Family of US woman killed in Italy boat crash want full investigation

Adrienne Vaughan a US publishing executive was killed in a boating incident in southern Italy. Photo / Bloomsbury Publishing via AP

The family of a US publishing executive killed in a boating collision in southern Italy is urging Italian authorities to fully investigate the death and hold accountable anyone responsible.

“We are cooperating with the Italian authorities in their investigations, and will continue to do so until they conclude,” said the statement late Thursday to The Associated Press by Mike White, husband of Adrienne Vaughan, on behalf of their family.

Vaughan, the 45-year-old president of Bloomsbury Publishing’s US branch, was killed 3 August when the rented motorboat her family had hired slammed into a chartered sailboat off the Amalfi Coast.

The motorboat’s skipper is under investigation for suspected manslaughter and causing a shipwreck, prosecutors have said. No charges have yet been announced.

Salerno Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli said 5 August that Vaughan was sunning herself on the boat’s bow and bounced into the water at the moment of impact. Two doctors who were among the passengers on the sailboat dived into the sea to try to help and a nearby vessel brought her to shore, but Vaughan died before she could be taken to the hospital.

Adrienne Vaughan was killed following the collision of a motorboat and a chartered sailboat off the Amalfi Coast. Photo / Tom Podmore, Unspalsh

White and the motorboat’s skipper were injured; the family’s two children were unharmed.

In the statement issued by a spokesman, White said Vaughan’s death had devastated the family. “Her absence from our lives and the terrible circumstances of her death are impossible to comprehend,” he said.

“We look to the Italian authorities to fully investigate the circumstances leading to Adrienne’s death, to ascertain where responsibility for this lies, and to ensure that any person who is found to bear responsibility is held accountable under the Italian criminal justice system,” he said, adding a request for privacy for the family.

On the Saturday following the accident Borrelli told a news conference that the skipper was still being investigated, awaiting results from drugs and alcohol testing.

“The results are being evaluated by a consultant of the prosecutor’s office since the data per se aren’t necessarily significant,’’ Borrelli told local news.

Italian media reported traces of cocaine in the skipper’s blood toxicology, but the prosecutor said that more evaluation was needed to determine “the incidence of the levels on the ability of the subject” to pilot the boat.

- AP with additional reporting