Charles Tobin, who was the only defense witness, wept as he described pulling 10-year-old Gus Adamolpoulos into the back of the power boat that struck the boy.
NORTHAMPTON — The final witness in the Lake Norwich boating fatality trial broke down on the stand Friday as he described how a perfect summer day on Aug. 17, 2010, ended in a nightmare.
Charles H. Tobin, Jr. was water-skiing behind the power boat driven by Steven B, Morse when it struck something and seemed to skip across the water, Tobin said. A few seconds later, Tobin saw a kayak surface, then a man.
"He was in a panic," he testified in Hampshire Superior Court. "He was calling 'Gus!'"
Then Tobin saw Augustus Adamopoulos, 10, rise to the surface, injured and moaning. He saw that the boy had deep gashes in his back and was missing his left arm. Adamopoulos, known to friends and family as Gus, died within hours of those injuries.
Morse, 37, of Westfield is charged with manslaughter, boat homicide by reckless operation while under the influence of alcohol, boat homicide by reckless operation and child endangerment while under the influence in connection with the Ludlow boy's death.
Tobin, who was the only defense witness, wept as he described pulling Adamopoulos into the back of the power boat. An experienced skier from Connecticut, Tobin had brought some boys to the Huntington lake that day for the birthday party of his teenage son. Using his sister-in-law’s Malibu power boat, he pulled the boys around Lake Norwich dozens of times, stopping to rest and eat.
Shortly after 6 p.m., Tobin said, he decided to do some skiing himself because the lake’s surface was so placid. He asked Morse, a distant cousin of his wife, to pull him on the Malibu.
“He fired up the boat, slowly put it in gear, and I said, ‘Go!’” Tobin said under questioning by defense lawyer Michael O. Jennings.
Tobin said Morse had pulled him before and that he trusted him to operate the boat. At one point, as they were making a turn, Tobin lost sight of his sons, who were sitting in the back of the boat, because he was blinded by the sun. Then came a bump.
“All I saw was the boat just jump, skip,” he said.
When it came to a stop, Tobin realized it had run over the kayak where Gus Adamopoulos and his father James had been fishing.
Prosecutor Matthew Thomas maintains that Morse’s ability to operate the boat was impaired by a combination of beer and marijuana. He has admitted drinking three beers that day and smoking several bowls of pot. However, several police officers testified that they did not detect any signs of alcohol consumption, and Morse passed field sobriety and breathalyzer tests at the scene.
Earlier on Friday, the prosecution rested after calling Dr. Andrew Sexton of the Massachusetts Medical Examiner's Office, who performed the autopsy on Adamopoulos. Sexton described in detail the boy's wounds and gave the cause of death as "multiple sharp force injuries." An Environmental Police officer told the jury that the kayak had a number of deep slashes consistent with propeller marks.
Judge Daniel Ford scheduled closing arguments for Monday. The case will then go to the jury.