Ms. Coleman also emphasized that so far, only part of the story had emerged. In her 30 years of legal experience, she said, “I’ve never seen a case that is more different when you get on the inside than it looks on the outside.”

For now, the way it looks on the outside is extremely damaging to her client.

In court documents, witnesses, all of whose names were redacted, have said that on the day of the crash, Mr. West and his four passengers had been drinking at Log Bay Day, an annual celebration on the lake. It began decades ago as a way for Lake George’s youthful summer work force to let off steam, but over the years it has evolved into an alcohol-and-drug-saturated bacchanal.

After they left the festivities, Mr. West and his friends stopped for dinner on the lake and headed home. Then, one of the passengers, Matthew J. Marry, told the police, “We hit something.”

“When I looked back, I realized it was a boat we hit,” Mr. Marry, 28, of Kingsbury, N.Y., told the police. “We waved to the boat and asked if they were O.K. They just looked at us and kept driving.”

A member of the McCue family who was aboard the wooden boat told the police what happened from the family’s perspective. “All of a sudden, there was a bow of another boat charging up the right side of our boat near Courtney and Charlotte,” he said. “The boat cleared ours and Courtney screamed, ‘We’re hurt.’”

Charlotte was “mangled badly,” her head and body cut. “I just screamed, ‘No, no, no,’” the family member said. “I knew she was hurt bad, she wasn’t saying anything, her eyes were a different color — to me they looked dead.” He added: “I just tried to hold her to keep her together. She was cut so bad.” Not wanting anyone else to see Charlotte this way, he covered her with a blanket.