{"id":328847,"date":"2026-08-25T00:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328847\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:00:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:00:48","slug":"man-charged-with-killing-10-year-old-while-boating-on-harris-lake-to-serve-up-to-15-years-in-prison-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328847\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with killing 10-year-old while boating on Harris Lake to serve up to 15 years in prison :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man accused of driving a boat while impaired and striking two swimmers on Harris Lake in August 2025 has pleaded guilty. Quinten Kight will serve between 12.5 to 15 years in prison on the second-degree murder charge. He also received a suspended sentence of about two years on another charge that could be served consecutively.<\/p>\n

Kight, 40, pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him in Chatham County Court Monday morning.<\/p>\n

He was driving the boat that hit and killed\u00a010-year-old Brooklyn Carroll<\/a>\u00a0on Aug. 2, 2025.\u00a0Jennifer Stehle, a social
\nworker and mother of one of Carroll\u2019s friends, was critically injured. She survived, but her leg was amputated.<\/p>\n

During the
\nhearing Monday, Chatham County District Attorney Jeff Nieman laid out
\nthe facts of the case against Kight.<\/p>\n

Nieman said
\nKight was operating AnnMarie Flanigan\u2019s boat<\/a> starting at 1 p.m. that afternoon
\nwith 11 passengers, including four children.<\/p>\n

Around 4:30
\np.m., Kight was pulling two people on wakeboards. Nieman said everyone on
\nKight\u2019s boat, including Kight, was looking back at the wakeboarders instead of
\nahead.<\/p>\n

The Stehle boat
\nwas in a cove, with several people including Jennifer Stehle and Brooklyn
\nCarroll swimming nearby.<\/p>\n

Kight turned at
\nthe last minute, missing the Stehle boat by inches but striking both Jennifer and
\nBrooklyn in the water.<\/p>\n

Nieman said
\n\u201cseveral people from both boats sprung into action to render aid to the victims,\u201d juxtaposing
\nthat with Kight, who he said \u201csprang into action to attempt to dispose evidence,\u201d throwing
\nbeer cans overboard.<\/p>\n

Nieman also said
\ninvestigators found empty alcohol cans with markings that appeared consistent
\nwith the beverages having been \u201cshotgunned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018A nightmare\u2019<\/p>\n

Jennifer Stehle<\/a>
\ngave the first victim impact statement during Monday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

She said that her faith has carried her through trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know why my life was spared that day; but I know that day it was, I will never stop being grateful for that gift,\u201d Stehle said. \u201cWe will never
\nforget Brooklyn and the shining light that she was meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parents of
\nBrooklyn Carroll — Matt Carroll and Kim Cannon<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0also spoke to the judge about
\nthe loss of their daughter.<\/p>\n

Matt Carroll
\nread pieces of the speech he gave at Brooklyn\u2019s funeral, moving several adults in the\u00a0 courtroom to tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was my
\nlittle buddy and my best friend,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cLast August, I not only lost
\nmy daughter, I lost my heart, my soul, my Caniac, my little Wolfpack cheerleader, my dog trainer, and my absolute best friend in the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooklyn\u2019s
\nmother Kim Cannon described her loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will never
\nbe the person I was before August 2, 2025. There will always be someone
\nmissing. Every holiday, every birthday, every family picture milestone and every ordinary day will carry her absence of my little girl,\u201d
\nCannon said.<\/p>\n

\nShe spoke about Brooklyn\u2019s sister Ava, who will now grow up without her sister.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both parents
\nhighlighted the possible person Brooklyn could have become, saying she was
\nrobbed of her future.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKight\u2019s history<\/p>\n

Quinten Kight\u2019s
\nattorney spoke about his history during the hearing, describing Kight\u2019s childhood
\non a farm in New Mexico and later military career.<\/p>\n

His attorney
\ntold the Judge Kight has been deployed multiple times and has a daughter.<\/p>\n

He said Kight
\nwas diagnosed with CTE in March of 2022 and forced to retire from his military service.\n<\/p>\n

Kight spoke briefly, saying, \u201cI
\ntruly am sorry, for my own conscious decisions, to the families. I can\u2019t even imagine. God\u2019s with you, God\u2019s
\nwith everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Can\u2019t be fixed by this courtroom\u2019<\/p>\n

After reading Kight\u2019s sentence,
\nJudge Richard Baddour was emotional.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn criminal court, we call it
\nthe justice system. But we don\u2019t really do justice a lot of times in this
\ncourtroom, and it\u2019s a great regret of mine that we aren\u2019t better able to
\nprovide that measure of justice to people,\u201d Baddour said. \u201cWhat happened to you
\nall can\u2019t be fixed by this courtroom or anything in it. So, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baddour told Jennifer Stehle he
\nwas struck by her choice of grace over bitterness.<\/p>\n

He also acknowledged the
\nconfusion the families feel about the sudden loss of loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are real feelings, and
\nthey\u2019re okay to have,\u201d Baddour said. \u201cI see a lot of love over there and a lot
\nof strength, and a lot of people who care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s next<\/p>\n

Kight\u2019s co-defendant AnneMarie
\nFlanigan still has a pending case.<\/p>\n

She is the owner of the boat.<\/p>\n

Flanigan is charged with second-degree murder, two counts of death or serious injury by impaired boating, and aiding and abetting drunk boating.<\/p>\n

Her next court date is Sept.14.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man accused of driving a boat while impaired and striking two swimmers on Harris Lake in August…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,123639,82907,123640,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-328847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-chatham-county","tag-guilty-plea","tag-harris-lake-county-park","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}