Bonney Lake man dies in Lake Tapps boating wreck

Just a few days ago, Ron Scott pulled his Bayliner runabout out of the water, figuring he was done boating for the season. But with unusually warm weather in the forecast this week, he decided to launch the boat back out on to Lake Tapps.

Scott hadn't taken a day off work for two months. And so, on Monday night, he invited along some friends who normally would have been watching football at the tavern Scott and his business partner bought back in February.

"On a whim, they said, 'Let's go out on the boat,' " said Heather Malavotte, a bartender at the Wilkeson Saloon in Wilkeson, a tiny Pierce County town about 12 miles south of Scott's Bonney Lake home.

Just after 10:30 p.m., Scott was killed when his boat was rammed from behind by another boat, according to Bonney Lake police. Scott's death came just two days after Heather DeHart, a violist and music teacher at Tyee Middle School in Bellevue, was killed in a similar crash on Lake Washington.

Scott and his friends were "trolling around" the south end of Lake Tapps, in between Inlet and Interlake islands, at low speed when the driver of a faster motor boat "ran up over the back" of Scott's boat "and veered off to the right side," throwing Scott into the water, said Bonney Lake police Officer Tony Rice. Divers later retrieved his body from the lake.

Two women on board Scott's boat were seriously injured and were being treated at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, said Rice. A male passenger on one of the boats — it's not clear which one — is being treated at a hospital for a compound fracture to his leg. Four others received minor injuries.

According to Malavotte, it took rescuers more than an hour to find Scott after he was thrown from the boat. The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office determined the 49-year-old suffered blunt-force injuries to his head, chest and leg and that he drowned.

Rice said speed, alcohol and the darkness are being investigated as factors in the crash.

A Bonney Lake man, 41, is in Pierce County Jail on investigation of homicide by watercraft and two counts of assault by watercraft, jail records show. He is expected to make his first court appearance today.

Saturday's accident

On Saturday, DeHart, 38, of Redmond, died around 8:45 p.m. when a motorboat, driven by a 17-year-old boy, slammed into the sailboat she was on with two companions. Seattle police said witnesses told them the motorboat was traveling at a high rate of speed before it struck the stationary sailboat west of Mercer Island, off the 4500 block of Lake Washington Boulevard South near Seattle's Seward Park.

Witnesses on shore told police the motorboat hit the sailboat, went up over the back of it and struck DeHart, throwing her into the water. The 17-year-old motorboat driver was questioned and released.

No new information on the Lake Washington crash was available Tuesday, said police spokeswoman Renee Witt. It could take months to complete the accident investigation, she said, adding that it's too soon to say whether the 17-year-old could face charges.

DeHart and Scott are the 17th and 18th people to die in boating accidents in the state this year, said A.J. Parlan, a program specialist with Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission's boating program.

Last year, 26 people died in 22 boating accidents in Washington, according to national Coast Guard statistics.

Dan Shipman has never seen anything like these back-to-back collisions in his 30-year career with the Coast Guard. Shipman is the recreational-boating-safety specialist for the Seattle-based 13th Coast Guard District, which covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

From what he knows of the two investigations, Shipman said excessive speed and the failure of both suspect drivers to assign a lookout — someone to watch for boats and other obstacles that can be obscured because of the light being cast from shore — appear to be common denominators.

"We have boats colliding with boats and other things every day but ... I've never seen a collision like this before, where you have a boat go clear over top of another boat," he said. And to have it happen twice just two days apart "is absolutely shocking," Shipman said.

Teddy bear of a man

At the Wilkeson Saloon, regulars sipped on Landshark Lager — Scott's favorite beer — in his honor Tuesday night. Bartender Malavotte described her boss as a friendly, goofy, teddy bear of a man who loved being on his boat, hanging out with friends and socializing with the Wilkeson's patrons.

"It's pretty somber in here," she said. "I keep waiting for him to walk through that door."

Scott grew up in Southern California and lived in the Washington, D.C., area before moving to Bonney Lake about 10 years ago, said Scott's friend and business partner, Alan Smith.

His parents had both died, and his younger brother lives in Hong Kong, so for Scott, his friends really were his family. Even after he and his wife, Lisa, recently divorced after 20 years of marriage, they "remained the best of friends" and lived just four blocks apart, Smith said.

Scott and Smith, who worked as agents in the same Bonney Lake real-estate office, had long dreamed of owning a bar together. They bought the 90-year-old tavern in February and were slowly fixing it up.

When Scott headed out on his boat Monday night, "the plan was to try to take advantage of this last little bit of summer — and he knew that lake like the back of his hand," Smith said.

"He just really enjoyed being around people and ... there are a lot of people hurting tonight."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com