A man with a long history of drunk driving and reckless behavior is accused of killing a woman in a high-speed boat crash, reviving questions about how repeat offenders stay on the water.

He’d been drinking all day when his 31-foot pontoon plowed over a smaller boat in a no-wake zone. A prosecutor called him “a ticking time-bomb” whose record made this a matter of when, not if.

Richard Stevenson’s blood alcohol content tested at 0.236 after the crash, nearly three times the legal driving limit. He’d been drinking Fireball Whisky, prosecutors said, and refused to voluntarily submit to chemical testing, which automatically suspended his driver’s license.

The 45-year-old Lisle man smashed his 31-foot pontoon into the back of a 20-foot Crownline on the Fox River in McHenry, Illinois, around 2:30 p.m. Saturday. A 48-year-old woman was decapitated and declared dead at the scene, and her husband, who was in the boat with her, was hospitalized with advanced life support care. Prosecutors said her remains were still missing as of Monday.

Surveillance video shows Stevenson speeding across the Fox River and the adjoining Chain O’Lakes before the collision, and a witness told investigators his boat was at “full throttle” when it entered the no-wake zone. Two other passengers left the pontoon before police arrived. A bystander chased one of them; another reportedly left in an Uber headed for Antioch.

“This man was a ticking time-bomb and that bomb went off this past Saturday on the Fox River,” Deputy Chief Brian Miller said at Monday’s detention hearing.

Stevenson, a vice president at his family’s crane rental company in Bolingbrook, has been charged with drunk driving three times before, cited for reckless driving three times, and hit with four misdemeanor speeding offenses.

He also has prior charges for resisting an officer, fleeing police, and battery. He’s now charged with reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated driving under the influence, and Judge Cynthia Lamb ordered him held in custody ahead of trial after finding no release conditions could mitigate the threat he poses.

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