Wakeeney ? The driver of a sport utility vehicle that plunged into a reservoir, killing one of seven children inside, was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter and other felonies.

Robert Bruce Jr., 26, admitted this week that he not a female passenger was driving the SUV on June 11 when it went off a boat ramp at Cedar Bluff Reservoir in darkness, Trego County Sheriff Curt Bender said.

Campers awakened by screams helped rescue the occupants, who included seven children 21 months to 8 years old.

The other adult in the vehicle, Teresa Owen, 27, initially had said she was the driver. Her 3-year-old son, Seth Contreras, was found dead in the water about 60 feet from where the SUV submerged.

But authorities suspected Owen was trying to protect Bruce, who had previous drunken driving convictions and had recently been jailed in Rush County for driving with a revoked license, according to Rush County Sheriff Jack Mendenhall.

Trego County prosecutor Dave Harding on Thursday charged Bruce with involuntary manslaughter while under the influence, obstruction of justice, six counts of child endangerment, driving under the influence for a third time and driving on a suspended license.

Bruce had been jailed since Tuesday in Trego County and remained there Thursday afternoon on $30,000 bond, the prosecutor said. No preliminary hearing date was immediately set.

The two sheriffs and a ranger at Cedar Bluff State Park interviewed Bruce, Owen and the six surviving children individually on Tuesday. Officials from the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services helped with the interviews, Bender said.

Owen and Bruce, both of Bison, told investigators they were driving along the reservoir’s southern shore searching for a group of friends about 1:45 a.m. June 11 when the vehicle went off a boat ramp they mistook for a road.

The two adults pulled the children onto the roof of the sinking vehicle and screamed for help. Two fishermen camping nearby drove to the water’s edge, and one of them rowed out in an aluminum boat, then carried the adults and six of the children to shore. But the seventh child could not be rescued.