NEW TAZEWELL, Tennessee — A Kentucky man will spend eight years in prison for a drunken boating crash on Norris Lake that killed a 12-year-old boy and wounded a dozen others enjoying a summer outing.
Joe Sturgill of Grayson, Ky., was taken into custody promptly after Tuesday morning's plea and sentencing hearing in Claiborne County Criminal Court. Judge Zack Walden imposed sentence. By agreement with prosecutors, Sturgill is to serve the full eight years in prison.
Tuesday's hearing included wrenching statements presented by numerous family members of Conner Catlett, who was riding with friends and family in July 2023 when Sturgill's watercraft slammed into the boat the group was aboard.
"A piece of me died when he died," said Samatha Catlett, Conner's mom. "A piece of my soul continues to search for Conner."
Investigators said Sturgill's blood alcohol level was triple the legal limit at the time of the crash.
"At the time of the collision, the defendant's blood alcohol concentration would've been between 0.237 and 0.25," said District Attorney General Jared Effler.
Once he finishes his prison term, Sturgill will be barred from operating "any motorized vehicle including boats as a condition of supervised probation for eight years," according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
A grand jury had indicted Sturgill on counts that included vehicular homicide due to being intoxicated as well as 12 counts of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. The 12 counts were for each of the crash survivors.
Sturgill was piloting a Triton bass boat. He hit the group's Chaparral motorboat in front of the Norris Landing Marina.
A family friend, Rachel Clemmons, was driving the Chaparral when Sturgill hit it. Clemmons said she and several others on the boat tried to get Sturgill's attention in the moments before the crash.
"I held that boy in my arms until authorities made me let him go," Clemmons said. "I was too scared to let him go because that would make it real."
Catlett's parents weren't on the boat. Clemmons said she still feels guilt because Catlett died while in her care.
"My job that day was to protect and keep all of our kids safe. And I failed," Clemmons said. "Everyone reassures me it was not my fault and there was nothing I could've done differently."
Conner would have turned 13 in August 2023.
Nine of the 13 people aboard the Chaparral were children between the ages of 9 to 17, according to the crash report.
Conner's father, Chris Catlett, previously said witnesses of the crash tried to flag down Sturgill and tried to get him to slow his watercraft before the crash.
