Sarah Merritt: The rest of the story

By Doug Page | Saturday, September 8, 2007, 10:42 AM

Here is more on the two men involved in providing beer and/or wine to Sarah Merritt and three others. Merritt fell to her death March 21 during a Spring Break excursion to Hilton Head, S.C.

Two Dayton-area men have been charged with misdemeanors for providing alcohol to four underage college soccer players, one of whom fell to her death hours later in Hilton Head, S.C.

Sarah Merritt, a 20-year-old Ohio University junior and soccer player from Tipp City, died after falling 60 feet from a 5th floor balcony of a Hilton Head Island hotel March 21.

Seth Walton, Merritt’s fiance, said Friday he and Matthew Lawson provided alcohol to Merritt and three of her teammates during their spring break excursion to South Carolina.

“We bought the alcohol for all of us,” Walton said.

The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department in May reported finding a high level of alcohol in Merritt’s body. The coroner’s office Friday declined to release any details of the autopsy and drug tests, citing medical privacy issues.

Sheriff’s Lance Cpl. Robin McIntosh said Lawson, 21, of Dayton and Walton, 22, of Vandalia were each charged with a single count of transferring beer or wine to persons under 21.

Walton, who is working at the Air National Guard Base in Springfield, and Lawson, an Ohio University junior and wide receiver on the school’s football team, were in one room. Merritt and three teammates were in an adjoining one. Merritt had been climbing back and forth between the balconies of the two rooms when she fell.

Lawson, who turned himself in late July, was not at his Aug. 14 appearance in Hilton Head Island Municipal Court. Considered an admission of guilt, he forfeited $257.50 of his bond, according to a court spokeswoman.

Walton said Friday he would be going to South Carolina at the end of the month to appear before a judge.

In an earlier interview with the Dayton Daily News, Walton said Merritt was not intoxicated. “It wasn’t like that at all,” he said then.

There was no immediate response to a phone message to the OU athletic department requesting an interview with Lawson.

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