WALHALLA, South Carolina, USA (AP) South Carolina authorities have announced that they will not press charges against a man who was on board a boat and who shot dead another man he had rescued from the waters of a lake.
Nathan Drew Morgan, 29, was shot dead by an unidentified 74-year-old man who was on the boat's edge.
Oconee County Police reported that Judge David Wagner determined that the shooting was self-defense.
Morgan, a resident of Walhalla, was shot dead aboard the boat on Lake Keowee.
Morgan and a woman needed help after falling from their Jet Skis into the lake, Oconee County police had reported. Neither one of them was wearing life jackets and the Jet Ski was circling through the water.
The 74-year-old man and his wife went out on their own boat to help them, but when they pulled him out of the water, Morgan got upset and started assaulting them, police said.
Investigators suspect that Morgan wanted to ride his Jet Ski again. They also handle the hypothesis that Morgan and the woman were engaged in an argument before they fell into the water.
Police Chief Mike Crenshaw told the Journal of Seneca that Morgan was possibly drunk.
The woman who was with Morgan pushed him back into the water to try to stop the fight, police said.
The couple rescued him again, but the older man shot him after a second fight, stating that he feared for his own life and that of his wife. Authorities have not divulged the identity of the couple.
Morgan died aboard the vessel from a gunshot to the chest, the Oconee County Coroner's Department said.