Oconee County Sheriff’s Office says that the 10th Judicial Circuit has ruled that 74-year-old South Carolina boater won’t be charged for shooting and killing jet skier Nathan Drew Morgan on Lake Keowee. They insist the boater shooting and killing Nathan was an act of self-defense.
According to the Daily Mail, the elderly boater and his wife helped Morgan and the unnamed woman onboard their pontoon but Nathan “became belligerent and threatening” which compelled the elderly boater to shoot and kill him.
DM has details.
An elderly South Carolina boater will not be charged for shooting dead a jet skier he rescued from a lake last week in a bizarre chain of events that sheriffs have insisted led to a self-defense killing.
The boater, 74, has not been named by police. Last Tuesday, he was on Lake Keowee with his wife when they encountered Nathan Drew Morgan, 29, and an unnamed woman in the water.
Morgan and the woman were in ‘distress’ and their jet ski was circling in the water, according to police. Exactly what happened next is unclear but police say the younger woman pushed Morgan back into the water. The elderly couple then helped him back on board again in a second show of mercy, but then felt suddenly threatened.
The older man shot Morgan and he bled out on the boat. Police now say that the older man will not be charged criminally for the shooting and that he thought Morgan – a father-of-one – was threatening his life.
‘It was a clear self-defense case,’ Tenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor David Wagner told local newspaper The Journal of Seneca. It’s unconfirmed whether or not the parties all knew each other before the shooting.
After being saved from the 63-degree water, Morgan began arguing with his rescuer and his girlfriend pushed him back into the lake in an attempt to defuse the situation, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators were told he may have wanted to get back on the jet ski.
The couple on the pontoon helped him aboard again, but Morgan remained belligerent and the elderly man shot him, telling officials he feared for his and his wife’s lives. Morgan, of Walhalla, died on the boat from a gunshot wound to the chest, the Oconee County Coroner’s Office said.
From the details of the story, Nathan Drew Morgan wasn’t ready to stay alive after he was rescued by the elderly boater and he had no option but to shoot and kill him to save his life and that of others.
Flip to the next page for news video of the deadly shooting.