A skipper involved in a boat crash off Italy’s Amalfi Coast that killed the head of Bloomsbury USA is being investigated for suspected manslaughter.
The skipper, an Italian national who hasn’t been identified, is also being investigated on suspicion of causing a shipwreck after the motorboat he was driving with an American family on board collided with a tourist sailboat holding 70 guests on Thursday afternoon.
President of the US arm of publishing company Bloomsbury, Adrienne Vaughan, 45, was killed and her husband was injured in the incident, while her two young children on board escaped injury.
The skipper was also injured. No charges have so far been filed against him, and the investigation is still ongoing.
The motorboat slammed into a chartered sailboat, where some 70 guests aboard were enjoying a wedding reception. Blood samples were taken from the skipper to determine alcohol and drug levels.
But Salerno Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli said for now the results were inconclusive.
“The results are being evaluated by a consultant of the prosecutor’s office since the data per se aren’t necessarily significant,”Mr Borrelli told reporters on Friday.
He added that more evaluation was needed to determine “the incidence of the levels on the ability of the subject” to pilot the boat.
On Friday, Italian news reports said that the blood toxicology tests had found traces of cocaine.
Investigators have questioned the skipper, who remains hospitalised with what Italian media said are pelvis and rib fractures.
The victim’s husband, Mike White, is being treated at another hospital for a shoulder injury, according to reports.
Authorities have spoken to him and plan to do so again, Mr Borrelli said.
The couple’s children are now in the care of one of the their grandfathers who travelled to Italy to help while their father is recovering, the prosecutor said.
Mr Borrelli said when the crash happened, Mrs Vaughan was tanning herself on the bow of the boat and “bounced” into the water at the moment of impact.
She was then was repeatedly struck by the motorboat’s propeller, according to Italian news reports.
Mr Borrelli declined to detail her injuries, saying the results of an autopsy are still pending.
Two doctors who were among the passengers on the sailboat dived into the sea to to help Mrs Vaughan, while a nearby vessel brought her to shore, Italian state radio said, quoting the sailboat’s captain.
Mr Borrelli said the woman died before a medical helicopter and local ambulance could take her to hospital.
The sailboat’s captain has told Italian media that the motorboat was speeding when it smashed into the stationary sailboat’s bow.
The motorboat had set sail from the town of Amalfi, Mr Borrelli said. According to Italian media, the family was headed to Positano, another popular coastal town when the crash happened.
Mrs Vaughan was the president of Bloomsbury USA based in New York. - the publishing company behind J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
She had been promoted to the top role in 2021 after first joining as executive director and COO in September 2020. Her husband posted photos of the family enjoying their summer holiday in Rome on Wednesday.
Mrs Vaughan, who had a master’s degree in business from New York University, had worked at the Disney Book Group and Oxford University Press among other companies before joining Bloomsbury.
She was promoted to president a year later and also served on the board of the industry trade group the Association of American Publishers.
“Adrienne Vaughan was a leader of dazzling talent and infectious passion and had a deep commitment to authors and readers,” said the association’s board chair, Julia Reidhead, and its president and CEO, Maria Pallante, in a joint statement.
“Most of all she was an extraordinary human being, and those of us who had the opportunity to work with her will be forever fortunate.”
