Gwinnett Daily Post

BUFORD -- The Hall County sheriff's office is looking into a Sunday boating incident that ended in the drowning of a Buford woman.

The woman, 26-year-old Samantha McBride, was on Lake Lanier with driver Michael Paul Andrea and a child Sunday evening about 7 p.m., Hall County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Kyley Sargent said.

McBride somehow fell off the boat, drowning.

"We don't know if she fell off the boat, whether she was pushed off the boat, or it was something the driver had done with some negligence," Sargent said. "We cannot rule out anything."

The investigation stems from the fact that Andrea, 36, was intoxicated at the time of the incident, being charged with boating under the influence by the Department of Natural Resources, Sargent said.

Investigators still aren't sure what happened, with the unnamed child on the boat the only other witness.

"It's still ongoing," Sargent said. "We don't have any specifics right now that prove any foul play may have been awry."

Andrea, also of Buford, was also charged with littering and negligent boating.