NC man pleads guilty to intoxicated boat crash that killed 3 people

A deadly boat crash in 2020 has resulted in the first conviction of death by impaired boating in North Carolina.

Matthew Ferster, of Brunswick County, pled guilty on Aug. 28 to three counts of death by impaired boating, also known as Sheyenne’s Law, according to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. He was sentenced to between 9 to 18 years in prison.

The conviction comes after a March 2020 boat crash resulted in the deaths of Jennifer Hayes, 26, Megan Lynn, 21, and Garret Smith, 21, all of Columbus County.

WECT News reports the three were passengers on a boat driven by Travis Suggs, of Tabor City. Suggs and a fifth person on the boat suffered minor injuries.

Ferster was driving the boat that hit the others. He and his sole passenger were uninjured.

Sheyenne’s Law, passed in July 2016, increased the penalty for impaired boating that results in death or serious injury from a misdemeanor to a felony.

The law was named in memory of Sheyenne Marshall, 17, from Concord, who was killed by an impaired boater as she was knee-boarding on Lake Norman in July 2015.