😱 He Was A Decorated Special Forces Sniper—Then A Drunk Boating Decision Changed Everything: 10-Year-Old Brooklyn Carroll Died, And Another Mother Lost Her Leg In Seconds. 🚤💔
A former Special Forces sniper who admitted driving a boat while intoxicated and killing a 10-year-old girl swimming with friends has been sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison for the crash that also left another woman permanently maimed.
Quinten Kight, 42, received a sentence of a minimum of 12 years and six months to a maximum of 15 years and five months after pleading guilty Monday to second-degree murder and related charges stemming from the August 2, 2025, incident at Shearon Harris Reservoir in North Carolina. The plea agreement also includes two years of supervised probation upon his release, during which he will be barred from operating any watercraft.
Brooklyn Carroll, who was about to enter fifth grade at West Lake Elementary School, was swimming with friends when Kight’s boat slammed into the group. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Jennifer Stehle, 41, the mother of Carroll’s best friend and a social worker at the same elementary school, suffered catastrophic injuries. The boat’s propeller shredded her left leg, which was later amputated at the knee after she was airlifted to a hospital.
What began as an ordinary summer outing turned catastrophic in seconds. Carroll had joined the Stehle family for a day at the lake. Kight was operating a boat that belonged to his 56-year-old girlfriend, Annemarie Flanigan. Investigators later found 39 empty beer cans on board the vessel, which carried at least ten other people including four children. More than 50 cans were eventually recovered from the water. Kight’s blood-alcohol concentration measured 0.17—more than twice the legal limit—five hours after the crash. He admitted to drinking at least two hard seltzers, according to search warrants.
Kight faced charges of second-degree murder, two counts of death or serious injury by impaired boating, operating a motorboat while impaired, and reckless operation of a boat. Flanigan was arrested three days after the crash and charged with second-degree murder, two counts of death or serious injury by impaired boating, and aiding and abetting a motorboat DWI. She has pleaded not guilty, and her criminal case remains pending.
During the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Chas Post outlined Kight’s military background. Kight enlisted in 2007, deployed more than ten times, and eventually became a Green Beret and Special Forces sniper. In 2022 he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, before being discharged from the Army. The progressive brain disease, caused by repeated head trauma, is linked to personality changes, depression, aggression, cognitive impairment, loss of impulse control, and elevated risk of substance abuse. Post told the court that his client was “genuinely sorry.” Kight apologized to the victims’ families but did not look at them while speaking.
Kight’s record included prior alcohol-related offenses. He was convicted of driving under the influence in New Mexico in 2010. In 2023 he was cited for impaired driving in Chatham County. At the time of the boat crash he also faced a pending hit-and-run charge in Moore County; he later pleaded guilty in that case to hit-and-run, reckless driving, and resisting officers, receiving a separate sentence of five months to one year and three months.
Victim impact statements delivered Monday underscored the permanent rupture the crash left in two families. Matt Carroll, Brooklyn’s father, told the court: “Brooklyn was our everything, and she should still be here today. What happened to her was not an accident. She was just being a kid, wanting to have a good time with her friend.” Her mother, Kim Cannon, spoke through tears: “I wake up every day knowing that somehow I have to live my entire lifetime without my daughter. We have to watch the world keep moving while mine stopped then. There’s no sentence you can receive compared to that. Our sentence is for the rest of our lives.”
Jennifer Stehle addressed the court as well. “I would give anything to have my leg back and for our family to have never experienced any of this,” she said. “However, I cannot change that day. Instead, I choose to move forward with faith, grace over bitterness, hope over despair.”
Civil lawsuits filed by the Carroll and Stehle families against Kight, Flanigan, and others who were on the boat are scheduled for trial next summer. Both Kight and Flanigan have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights while denying the claims in those cases.
The crash itself was sudden and violent. Carroll and Stehle were in the water when the boat struck them. The propeller inflicted the injuries that killed the child and cost the adult her lower leg. Empty alcohol containers scattered across the vessel and later recovered from the lake painted a clear picture of the level of impairment. Kight’s elevated blood-alcohol reading hours afterward confirmed that he remained significantly intoxicated long after the collision.
The sentencing closes the criminal case against Kight but leaves open the civil litigation and the unresolved charges against Flanigan. For the Carroll family, no prison term can restore the outgoing girl who loved riding horses and playing Roblox with friends. For Stehle, the physical and emotional consequences of that afternoon at the reservoir will last a lifetime. The court has imposed a lengthy term of incarceration, followed by probation and a permanent ban on operating watercraft during the supervision period. The broader questions about accountability, the role of alcohol on the water, and the lasting effects of military service-related brain injury remain part of the public conversation surrounding the case.
Kight’s military service, his diagnosis of CTE, and his prior alcohol offenses formed the backdrop of the defense presentation. Prosecutors focused on the choices made that day: the decision to operate a boat after drinking, the presence of multiple empty cans, the presence of children on the vessel, and the catastrophic outcome for a 10-year-old swimming with friends and the adult who was with her. The judge accepted the plea and imposed the agreed-upon range of imprisonment.
As Kight begins serving his sentence, the families of Brooklyn Carroll and Jennifer Stehle continue to live with the consequences of a few minutes on a North Carolina reservoir in the summer of 2025. One child is gone. One woman will never walk on two intact legs again. A former Special Forces sniper is headed to prison. And the civil cases still to come will keep the legal process alive for at least another year.