A woman charged with a DUI crash that killed a bride on her wedding night in South Carolina and injured three others, including the groom, pleaded guilty to various charges Monday afternoon and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
According to CBS station WCSC-TV, Jamie Lee Komoroski has pleaded guilty to felony DUI resulting in death, two charges of DUI causing serious bodily damage or death, and one count of reckless homicide. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison for felony DUI resulting in death, 15 years for two counts of DUI causing serious bodily damage or death, and 10 years for reckless murder. The sentences will run concurrently.
On the night of April 28, 2023, authorities said Komoroski was driving a rental automobile when it rear-ended a golf cart carrying newlyweds Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson in Folly Beach, a city on Folly Island southeast of Charleston. They had only been married a few hours before, and Miller was still dressed in her bridal gown.
Miller perished in the incident, while Hutchinson sustained head damage and other broken bones. Two additional family members who were in the golf cart were also injured.
According to authorities, Komoroski was traveling at 65 mph in a 25 mph zone.
Komoroski told the court on Monday that she was guilty, that she had not been coerced into pleading guilty, and that she was renouncing her right to a jury trial, according to WCSC.
In June, a judge approved over $1.3 million in a partial settlement in a wrongful death case after Hutchinson sued Komoroski, whose blood alcohol content was “0.261, more than three times the legal limit,” according to a toxicology report released by the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division.
The wrongful death complaint named Enterprise, the car rental business that rented her the vehicle, as well as some restaurants and bars that served Komoroski on the night of the accident.
According to a police affidavit, Komoroski had “an odor of alcohol coming from her breath and person.” When the investigator inquired if she had anything to drink that night, Komoroski replied, “Nope, ooh I had two drinks, one beer and a drink.” She then said, “Like tequila and pineapple.”
She stated that she was driving home when “something hit her,” according to the incident report. Police saw that she was driving in the other direction of her home.
Komoroski refused to perform field sobriety tests and requested a lawyer, according to the report. Police attempted to put her in a police car and drive her back to the station, but she kept questioning “why she was being arrested.”
She declined to provide breath samples at the police station, according to the report. Investigators acquired a warrant to extract two blood samples, which Folly Beach police turned over to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for testing, according to the report.
Hutchinson told “Good Morning America” weeks later that he couldn’t recall the crash that killed his wife. But he stated he remembered his bride’s last words to him before the tragedy.
“The last thing I remember her saying was she wanted the night to never end,” he told me.
Reference: Woman pleads guilty in South Carolina DUI crash that killed bride on wedding night, gets 25 years