‘A heart ready to forgive.’ Wife of man killed on Macon lake says God inspired apology

Chris King was 49 the summer night he died in a boat crash in the wake of an evening fishing tournament on Lake Tobesofkee.

King, a civilian safety worker at Robins Air Force Base, had grown up in nearby Byron. He was a Georgia Bulldogs fan and an ’80s music aficionado. He was also an avid angler. He was fond of fishing on area lakes, including Tobesofkee, the 1,750-acre reservoir on Macon’s west side.

Today, a mile or so to the south, an etching of a largemouth bass graces King’s tombstone in the Lizella Baptist Church Cemetery where he was laid to rest.

At the time of his death three years ago on July 1, 2020, he had been a passenger on a friend’s Triton TR21 bass boat. Their vessel collided with another boat, a Ranger 188VS, not far from Sandy Beach.

The boat King was on was believed to have been traveling in excess of 50 mph in the moments before the wreck.

The impact hurled King overboard.

The man at the helm of the other boat was knocked into the water himself. That man, after being helped back aboard his own boat, pulled King from the lake. Someone then performed CPR but efforts to revive King failed. He died of blunt-force trauma.

No criminal charges were brought against the driver of either vessel. (There are no state-imposed speed limits on Georgia lakes.) King’s wife, Lisa, later filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the operators of both boats.

As the case progressed and a trial date, set for December of this year, drew near, Lisa began having second thoughts about the lawsuit.

“For the most part, in the beginning, I was in shock,” she said. “I went from shock and just disarray to being mad, just a whole emotion thing.”

Lisa, 56, a training manager for workers in the F-15 fighter jet program at the base, had first met Chris at work in the early 2000s. He was, she recalled, “a cut-up.” He was easygoing and made co-workers laugh.

She and Chris grew closer and dated for about a decade before he proposed marriage. Their wedding day was in October 2015 on Lisa’s grandparents’ anniversary. “We borrowed it,” she said.

Justice for Chris

After Chris died, Lisa’s aim was to get a favorable civil ruling on the books and “justice for Chris,” possibly paving the way to bring about changes in the state’s boating laws. She wanted his legacy to be one that requires Georgia boaters to have insurance and, where possible, for there to be speed limits on lakes.

But as she explored avenues to do that, she hit dead ends. In prayer at times, Lisa would say, “I’m trying to do the right thing, I’m trying to honor Chris. We’re just not getting anywhere.”

This spring, as the third anniversary of Chris’ death approached, she was in her living room reading her daily spiritual devotion.

“It just hits me,” Lisa recalled, “and God speaks to me and says, ‘You need to let me handle anything that needs to be handled with the other two (boaters). You need to drop this.’”

At first, she resisted the idea.

Again in prayer, she said, “‘I know you’re telling me what to do, God, but, no. Uh-uh. No way.’ But after a while, I listened and I decided to be obedient. I had to start the process of forgiveness. ... I’m not saying that these drivers did anything intentionally. That’s not it at all. I’m just saying for my personal forgiveness, the process was to first drop the case.”

Lisa tried to put herself in the place of the boaters. She knew she had herself made mistakes in life and had been given second chances. She also realized she would get farther in bringing changes to boating laws with the boaters she was suing on her side.

At Lisa’s behest in early August, lawyer Jordan Josey, one of her attorneys from Macon’s McArthur Law Firm, requested a meeting with the two boaters Lisa was suing.

Josey informed their attorneys that the gathering would be to discuss resolving the case. He didn’t share much more.

“There was so much emotion in that room and both of the defendants were ghostly white and silent,” Josey said. “Their attorneys were very stone-faced. It felt like walking into a courtroom. It was a really charged moment.”

Lisa broke the ice.

She stood, arms extended, and hugged the boaters.

The gesture, Josey recalled, was of “a heart ready to forgive.”

Arranging the meeting had been nothing short of unorthodox. The lawyers present had never been part of anything quite like it.

Then Lisa turned to the boaters and apologized.

“It’s not often you see a woman whose husband was claimed by a tragic event and two of the people involved in the event, she’s apologizing to them,” Josey said.

Her apology was for bringing the lawsuit and for the stresses wrought from months of litigation and depositions.

Speaking about the meeting, Lisa, through sobs, said recently, “I do regret them having to go through the pain and the hurt the last three years. … My heart breaks for them. … That’s what I was apologizing for: their hurt.”

Lisa told the driver of the boat Chris was on — a friend of his — that she realized the driver had himself “lost a very good friend” on the lake that night. She also thanked the other boater, the one who tried to revive Chris.

“It was this incredible human moment,” Josey said of the conversations, “watching Lisa put away the anger and completely change her mindset to, ‘I appreciate you both. I know you both suffered and I’m sorry to you both for what you’ve been through. We’ve all been through this together.’”

The only condition of the settlement was a $25,000 payment of liability insurance from a policy on the boat Chris was riding in, which that boater’s representatives had offered to pay all along.

Though it was not a condition of the agreement, both boaters expressed interest in helping Lisa in her pursuit of boating-law changes.

Her hope now, at least in part, is to find officials interested in amending insurance requirements or enhancing boating-safety measures or education courses.

The only states with mandatory insurance requirements for boats are Utah and Arkansas, where boats with 50-horsepower-or-greater engines must be covered. (Hawaii requires insurance for vessels longer than 26 feet.)

While there are no speed limits on Georgia lakes, law enforcement officials say that cities or counties could conceivably enact local ordinances.

“Speed’s the most important thing that needs to be addressed,” Josey said.

“I think our hope would be to set some form of a speed limit on waterways to the extent that can be done. As well as set up the watercraft version of the Georgia Motor Vehicle Accident Reparations Act, which set up state-mandatory insurance for motor vehicles.”