All four suspects wanted in connection to a burglary that ended with a boat crash that killed a 13-year-old boy Saturday night, are formally charged and under bond.
The final suspect, 28-year0old Nicholas Macklen, surrendered to authorities outside the J. Reuben Long Detention Center at around 2:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Macklen’s attorney drove him to the jail to surrender.
The Department of natural Resources charged 26-year-old Amber Walker and 20-year-old Elizabeth Parness, both of Myrtle Beach, with accessory after the fact.
A judge set their bonds at $10,000 each.
The DNR also charged Macklen and 21-year-old Brandon Scott McDevitt with criminal conspiracy.
Horry County Police charged Macklen and McDevitt with first-degree burglary charges; if convicted of the burglary charge, the pair faces life in prison.
Investigators accused Macklen and McDevitt with breaking into a waterfront home on Folly Road in Socastee and stealing as television, then getting into a boat to get away.
Authorities said the pair crashed into another boat on the Intracoastal Waterway with four people inside, killing one.
A family member spoke at the hearing Tuesday and told the judge that his parents were on the boat along with his cousin, 13-year-old Shayne Odermatt, who died in the crash.
He said the family was in town on vacation and that his parents and his aunt were taken to MUSC with severe injuries, but was moved out of ICU and taken off respirators Tuesday.
The crash happened around 8:30 p.m. Saturday under the Highway 544 Bridge in Socastee.
Investigators said Macklen and McDevitt’s boat slammed into the victim’s boat, then flipped over and landed on its top several hundred feet away.
Medics took three adult victims to a trauma center Saturday and pronounced the teenaged victim dead at the scene.
Investigators said Macklen and McDevitt called Walker, who has a baby with Macklen, to pick them up following the crash Saturday night.
Both Macklen and McDevitt had lengthy criminal records and both had been convicted of prior burglaries; both pleaded guilty to felony charges as recently as 2007, according to court records.
Both men were on probation at the time of the crash Saturday, according to county court records.
The judge denied Macklen and McDevitt’s bond on the criminal conspiracy charges Tuesday and called both a danger to society.
A circuit court judge will set the pair’s bond on the burglary charges within the next several weeks.
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