TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A water park company co-owner accused of rushing the worlds tallest waterslide into service and a designer accused of shoddy planning have been charged in the decapitation of a 10-year-old boy on the ride in 2016.
With the latest charges unsealed Tuesday, three men connected with Texas-based Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts and its park in Kansas City, Kansas, have been indicted by a Kansas grand jury, along with the park and the construction company that built the ride. Caleb Schwab died on the 17-story ride when the raft he was riding went airborne and hit an overhead loop.
The Kansas attorney generals office said Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeffrey Henry, 62, and designer John Schooley were charged with reckless second-degree murder, along with Henry & Sons Construction Co., which is described as the private construction company of Schlitterbahn. Second-degree murder carries a sentence of nine years to 41 years in prison.
They also were charged with 17 other felonies, including aggravated battery and aggravated endangerment of a child counts tied to injuries other riders sustained on the giant slide, called Verrückt, which is German for insane. The indictment accuses Henry of making a spur of the moment decision to build the ride, and that he and Schooley lacked technical or engineering expertise in amusement park rides.
Henry was ordered held in a Texas jail without bond Tuesday, pending extradition to Kansas. The attorney generals office said Schooley is not in custody. Schooley didnt have a listed phone number and no one answered the phone at Henry & Sons Construction Co. Eric B Terry, who represented the company in an earlier unrelated case, didnt immediately return a phone or email message.
The same grand jury last week indicted the Kansas City park and Tyler Austin Miles, its former operations manager, on 20 felony charges. The charges include a single count of involuntary manslaughter in Calebs death. Miles has been released on $50,000 bond, according to one of his attorneys, Tricia Bath.
Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said in a statement Tuesday that the latest indictment is filled with information that we fully dispute. The statement said Henry had designed waterpark rides the world over and that nearly every waterpark that exists today has an attraction or feature based on his designs or ideas.
The incident that happened that day was a terrible and tragic accident, the statement said. We mourn the loss of this child and are devastated for his family. We know that Tyler, Jeff, and John are innocent and that we run a safe operation our 40 years of entertaining millions of people speaks to that.
