On 8/12/23 at approximately 8:45 pm the Polk County Sheriff’s Office received a call from Tuesday Subject in reference to her boyfriend who had jumped into the water from their vessel on Lake Livingston and she had not seen him in five minutes. The conditions that night were dark, with no moon light, and windy, with large waves. Subject stated that she did not know how to operate the boat and she could not go back to get Victim after their boat started drifting away from him. 

Subject stated that they had been on Pine Island that evening and once the wind picked up and the water began to get rough, they decided to head back to the Tigerville Park boat ramp where they had launched. According to Subject, while on the way back to Tigerville Park boat ramp, Victim put the boat in neutral and jumped off the rear port side of the vessel. Victim told Subject to stay in the boat and to circle back and get him after the boat began to drift away. Subject was unable to operate the boat but threw Victim a Type IV throw cushion which was not successful. Polk County SO deputies, State Park Police Officers, and I, Game Warden, responded to the area to locate Subject in the drifting vessel and the missing boater, Victim.

   At approximately 9:30 pm Subject drifted to the shore while officers launched a game warden patrol vessel to now attempt to locate Victim. The conditions of the lake were rough, with approximately 10-15 mph winds, and large rolling waves. I activated our navigation lights as well as the surrounding LED flood lights and red and blue strobe light on our vessel to help us see and be located in the dark. After responding to the area on the lake using GPS coordinates from cell phone ping at the time of her first call, we could hear a faint sound over the noise of the wind of what possibly sounded like a person yelling. 

We headed toward the sound and every few minutes we could hear the sound getting louder. We eventually knew that the sound was in fact a person yelling for help. With the high waves and darkness, we still could not see exactly where the person was, who we believed to be Victim. 

Eventually we spotted the person swimming in the water ahead of us and knew it was Victim. We began to approach Victim in our vessel, battling the wind and waves, and gave him commands to keep swimming. As we neared, Victim went under water and popped back up, and then went under water again, but did not resurface. 

I quickly hit the “mark” button on our GPS unit so we could continue to search the area for Victim. We continued searching for thirty to forty-five minutes but could not locate Victim. We determined that Victim had drowned at that point. Due to the conditions of the lake, we left the area and decided to return the next morning to try to locate Victim with side scan sonar.

   The next day, 8/13/23, at approximately 7:00 am, Officer and I returned to the area I marked with GPS and began searching for Victim’s body with side scan sonar. The water depth was approximately thirty feet in the location of the search. At approximately 7:35 am we located the first image of Victim’s body on sonar. Captain was notified that we had found the body and we requested dive team assistance. TPWD game warden dive team was unavailable, and Captain was able to coordinate with the Houston Police Department dive team to come assist with the recovery. 

   While waiting for the dive team to arrive, we went to inspect the vessel that Victim jumped from the previous night. Unknowingly, Subject and some family members were on the shore looking for Victim. We informed them that we had located Victim’s body and were waiting for a dive team. We inspected the vessel and interviewed Subject about the incident. 

The vessel contained two life jackets and the Type IV throw cushion that had washed up on shore and was found the next morning by a family member. The throttle of the vessel was also observed to be broken and would not go into gear unless the gear lock was manually lifted up to move the throttle into forward or reverse. 

Subject stated that is why she could not operate the vessel and did not know how to put the boat in gear. Subject also admitted that they had been drinking and took some shots of whiskey, and that they had also smoked a few hits of marijuana. It was later found out that Detective with the Polk County SO stated that Subject mentioned to him about some pills. I did locate an unmarked bottle in a duffle bag containing two unidentified medium-sized round white pills. It is unknown if Victim also consumed some of those pills.

   At approximately 12:00 pm the HPD dive team arrived at Beacon Bay Marina. After getting their gear ready, the dive team followed us in their vessel to the location of the body and began the first dive at approximately 1:24 pm. After locating the body and attaching a line to his left arm, a second dive was initiated by two divers to retrieve the body and bring it to the surface. At approximately 2:00 pm the body was loaded onto our patrol vessel and brought back to Beacon Bay Marina for Precinct 1 JP to pronounce the victim deceased. The family was already on scene and Pace Funeral Home took custody of the body. An autopsy was requested.

0451 LIVINGSTON
Livingston                    