FOLLY BEACH — One year ago, Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson exchanged vows under a wooden arch, promising to love each other for better or for worse.
They celebrated their marriage with a hundred friends and family members, sharing smiles, toasts, dances, and enjoying tacos and wedding cake at the Pelican Watch Pavilion at Folly Beach County Park. The couple clasped hands and bade everyone farewell under a shower of sparklers when the night wound down around 10 p.m., riding away in a golf cart.
Miller told her husband she never wanted the night to end.
At the same time, a 25-year-old who was allegedly barhopping along the beach town's Center Street slid behind the wheel of her car to head home.
Minutes later, she plowed into the wedding party on East Ashley Avenue, briefly tapping her brakes before rear-ending the golf cart at 65 mph on a 25-mph road, according to the Folly Beach police. The impact threw the golf cart 100 yards, causing it to roll several times.
Miller died at the scene, less than 4 miles away from the reception. She was still wearing her white wedding dress.
Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson hosted their wedding reception at the Pelican Watch Pavilion on April 28, 2023. Meanwhile, Jamie Komoroski barhopped at The Drop-In, Snapper Jacks and The Crab Shack on Center Street. Komoroski rammed her car at 65 mph into a golf cart carrying the wedding party just after 10 p.m. Miller died at the scene, still wearing her wedding dress. Hutchinson and two others were injured but survived.
Here's what has happened in the year since the tragedy.
Police rush to wreckage
April 28, 2023: Police arrived on the scene minutes after the crash, finding Miller unconscious and her husband and the two men escorting them, Hutchinson's brother-in-law and the brother-in-law's son, semiconscious.
Hutchinson broke several bones and suffered a brain injury. His brother-in-law, Benjamin Garrett, sustained extensive road rash, open wounds, and neck and back injuries. His 17-year-old son, Brogan, was not seriously injured.
The driver, Jamie Lee Komoroski, totaled her black Toyota Camry but escaped unharmed.
This crime-scene photo shows a golf cart and car involved in a fatal Folly Beach crash in which a new bride died minutes after leaving her wedding reception.
Officers smelled alcohol wafting off her breath. She was unsteady on her feet, needing help to stand.
Komoroski admitted to drinking a beer and a tequila drink about an hour before. She ranked her intoxication level as an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most intoxicated).
Blood drawn, driver jailed
April 29, 2023: Komoroski refused to complete a field sobriety test or give a breath sample, but a judge signed a warrant for two vials of her blood to use to test her blood alcohol content.
While her blood was being extracted at the Medical University of South Carolina, she told an officer she wanted to kill herself.
She was booked into the Charleston County jail under suicide watch at 3 a.m. She was charged with three counts of DUI causing serious bodily injury and one count of reckless homicide.
A judge denied her bond.
Jamie Lee Komoroski (right) is poised to be released from jail on house arrest after prosecutors failed to meet a March 2024 deadline to bring Komoroski to trial. She appeared at a hearing in August 2023 before Circuit Judge Michael Nettles (left).
Papers filed, lawyers step in, blood results come back
May 1, 2023: Hutchinson's aunt filed the couple's marriage license in court.
May 4, 2023: Hospital released Hutchinson. Doctors said it could be 12 more weeks before he is able to walk.
Komoroski's father called her in jail to let her know he had hired top-notch attorneys to represent her.
May 5, 2023: Defense attorneys Christopher Gramiccioni of Kingston Coventry LLC and Nathan Williams of a self-titled law office notified the court that they were representing Komoroski, filing a motion for discovery.
May 10, 2023: Hutchinson became personal representative of his wife's estate.
May 11, 2023: Komoroski's blood test results were released to The Post and Courier. Her blood-alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit of .08 at the time it was drawn.
Public, family gather for beach vigil
May 13, 2023: Several hundred people formed a circle on Folly Beach's sand, bowing their heads, shouting "Amen" and singing "Amazing Grace" in a beachside vigil in honor of Miller.
