From a family dinner to a double tragedy: The final hours before 2 siblings died on their grandfather’s boat
From a family dinner to a double tragedy: The final hours before 2 siblings died on their grandfather’s boat.
The evening began like a normal family night at MJ’s Restaurant Bar & Grill.
Then 64-year-old Stephen Schneider took his 2 grandchildren, Mya, 9, and Sigmund, 7, aboard his 30-foot boat for the ride home.
Minutes later, the boat crashed into a channel marker.
The children were thrown into the water. Their grandparents pulled them back aboard and rushed them for medical help, but neither survived.
Then investigators uncovered a devastating detail: Schneider allegedly had a 0.16 BAC.
But the case took another unexpected turn when the children’s own father asked the court to let their grandfather out of jail.
The reason behind that decision is one of the most heartbreaking parts of the entire case.
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**From a Family Dinner to a Double Tragedy: The Final Hours Before Two Siblings Died on Their Grandfather’s Boat**
The evening of July 19, 2026, began the way so many summer nights do along the New Jersey Shore—with a family gathering, the easy clatter of plates, and the soft lap of water against the docks. At MJ’s Restaurant Bar & Grill in Bayville, 64-year-old Stephen Schneider sat with his wife Laurie, their daughter Jennifer, their son-in-law Sigmund Golabek, and the couple’s two children: 9-year-old Mya Bella Golabek and 7-year-old Sigmund “Siggy” Paul Golabek. It was an ordinary family dinner on Barnegat Bay. No one at the table could have imagined that within a few hours the two youngest members of the group would be gone.
When the meal ended, the children made a simple request. They wanted to ride back to their grandparents’ nearby waterfront home rather than return with their parents. The adults agreed. Mya and Siggy, already wearing life jackets, climbed into the bow of Schneider’s 28- to 30-foot Tidewater Custom 280 center-console boat. Laurie Schneider boarded as well. The parents departed separately on their own vessel. The short trip across the darkening bay began.
Minutes later, the boat slammed into an illuminated Intracoastal Waterway channel marker. Both children were thrown into the water. Their grandparents pulled them back aboard and began CPR, then rushed them toward medical help. Neither child survived. Investigators later determined that Schneider’s blood alcohol concentration measured 0.16 percent—twice the legal limit. The case then took an unexpected and deeply painful turn: the children’s own father asked a judge to release their grandfather from jail while he awaited trial. That request, and the love behind it, has become one of the most heartbreaking elements of a story already defined by loss.
### The Dinner That Felt Like Any Other
According to the affidavit of probable cause and Schneider’s statements to New Jersey State Police, the family had gathered at MJ’s, a popular waterfront restaurant on Bay Avenue in Bayville. Schneider and his wife arrived on their Tidewater boat. Jennifer and Sigmund Golabek arrived with the children on a separate boat. The group spent roughly two hours together. Schneider later told detectives he drank two Guinness beers and one Miller Lite during that time.
When dinner concluded, the children expressed a preference to go to their grandparents’ house, which was not far away. The decision was casual, affectionate, the kind of everyday choice families make without hesitation. The kids settled into the front of the boat. Schneider took the helm. He told investigators he was traveling at approximately 20 mph, that both the boat’s radar and an infrared/low-light night navigation camera were activated, and that he had traveled the route many times over a lifetime spent on the water.
Shortly after 9 p.m., the boat struck Intracoastal Waterway Channel Marker No. 39, a single-stanchion illuminated navigational aid. Schneider said he saw the marker “at the last second.” The impact occurred on the starboard bow. The force ejected both children from their seats into the bay.
### The Desperate Minutes That Followed
Schneider and Laurie immediately began searching the dark water. They found Sigmund first, then Mya. Both children were face-down and unresponsive. CPR was started at once. First responders transported the siblings to Community Medical Center in Toms River with resuscitation efforts continuing. They were pronounced dead at the hospital.
State troopers responding to the scene observed signs of impairment in Schneider. He was taken to the same hospital, where a blood sample was drawn under a search warrant at approximately 12:46 a.m.—roughly three and a half hours after the collision. Toxicology testing later conducted by DrugScan Labs returned a blood alcohol concentration of 0.16 percent. Doctors associated with the lab concluded that Schneider was unfit to operate a motor vehicle or vessel and that his alertness, sense of care and caution, perception, judgment, response time, and coordination were “markedly impaired by alcohol.”
The channel marker’s lights were reported to have been functioning at the time of the crash, though defense attorneys have noted that investigators continued examining the aid. The children had been wearing life jackets. Those facts only deepen the tragedy: safety equipment was present, navigational aids were reportedly in use, and the operator claimed familiarity with the waters, yet two young lives were still lost.
### The Children Who Were Taken Too Soon
Mya Bella Golabek was born on April 6, 2017. Family remembered her as a sweet, fun-loving girl whose competitive spirit shone in softball and basketball. She loved swimming, beach days, crabbing, drawing, and crafts. Her smile and kind heart, relatives said, made those around her feel loved.
Sigmund Paul Golabek, born November 29, 2018, was known as Siggy. He was described as sweet, sometimes shy, but adventurous, with a vivid imagination. He loved basketball, baseball, swimming, and the special handshake he shared only with his sister. Their joint obituaries captured the depth of their bond: “A sibling bond is a love that lasts forever. Mya and Siggy were not only brother and sister, but best friends who shared laughter, adventures, and countless memories. Now they continue their journey together, hand in hand, carrying their love beyond this world and leaving behind a beautiful reminder of the unbreakable bond they shared.”
