Drunken Boater Hits Swimmers in N. Carolina Lake, Killing Girl, 10, Police Say
The boater, Quinten Kight, 40, of Vass, N.C., was charged with operating a boat in a reckless manner while intoxicated and causing a death or serious injury by impaired boating during the collision, which happened on the Shearon Harris Reservoir about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, N.C., according to charging documents.
At a hearing on Monday in District Court in Chatham County, N.C., a prosecutor said that officers had found 39 empty beer cans in the boat that Mr. Kight had been driving and that he had tried to get rid of them. Seven of the empty beer cans appeared to have been 'shotgunned,' a binge drinking ritual, Jeff Nieman, the district attorney for Chatham and Orange Counties in North Carolina, said at the hearing.
In 2010, Mr. Kight pleaded guilty in New Mexico to having operated a motor vehicle under the influence one year earlier, court records show.
And in December 2023 in another county in North Carolina, Mr. Kight was arrested on felony charges of hit-and-run that resulted in an injury. Those charges are pending.
'This man's not safe to be out in the community right now,' Mr. Nieman said at the hearing.
It was not clear whether Mr. Kight, who indicated in court filings that he was indigent and had retired from the U.S. Army, had a lawyer. The public defender's office in Chatham County did not immediately respond on Monday to a request for comment.
Mr. Kight was unable to post a $500,000 bond and was being held at a detention center in Chatham County.
On Saturday, three people were swimming about 100 feet off shore around 4:30 p.m. when Mr. Kight steered the Tige wake boat into them, said the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the agency overseeing the crash investigation.
At the time, several other people were in the boat with him, and he was towing two people in a tube, Sgt. Claude Smith of the wildlife commission said on Monday. Mr. Kight had been making a turn when the boat's propeller hit two of the swimmers about 500 yards from a boat launch area, the authorities said.
Brooklyn Mae Carroll, 10, died at the scene, and Jennifer Stehle, a woman in her early 40s, was critically injured by the propeller and was airlifted to a trauma center, according to Sergeant Smith, who said that Ms. Stehle had lost her left leg. She was in stable condition on Monday. The third swimmer was not injured.
Brooklyn was a fifth-grader at West Lake Elementary School in Wake County, N.C., the television station WRAL reported.
Ms. Stehle, who is married with children, is a school social worker, according to a GoFundMe page started by her friends.
'This was a heartbreaking accident, but one that was preventable,' Sheriff Mike Roberson of Chatham County said in a statement. 'Alcohol was a factor, and the decision to operate a boat while impaired had devastating consequences.'
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