Suspect in fatal Lake Tobesofkee boat crash gets 20 years in prison
Days after a jury convicted Eric Head of a deadly boat crash that occurred on Lake Tobesofkee in 2021, a Bibb County Superior Court judge told him Thursday morning “this was not a case for leniency” before being given the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Head appeared in front of Judge David Mincey on Thursday, handcuffed and wearing an orange jumpsuit that indicated he had been housed at the Bibb County Jail amid his sentencing. He had been found guilty days before of all of his charges, which included homicide, serious injury and reckless operation of a vessel charges.
His case stemmed from a boating crash in July 2021, where the boat he was driving had run over a pontoon boat with seven passengers, including William Childs, a 22-year-old assistant manager at lakeside restaurant Fish N Pig, who died as a result.
Assistant District Attorney Kyle Owenby argued for the maximum possible sentence that Head could serve.
“The defendant has expressed no remorse or accountability for his actions,” Owenby said. “He’s expressed even in the minutes following this crash, a great deal of concern about his own fate and his own future. He’s taken no accountability for his actions and his decisions, which took the life of Will Childs and it caused serious trauma, injury and irreparable harm to (the victims in the boat crash).”
In the early 2000s, Head battled addiction which led to his drug conviction in 2005, but since then, he hasn’t been arrested before the boating accident, Robert Cabe, Head’s attorney, said. He wanted the judge to have Head’s sentence balance both Head’s lack of trouble with the police since his 2005 drug conviction and the facts surrounding this case.
‘This should have never happened’
The judge told Head that this case was “one of the worst, most tragic cases that I have seen ... (because) you should have been the most responsible person on the lake that night.”
“You had the most life experience in terms of years, and presumably the most experience on water and with boats, yet you chose to operate one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, boat on Lake Tobesofkee at 2 a.m. on the morning of July 24, 2021,” Mincey said. “And you did so in a manner that caused that boat to run through a 24-foot pontoon vessel, killing William Childs.”
“Mr. Head, this should have never happened,” Mincey said before delivering Head’s sentence.
Head was given the maximum possible penalty in his homicide by vessel charge, which was 15 years, and his serious injury by vessel charge, which was five years. They will run consecutively, making it a 20-year sentence. If he wishes for a new trial or to appeal the sentence, he must file the request within 30 days.
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 12:10 PM.