Latest news with #QuintenKight
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
Death and amputation after boat driver 'found behind the wheel with THIRTY NINE empty cans of beer'
A North Carolina boater allegedly had 39 empty beer cans on board when he crashed into unsuspecting swimmers - killing a little girl and leaving a woman without a leg. Quinten Kight, 40, stands accused of drunk driving a boat in Shearon Harris Lake and causing the fatal collision that killed Brooklyn Carroll and severely injured Jennifer Stehle, 41, on Saturday at around 4:30pm. The suspect rammed the vessel into Brooklyn and Stehle when he turned his back to look at a tube he was pulling, carrying two people, according to investigators. The victims were in the water with a third swimmer, Brooklyn's mother Kim. Authorities rushed to the scene, but Brooklyn had already died. Stehle's left leg was shredded by the boat's propeller. She was airlifted to a hospital where her the mutilated limb was amputated from above the knee. When officials confronted Kight they discovered 39 empty beer cans on the boat. He was allegedly trying to get rid of them as investigators arrived. Seven of these cans appeared to have been 'shotgunned,' Chatham County District Attorney Jeff Nieman said in court on Monday, KPTV reported. Police said other containers of alcohol were found outside the boat, which are believed to have been Kight's as well. The suspect is charged with Operating While Impaired and Death by Impaired Boating and remains in jail on a $500,000 bond. 'It's absolutely preventable any time that someone gets out on the water and partakes in drinking alcohol or using any other impairing substance,' Wildlife Resource Commission Sgt Claude Smith told ABC 11. Brooklyn was entering the fifth grade at West Lake Elementary School, where Stehle works as a social worker. 'BB was a light in every room she entered, with an infectious smile, a loving heart, and a spirit that touched everyone who knew her,' Brooklyn's family wrote on GoFundMe. 'Her laughter, kindness, and energy brought so much joy to her family and friends.' A relative created the fundraiser to help ease the financial burden on Brooklyn's grieving parents, Kim and Matt, as they arrange to lay their daughter to rest. So far, more than $39,000 has been donated. Another GoFundMe was started to support Stehle and her family as she embarks on the grueling road to recovery that lies ahead. Kight (pictured during his virtual court appearance on Monday) had racked up an unflattering criminal track record prior to allegedly drunk driving in Shearon Harris Lake The mother-of-two 'will require extensive therapy and rehabilitation as she works to recover,' organizers wrote. More than $78,700 has been donated. Kight told the court on Monday that he was an Army veteran. According to records reviewed by the Daily Mail, he was given a court appointed lawyer. The Public Defender's Office could not provide the name of Kight's court-appointed attorney to the Daily Mail. Court documents obtained by ABC 11 revealed Kight had racked up an unflattering criminal track record prior to allegedly drunk driving in Shearon Harris Lake. He was arrested in New Mexico in 2009 with DUI and has pending charges from a 2023 hit-and-run that harmed Alex Myers, 35, of Vass, North Carolina. 'If they would have been able to do something and maybe I don't know, penalize this guy in some way maybe that little girl would still be alive,' said Myers of Saturday's tragedy. He recalled the moment he first learned that the man who allegedly struck him with a truck had been accused of yet another senseless crime.' 'I opened it up, and it was just mind blowing to me that that guy is just living out there completely careless,' he told ABC 11.
New York Times
5 days ago
- New York Times
Drunken Boater Hits Swimmers in N. Carolina Lake, Killing Girl, 10, Police Say
A drunken boater struck three people who were swimming in a North Carolina lake over the weekend, killing a 10-year-old girl and critically injuring a woman, the authorities said. 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.'
