Remembering Bin Laden's other local victims

VERO BEACH, Fla. - Al Scott is apologizing.  He knows his wife would know where these things are.  Scott, a successful citrus and cattleman, is thumbing through volumes of family pictures.  But the only picture Scott can find of his son-in-law, Ronald Scott Owens, watches over his den.

Owens was a 1994 Vero Beach High School graduate who joined the Navy in 1998.  The 24 year-old was on his first tour of duty in the fall of 2000 aboard the USS Cole.

"Scott had been recommended by a CEO for Officers Candidate school when he returned," said Al Scott.

But in October, one day after e-mailing his wife about an upcoming vacation, the USS Cole was bombed by terrorists off the coast of Yemen.  Al Scott's daughter Jamie was visiting her parents in Vero at the time.  They received a visit from two naval officers that night saying Scott was missing.

"The next day, they were back and they affirmed that he had been killed," said Al Scott.

Jamie and Scott Owens had a daughter, Isabella.  She was four at the time.  Scott called her "Bear." Today, she is 15.

Al Scott remembered how his son-in-law worshipped that little girl.  "We would come in after a game of golf. He would scoop her up and throw her over his shoulder. He was a very good dad."

A dad who has a permanent marker at Veterans Memorial Island Sanctuary at Riverside Park in Vero Beach among heroes from other military conflicts.

After learning of Osama Bin Laden's death, Donna Scott, Scott's mother-in-law, wrote on Facebook "Ding Dong the witch is dead."

 "Thank God it's finally over. It's done and it gives you a little bit of a closure," said Al Scott.
 

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