Not doing himself any favors, Sloan Briles, the California man who gained national notoriety this week after he threw his 7-year-old son overboard during a harbor cruise, told KTLA on Tuesday, “Yeah, I was trying to kill my son.”
Briles was kidding, of course, but sarcasm is probably not the best thing to deploy in a TV interview while facing child endangerment charges. Talking with KTLA reporter Carolyn Costello, Briles defended his actions, saying that he was just “screwing around and horse playing” with his son.
Briles’s account of the incident is very different than what witnesses told police on Sunday afternoon after it happened. According to KTLA, witnesses said that Briles was drunk and had been hitting his son–who was crying at the time–before he threw him overboard.
The 35-year-old father of two told Costello that he didn’t hit his son and can’t even remember the last time he saw him cry, although he admitted to drinking.
“If you hadn’t been drinking, do you think you would have done it?” Costello asked Briles at one point. To which he responded, “Absolutely.”