A grieving husband whose wife was killed in a drunk golf cart crash on their wedding day shared their last words together during an emotional day in court.
Aric Hutchinson had been riding in a golf cart after tying the knot with Samantha Miller in April 2023 when disaster struck. Jamie Lee Komoroski, 26, was drunk behind the wheel of another vehicle and driving 65mph in a 25mph zone when the crash happened.
Samantha was killed instantly while still wearing her wedding dress and her husband was left hospitalised with serious injuries. At Charleston court, in South Carolina, Aric said: “I wish I had gone that night, so she didn’t have to go alone.
“I don’t have joy, I don’t have passion, I don’t have drive. I am stuck in hell,” he said. “What do you say when your world is just shattered? I think about that night every single day and the last moments that I had with Sam on the golf cart. She told me she didn’t want the night to end and I kissed her on the forehead and that’s the last thing I remember.”
According to network WCBD, Aric’s mother told the court that she had wondered whether her anguished son would have been better off dying, adding she needed to “chase away the thought that maybe it would have been better if Aric and Sam had been taken together.”
Komoroski pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and was handed 25 years imprisonment as well as a DUI causing bodily harm or death for which she received 15 years, and a felony DUI that she got 10 years for. Her sentences will be served concurrently, meaning she will serve a sentence of 25 years.
Recommended Article
Komoroski described herself as a recovering alcoholic, adding she would be “deeply ashamed” of her decisions for the rest of her life, and that she was sorry for what had happened. “I will use the time to better myself,” she added in court.
She pleaded guilty on the first day of proceedings as the jury selection was underway. Komoroski was reportedly so intoxicated that she believed it was her who had been hit, telling police “I did nothing wrong.”
First responders said she smelled of alcohol and that she refused to do a sobriety test as she insisted she had only had a beer and tequila about an hour before the crash. Several bars where Komoroski allegedly drank at were named in a suit filed by Aric that accused her of recklessly hitting the couple following a “booze-filled day of bar hopping.”
Komoroski was previously recorded in jail phone calls where she spoke with her sister about how she expected to be living her “best life” within two years.
