On behalf of the club, the general manager of an exclusive Martha’s Vineyard country club pleaded guilty to the unintentional manslaughter of a three-year-old boy who drowned in their pool last year.
The court heard this week that Henry Bowman Backer was not wearing floaties when he was left alone in the pool by a counselor at the $100,000-a-year membership Boathouse & Field Club in July 2021.
‘We never saw our son’s eyes open again. He was already brain dead,’ said his father Stephen Backer, in a victim statement. ‘We placed our vibrant, sweet, smart, loving boy in the care of The Field Club and they let him die.’
Boathouse & Field Club general manager Scott Anderson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, negligence, wanton and reckless conduct, causing the death of Henry, on behalf of the club.
‘We had one responsibility as an organization on that day and that was to return Henry back to his family…and we failed on every possible level,’ Anderson told the court, reports The Boston Globe.
The club was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay the family $100,000 in reparations. The money will be donated to a lifeguard training program on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod called the Henry Bowman Backer Water Safety Training Fund, according to the family.
The judge presiding over the case, Hon. ‘There is no sentence that can be issued that can explain what has transpired,’ Mark Gildea said.
But the family are still furious at the club for letting their little boy die.
Stephen said: ‘This is not the story of a tragic accident. This is the story of a crime.’
‘We are making this statement because the guilty party is a corporation and we can’t look a corporation in the eye.’
The club, which was built as a private members club in 2008, charges members $100,000 per year for membership. Purchase of a home on the grounds comes with a club membership. Homes are priced between $2 and $4 million.
According to the Globe, Stephen’s mother, Terry Kassel, was a member of the private club, which is located on the Katama Peninsula in the Edgartown portion of Martha’s Vineyard.
Stephen’s mother works at Elliot Investment Management as the head of strategic human resources, having previously held a similar position at Merrill Lynch.
Ellie’s LinkedIn page states that she worked as the culinary director at the Jewish Food Society from 2016 to 2019.
Ellie graduated from Boston College in 2002 with the class of 2002.
Stephen worked as the director of creative development at Eko, an interactive video firm, from 2015 to 2021.
The Globe refers to Edgartown as “the island’s poshest town” in its reporting.
The Bowman Backer family lives in Brooklyn, New York’s Park Slope area.
Ellie, Henry’s mother, claimed she told a counselor when she enrolled her son up for the Kids Club that he would require floaties to play in the pool.
Henry would have to bring his own, according to the counselor.
Ellie said she clipped the floaties to her son’s suitcase the morning he drowned.
‘It was the three-year-old child’s obligation to remember to wear his floaties,’ said a counselor at the Kids Club to a state trooper, according to Cape & Islands assistant district attorney Elizabeth Sweeney.
According to the prosecution, counselors at the Kids Club were not given individual children to care for and were not all fully qualified to care for small children.
No other counselor was assigned to Henry after the counselor who was playing with him left with the other kids.
‘I dropped Henry off at the Field’s Club’s Kids Club on Monday morning,’ Ellie added. I didn’t think for a second that I was endangering him. ‘Why would I do that?’
She went on to claim that she put sunscreen on her child, attached his floaties to his backpack, and wished him luck in making new friends.
Henry was never fitted with floaties. He spent the morning in the swallow end of the pool with two other girls and a counselor playing ‘I Spy.’
The counselor, however, moved the girls away from the pool when they requested swimming goggles, leaving Henry alone, according to the court.
They returned to see Henry had drowned. The swallow end of the pool had no floating line dividing it from the deep end.
According to the prosecutor, there were two lifeguards on duty who alternated 20-minute periods. When the on-duty lifeguard noticed little Henry floating motionless in the pool, he began folding towels.
Lifeguards and a club member attempted CPR on Henry, but he remained unconscious. The three-year-old was treated with a portable defibrillator, but it proved ineffective.
On July 28, Henry was transported to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and then airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital, where he died.
Henry was dropped off by his mother at 11:15 a.m., and at 11:33 a.m., he was discovered floating in the pool.
‘We are very grateful to the DA and his team, as well as the state police investigation, for exposing this horrific truth,’ Ellie added.
‘This was not some horrible accident,’ she continued. It was a heinous act. Manslaughter. That’s a crime.’
According to The Vineyard Gazette, a state police inquiry revealed that Henry had been ignored by counselors and employees, but no one was named.
Stephen claims that after getting the phone call informing them of the event, they never heard from the country club again, not even an apology.
Prior to Henry’s death, the club’s Facebook page was constantly updated with photos of members enjoying the club’s amenities.
Following the three-year-death, old’s the club didn’t update the website until September 6, with a post that read, in part: ‘Cheers to the end of summer!’
‘Rage doesn’t honor Henry’s life,’ Stephen added, despite his hatred toward The Field Club.
Rather than venting his frustrations on those responsible for his son’s death, Stephen asked the country club’s leadership to put themselves in his and his wife’s shoes.
Stephen said he wanted people to consider what it would be like to suffer such a loss as a result of “wanton and irresponsible criminal activities.”
In the video, the pair discussed Henry’s love of music while telling the story of his life. They said that, despite his youth, he could already create Spotify playlists.
They named his favorite film ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ a comedy by The Beatles, and he could even perform the theme song on his keyboard.
Ellie and Stephen, who have a daughter named Mabel, are still grieving the loss of their newborn boy and concluded their victim statement by simply saying, “We love him forever.”
‘From day one, the emphasis for Henry’s parents and family has been about the truth, openness, and accountability,’ said the family’s lawyer David Meier in a brief statement.
The Field Club’s probation will limit the number of aquatic activities it can hold involving children under the age of six.
The club’s probation also bans it from being sold or having its ownership transferred.
On June 10, several of the club’s directors, including general manager Scott Anderson, were in court.
‘I didn’t know anything about the Field Club before this case,’ the judge said, addressing them. It boasts of providing great and unrivaled service to its members. In July 2021, this did not occur.’
‘The criminal justice system is inadequate to cope with the agony and anguish of the loss of a child, but it can deliver a measure of justice,’ Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said after the judge’s judgment in the case. I’m hoping it has for Henry.’
Companies’ restitution in manslaughter cases in Massachusetts is capped at $250,000.
Terry Kassel, who has been referred to as a philanthropist in multiple internet articles, is on the boards of several non-profits, including Start Up Nation Central and the Jewish Food Society, both of which are situated in Israel.
Terry Kessel is said to be dating Elliot Management founder Paul Singer, according to a 2021 New York Post report. Singer, who is described as ‘notoriously quiet’ in the Post report, is estimated to be worth $3.6 billion.