By Liz Adkins
InkFreeNews
Kevin M. Kelley
WARSAW — Two witnesses testified during the first day of a three-day jury trial for an Indianapolis man criminally charged for a fatal boating accident on Lake Wawasee.
Kevin M. Kelley, 66, Indianapolis, is charged with reckless homicide, a level 5 felony.
Kelley is being represented by Mary K. Zahn and David E. Deal, Indianapolis. The state’s case is being presented by Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Dan Hampton.
In Indiana, a Level 5 felony is punishable by one to six years in prison, with an advisory sentence of three years.
Affidavit of Probable Cause
On Aug. 8, 2020, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Syracuse Police Department, and the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office investigated the death of Nathaniel C. Mroz, 20, Fortville.
On that day, officers were dispatched to a residence on Lake Wawasee which was owned and occupied by Kelley. While Syracuse EMS attended to Mroz, officers interviewed witnesses.
According to court documents, Kelley was operating a boat and pulling two tubes with three riders on Lake Wawasee. During this activity, it was discovered that all of the tubers had fallen into the water around the same time.
Kelley admitted to officers that while he was retrieving the tubers, he failed to notice that Mroz was directly in the path of his boat. Kelley ran over Mroz with the boat.
One of the tubers said they saw Mroz waving his arms as a safety measure for boaters to be aware of his presence in the water just prior to being hit by Kelley’s boat.
Resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful and Mroz was pronounced dead at the scene by the Kosciusko County Coroner’s Office.
DNR conservation officers and an evidence technician with the Indiana State Police continued investigating several days after the accident. Collected evidence indicated that while retrieving the fallen tubers, Kelley had operated his boat at an unreasonable rate of speed.
Court documents also state Kelley did not exercise adequate supervision of the tubers while in the water, carelessly and willfully disregarding the tubers’ safety, which resulted in Mroz’s death.
Trial Proceedings
Nathaniel C. Mroz
Eight men and five women were seated on the jury in Kosciusko Circuit Court around 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, with Judge Michael Reed presiding.
Hampton summarized the case’s circumstances for the jury in his opening statement. A group of college friends, including Kelley’s stepson, were invited to spend the weekend at Kelley’s lake house on Lake Wawasee.
“When Kevin Kelley took over as the driver (for tubing), the ride significantly changed,” said Hampton. “According to the riders, Kevin throttled up the boat, trying the best he could to throw them off their tubes. The evidence will lead you to the conclusion that Kevin is guilty of recklessly operating his boat without any regard for the safety of the tubers he was carrying.”
Deal said on Aug. 8, 2020, the water was extremely choppy and there was a lot of boat traffic. He noted one of the boat’s spotters, an individual assigned to alert the driver when tubers fell into the water, never saw Mroz in the water.
Deal also said state law required Kelley to take a substance test since the accident was fatal. The test showed Kelley had no drugs or alcohol in his system at the time.
“After interviews (with police), Kevin was not taken into custody that day,” said Deal. “Officers had no evidence that Kevin drove recklessly and no one knows how fast the boat was going. The government hasn’t produced any evidence about the boat’s speed at all. This was a tragic accident and you will have no choice but to find Kevin not guilty of reckless homicide.”
The state’s first witness was Brenden Klenke, who was friends with Mroz and was tubing with the group the day of the accident. Klenke said he went to school with Nathan Shuey, Kelley’s stepson, and that the group was visiting Kelley’s lake house the weekend of Aug. 8, 2020.
He estimated there were about 15 to 20 people at the lake house that weekend.
Prior to the accident, Klenke said the group went golfing that morning and had a tubing session, with Klenke, Mroz, and a third friend, Jake Gillay, being the group of tubers.
The group then went out later in the day, around 6 p.m., for a second tubing session. In this instance, Kelley and his wife, along with some of their adult friends, were on the boat.
Klenke testified that there was one instance where he, Mroz, and Gillay all fell off their tubes when Kelley was driving the boat. He said Mroz did not raise his hands up right away but that he did so before he was hit by Kelley’s boat.
Klenke said his mind went into a state of shock and remembered seeing Mroz on the back of the boat after the accident. He got back on a tube to be transported back to the lake house, where he went looking for a towel or bandage to help with Mroz’s injuries.
When questioned about Kelley’s speed, Klenke said he could not recall if Kelley was traveling at a slow or fast pace.
In cross-examination, Zahn asked if someone aside from the boat’s driver is needed to watch for people in the water. Klenke answered affirmatively, stating the boat’s driver is supposed to focus on looking out for other boats. He testified that there were at least five other people on the boat aside from Kelley.
Gillay was the state’s second witness and recalled similar details of how the group’s day started prior to the accident. Gillay said he was best friends with Mroz in high school and college, and that they were college roommates.
With the first tubing session on Aug. 8, 2020, Gillay said Shuey was driving the boat. He said boating traffic on Lake Wawasee at that time was not super crowded and that there were no big waves.
Later in the day, during the tubing session where the accident occurred, Gillay described the water’s conditions as “choppy and windy,” noting there were also a lot of boats on the lake at the time.
Gillay said he felt Kelley’s speed as a boat driver was faster than what Shuey drove. He testified that at one point, he could have reached over and touched Kelley’s boat while he was being picked up from the water.
Gillay recalled seeing Mroz’s body in the water, surrounded in blood, and said he immediately swam over to help. He pulled Mroz to the boat and helped apply pressure to Mroz’s head injuries.
Gillay also described feeling “unsafe” with Kelley as the boat’s driver, feeling like his speed was “full go all the time.”
“Looking back, I wish I would have called it,” said Gillay about the second tubing session.
In cross-examination, Zahn asked Gillay if he spoke with Shuey about hand signals prior to their tubing session. Gillay said they did, with the signals including giving a thumbs-up or down if the boat’s speed should be increased or decreased. He also said when the group was tubing with Shuey as the driver, that multiple people on the boat would call out when a tuber fell into the water.
Gillay estimated there were about six to eight people on the boat when Kelley was driving, and that the boat’s occupants were not paying attention the whole time to the group of tubers.
He testified that he did give Kelley a thumbs-up at one point, but that the boat’s speed stayed the same.
Gillay also said he could hear music being played from the boat while he was being pulled along on an inner tube.
The trial will continue at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 12, with the state expected to call more witnesses to testify.