Drunk driver who killed bride on her wedding night handed 25 years in prison

globalnews.ca:

Jamie Lee Komoroski, the South Carolina woman who admitted to drinking and driving more than twice the speed limit when she crashed into a golf cart and killed a bride last year, will now spend up to 25 years in prison.

Komoroski, 27, pleaded guilty at the Charleston County courthouse to reckless homicide, felony DUI causing death and two counts of felony DUI causing great bodily injury before her sentencing.

The 34-year-old bride, Samantha Miller, died in the April 2023 wreck while her groom, Aric Hutchinson, was seriously injured.

Hutchinson cried in court Monday as he recalled the last moments he spent with his new bride — some of their only moments as husband and wife.

“On the golf cart, she told me she didn’t want the night to end and I kissed her on the forehead and then the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital,” Hutchinson said.

Judge Deadra Jefferson handed Komoroski a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison for felony DUI causing death. She also was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each count of felony DUI causing great bodily injury and 10 years for reckless homicide. The sentences will all run concurrently.

On the night of Miller and Hutchinson’s wedding reception on Folly Beach, an island near Charleston, S.C., the newlyweds had just left the party and were driving along a beach road, where the speed limit is 25 mph (40 km/h). At around 10 p.m., a rental car slammed into the golf cart from behind.

Komoroski was arrested and detained at the scene.

A subsequent investigation found that data on Komoroski’s rental car indicated she was driving 65 mph (105 km/h) and only briefly hit the brakes before she hit the golf cart, investigators said.

The groom’s mother, Annette Hutchinson, later revealed