Captain found guilty in adventure boat fire that killed 34, five from Stockton

Four years ago, 34 people, including five members of a Stockton family, died in a catastrophic boat fire off the Southern California coast.

On Monday, a federal jury in Los Angeles found the boat's captain guilty of "seaman's manslaughter."

"This ship captain’s unpardonable cowardice led to the deaths of 34 lives,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in an announcement of the verdict Monday evening.

"This tragedy could have been avoided had (the captain) Mr. Boylan simply performed the duties he was entrusted to carry out."

On Labor Day weekend in 2019, the Conception set out from Santa Barbara carrying 33 passengers for a diving trip near Santa Cruz Island, roughly 20 miles off the California coast west of Ventura.

In the early hours of Sept. 2 — the third day of the trip — the Conception was anchored near the island when it caught fire, trapping the 33 passengers and one member of the crew in a bunkroom, the AP reported.

The vessel sank less than 100 feet offshore, killing those trapped below deck.

Former captain Jerry Nehl Boylan, 69, of Santa Barbara, was the first to jump overboard after calling the U.S. Coast Guard, the Associated Press reported. Boylan and four crew members survived.

Among those who died were 27-year-old Angela Rose Solano Quitasol, who taught seventh grade at Sierra Middle School in Stockton, and her sisters, Nicole Storm Solano Quitasol, 31, and EvanMichel Solano Quitasol, 37.

The sisters' father and his wife also died on board: Michael Quitasol and Fernisa Sison had met at San Joaquin Delta College and worked at St. Joseph's Medical Center. The group had booked the diving trip to celebrate Michael Quitasol's birthday.

Boylan's guilty verdict came at the end of a 10-day trial in a federal courtroom in downtown L.A., in which the ex-captain's defense attorneys argued the Conception's owners allowed a lax safety measure on their boat, which led to the deaths.

The jury disagreed, finding that Boylan failed to prepare his crew for a firefight and neglected "to perform any lifesaving or firefighting activities whatsoever at the time of the fire, even though he was uninjured," according to the announcement Monday.

The cause of the fire was never determined.

Boylan was found guilty of misconduct or neglect of a ship officer, a Civil War-era charge sometimes called "seaman's manslaughter."

His public defender could not be reached for comment by the deadline Tuesday.

"One moment, there is a feeling of relief, a feeling of winning, then there is the reality that this man’s inaction killed my daughters and their dad," Susana Solano Rosas said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

"Not one single person wins here. The captain doesn’t, I don’t."

Boylan is scheduled to be sentenced in February. He could face up to 10 years in prison and has a right to appeal his verdict.

USA Today and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Record reporter Aaron Leathley covers public safety. She can be reached at aleathley@recordnet.com or on Twitter @LeathleyAaron. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Captain guilty of "seaman's manslaughter" in boat fire that killed 34