By KATIE McLAUGHLIN
Charleston, S.C. (Court TV) — The woman accused of drunkenly crashing into a couple on their wedding night, killing the bride and seriously injuring the groom, seems to show little remorse in newly released jailhouse phone calls.
This photo provided by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, in South Carolina, shows Jamie Lee Komoroski, on April 29, 2023. Komoroski, 25, is charged with reckless vehicular homicide and three counts of driving under the influence causing death. (Charleston County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
Jamie Lee Komoroski is charged with vehicular homicide and three counts of felony DUI for the April 28 tragedy in Folly Beach, South Carolina. As Aric and Samantha Hutchinson were departing their wedding reception in a golf cart, Komoroski plowed into them while speeding.
WATCH: Victim’s Mom: ‘She didn’t just kill my daughter, she killed all of us’
Court records indicate Komoroski spent the day bar hopping with friends. Later, she was driving 65 mph in a 25 zone with a blood-alcohol level more than three times the legal limit as she slammed into the back of the newlyweds’ golf cart.
Cops who came to the scene had to help Komoroski stand because she was unsteady on her feet. More than 100 yards away, Samantha lay dying where the golf cart landed.
Last week, a judge rejected Komoroski’s defense team’s request that the 25-year-old be released on bond. In jailhouse phone calls, Komoroski doesn’t mention the victims, or that the crash occurred, but wonders why this “had to happen” to her.
WATCH: Jamie Lee Komoroski Sobs During Bond Hearing
In one call, the defendant’s father, Charles Komoroski, tells his daughter that she’s missing nothing back in the family’s New Jersey hometown, and tries to make her feel better by assuring Jamie that her lawyers are “top-notch.”
CHARLES KOMOROSKI: “We can’t be doin’ any better than what we’re doin’. You got the best team to help you, alright?”
JAMIE LEE KOMOROSKI: “I just don’t know why this had to happen to me.”
CHARLES: “Because bad things happen to good people, honey. That’s why. It’s just fate. It’s just something that happened to you, and we are going to deal with it as best we can, OK? And it’s life-altering. You’re going to, you know, experience stuff that you’ve never thought of, and when it’s all over and done with, and everything is finished, you’re going to be a better person.”
JAMIE: “What if they send me away for a really long time?”
CHARLES: “Um, well, we’re trying to avoid that, aren’t we? We can’t do anything more than what we’re doing. You know what they said about your attorneys, eh?”
JAMIE: “What?”
CHARLES: “They said ‘The family must be mafia to hire them people’. [Both laugh].”
In another phone call, Jamie tells her boyfriend about an in-person meeting she had with Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano.
“The deputy sheriff, like, whatever, like, the head person of Charleston County. I met with her today, and she’s, like, trying to help me out… and she, like, is like… ‘I don’t want you in here, like, you should be with your family, like, blah, blah, blah. So that’s like, really good.”
Jamie goes on to say:
“Something similar happened, I guess, like, to someone that she knew personally, and so she, like, related to the story, and, like, she, like, was just, like, really relating to me and she seemed really, like, sincere, and like she really wants to help. And, like, so I’m really happy. And, um, she also is the one that got my mom and dad able to, like, visit me, like, in person.”
Graziano’s office issued a statement saying that the visit was routine, and insisted that Jamie was not receiving special treatment. However, when Gray Media Group requested access to Komoroski’s phone calls under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Graziano’s office refused the open records request.
A judge ruled Monday that Graziano must pay $33,175 to cover the media group’s legal fees.
Jamie and her boyfriend, who has not been named, also discussed jailhouse amenities, with Jamie saying, “Lunch today was… it was two slices of white bread, an uncooked piece of bologna… and then, like, cabbage, and two cookies.”
When her boyfriend inquired about condiments, Jamie replied, “No! They fed us hotdogs one night. Two hotdogs and no ketchup or anything… no buns or anything… it’s so bad.”
But she ended the call on a high note:
“I just got my snack pack in the mail today so I have Doritos and, um, cookies. These cookies are so addicting! I already ate, like, 20 of them today. They’re the cookies that they give you for dessert. Sometimes you get cookies and sometimes you get cake. These cookies that they give you at this jail — I’m gonna start buying them when I come home. I’m not kidding. And I really like their soap!”
Komoroski will remain behind bars until at least March 2024, as Circuit Judge Michael Nettles told prosecutors that was their deadline to bring the case to trial. Otherwise, he will release Komoroski on a $150,000 surety bond with electronic monitoring and house arrest.
