that s not a good feeling for me. it feels like a heavy part on your chest. feeling something like that for someone is not good. i don t like to feel that, but i do. in return for his testimony at the grand jury, john ottenschot was given immunity from prosecution. he now admits that he and floyd were intoxicated. i ll say, legally, we were probably drunk. we d have got a dwi if i had have gotten pulled over on the way home or if we had gotten pulled over on the way home. probably definitely. it was the paint chips, the accident reconstruction, and particularly, the tiny piece of foam trapped in the crack of the propeller that proved the case. the most damaging part of the evidence was that piece of foam that had stayed on floyd wright s boat from harry s boat, told everybody that that was the
he hit harry uhl s boat. they knew exactly what they had hit. they absolutely knew. there s no way you could hit a full-sized boat and not know that you have hit something significant or think that you ve hit a log or driftwood. it s ridiculous. if they would have had their lights on on that boat, we would have seen it. i can guarantee it, that we would have seen it. there was no way to know what floyd wright s blood alcohol level was that night. in new york state, this severely limited the prosecutor s case. you have to show that the accident was causally related to the drinking. there has to be that close connection. new york requires it. so, just the fact that he had a few drinks throughout the course of the day doesn t necessarily mean that is the cause of the death. you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that that s the connection. being intoxicated shouldn t be a way out of being held responsible.
with a warrant, police searched wright s property and found the boat in his barn. you could see, readily see, that repairs had been made to the boat. the bondo and the material on the boat was not flush with the original fiberglass. and it had been spray-painted. areas had been spray-painted white. if there had been blood or any other evidence on the boat s hull, it had already been removed and repainted. the propeller had also been removed, but was still in the barn, broken beyond repair. that propeller, all three tines of it, showed extensive damage, denting and tearing of the metal. there was no blood or human tissue on the propeller, nor did investigators expect to find any since the water would have washed it away. but amazingly, the propeller had
when police questioned floyd wright, he, too, said he didn t know what they hit. it was a head-on collision. it was nose to nose. we don t know because we didn t see it. i know because i have seen the boat. i m just saying, i was there i m not asking. i m telling you. we heard a thud and we turned around and we looked and we didn t nothing and we didn t hear nothing. so, we figured we d better get out of the water, you know, people were because we didn t know what damage we had. i find it very difficult to believe that wright could not hear the screams of the female passenger in mr. uhl s boat. we have witnesses on shore several hundred feet away who could hear her screams for help. wright admitted that he was drinking that day, but insisted he wasn t intoxicated. i had about five or six beers for the whole day. we went out on the water that day, had pepsi most of the time.
they knew exactly what they had hit. they absolutely knew. there is no way you could hit a full-sized boat and not know that you have hit something significant or think that you ve hit a log or driftwood. it s ridiculous. if they would have had their lights on, on that boat, we would have seen it. i can guarantee it, that we would have seen it. there was no way to know what floyd wright s blood-alcohol level was that night. in new york state, this severely limited the prosecutor s case. you have to show that the accident was causally related to the drinking. there has to be that close connection. new york requires it. so, just the fact that he had a few drinks throughout the course of the day doesn t necessarily mean that is the cause of the death. you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that that s the connection. being intoxicated shouldn t be a way out of being held