Inset: Brooklyn Mae Carroll (GoFundMe), Background: Quinten Kight during his sentencing for the tragic boating incident that resulted in Brooklyn’s death and serious injuries to a woman in North Carolina (WRAL).
A North Carolina boater, responsible for a tragic incident that led to the death of a 10-year-old girl and severe injury to a woman, is facing prison time. Instead of providing aid, he instructed others to discard the alcohol containers from the boat.
Quinten Kight, aged 41, received a prison sentence ranging from 12 years to just over 15 years. This followed his guilty plea to charges including second-degree murder, death by impaired boating, driving under the influence, and causing serious injury by impaired boating, as documented in court records.
The boating accident occurred on August 2, 2025, claiming the life of young Brooklyn Mae Carroll and inflicting severe injuries on Jennifer Stehle, who was 41 at the time. The incident took place on Shearon Harris Reservoir, near Raleigh.
The sentencing hearing held on Monday was charged with emotion, reflecting the gravity of the tragedy.
“I will never be the person I was before August 2, 2025. There will always be someone missing,” Brooklyn’s mother Kim Cannon said, according to a courtroom report from local NBC affiliate WRAL. “Every milestone and every ordinary day, I will carry her absence with me.”
Brooklyn’s father Matt Carroll called his daughter “my little buddy and my best friend.”
Kight allegedly kept driving for another 150 yards and told his friends to “toss everything overboard.” Investigators found 39 empty alcohol cans in the boat plus another 50 or more in the water, plaintiffs allege. When cops spoke to Kight, they noted he had “red and glassy eyes, that his speech was hard to understand, and that he had strong odor of alcohol.”
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More than five hours later, authorities took a blood sample showing he had a blood alcohol content of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit, according to the suits.
“Collectively, Defendants’ reckless and senseless actions and decisions that day caused devastating and irreversible injuries, shattering the lives and wellbeing of two innocent families forever,” the Stehle lawsuit stated.
Kight and Flanigan remain in the Chatham County Jail on $1 million bonds.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Flanigan in September 2025 requested her bond be lowered by half. Flanigan’s attorney, Joshua Xerri, said his client is a recently retired U.S. Army combat nurse who has a 19-year-old son with autism in need of her care.
“Every day that Ms. Flanigan is in jail is a day that her son is not getting the care and support he needs and was getting from Flanigan,” Xerri said, according to a courtroom report from local ABC affiliate WTVD. “There is no allegation from the state that Ms. Flanigan had been drinking, intoxicated, or operating the boat in any way.”
But prosecutors argued Flanigan’s bond should stay the same, even though she was sober at the time of the crash.
“What we have, Your Honor, is someone who had years of watching this guy hurt people when he gets drunk,” District Attorney Jeff Nieman said, per local NBC affiliate WRAL. “She’s the one who handed the keys to a drunk person.”
The post White Claw-drinking boater who killed 10-year-old girl and amputated woman’s leg when he plowed over them learns his fate first appeared on Law & Crime.