Lake Keowee attacker killed by boat rescuer had BAC triple legal limit | Greenville News

SENECA — John and Debra Dotson noticed the riderless Sea-Doo first, reducing circles within the floor of Lake Keowee as its engine continued to run.

Then they noticed the 2 individuals within the water, struggling to remain afloat with out life vests.

We now have to assist them, Debra, 70, informed her 74-year-old husband that afternoon in March.

They’d set out that day to take pleasure in a calming fishing journey. Their Seneca house sits simply minutes from Keowee, a man-made reservoir with 300 miles of shoreline that may be a widespread spot for fishing or boating within the northwest space of the state. They’d been on the lake for a number of hours after they noticed the 2 thrown riders, and did not hesitate to drag them onto their pontoon boat.

However inside moments their rescue try devolved right into a life-or-death wrestle when one of many riders out of the blue attacked the aged couple. Photographs rang out, and a 29-year-old man quickly lay useless on the deck.

It was the primary murder on Lake Keowee — or on a ship in any respect — that Oconee County Sheriff Michael Crenshaw is conscious of in his 35 years with the company. 

“It was a novel case for us, a novel set of circumstances,” he mentioned.

Within the wake of the taking pictures, questions swirled about how an act of kindness had taken such a violent flip. The following investigation by each the sheriff’s workplace and coroner’s workplace, as mirrored in dozens of paperwork, audio recordings and pictures obtained by The Submit and Courier, sheds mild on the one murder on Lake Keowee in a long time. The newspaper obtained the information via a Freedom of Info Act request.

An post-mortem discovered that Nathan “Drew” Morgan, the 29-year-old man who attacked the Dotsons after they pulled him from the water and who John Dotson shot and killed, was closely inebriated. On the time of his demise, Morgan, a father of 1 son, had a blood alcohol content material of properly over .2 % —roughly thrice the authorized restrict for working a motorized water automobile.

Tenth Circuit Solicitor David Wagner, whose workplace in the end decided John Dotson had acted in “clear reduce” self-defense, mentioned Morgan’s BAC that day helps to elucidate his erratic conduct.

“When individuals get plenty of alcohol of their system they will get affected in unfavorable methods,” he mentioned. “I do know those who knew the man, or knew him in highschool, they usually knew him as a pleasant man. I believe there have been lots of people who had been shocked that he did what he did.”

Nobody on the boat that day responded to The Submit and Courier’s requests for remark. However incident reviews, 911 recordings and written statements obtained from the Oconee Sheriff’s Workplace convey into clearer focus the occasions that led to Morgan’s demise and the way investigators decided that John Dotson felt his life was in peril when he pulled the set off.

What follows is an account of that day pulled from these paperwork. They point out that occasions performed out this manner:

Hannah Ayers had met Morgan on the lake through the summer time of 2021. He appeared good. So when he despatched her a message on Snapchat asking if she needed to take a Sea-Doo watercraft out on Keowee to discover the realm’s waterfalls, the 19-year-old agreed.

He picked her up at her home the morning of March 15 they usually headed to the lake.

Launch time that day was round 12:30 p.m. Ayers needed to again up Morgan’s truck to place it into the water, she later informed police, as a result of he was slurring his phrases and appeared intoxicated.

Morgan had a penchant for Fireball whiskey, Ayers acknowledged, and he or she thought he might need been consuming the 66-proof liquor earlier than they obtained on the water. Investigators would additionally discover a trash bag full of empty and unopened cans of Michelob Extremely after they searched the flatbed of Morgan’s truck.

Once they set off, Ayers was driving, and at first she was having fun with herself. However as time handed, Morgan grew to become irate and aggressive, yanking her hair and threatening to go away her on an island in the midst of the lake, so she allowed him to drive, she informed police.

“He took benefit of that and was going tremendous quick,” Ayers wrote in a press release to investigators. “I used to be squeezing him and holding on like my life trusted it.”

