A Georgia woman pleaded guilty to reckless conduct and two counts of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in connection with the drowning deaths in Augusta of two men in 2021.
33-year-old Shontover Kirkland pleaded guilty Tuesday. She was sentenced to serve a year in prison and nine years of probation.
She was charged with causing the deaths of two men, Edward Lee Kirk and Eynn Wilson. Police said she pushed Kirk into a Clarks Hill Lake. Wilson, Kirk’s best friend, jumped into the water to try to save him. Both disappeared in the water.
The men’s bodies were recovered a week later.
Kirkland had rented two pontoon boats the day of the accident. More than a dozen people were on the boats during a birthday celebration.
A 2021 arrest warrant said Kirkland “did unlawfully endanger the bodily safety of Edward Lee Kirk, Jr. by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that her act of shoving him off a boat into deep, cold water on Clarks Jill Lake without knowing whether or not he could swim would endanger the safety of said person and the disregard constituted a gross deviation from the standard care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation.”
Kirkland apologized for her actions to the families of the victims. Outside, police broke up a confrontation involving friends and family of Kirkland and the victims.
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