Deleted video leads to charge of woman in watercraft crash

The girlfriend of the Australian tourist charged with causing the death of a California teenager in a personal watercraft crash at Keehi Lagoon has been charged with second-degree hindering prosecution.

Natasha Ryan, 21, of Brisbane, Australia, turned herself in to detectives at police headquarters at 3:35 p.m. Friday and was released 40 minutes later after posting $500 bail.

Police said she misled investigators during the negligent-homicide investigation.

Hindering prosecution is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.

Ryan’s boyfriend, Tyson Dagley, also of Brisbane, was arrested and charged Thursday with third-degree negligent homicide for causing the death of Kristen Fonseca, 16, of Vaca­ville, Calif. The crash occurred Aug. 4.

In a police report filed Friday in District Court, investigators said Dagley was standing on his rented watercraft before it hit Fonseca’s from behind. The report said he was not paying attention to where he was going, only looking at his girlfriend, who was taking video and photos.

The report said Ryan told police she had not seen the collision nor taken video.

A Police Department forensic computer examiner was able to recover two deleted video segments from the memory stick in Ryan’s Olympus camera, one of which shows the collision.

Ryan is due to appear in District Court on Sept. 7.