Drunk driver accused of killing bride leaving wedding admits she’s an alcoholic, addict in jailhouse phone calls
The woman accused of plowing a speeding car into a golf cart while drunk and killing a newlywed bride departing her wedding ceremony admitted she is an “alcoholic [and] addict,” and gushed over her excitement to spend the holidays with her family in a series of recorded jail phone calls obtained by The Post.
In the calls leading up to her March 1 release from custody, for which she posted a $150,000 bond, Jamie Lee Komoroski, 26, told her sister, Kelsi, she had accepted that she has no control over alcohol and that it makes her life unmanageable.
“I consider myself an alcoholic addict because anything that makes me feel different or takes me away from what I’m supposed to be feeling, I used to try to do,” she said on Dec. 11.
“I just didn’t think life had any meaning. I was extremely lonely and didn’t get life. I could never just sit down with my thoughts.”
Komoroski’s blood-alcohol level was triple the legal limit, according to cops, when she crashed a rented car into a golf cart carrying Samantha Miller, 34, and her new husband, Aric Hutchinson, 36, as the couple left their beachside wedding reception in South Carolina on April 28 of last year.
Miller died in her wedding dress at the scene in Folly Beach. Hutchinson and two wedding guests with whom they were traveling back to their hotel sustained serious injuries but survived.
During another conversation from the Al Cannon Detention Center in South Carolina, Komoroski — who was released on house arrest while she awaits trial — detailed the top things she wants to do once she’s sprung, including a trip to see the Northern Lights in Norway or Finland.
“I want to go to [a] Harry Potter [exhibit]. We need to do that. You get wands…and pretend that we are wizards,” she told her brother “CJ” during a Dec. 6 conversation.
In another call a few days later, Komoroski told her father, Charles, she was also looking forward to some downtime with family.
“I can’t wait until I can watch The History Channel with you again,” she said on Dec. 10.
“[We can make] popcorn. I’ll have ice cream…[and] cake.”
Komoroski has to stay in Charleston County as part of her bail deal. She faces four felony charges, including reckless homicide.
Prosecutors allege Komoroski was driving drunk in a “nearly unconscious state” at 65 mph in a 25 mph zone when she slammed a rented Toyota Camry into the back of the golf cart carrying the bride, groom, and two wedding guests.
Komoroski had a blood alcohol level about three times the state’s legal limit, according to a toxicology report released by the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division.
According to police, she told responding officers, “All the sudden something hit me,” and repeatedly said, “I did nothing wrong.”
Komoroski frequently spoke about her faith and reading the Bible in the jailhouse calls.
She attended Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in jail and now believes in a “higher power [that] can make better things come out of bad situations, including death.”
“[In AA] we talk about how our higher power can’t stop something bad from happening because we’re given free will and free choice and with that comes consequences but he can make good things come of bad situations,” she said.
Hutchinson, who sustained a brain injury in the crash, previously recalled his new bride’s final moments in an interview on “Good Morning America.”
“If he was to prevent anything bad from happening then we wouldn’t be people and life would have no meaning, you know what i mean? I don’t know, I just never thought I’d be able to understand…like why do people get cancer?”
“The last thing I remember her saying was she wanted the night to never end,” said Hutchinson, adding the next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital room, asking, ‘Where’s Sam?'”
“That’s when [my mother] told me there’s an incident and that Sam didn’t make it,” he told ABC.
Komoroski is facing a maximum 25-year prison term if convicted.
