A bright blue sky stretched across Florida's Watersound Beach, a private stretch of sand in the Panhandle accessible only to one nearby community. It was June 7, 2024, and scores of sunbathers splayed on towels or under beach tents. The two sandbars off its shore, at 30 and 60 yards out, were dotted with bodysurfers and swimmers.
Among them were Elisabeth Foley, on vacation from Virginia with her husband, Ryan Foley, and their three children—Dominick, 13; Lyla, 15; and Laurel, 17—who splashed happily in the shallow waters of the first sandbar.
Keith Harrison, a neuropathologist from Alabama, was also at the first sandbar with his two sons, ages 9 and 12, bodysurfing the short waves. They were at the tail end of a weeklong family trip, and for the first…