Boater Faces Manslaughter Trial : Alcohol Count on Driver in Anaheim Bay Crash Is Dropped

The driver of a boat that crashed into an unlit buoy in Anaheim Bay in Seal Beach last fall, killing five of nine people aboard, was ordered by a Municipal Court judge Wednesday to stand trial on five counts of involuntary manslaughter.

But the judge dismissed an additional charge of driving a boat while under the influence of alcohol against Virl Earles, 29, because of what Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley called “an unfortunate misunderstanding” between two law enforcement agencies.

Soon after the early morning crash on Oct. 28, 1984, the staff at Los Alamitos Hospital, where Earles was taken for treatment of his injuries, took a sample of Earles’ blood. It showed he had a blood alcohol content of .11%--slightly above the .10% level that constitutes drunk driving under state motor vehicle laws. By state law, a blood sample to determine alcohol content can be taken against some one’s will only if that person is under arrest. Earles was not.

Seal Beach and Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol officers each thought the other agency had arrested Earles before the blood sample was taken, Conley said. Neither realized until later that no arrest had been made.

That charge was not as important, since the penalty it carries is minor compared with that accompanying the involuntary manslaughter counts. The mix-up means, though, that Conley will not be able to introduce evidence from the blood sample test at Earles’ trial.

Conley did not seem worried, however.

“There are ways we can get around it,” he said. “We have witnesses who can show that he was drinking right before the incident. And we can show he was speeding while driving the boat, right after having a lot to drink.”

According to police reports, Earles and five men he knew met three women at the bar at the Red Onion Restaurant in Huntington Harbour on the night of Oct. 27. They left shortly after it closed at 2 a.m. and got into a 20-foot fiberglass pleasure boat at the restaurant pier for a drive to see the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

On the way back, the boat --designed to carry no more than six people--struck a one-ton buoy, used to anchor naval barges, just inside the breakwater for the U.S. Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach. Two passengers, Carol Kemble, 25, and Ernest Chavez, 25, perched on the buoy after the crash and held Earles out of the water as he lapsed in and out of consciousness. A fourth passenger, Stephen Brennan, 24, swam to shore, despite a shattered pelvis and internal bleeding, to get help.

The five killed were Kathy Weaver, 24, of Laguna Beach, Patricia Hulings, 20, of Downey, and John Bakos, 22, Ronald Myers, 22, and Anthony Sutton, 27, all of Seal Beach.

Earles’ attorney, Gary Pohlson, called it a “tragic accident.” At the time of the crash, Pohlson contends, the usual green light marking the breakwater was not working and another green light--at a different location--was. The flashing light made Earles think he was heading into the center of the harbor, well away from the naval buoys, Pohlson said.

Under California law, someone operating a boat or car can be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a death if his driving is shown to have been negligent. Earles was arrested following a five-month investigation into the incident.

Judge William P. Lamb ordered Earles, who is free on $15,000 bail, to appear in Superior Court Aug. 5 for arraignment.

Earles, who could be sentenced to a maximum of eight years if convicted on all five involuntary manslaughter counts, has filed suit against three federal agencies claiming that the unlit buoy made the harbor unsafe.