About two hours after Naya and Josey left the dock on the rental boat, they decided to swim in the lake, which the documents stated was permitted at the time but is now banned. The paperwork claimed the boat was then carried away while they were swimming and that this was “likely by current wind, which gusted up to 21 miles per hour that afternoon.”
In July, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said Naya’s “son described being helped into the boat by Naya, who boosted him on the deck from behind.” Ayub said the idea, perhaps, was that “the boat started drifting, it was unanchored, and that she mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat but not enough to save herself.” However, the court documents told a different story.
“Josey, who was closer, managed to get back on the boat on his own volition and braced himself on the boat, which was rocking back and forth forcefully in the current wind,” the lawsuit stated. “Josey knew Naya was still in the water, and heard her cry, ‘Help! Help!’ in her struggle to get back to the boat and avoid drowning.”
Per the paperwork, “Josey searched in vain for rope to help his mother get back on the boat.”
“Josey then looked back at the water for his mother, and saw Naya had disappeared,” the documents stated. “Josey yelled for help and cried alone in the boat until he was found more than an hour later by a PMC boat leasing agent.”