Hutchinson sat stoically in the center of the circle in a beach-friendly wheelchair, his legs still wrapped in bandages.
Dozens of surfers grabbed their boards, paddled into the ocean and tossed red carnations into the waves.
"Sam would've loved this," Hutchinson said softly from shore.
Miller's mother, sister and brother also attended.
A beachside vigil was held to remember Samantha Miller on Folly Beach on May 13, 2023.
Several bars sued, accused of overserving driver
May 17, 2023: Hutchinson sued several Folly Beach bars, alleging they negligently served copious amounts of alcohol to the woman who killed his wife.
The Drop-In, the Crab Shack, Snapper Jacks and Taco Boy on Folly, as well as El Gallo Bar & Grill on Daniel Island, were named as defendants, along with Komoroski.
Taco Boy, which had recently hired Komoroski but said she neither entered the establishment nor was bought drinks by its employees that night, is asking for the case to be dismissed. El Gallo was later dropped from the suit after providing a receipt that shows Komorski only ate lunch there and did not purchase alcohol.
The complaint contended that the bars breached their duties of care to the public and patrons when they supplied Komoroski with alcohol, alleging she was able to leave the bars and drive home “in a drunken haze."
South Carolina statute prohibits establishments with permits to sell alcohol, beer or wine from serving patrons who are intoxicated.
“This case is about keeping the public — keeping all of us — safe from drunk driving,” Hutchinson’s attorney Danny Dalton told The Post and Courier.
Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson met during a work trip out West to Idaho. They lived in an apartment on James Island minutes from the beach and enjoyed exploring the outdoors.
Driver's jail recordings released
May 18, 2023: The Charleston County Sheriff's Office gave The Post and Courier, which filed a Freedom of Information request, copies of several recorded conversations Komoroski had with friends and family from jail.
In the recordings, Komoroski bemoans and questions her plight through sobs, shrieks and occasional eye rolls, expressing remorse, frustration and resignation that her actions could land her behind bars for years to come.
“It was just like a freak accident … obviously I didn’t mean it to happen. I just feel like a terrible person, like, I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” she said.
Jamie Komoroski speaks during a videoconferencing call from the Charleston County jail.
She may have received special treatment in jail — she indicated in her calls that Sheriff Kristin Graziano arranged for her to meet in person with her parents in jail. This is a privilege not normally extended to inmates.
The Sheriff’s Office asserted in a written statement that Komoroski’s family reached out to the agency soon after her arrival because they were concerned about her mental health and access to medication.
“We believe that we made necessary accommodations to ensure she did not harm herself,” the statement read.
(The Sheriff’s Office later released 99 phone and video recordings of Komoroski’s jail conversations after a court battle over whether they are public records.)
Groom goes on 'GMA'; driver seeks bail
May 19, 2023: Hutchinson told “Good Morning America” he didn't remember the impact of the crash.
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around it — that night going from an all-time high to an all-time low," he said. (Komoroski) stole an amazing human being."
Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson had plans to buy a home in the Charleston area and raise a family. Their lives together were cut short April 28, 2023, by a motorist whom police have criminally charged with driving under the influence.
The same day, Komoroski’s attorneys filed a motion arguing she was neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk — the two criteria for determining bail.
If released from jail, she will seek inpatient treatment for substance abuse and mental health, which she has struggled with since college, the motion states. She graduated from Coastal Carolina University in 2020.
Bride's mother fights over her estate
July 26, 2023: The bride's mother, Lisa Miller, questioned Hutchinson's ability to oversee her daughter’s estate.
She requested a court-appointed special administrator to replace Hutchinson as the personal representative of Miller's estate. She told The Post and Courier her decision to take legal action was a painful last resort.
Samantha Miller's sister Mandi Jenkins (left) and mother, Lisa Miller (right), take flowers to the paddleout held to remember Samantha Miller on Folly Beach on May 13, 2023. Miller was killed leaving her wedding reception by a drunk driver.
