Water park co-owner, slide designer indicted in boy's death
03/28/2018 7:17 am PDT
By Nadia Judith Enchassi, KFOR
KANSAS CITY -- (KFOR) -- A water park co-owner and a slide designer have been indicted in connection with the 2016 death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab while riding a water slide at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas.
Jeffrey Henry, the park's co-owner, was indicted by a Wyandotte County, Kansas grand jury and faces reckless second-degree murder charges, according to a news release from the Kansas attorney general's office. Henry was arrested Monday in Cameron County, Texas, according to park spokeswoman Winter Prosapio.
Also named in the indictment were John Schooley, a designer of the water slide, and Henry & Sons Construction Co., which was involved in the design and construction of the slide, the release said.
The three defendants were also indicted in connection with injuries suffered by 13 other people, including four other minors, while riding the water slide. Those charges include aggravated battery and aggravated endangering a child, according to the release.
Caleb was decapitated while riding Verruckt, one of the park's water slides. The raft he was in went airborne, killing him and injuring two women.
The indictments unsealed Tuesday come after the Friday indictment of Tyler Austin Miles, the park's director of operations, and the Schlitterbahn Waterpark itself.
That indictment details 20 felony charges, including one count of involuntary manslaughter, five counts of aggravated endangering of a child, 12 counts of aggravated battery and two counts of interference with law enforcement.
Miles surrendered himself to law enforcement on Friday in Wyandotte County. He was released on $50,000 bail.
Henry is not a named defendant in the indictment against Miles and the water park that was unsealed on Friday. However, he is featured prominently in the indictment as the “principal designer and visionary” of the ride that killed Caleb. The indictment also notes, although Henry possessed no “technical or engineering credentials,” he controlled “many key decisions” in the design of Schlitterbahn rides.
The indictment references video footage in which Henry is giving an interview explaining the danger of the ride, admitting he “could die going down this ride.”
In a statement on Monday, the park said, in light of last week's indictment, they were not surprised by the decision to bring charges against Henry.
“We, as a company and as a family, will fight these allegations and have confidence that, once the facts are presented, it will be clear that what happened on the ride was an unforeseeable accident,” the statement said.
“Deadly weapon”
According to the indictment, while Caleb's death “appeared at first to be an isolated and unforeseeable incident,” park employees “came forward and revealed Schlitterbahn officials had covered up similar incidents in the past” involving the water slide.
Caleb was the son of Kansas Rep. Scott Schwab. The family was at the park together when the incident happened.
Verruckt, the world's tallest water slide, required two to three riders to be strapped in a raft with a total weight between 400 and 500 pounds. The raft would then “slide down a jaw-dropping 168 foot 7 inch structure, only to be blasted back up a second massive hill and then sent down yet another gut-wrenching 50 foot drop for the ultimate in water slide thrills,” the park's website said. The slide was certified by Guinness World Records in May 2014 as the world's tallest water slide.
Caleb was decapitated when the raft he and two women were strapped into “went airborne and collided with the overhead hoops and netting affixed” to the slide. The two women suffered face injuries and lacerations, according to investigators.
According to KSHB, Schlitterbahn reached settlement agreements in early 2017 with all parties involved in the tragic accident. The Schwabs will receive nearly $20 million in the settlement. The settlement terms for the two injured women were not made public.
The Friday indictment said the park knew about the issues with the ride, including design failures and maintenance issues, and was aware of other injuries sustained by riders prior to Caleb's death. It details injuries suffered by at least 10 other people, ranging from concussions to multiple broken toes.
The raft Caleb was using during the incident was known “for going abnormally fast and going airborne more frequently than other rafts,” the indictment said. It was removed twice in 2016 but quickly put back into circulation, investigators learned, according to the indictment.
Investigators also found multiple flaws in the ride design, noting “it was never properly or fully designed to prevent rafts from going airborne.”
Verruckt's design “violated nearly all aspects of the longstanding industry safety standards,” the indictment said, adding, “in fact, the design and operation of the Verruckt complied with few, if any, of the industry safety standards.”
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