The designer of a water slide that is blamed for a child's death was arrested at DFW International Airport late Monday night.
John Schooley, 72, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force as he got off of a plane that had just landed from China, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
He is charged with Murder, Aggravated Battery, and Aggravated Endangering of a Child over the death of a boy on the Verrukt water slide at the Schlitterbahn water park outside Kansas City.
Caleb Schwab, 10, was killed on Aug. 7, 2016, after something went wrong when the child rode on the park's 168-foot-tall Verruckt (German for "insane") water slide. Verruckt was billed as the largest of its kind in the world at the time. It was closed indefinitely following Caleb's death.
It was a unique water slide design, sending riders down with enough force that they could crest a second hill and go down again, all on one ride.
But investigators believe Schwab's raft went airborne over the second hill, and he was killed.
An indictment obtained by ABC News alleges that Verruckt suffered from a "persistent airborne problem" and underwent a massive redesign in 2014 after testing showed the ride's rafts had a tendency to fly into the air.
Schlitterbahn officials, including John Schooley, lead designer of Verruckt, and Jeff Henry, co-owner of Schlitterbahn, allegedly had direct knowledge that "the redesign failed to eliminate the airborne raft problem" but moved ahead with the ride's opening nonetheless, according to the indictment.
