CAMDEN COUNTY, Mo. — A family is speaking out since a boater was sentenced to 120 days in jail for a deadly 2023 boating crash.
“I've been waiting a year-and-a-half for this day to come, and justice wasn't served,” said John Huffman, whose mother was killed in a crash on Lake of the Ozarks.
Forty-four-year-old Nicolette McKenna died on August 26, 2023, when a 32-foot Crownline driven by Bobby Childers crashed into a breakwater near the 24 Mile Marker.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Childers had been operating too close to a dock, struck a large wake, and lost control before slamming into the breakwater. The impact totaled the boat, injured three passengers—including Childers—and killed McKenna. There were at least 14 people aboard the boat when it crashed, according to the Highway Patrol report at the time.
Childers, born in 1963, was charged with Class D Felony BWI-Serious Physical Injury and Class C Felony BWI-Death Of Another.
He entered an Alford plea on Dec. 9, 2024. An Alford Plea is an acknowledgement by the defendant that there is likely enough evidence against him/her to obtain a guilty verdict. It is treated like a guilty plea, but the defendant still maintains his/her innocence in the crime(s).
According to the plea document, Childers said he operated "a vessel while under the influence of alcohol, and acted with criminal negligence by jumping the wakes of other vessels, and as a result, caused the death of one civilian and caused serious physical injury to two civilians."
At the sentencing hearing March 6, Huffman and several family members gave victim impact statements.
“The prosecuting attorney was super uneducated on our family—didn’t even know me and my little sister existed until I reached out to them,” Huffman said. “He barely prepared us for court at all.”
Huffman said the case became even more complicated when McKenna’s widower, Nicholas McKenna, spoke in defense of his uncle Childers in court. According to Huffman, Nicholas turned against his own wife’s memory.
“If she would have known this family was like this, she would have never married Nick McKenna that day,” Huffman said.
LakeExpo reached out to Nick McKenna through his attorney for comment and he declined to respond.
Huffman says his brother, who was also on the boat, now suffers from PTSD after pulling their mother’s body from the water. He was one of the witnesses that went before Judge Kenneth Hayden.
The court placed Childers in the 120-Day Program. After this treatment program in jail, the defendant may be release to serve probation, which would be 10 years for Childers concurrent charges.
McKenna's family is not letting the case rest after the sentencing.
“Shocking people back into the real world for killing someone and letting them walk around as a free man—while my mom is ashes now,” Huffman said. "We are also speaking with multiple attorneys to try and fight this."
