Global Courant 2023-05-12 16:00:37
The mother of a South Carolina bride who died in a wedding night accident lashed out at the driver whose blood alcohol level was reportedly more than three times the legal limit, saying, “This was not an accident.”
Samantha Miller, 34, died and her groom Aric Hutchinson, 36, was seriously injured when Jamie Komoroski rear-ended their golf cart after they left their reception in Folly Beach.
Komoroski, 25, had a blood alcohol level of 0.261% during the April 28 clash, according to an incident report released by police on Thursday.
“It wasn’t an accident. This person chose to drink, get behind the wheel and plow my daughter over,” Lisa Miller, an addiction specialist, told Fox News Digital. “This is a conscious choice made by a young lady.”
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Lisa Miller, left, punched alleged drunk driver, Jamie Komoroski, who killed bride Samantha Miller and critically injured groom Aric Hutchinson on their wedding night. (Fox News Digital/GoFundMe)
Miller and her daughter, Mandi Jenkins, said it had been the perfect wedding before the party ended in unimaginable tragedy.
After the couple left the reception, Samantha told her new husband that she wanted the “night to last forever.”
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Moments later, Komoroski slammed her Toyota Camry into the golf cart, which flew more than 100 yards and rolled several times.
Komoroski was driving 65 mph in a 25 mph zone, according to the recently released incident report.
Jamie Komoroski, left, in a photo posted to Instagram a week before she allegedly killed Samantha Miller and seriously injured her husband Aric Hutchinson on their wedding night. On the right, Komoroski is depicted drinking wine with her friends. (Instagram)
Samantha, still wearing her wedding dress, was thrown off the cart and died instantly. Hutchinson and his brother-in-law were seriously injured, while his nephew escaped the wreckage unharmed.
Komoroski repeatedly told police at the scene that “she didn’t do anything wrong” and “just drove home” — even though she lived in the opposite direction.
The Coastal Carolina University graduate was unsteady on her feet, refused to take a sobriety test and repeatedly asked for her boyfriend and a lawyer, the report said. Police later obtained a warrant to test her blood at the hospital.
Benjamin Garrett, left, shown in his hospital bed next to groom Aric Hutchinson. Both men were seriously injured and bride Samantha Miller was killed when an accused drunk driver crashed into their golf cart. (GoFundMe)
It was love at first sight when Samantha and Hutchinson met at an Idaho Falls hotel about three years earlier while they were both on a business trip.
After a brief meeting at the hotel’s restaurant, they bumped into each other in the elevator and Aric asked her out to dinner.
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Hutchinson, who is from Utah, sells building materials, and Samantha, a “free spirit” from Charlotte, North Carolina, had worked in marketing, Miller told Fox News Digital. They had settled into a quiet life together in Folly Beach.
“Aric and Sam are absolutely soul mates,” said the grieving mother. “Their hearts were very similar. They both loved each other incredibly much.”
Mandi Jenkins, far right, and her little sister, Samantha Miller, who died in a wedding night accident. Jenkins baked the pineapple coconut cake for the wedding at her sister’s request. (Courtesy of Mandi Jenkins)
The pair said “I do” in front of 120 guests at a beachside ceremony, then headed to the Pelican Watch pavilion for their bohemian-style reception.
They drank mimosas and ate charcuterie before indulging in a homemade pineapple coconut cake.
“Sammy called me a few months before she started planning her wedding and said, ‘Sissy, can you make my wedding cake?’ and I was like, ‘I’m not a baker,’ and she was like, ‘It doesn’t have to taste good,’” Jenkins recalls with a rueful laugh.
The big sister reluctantly agreed.
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When Samantha saw the cake, with a fresh pineapple stem and half a coconut on top, she was overjoyed. “She said, ‘Sissy, oh my God, it’s perfect.’ I just couldn’t ask her how it tasted,” Jenkins said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
During the reception, Samantha accidentally knocked the pineapple stem off the cake and burst out laughing.
Miller fondly recalled that her daughter asked the DJ to announce a surprise dance with the “most important person” in her life, her mother.
Jamie Lee Komoroski is accused of killing bride Sam Miller and seriously injuring groom Aric Hutchinson on the couple’s wedding night when she crashed her car into their golf cart. The couple is shown leaving their South Carolina wedding reception under a canopy of sparklers minutes before the collision. (Charleston County Sheriff’s Office/GoFundMe)
The mother-daughter duo was soon swinging along with their song “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars.
Miller and her daughter last saw the radiant couple as they exited the reception under a canopy of sparklers. Minutes later, Samantha would be dead and her groom seriously injured.
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Miller and Jenkins had already returned to their Airbnb nearby when they began to hear sirens, while witnesses said they heard an explosion.
Aric Hutchinson and Samantha Miller on their wedding night, left, and posing together, right. (Facebook)
“At that point I said, ‘Something happened to Sam!'” Lisa recalls. A family member was soon at the door and drove Lisa and Mandi to the spot.
“It was like a really bad movie, a really bad Netflix movie,” Lisa said. “We ran across the road towards all these lights… and we just ran and screamed Sam’s name.”
Sam’s father and little brother were also there. An officer told Lisa that everyone had been taken to the hospital, so she and Mandi went there and waited for hours.
“Then I got the call from Sam’s dad who said, ‘Sam isn’t in the hospital. She’s still here. She was killed and I just identified her,'” Lisa recalls, holding back tears.
Jamie Komoroski at resorts in Turks and Caicos, left, and in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is accused of murdering a bride on her wedding night in South Carolina. (Instagram)
Komoroski, who is in jail without bail, is charged with three counts of drunk driving resulting in serious bodily injury or death and one count of reckless homicide, court documents show.
Komoroski retained two high-profile attorneys, Nathan S. Williams and Christopher S. Gramiccioni, both of whom are former federal prosecutors.
They declined to comment on this article, but said in an earlier statement that they “cannot fathom what the families are going through” and urged the public “don’t jump to judgment”.
Samantha and Hutchinson planned to buy a house and start a family soon after they got married. Instead, Hutchinson and the rest of his family plan his wife’s funeral.
The wedding of Aric Hutchinson and Samantha Miller in Folly Beach, South Carolina. (Facebook)
According to a post on the “Sam and Aric” GoFundMe pagethe groom suffered bleeding in his brain, broken bones and facial fractures.
“He is recovering physically at home as he tries to come to terms with the loss of his beautiful wife,” his mother Annette Hutchinson wrote. “Now he’s doing the unimaginable to plan Sam’s funeral with her family.”
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Miller said they don’t have a funeral.
“We’re celebrating Sam just like that wedding. There won’t be people wearing black,” she said. “Because that’s what Sam would have wanted.”
Rebecca Rosenberg is an accomplished journalist and author of books with a focus on crime and criminal justice. Email tips to [email protected] and @ReRosenberg.
