Tag Archives: Tyler Sawyer
Cushing fishing boat captain gets 4 years for causing deaths of 2 crewmen
Christopher A. Hutchinson, 30, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Portland by Judge D. Brock Hornby for two counts of seaman’s manslaughter. The bodies of 27-year-old Tom Hammond and 15-year-old Tyler Sawyer were never found. Hutchinson was the captain of the lobster boat No Limits, which sank near Matinicus Island in a storm on Nov. 1, 2014. He purchased 20, 30-milligram oxycodone pills from two separate drug dealers, smoked marijuana with Sawyer’s father, and drank a rum and coke at a Rockland restaurant on Halloween 2014, court documents say. He then departed for a fishing trip at 1 a.m. from Linda Bean’s dock in Tenants Harbor. Rain was beginning to fall, and the forecast called for a gale. >click to read<22:59
Judge excludes drug test on Maine fishing boat captain facing manslaughter charges
A federal judge has restricted the federal government’s ability to use results of a blood test taken from a Cushing fishing boat captain accused of causing the deaths of two crew members when his lobster boat sank during a November 2014 gale. U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby issued his ruling Wednesday, Jan. 17 in the case of 29-year-old Christopher A. Hutchinson. >click here to read< 16:57
Captain asks court to throw out blood test in fatal sinking case
The Cushing captain who is accused of causing the death of two crew members when his lobsterboat sank during a November 2014 gale has asked the court to throw out a blood test that showed he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is opposing the motion filed on behalf of 29-year-old Christopher A. Hutchinson. No ruling has yet been issued by the federal judge hearing the case in U.S. District Court in Portland. Hutchinson is charged with two counts of seaman’s manslaughter for the deaths of Tom Hammond, 27, of Rockland, and 15-year-old Tyler Sawyer, who lived in St. George and Waldoboro. They were crew members aboard Hutchinson’s lobsterboat, No Limits, which sank Nov. 1, 2014. click here to read the story 11:52
A lobster boat captain said a freak storm killed his crew. Then doctors found drugs in his system.
Christopher Hutchinson said he had no idea the storm would grow so strong so fast. It was November 2014, and Hutchinson, 28, had set out in his 45-foot lobster boat, a fiberglass craft called No Limits. He wanted to check on 15 traps in Eleven Mile Ridge, a popular lobstering area off the coast of Maine. Two crewmen manned the boat with him — Tomas Hammond, 26, and Tyler Sawyer, 15. They arrived at dawn on a Saturday morning and began pulling up traps, but the weather worsened. “Prior to the No Limits departure, the National Weather Service was predicting and warning of adverse and dangerous marine weather and sea conditions in the area,” the indictment says. “Marine weather forecasts, watches and warnings [were] continuously broadcast on radio.” Prosecutors claim Hutchinson was also negligent in employing a 15-year-old boy, a complicated and sensitive issue among people who make their living catching lobsters. Read the story here 08:26
