well-known swimming star, just after she died in 1953.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/11/04/2007-11-04_water_torture.html

Justice Story
Water Torture
BY DAVID J. KRAJICE
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Tuesday, March 25th 2008, 3:01 PM

On a sunny June day in 1950, Russell Tongay plopped his two towheaded children into the murk of the Mississippi River, 22 miles upstream from St. Louis.

Russell Jr., known as Bubba, 4, and Kathy, 2, did what their dad had trained them to do: They swam like fish.

Tongay, following in a boat, yanked out his toddler daughter after 5 miles. But brother Bubba swam on and on, all the way to St. Louis before his father flagged the waterlogged boy to shore.
Tongay beamed for the cluster of scribes assembled to record the spectacle.

The river swim, he pronounced, was a mere warmup. He said Bubba's feat proved that his water babies were capable of the most famous swim in the world: the 21-mile crossing of the English Channel.

That day's exhibition was a national introduction for Bubba and Kathy, whom the press nicknamed the "Aquatots." It was also a flashbulb debut for an unimaginably obsessed parent.

Fixated on swimming

Tongay had been born in St. Louis with water on the brain. He was fixated with swimming as a child and became a local standout in the sport.

After high school, he worked as a lifeguard and swimming coach before World War II interrupted. He chose the Coast Guard, of course.

After the war, Tongay married Betty Meyer from Tarpon Springs, Fla., famous for its sponge divers.

When children arrived, Tongay treated them like tadpoles. He sprayed them with water as newborns to acclimate them, and they swam before they walked. At 10 months, Kathy swam 20 feet under water. At age 4, Bubba could hold his breath for four minutes.

After the St. Louis show, the father promoted his sun-bronzed children as an entertainment act. Bubba would leap into a pool from a 30-foot platform with his wrists and ankles bound, then swim two laps underwater before surfacing.

They moved to Miami, where high-end hotels offered free use of their pools for training sessions, which attracted tourists.

Tongay bragged about their strict diet of baby food. When a press wag suggested the kids looked thin, the father explained, "I keep them lean because they swim better."

Oddly, the children became a source of American pride. The parents were described admiringly as "ambitious," and the Miami Elks Club avidly sponsored the Aquatots' attempt at the English Channel.

Swimmers had successfully crossed from France to England 16 times prior to 1950. The more difficult England-to-France passage had been completed just four times. No child had ever attempted the swim.

Tongay declared his kids would cross the hard way, from Dover to Calais. Aquapop's motivation: a $20,000 prize offered by a London newspaper.

In June 1951, the Tongay family circus traveled to England, but Brits judged the parents more abusive than ambitious.

The country forbade the children from attempting the swim, and France added a firm non et non. When the Tongays returned to America, the international publicity had made the children even more marketable.

Film newsreels featured their exploits, and the children won cameo diving roles in "Skirts Ahoy!" starring Hollywood swimming sensation Esther Williams.

They seemed poised for stardom until the events of May 5, 1953, washed out Russell Tongay's curious dream.

Kathy, still just 5, had begun working on challenging dives from a 33-foot springboard, under the fish-eyed direction of Dad. The mission that morning was to complete a back layout dive with 1-1/2 twists in the pool at posh Macfadden-Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach.

As guests gasped, she belly-flopped on one attempt from the height of a four-story building. Kathy complained of pain, but Tongay took her on to another pool, down the beach at Treasure Isle Resort, to complete her day's workout.

A lifeguard there noticed that Kathy was bruised, and she vomited a jar of baby food her father fed her. She began convulsing hours later, and by nightfall, the girl was dead.

An autopsy revealed a ruptured intestine. Police said the girl's body was badly bruised, perhaps indicating a beating.

Questionable parenting skills

Betty Tongay allowed that she had swatted her daughter that morning. But she insisted, "It wasn't much of a whipping, just the kind any parents give when their children don't mind."

And Russell Tongay added, "I told police I didn't give Kathy a whipping. ... I told them she was hurt in a high dive, but they wouldn't listen."

Tongay was charged with second-degree murder, and an investigation shed new light on his parenting techniques.

Russell and Betty Tongay had a first child, a son named Rusty, who died of a suspicious head injury at 18 months. Some whispered that Tongay whacked Rusty on the head when he surfaced prematurely during a bathtub breath-holding exercise.

Betty Tongay insisted Rusty simply had fallen down. No charges were filed. Police also collected disturbing accounts of eyewitnesses who saw Kathy begging through tears, "Please, Daddy, no more swimming."

The Miami trial featured damning testimony from experts about the physical punishment of high dives. A jury took less than an hour to convict Tongay of manslaughter for forcing the dives, and Judge Ben Willard sent him up the river for 10 years.

He was stripped of parental rights over Bubba, and his wife divorced him.

But Tongay had an eventful stretch in custody.

He escaped during a trip to a hospital by leaping off a moving train. He turned up in Los Angeles, claiming amnesia. The following year, he was declared insane after a suicide attempt and spent time in the loony bin.

Tongay was released in April 1961, after six years of confinement. He soon married a San Francisco woman who sought an annulment just months later after the groom disappeared with her life's savings of $12,000.

Tongay returned to South Florida, where he apparently lived out his life in obscurity.

Betty Tongay died in 1992, after 40 years as a teacher in Tarpon Springs. The surviving Aquatot, Bubba, enjoyed a long career of public service in Miami - as a member of the city's Beach Patrol.