UPDATE (June 11) — The body of Vivian Gann was recovered yesterday evening from Lake Conroe.
_______
In my hometown of Conroe (TX), a woman was thrown from a jet ski and left to presumably drown in Lake Conroe on Sunday (her body has still not been recovered).
Jeffrey Dale Carmichael, 54 was charged with intoxication manslaughter after the jet ski he was driving hit a stump on the lake. His passenger, Vivian Gann, 42, was thrown from the jet ski.
Mr. Carmichael just left her in the lake without going back to help her.
I think we can all agree that leaving a woman to drown and going home exemplifies terrible character and integrity…
…unless of course you’re Ted Kennedy. In which case you might be rewarded with an undeserved but exceptionally lengthy tenure as a US Senator.
Email This Post
⋅
Print This Post
Drunk, stupid, and immoral is a recipe for murder.
You repeat this ad infinitum- but what do you mean ‘left to die’? There was an accident, Kennedy escaped, the woman died. Nothing Kennedy did at that point was going to change that.
There is of course no explanation for not calling authorities after the accident but this wasn’t going to save her life.
(In contrast with the story you’ve just linked to where you might believe that cops could be there in minutes.)
By all accounts, Mary Jo was still alive when Teddy left her to die.
The fat bastard didn’t try to save her. He went home, called his lawyer friends, slept off his drunk, and then 17 hours later called police.
At least this miscreant in Texas only waited 2 hours after he got home to call the police. Still not enough time for all the alcohol to leave his system apparently.
Teddy would be so disappointed in him.
There is of course no explanation for not calling authorities after the accident but this wasn’t going to save her life.
How do you know? There have been estimates that she could have survived for 1-2 hours. There were houses only 150 yds away, had lights on, and were visible to anyone driving on the road and from the bridge. Also, we stopped calling it an accident decades ago when drunks get into a car, cause a collision, and someone dies, because it minimizes the culpability of the driver. Kennedy’s case is no different.
Let me begin by offering my prayers to Mr. Winters and Ms. Gann’s family and friends. This is truly a tragic situation.
Now to the lynch mob. Where does it state that Carmichael went home and waited 2 hrs before he called police? The only statement about that is what someone posted in the comments on the Chron. blog as what ‘they heard’. There are a lot of unknowns in this Chronicle article (not surprising), which leaves a lot of room for speculation.
Cagle rec area boat ramp is a fairly remote area. They call this part of the lake the ‘Jungle’. These aren’t stumps that are submerged, these are tree tops just under the surface of the water . I don’t drink. I do fish there often enough to think I know where the trees are. I still wind up hitting a couple every now and then, although I know not to fly through this area.
How ‘drunk’ was he? The Chronicle usually has no problem revealing blood alcohol levels. I guess they chose to leave this one open for speculation. Was the driver thrown from the jet ski? Shouldn’t that be in the article? Again, left open for speculation. Someone even wrote that he swam home then waited 2 hrs to report the accident. What?
Where did that come from? The Chronicle states that police told Ms. Gann’s father that Carmichael swam to shore after she was thrown into the water. Why? Why didn’t he drive the jet ski to shore? Was it damaged in the collision? We can speculate on that one, too. Could it be that the 2 hrs. time before he called the police was actually from the time of the accident? Remember, this is not a well populated area and a very tragic accident has just occured. It may just take a little time to contact police. Maybe he didn’t leave her to drown after all. Although, that’s a pretty popular accusation that seems to be picking up steam. Again, not based on any fact. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered. I really don’t think that anyone on any of these blogs have enough information to make the statements that they have made.
Because the charge is intoxicated manslaughter I presume alcohol was involved so I would state that Carmichael acted irresponsibly and that the charge against him has been correctly applied. That does not imply that he acted recklessly or that his actions following the accident were sinister. Put the pitchforks and torches away for now. There’s plenty of time and opportunity to burn witches. Let’s wait and see how this fleshes out.
Again, to the family, my heart and prayers are with you.
What a drunk bastard…..he better get some jail time for this.
just want to say that Mr Carmichael himself has changed the story of how this accident occurred; so I am assuming that he was simply too intoxicated at that time to even remember what actually happened.
We are so deeply saddened by the loss of our loved one…I can only pray that the truth will be revealed.