HARRISON – A Massachusetts man was operating a powerboat with twin, 435-horsepower engines that struck a smaller boat on Long Lake, killing two people, officials said Thursday.
Robert Lapointe, 38, of Medway, Mass., and his companion, Nicole Randall, 19, of Bridgton, swam to shore Saturday night after being thrown from their 32-foot boat, the Maine Warden Service and Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Killed were the two occupants of a 14-foot boat, Terry Raye Trott, 55, of Naples and his companion, Suzanne Groetzinger, 44, of Berwick, officials said. Their boat, which had a 115-horsepower engine, was cut in half by the impact.
Lapointe was operating a 32-foot cigarette boat that continued across the lake, plowed onto the shore and traveled nearly 135 feet on land before coming to rest.
Groetzinger, who worked as a local bartender, was on the lake watching the Perseid meteor shower when the crash happened, said Harold Kowal, one of her friends.
Investigators were looking into whether both boats were using proper lights. A logbook from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department indicates that the survivors reported that the other boat had no lights, according to the Sun Journal newspaper, which obtained the log through the Maine Freedom of Access Act.
“At fault could be both parties,” Warden Kevin Anderson said.
Groetzinger died from blunt-force trauma to the head, while Trott drowned, according to the medical examiner’s office, which conducted autopsies.
Warden divers recovered the bodies three days after the collision, which happened at 9 p.m. Saturday. Since then, divers have returned to retrieve evidence from the bottom of the lake, said Warden Service spokesman Mark Latti.
It will take several days to a couple of weeks to complete the crash reconstruction, Latti said. Once that’s complete, wardens will present their findings to the district attorney, who will decide what charges, if any, are warranted.
The warden service delayed releasing the names of the parties for five days at the request of the District Attorney’s Office, which wanted to complete portions of the investigation before the names were disclosed, Latti said.
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