TRUTH COMES OUT

Teens Charged in Cover Up of Friend’s Mystery Boating Death

The group failed to tell cops the Texas Christian University freshman was accidentally pushed overboard by a girl he was flirting with.

Five friends who lied to cops about how a freshman Texas Christian University student drowned during a 2019 boat party on Lake Travis, near Austin, now face charges related to his death. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Jack Elliott’s friends ditched their alcohol and told authorities several versions of how he went overboard—including that he did a backflip into the water and that he fell while vomiting. None of them were true. “Jack Elliott was pushed by Delaney Brennan from the front of a wakeboard boat … operated by Elle Weber under the supervision of Carson Neel,” read a Dec. 2019 report from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “Jack Elliott was struck by the propeller multiple times and was killed.” The report added that “false statements were given to the officers” about what had happened. In 2020, Elliott’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit, at which point some of the teens admitted what had really happened. “Delaney and Jack were at the front of the boat, flirting and kissing. She gave Jack a ‘playful little shove’ and he fell off the boat,” one said in a sworn statement. “He fell. I didn’t mean to push him,” Brennan conceded. Brennan now faces a felony charge of tampering with evidence, which carries up to 10 years in jail. The boy who dumped the alcohol faces the same charge, while the other three were charged with misdemeanors.