They were the only two children of Jennifer and Sigmund Golabek of Lacey Township. Their deaths left their parents without the two people who had defined their family. Community members, teammates, and neighbors responded with an outpouring of support—meals, donations to Popcorn Park Zoo in Siggy’s memory and to the Lacey Storm Softball 10U team in Mya’s, and shared memories of the siblings’ energy and closeness. A visitation and funeral liturgy were held at Riggs Funeral Home in Forked River on July 24.
### Charges, Arrest, and the Laboratory Evidence
Nearly a month after the crash, on August 14, 2026, Schneider was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree reckless vessel homicide (also called death by vessel), operating a vessel under the influence, and reckless operation of a vessel. If convicted on the homicide counts, he faces up to 20 years in state prison. He was held at the Ocean County Jail pending a detention hearing.
The blood-alcohol reading of 0.16 percent stood in stark contrast to Schneider’s claim of three beers. At twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent, the level is associated with significant impairment. Reaction times slow, visual processing narrows, decision-making falters, and the ability to integrate multiple cues—lights, markers, depth, speed—diminishes. Even an experienced boater operating on familiar waters can become vulnerable under those conditions. Prosecutors would later emphasize that the laboratory results demonstrated the degree of impairment under which Schneider chose to operate the vessel, and that the result was catastrophic.
### The Hearing That Revealed a Family’s Heartbreak
On August 19, 2026, Schneider appeared before Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels for a detention hearing. Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Kate Burke argued strongly against release. “The defendant consumed enough alcohol to reach a BAC of approximately 0.16, and then operated a vessel,” she told the court. “And the result was catastrophic.” Burke stressed that the blood-alcohol level showed the impairment under which Schneider operated the boat and that two children had lost their lives as a consequence.
Defense attorney William P. Cunningham presented a different picture. He noted that Schneider had no meaningful criminal history—only a decades-old controlled-substance matter from his twenties that had been resolved through a pretrial intervention program. More significantly, Cunningham told the judge that the children’s own parents had written letters asking for their grandfather to be released from jail while he awaited trial.
One of those letters came from the children’s father, Sigmund Golabek. In it, he described Schneider as “a wonderful father-in-law, loving grandfather and a man with a generous heart.” He wrote that he was grateful for the way Schneider had loved the children, the role he had played in their lives, and the example he had set for them. Cunningham argued that if released, Schneider would likely never operate a boat again and would never drink alcohol again. The crash, he said, was not intentional, and questions remained about the precise condition of the channel marker.
Judge Daniels granted conditional release. Schneider was ordered freed under Level 3 monitoring, which requires regular check-ins with the court. He was temporarily prohibited from operating a boat or motor vehicle while completing a court-ordered assessment. His next court date was set for mid-September before Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan.
### The Reason Behind the Father’s Request
The father’s decision to ask for Schneider’s release is one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the entire case. Jennifer and Sigmund Golabek had just lost their only two children in a single night. The man accused of causing those deaths through impaired operation of a vessel was not a stranger. He was Jennifer’s father, the grandfather who had shared countless hours with Mya and Siggy, the person the children had chosen to ride with on the night they died.
In the raw aftermath of unimaginable loss, the parents chose to keep their family circle intact. They asked the court not to compound their grief by holding Schneider in jail pending trial. The letter from Sigmund Golabek did not minimize the tragedy or dispute the evidence. It simply insisted that the full measure of a man’s life and relationships be considered alongside the charges he now faces. It was an act of loyalty and love offered in the face of permanent absence.
That choice does not erase the laboratory findings or the two empty places at future family tables. It does not change the fact that a 0.16 BAC and a collision with a channel marker ended two young lives. It does, however, reveal the depth of the family’s internal struggle: how to hold both justice and compassion, accountability and forgiveness, grief and remaining connection, all at once.
### The Hours That Cannot Be Rewound
The final hours of Mya and Sigmund Golabek’s lives moved with terrible speed from the ordinary to the irreversible. A family dinner. A child’s request to ride with grandparents. A short trip across familiar water. A sudden impact in the dark. Two children pulled from the bay, life jackets still on, unresponsive. A hospital where they could not be saved. A blood test that revealed significant impairment. Charges that carried the possibility of years in prison. And then a father’s letter asking a judge to let the children’s grandfather come home.
Every element of that sequence is now fixed in the public record and in the private memory of those who loved the children. Schneider faces serious criminal charges and the lifelong knowledge of what happened under his command. Jennifer and Sigmund Golabek face a future without their daughter and son. Laurie Schneider faces the dual weight of having been present for both the crash and the rescue attempts. The extended family and the wider Shore community continue to mourn two bright, energetic siblings who should still be swimming, playing ball, and sharing their private handshake.
The case will proceed through the courts. Prosecutors will present the toxicology evidence and the facts of the collision. The defense will test aspects of the investigation and emphasize Schneider’s character and lack of prior record. Whatever the legal outcome, the human outcome is already complete. Two children who left a restaurant with their family on a summer evening never made it home. The hours that led there—ordinary, affectionate, and then suddenly catastrophic—stand as a permanent reminder of how quickly a normal family night on Barnegat Bay can become a double tragedy, and how the people left behind must somehow continue living with both the loss and the complicated love that remains.
