[3] Tyler and Mary Alice Martin, a former secretary for United States Senator George Smathers, lived in a townhouse purchased by Baker in a cooperative housing development until March 1964.
"[2][4] On February 26, 1964, Tyler appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration investigating Baker's business and political activities and refused to testify, citing her Fifth Amendment rights.
[3] On the afternoon of May 9, she died when the single-engine Waco biplane in which she was a passenger crashed into five feet of water 200 yards offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.
[3] Divers recovered the wreckage of the plane with the bodies of Tyler and the pilot, Robert H. Davis, the following day under 23 feet of water not far from Baker's motel.
[5] In October, the Civil Aeronautics Board laid responsibility for the accident on Davis, a World War II bomber pilot with 5,700 hours of experience.