Emotions exploded in a South Carolina court Monday as the drunk driver who killed a bride on her wedding night pleaded guilty — with the slain woman’s father seething “for the rest of my life, I’m gonna hate you” and her widower sobbing that he’s “stuck in hell.”
Jamie Lee Komoroski, 26, got an earful at the hours-long hearing as relatives of murdered bride Samantha Miller took turns excoriating her for mowing down the blushing bride in April 2023.
“For the rest of my life I’m gonna hate you,” Brad Warner told Komoroski just before she was sentenced to 25 years behind bars in a Charleston court.
“And when I arrive in hell, and you come there, I’ll open the door for you.”
Komoroski listened grim-faced as Warner explained how he was hurt in a hit-and-run himself as a child, and that just six months after he’d finally forgiven the driver, his daughter was killed, according to WCBD.
Earlier in the day’s proceedings, Komoroski pleaded guilty to drunkenly running down Warner’s daughter, 34, as she and her new husband Aric Hutchinson were driven in a golf cart from their Folly Beach wedding reception.
Komoroski was speeding 65 mph in a 25 mph zone with a blood-alcohol content at least three times the legal limit, investigators determined. Miller was killed instantly – still wearing her wedding dress — while Hutchinson was left hospitalized with severe injuries.
The grieving groom told Komoroski through sobs that sometimes he wished he had died alongside his bride.
“I wish I had gone that night, so she didn’t have to go alone,” the 36-year-old said.
“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,” Hutchinson told the court.
“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.”
Hutchinson’s mother told the court she even wondered whether or not her anguished son would have been better off dying – saying 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 for which she received 25 years in jail, DUI causing bodily harm or death for which she received 15 years, and felony DUI for which she received 10 years.
Her sentences are to be served concurrently, meaning she will spend 25 years behind bars.
Addressing the court and Miller’s loved ones, Komoroski characterized herself as a recovering alcoholic, saying she would be “deeply ashamed” of her decisions for the rest of her life, and that she was deeply sorry for what happened.
“I will use the time to better myself,” she said, acknowledging that she would and should be punished.
The guilty plea came on the first day of Komoroski’s trial proceedings, just as jury selection was about to begin.
In court, Komoroski looked distinctly miserable as she delivered her plea in a black suit.
She has been out on bail under house arrest since March.
Komoroski was reportedly so inebriated after the 2023 wreck that she thought she was the one who had been hit, telling officers who responded to the scene “I did nothing wrong.”
Responders reported that she reeked of alcohol, and refused to do a field sobriety test – while insisting she’d only had a beer and a tequila drink about an hour before the crash
She is also the subject of a wrongful death suit filed by Hutchinson, which accused her of recklessly ploughing into the couple after a “booze-filled day of bar hopping.”
Numerous bars where Komoroski allegedly drank were also named in that suit, and have settled out of court for about $1.3 million in damages.
Komoroski was previously recorded in jail phone calls talking with her sister about how she expects to be living her “best life” within two years.
