Boat operator arrested in connection with fatal crash on Lake George
DON LEHMAN dlehman@poststar.com
QUEENSBURY, NY — Alexander M. West, the Lake George man who police said was piloting the boat that struck another boat on Monday night on Lake George, killing an 8-year-old girl and injuring her mother, was arrested Friday morning in connection with the crash.
West, 24, of Lockhart Mountain Road, Lake George, was brought by investigators to the Warren County Sheriff's Office in Queensbury for arrest processing. He was charged with at least one felony count of leaving the scene of a boating accident, but the investigation into the case is ongoing and additional charges are possible.
Four passengers in the boat were also charged Friday with misdemeanor counts of making a false statement and three of them with misdemeanor hindering prosecution, police said.
All five are expected to be arraigned in Lake George Town Court later Friday, Warren County Sheriff Bud York said. Relatives of Charlote McCue, the girl who died in the crash, were in court for the arraignment.
The boat passengers were identified as Matthew Marry, Christine Tiger, Cara M. Canale and Morland Keyes. Canale lives in Albany, and Keyes in Glens Falls, while Marry and Tiger live in Gansevoort, police said.
West will be represented by Albany-area defense lawyer Steve Coffey.
West's father, Martin West, was waiting in the Sheriff's Office lobby for his son shortly after his arrest, and asked if he wanted to discuss the situation, said "It's unfortunate. The guy broke Navigation Law. It will all come out."
Asked if he meant his son or the other driver, Martin West nodded his head at mention of the oth
er driver.
McCue of Carlsbad, California, died in the accident, and her mother was hurt. They were passengers on a boat being driven by a relative, which police said was hit by one driven by Alexander West around 9:24 p.m. Monday.
West's 21-foot powerboat boat was headed south and the 28-foot boat the McCues were on west when they collided, the West boat hitting the other boat from the side at a slight angle, police said.
Police said West's boat fled the scene and was abandoned minutes later at a motel on the lake, and the five occupants fled. A blood sample was taken from West the next morning to be tested for possible alcohol or drug content, but sheriff's officers had not received the results as of Friday afternoon.
Investigators believe West and his passengers had spent at least part of Monday at an annual lakeside party known as Log Bay Day, on the east side of the lake in Bolton.
Seven people were on the Gar Wood wooden boat that the McCues were on, and the girl and her mother were the only ones who were hurt.
Additional details about the crash and its aftermath were released Friday afternoon.
A surveillance camera from a lakeside home near the crash scene captured video of at least part of the collision.
"The video solves a lot of issues," Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan told defense lawyers in court Friday.
Authorities said West's boat stalled near the McCue boat after the collision, and the occupants were aware that their craft had hit another boat and conspired about what to say about the incident after they left the scene.
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Five charged after fatal Lake George boat crash
All face charges as drones record Lake George hit-run
By Bethany Bump and Jake Lahut
Updated 11:37 pm, Friday, July 29, 2016
Photo: PAUL BUCKOWSKI
Lake George, Upstate New York
A Queensbury man and four others were charged Friday for their roles in a hit-and-run boat crash on Lake George that killed an 8-year-old girl and injured her mother.
Alexander West, 24, of Queensbury, was driving the boat that struck the mother-daughter pair, police said. The victims were from Carlsbad, Calif., who were spending the summer in Lake George.
Four others were in the Larson speedboat with West when it hit a classic Gar Wood craft at 9:22 p.m. Monday, bounced up over the wooden boat and continued over the other side before speeding away, according to police and witness reports.
Video shows the speedboat propeller struck the mother and child, Charlotte McCue, as it went over the craft, Warren County Sheriff Bud York said. The mother was hurt, and has been released from the hospital. The girl, a gymnast who was to enter the fourth grade, died at the scene.
"In 38 years of doing this, I never had video of a scene before," York said Friday at a news conference about the arrests. "We do have very good video of this boat accident. Very good video. ...We got it from drones, from high above, from close up."
