Woman Gets Year in Prison After Pushing Man Off Boat, Killing Two People in Prank Gone Bad

A Georgia woman has been sentenced to a year in jail in connection with the drowning deaths of two men in 2021.

WRDW reports Shontover Kirkland, 32, pleaded guilty this week to reckless conduct and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of Eynn Wilson and Edward Kirk Jr. that occurred on Clarks Hill Lake in Lincoln County.

According to police, Kirkland rented two boats for a birthday celebration on the lake. Kirkland, not knowing that Kirk didn’t know how to swim, allegedly pushed the man into the lake, prompting Wilson to jump into the water to try and save him. Both disappeared in the water. Their bodies were discovered a week later.

“We had to relive this whole devastating incident all over again,” said Lakesha Johnson, Kirk’s sister. “There are so many lives impacted just off of one person’s actions, and she [Kirkland] has to live with that.”

A 2021 arrest warrant claimed Kirkland “did unlawfully endanger the bodily safety of Edward Lee Kirk, Jr. by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that her act of shoving him off a boat into deep, cold water on Clarks Jill Lake without knowing whether or not he could swim would endanger the safety of said person and the disregard constituted a gross deviation from the standard care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation.”

Kirkland, who’d known Kirk since she was 14, apologized to the court for the incident while maintaining that she did not mean any harm. However, she affirmed that she is taking accountability for her actions.

Kirkland has been sentenced to one year in jail, along with nine years of probation.