First criminal trial in waterslide death opens
Two workers are accused of concealing poor maintenance
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A prosecutor on Tuesday accused two Schlitterbahn maintenance workers of deliberately misleading investigators to cover up poor maintenance of the Verruckt water slide where Caleb Schwab died in 2016.
Defense attorneys for David Hughes and John Zalsman countered that the Kansas Attorney General’s Office misunderstood how the Kansas City, Kan., slide functioned and would be unable to prove their clients lied to obstruct an investigation.
Attorneys for Hughes and Zalsman, and the attorney general gave opening statements Tuesday in Wyandotte County District Court in the first criminal trial in the death of 10-yearold Caleb on what had been the world’s tallest water slide.
Caleb was on a raft with two women on Aug. 7, 2016, when his raft went airborne and he collided with a metal pole supporting a netting system.
Adam Zentner, assistant Kansas attorney general, said Hughes and Zalsman neglected to replace a rubber brake mat meant to slow the raft down, which he said had fallen off the slide two weeks before Caleb’s death.
Zentner said investigators spotted a square patch of glue residue on a section of Verruckt, signifying where the brake mat had been. Zentner said when Hughes and Zalsman were asked about the brake pad, they said it had been used only for testing purposes.
Zentner told jurors that YouTube videos from other riders and an interview with another Schlitterbahn maintenance worker indicated that Hughes’ and Zalsman’s statements were not true, and that the brake pad had been on the slide during the 2016 season.
“When we get down to it, why would David Hughes and John Zalsman have made a false statement about the brake mat to law enforcement?” Zentner told jurors. “Law enforcement was not trying to pin these guys for that crime. They were trying to get an answer: Was it a maintenance issue? If it wasn’t a maintenance issue, they have to find some other reason why a child died on this ride.”
“They knew they had screwed up,” Zentner said. “The brake falls off and, two weeks later, a child died horrifically on the slide. Yeah, there’s motivation there to maybe misdirect things.”