West was charged Friday with two felony counts of leaving the scene of an accident without reporting. His four passengers face various charges related to hindering the investigation and giving false statements.
Matthew J. Marry, 28, of Route 41, Kingsbury, was charged with making a false written statement, hindering prosecution and offering a false instrument for filing.
Morland C. Keyes, 27, of First Street, Glens Falls, was charged with providing a false written statement and offering a false instrument for filing.
Cara Mia Canale, 27, of Eileen Street, Albany, was charged with hindering prosecution and offering a false incident for filing.
Kristine C. Tiger, 28, of Route 41, Kingsbury, was charged with hindering prosecution.
Police and witness accounts from earlier Monday paint an unsettling picture of what happened that night. One witness, in documents made available in court Friday, described hearing the crash, followed immediately by a male voice cursing and screaming "no." They then heard a woman screaming, then a boat speeding off, then a child screaming as a man shouted "Oh, dear God, no."
Another witness who was near the Tea Island Resort on Lake Shore Drive, about a mile away from the crash site, described being outside when a boat pulled in without lights on and "running real quiet." A woman gave instructions to guide the boat into an empty slip by the resort, and a man could be heard arguing about whether he should remove a beer cooler from the boat. A woman then told everyone to keep quiet about their night and not discuss anything over texts or with anybody. After exiting the boat, they walked up a hill and toward the street.
Police located West's boat, a 21-foot green and white Larson, at the Tea Island Resort approximately 15 minutes after the crash, York said Friday.
After checking the registration of the boat, authorities began to interview people in the area and were able to track down the four passengers early the next morning, sometime after 3 a.m., York said. But West was nowhere to be found, he said. West appeared at 9 a.m., when his father drove him to the police station. Toxicology tests were then administered, but results are pending. Additional charges are possible, police said.
York and Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan said that timing was no coincidence, and that West had been hiding for the night with his friends' help in order to reduce his blood alcohol level.
Bail for West was set at $50,000 after Hogan argued he was a flight risk.
"When he thought the coast was clear, then he turns up. ...This whole crime is about running and fleeing," she said.
According to testimony from one of the defendants provided in court documents, West's boat had its lights on and the lake was peaceful when "all of the sudden" something hit his boat and it launched in the air. When they landed back in the water, the passenger said the boat's engine "sounded different" and everyone started asking what had happened.
"Everyone was OK and we looked out in the water and saw another boat. Everyone was yelling "Hello" at the boat and then it just took off. To me, I thought they just hit us and left."
York said there would have been "no question" among the group of friends that they had hit the other boat.
"And with what we're getting from witnesses, they would have had to been deaf not to know that they hurt somebody," he said. "There were lots of excuses but none of them, to us, were plausible and none of them, we believe, were honest."
It's unknown how fast the boats were going at the time of the crash, York said, though he said video appeared to show West's boat "going much faster" than the boat carrying the victims.
York also said authorities have reason to believe the group was drinking during the day, when they took the boat to Log Bay Day, an annual gathering of swimmers and boaters in a remote Lake George cove that usually features alcohol and nudity. More than a dozen people were arrested this year. One was charged with boating while intoxicated and others were accused of driving vehicles while intoxicated after leaving the water.
Local authorities and town officials are now working to "minimize future events."
"It has no social redeeming qualities," York said of the event.
All five defendants in the fatal boat crash kept their heads lowered as they were taken from the Warren County Sheriff's Office to the Warren County Courthouse on Friday. Four of them posted bond or bail, while Keyes was released on a promise to reappear in court.
Outside the courtroom, family members of the victims and the defendants tried to hold back tears while lawyers conferred with the judge.
"If you're gonna drive, then don't drink, don't party," York said. "This is the tragedy that can happen, you know? It's ruined a bunch of families here. Everybody involved — their lives have been changed forever. The family of the victims especially, but the other families are affected, too. Their loved ones are affected because of them not using good judgment."
Paul Grondahl contributed reporting.