Portsmouth prosecutor killed in Chesapeake accident

PORTSMOUTH

Elizabeth B. Fitzwater was poised and prepared in the courtroom. And she was at peace in her family's pew at First Presbyterian Church.

The veteran prosecutor grew up in the downtown church and later became an elder there.

On Sundays, the Rev. Kerry Westerwick liked to look out at the congregation and see Fitzwater and her family taking up a pew.

Their little girl would sometimes lie down. An older brother would lean on Mom and another on Dad, she said.

"They were so at home in that pew," Westerwick said.

Fitzwater was unflappable and she did it all, Westerwick and others said as they grappled with the shock of her death in a car accident Monday afternoon in Chesapeake.

Driving with her 4-year-old daughter in the car, it appeared Fitzwater had veered to the right and overcorrected, colliding with a car going the opposite direction on Bruce Road, police said. They do not suspect that speed, alcohol, drugs or anything suspicious played a role, police spokeswoman Kelly O'Sullivan said.

The child and the second car's driver were taken to hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, police said, but Fitzwater died of her injuries.

Fitzwater, 43, had been a Portsmouth prosecutor since 1998 and was cross-designated as an assistant U.S. attorney, said Earle C. Mobley, the city's commonwealth's attorney. She handled violent crime, narcotics and firearms cases, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

She had a tremendous ability and did an outstanding job, Mobley and others said.

Fitzwater's husband, Michael, said people often asked why his wife didn't go into an area of the law that would bring in more money.

"Elizabeth liked being on the right side of the law," he said Tuesday. "She loved protecting people."

Mobley said Fitzwater believed she could make a difference and she did.

"I really think that Elizabeth relished the role of being able to help people that were unable to help themselves," Mobley said - the victims who were hurt or injured, the families of those who were killed.

"I just think that she wanted to see the law work for them, to see that justice was done."

Tony Nicolo, a Portsmouth attorney, said he was glad that Fitzwater's daughter was all right but that he "just can't imagine a world without Elizabeth."

Nicolo had spent Monday afternoon at Harbor Park with Fitzwater's husband and her two sons. Her sons, like Nicolo, are baseball fans, and they have a standing invitation to join him near the dugout for games, he said.

On Monday, when the boys went to get autographs, Nicolo told Michael Fitzwater what a credit the children were to their parents.

"As good a lawyer and as good a friend as she's been, she's a better mother," Nicolo said.

"And it's them that I cry for now."

The family is devastated, Michael Fitzwater said, but they are a tightknit group.

"And that is how we will get through this, is with the strength of family and our faith in God," he said.

Pilot writer Tim McGlone contributed to this report.

Janie Bryant, (757) 446-2453, janie.bryant@pilotonline.com