NJ Man’s Grandchildren Wanted to Ride in His Boat Before He Crashed While ‘Impaired by Alcohol’

New details have emerged about why two young siblings were aboard their grandfather’s boat on the night he allegedly drove it drunk and killed them.

As Globe previously reported, Stephen Schneider was arrested and charged after his 30-foot Tidewater 280 slammed into a channel marker in New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay on July 19, throwing his grandchildren, Mya Golabek and Sigmund Paul Golabek into the water.

Court records shed light on how Mya, 9, and Sigmund, 7, came to be traveling with their grandfather before the deadly crash, according to a report the New York Post published on Tuesday, August 18. The siblings had arrived at MJ’s Restaurant in Bayville, New Jersey with their parents in another boat, where the family joined Schneider, 64, and his wife for dinner. When it was time to leave, however, the children wanted to go back to their grandparents’ house, so the children climbed aboard Schneider’s vessel while their parents returned separately.

Schneider owns a waterfront property in Bayville, Ocean County, valued at roughly $1 million, according to the article. The return trip turned deadly at about 9 p.m., when his boat struck a wooden channel marker and sent both children overboard.

Per the report, although both children had life jackets on, they were discovered face-down in the bay. Schneider and his wife managed to get the siblings back onto the boat and attempted CPR, but both children were later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Schneider told investigators he had consumed three beers over the course of the roughly two-hour outing, according to the New York Post. His blood alcohol level was withheld from the publicly available court records, but State Police said he “was unfit to operate a motor vehicle and that his alertness, sense of care and caution, perception, judgment, response time and coordination were markedly impaired by alcohol.”

Authorities charged Schneider on Friday, August 14 with reckless vessel homicide/death by vessel, as well as boating under the influence and recklessly operating a vessel. According to CBS News, Schneider surrendered to authorities on Friday and remains jailed in Ocean County while awaiting his next court appearance. He has not yet entered a plea.