A Lake Village man has been charged with reckless homicide in a fatal boat crash last summer on Lake Michigan that left a retired Hammond firefighter and a Lynwood, Ill., village trustee dead, according to a news release from Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Tony Gibson, 37, was booked Friday in Lake County Jail on multiple charges ranging from felonies to infractions, including two counts of operating a motorboat while intoxicated resulting in death, two counts of reckless homicide, two counts of criminal recklessness, operating a motorboat while intoxicated, speeding and exceeding the nighttime speed limit of 10 mph.
Gibson was driving a 42-foot Fountain Powerboat on Lake Michigan when it hit the break wall near ArcelorMittal in East Chicago sometime between 10:24 p.m. July 22 and 2:30 a.m. July 23, according to the release and the probable cause affidavit in court records.
Richard Wade, 68, of Hammond, and Timothy Dunlap, 62, of Lynwood, were passengers on Gibson’s boat and died in the crash. They were found dead hours later in the water, both with blunt force trauma, the release states.
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“Gibson was discovered walking barefoot on a road on ArcelorMittal property” about 5 a.m. July 23, according to a probable cause affidavit.
“Gibson said he ‘crashed his boat,’ ‘two of my friends are in the water, can you send somebody to get them,’ that ‘he hit something,’ was ‘ejected,’ he had been ‘drinking at the yacht club’ and he had been swimming for two hours,” the affidavit states.
Gibson estimated he had been traveling about 60 knots, or about 69 mph, the night of the crash, according to the affidavit.
After reviewing medical records, an investigator determined Gibson’s blood alcohol level was between 0.11 and 0.12, more than the legal limit around the time of the crash, and people said they had seen Gibson, Dunlap and Wade at the Calumet Harbor Yacht Club before the crash.
Autopsies determined Wade had “suffered a fractured vertebrae in the cervical spine” and he died from “head and neck injuries complicated by drowning,” the affidavit states, while Dunlap died from “asphyxia due to drowning.”
Family and friends who gathered at visitations last summer for the two men said they were “heartbroken” by the crash. Wade had retired after working for more than 20 years with the Hammond Fire Department, and he was also the co-owner of State Auto Body in Hammond. Meanwhile, Dunlap was a Lynwood trustee and served with Teamsters Local 731 and Southland Friends of Labor.
Other boaters on the lake the night of the crash said “the water surface was ‘like glass’ ” and “that the red flashing navigational aid beacon was not working” that night, the affidavit states.
An investigator reviewing damage to the boat said it “was coated in an oily film” and “structural damage was mainly along the starboard side of the boat” which “ranged from scratches and gouges to major breaches in the hull,” the release states. The steering wheel was bent, and the drive levers and ignition keys were in the drive or run positions, the affidavit states.
The boat wasn’t equipped with “specialty navigation equipment, such as a radar unit or GPS navigation” to help navigate at night, according to the affidavit.
Gibson’s first court date had not been set as of Friday afternoon, according to court records, but his bail was set at $60,000.
Indiana State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard assisted the investigation, the release states.
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