Disturbing leaked audio has revealed a survivor’s chilling testimony as she watched an entire family become lost at sea when their tour boat capsized.
Mary, 37, and David Maynard, 42, as well as their two sons, 11-year-old Colton and seven-year-old Brantley, were onboard a 28ft aluminum vessel with four others on August 3 when it began taking on water off the coast of Homer, Alaska.
Another ship responded to a radio call for help and was able to rescue the other four from a life raft, but the Maynards were never found and are presumed dead.
‘They were just gone,’ one survivor told jurors between tears at a presumptive death hearing on September 19, according to audio obtained by KCEN-TV.
‘It had to have been, I mean it was 10 minutes, maybe 10 minutes from us having fun to the boat – the boat rolled like this, tipped on its side and then the engines went down and just the nose up,’ she said.
Mary, 37, and David Maynard, 42, as well as their two sons, 11-year-old Colton and seven-year-old Brantley, were onboard a 28ft aluminum vessel with four others on August 3 when it began taking on water off the coast of Homer, Alaska
The captain of the tour boat also told the jury that while they were out on the water, one of the engines sputtered.
He then saw another fishing boat nearby, so he anchored his vessel.
‘At one point, David asked me, got my attention, and he pointed to the back corner of the deck where there was a drain hole for water that would come up, get on deck,’ the unidentified captain recounted.
‘He pointed to it and he said, “Is that normal?” and I said “no.”‘
The captain said he then tried to fire up the engine to pull the anchor, but the engine would not start.
He added that the last time he saw David was when he was trying to radio for help – and he did not know where the family went, as he was trying to get his own family onboard.
He said he tried to reach the boat’s window, but the ship was sinking too fast.
Another ship responded to a radio call for help and was able to rescue the other four from a life raft, but the Maynards were never found and were presumed dead
Survivors told a jury in September how the family disappeared in a matter of minutes after the boat capsized
Four others onboard the tour boat were later rescued by the ship Salty Sea, and the captain recounted that the Salty Sea’s shipmaster ‘asked if there was anybody else, and I told him there were, but they didn’t make it out of the boat.’
Authorities then spent more than 30 hours searching for the Texan family off the coast of Alaska – using a helicopter, plane, cutter and two other vessels.
The US Coast Guard was also helped by the Alaska Wildlife Troopers and Good Samaritan steam boats.
But officials for the Coast Guard said the Maynards had a functional survival time of just 7.1 hours and a cold survival time of 9.7 hours.
The six-person jury ultimately determined that the family of four died as a result of accidental drowning, as their family members demanded answers.
The six-person jury ultimately determined that the family of four died as a result of accidental drowning, as their family members demanded answers
‘It’s very frustrating because we have no idea what happened,’ Rhonda Rizzo, David’s aunt, told KCEN-TV earlier in September.
‘We have no idea what happened and it’s, I mean, we’ve got multiple stories but nothing definite and it’s just frustrating.’
She noted that she had just spoken to the family the day they went missing.
‘We talked to them that morning,’ the grieving aunt said. ‘Colton called that morning and then boom, we get a call: They’re lost at seat, boat capsized. Nobody knows what happened.’
Colton suffered from epilepsy for years, and underwent brain surgery in 2021
Rizzo described Colton as having a ‘heart of gold.’
‘He was a beautiful child,’ she said. ‘I mean everybody, he loved everybody, everybody he saw, he gave them a hug.
‘And Brantley was a little, like they said, he was a little spitfire.
‘He had a personality, that’s for sure, he was a lot like David,’ she said.
Both boys played soccer and baseball, and Mary worked as a traveling nurse while David stayed home with their children and ran a lawn care business.
The family has already been through a lot, with Colton suffering from epilepsy for years before he underwent brain surgery in 2021, Mary posted at the time.
The Maynard loved to travel and spend time with family and friends, which is what friends said they were doing in Alaska.
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