Overcrowded Boat Capsizes, Killing 5

A small, overcrowded motorboat capsized in a rainstorm, dumping its nine passengers into a backwater of the Tennessee River. Five drowned.

The 14-foot boat capsized Saturday about 75 to 85 feet from shore in 12-foot-deep water, said Charles Murphy, a spokesman for the Jackson County Rescue Squad.

A 5-year-old boy, a teen-ager and three adults drowned in the remote Coon Creek area in northeast Alabama, sheriff’s deputy Dennis Miller said.

Two people swam ashore and the other two were rescued by passing boats, authorities said.