A woman from Georgia has been sentenced to a year in prison in connection with the drowning of two men in 2021.
According to a report from WRDW, Shontover Kirkland, 32, pleaded guilty this week to reckless conduct and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of Edward Kirk Jr. and Eynn Wilson, which occurred at Clarks Hill Lake in Lincoln County.
Police say Kirkland rented two boats for a birthday celebration on Clarks Hill Lake. It is said that Kirkland did not know that Kirk didn’t know how to swim, and allegedly pushed the man into the lake, which prompted Wilson to jump into the water to try and save him. Both of the men’s bodies sunk in the water where their bodies were discovered a week later.
“We had to relive this whole devastating incident all over again,” said Lakesha Johnson, Kirk’s sister. “There are so many lives impacted just off of one person’s actions, and she [Kirkland] has to live with that.”
An arrest warrant in 2021 claimed alleged that Kirkland “did unlawfully endanger the bodily safety of Edward Lee Kirk Jr. by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that her act of shoving him off a boat into deep, cold water on Clarks Hill Lake without knowing whether or not he could swim would endanger the safety of said person, and the disregard constituted a gross deviation from the standard case, which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation.”
According to reports, Kirkland had known the victim since she was 14 years old and apologized to the court for the incident while maintaining that she did not mean any harm. Kirkland did however admit that she is taking accountability for her actions.
Kirkland was sentenced to one year in jail, as well as nine years of probation.
