HARRISON – A friend of a woman killed in a boating accident Saturday night on Long Lake said, like his friend, he was watching the Perseid meteor shower that night.

“We were doing the exact same thing when she died,” Harold Kowal said of his friend Suzanne Groetzinger.

Groetzinger, 44, of Norway, was on Long Lake in a 14-foot boat with Raye Trott, 55, of Naples when their boat and a 34-foot long cigarette-style boat collided shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday.

Authorities believe the smaller boat was sliced in two in the collision. The two people aboard the larger boat were thrown into the water and swam to shore with only minor injuries, while their boat ended up grounded on the east shore 134 feet inland on Bear Point with its motor still running.

The collision occurred near the middle of the 11-mile-long lake south of Bear Point and not far from the Naples town line, officials have said.

Groetzinger was a bartender at Bray’s Brew Pub and Eatery in Naples and had only recently begun dating Trott, according to friends who knew the couple. Their bodies were recovered Tuesday by divers from the Maine Warden Service, which had scoured a 150-acre section of the lake looking for them and for crash debris that may become evidence in what the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office is treating as an ongoing criminal investigation. Under orders from the district attorney’s office, the Warden Service has declined to release the names of any of those involved. They have also refused to release otherwise public information including details on certain boat registration information and vehicle identification numbers.

Several sources close to the investigation speaking with the Sun Journal on the condition of anonymity have confirmed Groetzinger was the woman in the smaller boat.

Kowal, 64, a Boston-based attorney who owns a cabin on Thompson Lake in Otisfield, said he is angry the Warden Service is withholding information regarding the collision that claimed his friend’s life.

“I’m flabbergasted, frankly, that these game warden people have a different rule than the rest of the world has,” he said. “What could be affected by telling you the names of the four people who are involved in this accident?”

Kowal said Groetzinger was well-liked and a good person.

“I never heard her say a bad word about anybody,” he said. “She’s been a very hard-working person her whole life.”

Kowal said Groetzinger has three children, all from prior relationships.

“We’re all struggling with the fact that this wonderful lady has passed away,” Kowal said.

He said Groetzinger had worked at jobs including at a bank in Portland, as an office manager, and in the restaurant business.

Kowal said he was unaware that his friend had been killed in the accident until Monday.

The Warden Service was still gathering evidence on Long Lake on Wednesday.

Emergency officials responding to the accident were not immediately aware that a second boat was involved until the capsized bow of the smaller motorboat was spotted in the water.

On Tuesday, divers found the two bodies 1,800 feet from shore and 1,200 feet from where the bow was discovered. One body was discovered near the boat’s motor, which Lt. Pat Dorian of the Warden Service has said would mark the probable point of impact between the two watercraft.

On Wednesday, a Maine Department of Conservation boat equipped with a hoist was on the lake to remove larger pieces of debris from the bottom.

Warden Kevin Anderson said a large part of the motorboat’s hull was recovered on Tuesday. However, he said the low visibility and silt levels would likely hinder recovery of all of the debris from the boat.

The Warden Service has not commented on whether either boat had navigational lights on, as is required by state law.

But according to a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office dispatch log obtained by the Sun Journal under Maine’s Freedom of Information Act, the two people on the cigarette boat who survived the crash reported to authorities that “they were hit by a boat running with no lights.”

The Warden Service will complete its investigation before releasing certain information, Anderson said.

The investigations of boating accidents are made more difficult by changing water currents and winds and boating rules dictate different rights of way, depending on the type of boat, but boaters may depart from navigational regulations in order to avoid a collision, he said.

“At fault could be both parties,” Anderson said.