Shortly after, Morgan tried to make a pointy flip at excessive pace, flinging each himself and Ayers into the water. Ayers, who described herself as a weak swimmer, started panicking, screaming for assist as she tried to maintain her head above water. She started swimming to the closest dock however began hyperventilating.

It was then the Dostsons noticed Morgan and Ayers struggling. The older couple had trailered their boat from their Salem house only a few minutes away that morning for a calming day of fishing on Keowee however jumped in to assist after they noticed the 2 strangers in want.

They steered their pontoon boat first towards Ayers and pulled the 19-year-old from the water, wrapping her in towels to maintain her heat as she shivered from her surprising plunge. Then they headed for Morgan and did the identical for him.

With out their support, Ayers later mentioned, she seemingly would have drowned. Water temperatures within the lake hover round 50 levels in March.

Morgan, too, appeared in determined want, his mouth lined in saliva and mucous, apparently from inhaling water as he tried to swim after the out-of-control Sea-Doo.

Ayers was grateful. However Morgan, it shortly grew to become clear, was enraged. He started shouting and cursing at his rescuers, insisting that they drive him to his Sea-Doo. Once they did not comply shortly sufficient, he made for the motive force’s seat, shoving Debra within the course of. John Dotson pulled out a handgun he stored saved on the boat. He slipped it in his waistband earlier than making an attempt to cease an apparently intoxicated Morgan from taking management of the boat. Morgan attacked him, and the boat’s kill swap broke through the wrestle, leaving the 4 of them adrift in the midst of the lake.

Morgan then repeatedly attacked John Dotson, punching, choking and shoving him. At one level, Ayers informed police, he had each Dotsons in a chokehold on the identical time. Ayers tried to intervene, pushing Morgan off the again of the boat as he assaulted John Dotson, however the aged couple pulled him again onboard regardless of his aggression, fearing he would drown.

The struggle escalated till John Dotson fired a warning shot, but it surely appeared to don’t have any affect. He used the gun to hit the youthful man within the head as he attacked him, drawing blood, however that did not appear to have an effect on him both.

The wrestle continued with John Dotson rising exhausted and determined, ache coursing via his again. Debra Dotson then known as 911 and begged the dispatcher to ship assist.

“We do not wish to push him again in and I do not need him to shoot him,” she mentioned, her voice frantic.

Morgan could be heard clearly screaming within the background of the 911 name, slurring his speech and hurling expletives on the Dotsons and Ayers as he insisted they take him to the Sea-Doo. The Dotsons tried to placate him as John tried to repair the kill swap, however Morgan did not appear to listen to what they had been telling him.

“Go get my jet ski,” he yelled as he started to assault John Dotson once more.

“We won’t, you broke the rattling kill swap,” John shouted again.

At that time, Debra Dotson set the cellphone down to assist her husband. A sobbing Ayers picked it as much as communicate to the dispatcher. Debra could be heard praying for assist as Morgan continued to assault.

Then, a pop could be heard on the decision.

Ayers started to shriek.

John had shot Morgan because the youthful man choked him and tried to throw him out of the boat.

Debra Dotson could be heard on the 911 name making an attempt to present Morgan CPR for a number of minutes.

“Please do not die,” she pleaded via tears.

Moments later, deputies could be heard arriving at a dock — the place the Dotson’s had apparently been in a position to navigate the pontoon boat — and clearing the realm for paramedics to come back in.

Within the wake of the taking pictures, police photographed the scene and took statements from Ayers and the Dotsons individually, in addition to a witness who had seen the wrestle play out from the shore. Investigators took written statements from every witness.

“There’s solely a lot you are able to do when somebody’s threatening each life on the boat,” Ayers wrote in hers. “Debra and John saved all of our lives. I am sorry. We tried to avoid wasting him too.”

Within the aftermath, it took the Solicitor’s Workplace little time to find out John Dotson had acted in self-defense. It was a mindless assault that gave the 74-year-old man little alternative, the workplace discovered, leaving a younger boy with no father and three individuals left to deal with the violence they noticed that day.