“Aric and I agreed several times that Sam would want us to do everything together,” Miller said. “And yet we’ve been roadblocked by all of his attorneys, and it’s never been solidified.”
(Miller in September would temporarily drop her motion to intervene.)
Judge denies bail, sets trial deadline
Aug. 1, 2023: Michael Nettles, a circuit judge visiting from Florence, denied Komoroski’s request for bail.
He decided she should stay in jail because she was a potential flight risk but ruled prosecutors had until March 2024 to bring her case to trial. If they failed, Komoroski could be released on a $150,000 surety bond with electronic monitoring and house arrest in Charleston County. She would not be allowed to drive and would be subject to alcohol testing. Meeting that deadline with Charleston's court backlog was seen as extremely doubtful.
This undated photo provided by Samantha Miller shows Miller and her groom-to-be Aric Hutchinson.
Bars offer money, other dropped from case
Sept. 28, 2023: Hutchinson's attorneys asked the court to approve offered settlements from the Crab Shack, the Drop-In Bar & Deli and Progressive auto insurance company.
The companies agreed to pay “certain sums” to be released from additional claims argued out of the incident. Hutchinson’s attorney did not provide the specific amounts of the settlements but called them “reasonable and proper” in his filing.
Oct. 23, 2023: Hutchinson’s attorneys dropped El Gallo Bar & Grill as a defendant.
Mother goes back to court; bar wants out
Oct. 31, 2023: Miller’s mother refiled her motion to intervene in her daughter’s probate and civil courts proceedings, the same day a settlement approval hearing in the wrongful death lawsuit was set to occur. (The hearing was postponed because the parties were not ready to move forward.)
Nov. 7, 2023: Taco Boy asked for the claims against it to be dismissed.
Hutchinson contended the Mexican eatery had an obligation to control the actions of the off-duty employee who had not yet served her first table. It further alleged Taco Boy breached that duty by organizing an employee function where Komoroski was “invited, encouraged, pressured, and ultimately coerced" into drinking alcohol beyond the point of visible intoxication.
Taco Boy staunchly decried the allegation, stating the claims were “patently false": none of the establishments Komoroski visited on that night included Taco Boy; Komoroski was hired four days before the accident and had not completed training.
Komoroski ran into off-duty Taco Boy staff members at the Drop-In Bar. She “purchased and consumed alcohol in their presence,” but no Taco Boy employees bought or gave drinks to her. The meeting was coincidental, according to the motion.
Family court battle intensifies
Dec. 1, 2023: Hutchinson’s lawyers called the court motion that Miller's mother filed, rescinded and refiled to intervene in the case "morally questionable" and intended only to scuttle a financial settlement with several bars to obtain money she has no legal right to.
“Aric has been more than generous with Lisa Miller — offering her half of the money — and she has repaid him by threatening to bring a frivolous challenge to the validity of his marriage to Sam,” Patrick Wooten, one of his attorneys, told The Post and Courier. “One would hope that Ms. Miller would have too much respect for her own daughter to do that.”
Hutchinson’s attorneys said Miller’s attorney offered to serve as co-counsel, which they declined; Miller’s lawyer then threatened that he would challenge the validity of the marriage and seek to install Miller as the sole representative of the estate.
Miller told The Post and Courier she declined the offer to equally split the money with Hutchinson because of a provision that prohibited her from speaking about the settlement.
“I never wanted to challenge the validity of the marriage. I never wanted to dishonor Sam. But I feel like Aric is dishonoring my daughter in going against her wishes,” she contested.
At the heart of her attempt to challenge the validity of the marriage was an affidavit filed in support of the bride and groom’s marriage license her attorney alleges is fraudulent.
Hutchinson’s aunt and uncle brought a signed marriage license and certificate to the marriage license division of the Charleston County courthouse the Monday after the wedding and Miller's death, while Hutchinson was recovering in the hospital. A clerk provided them additional affidavit forms to fill out, which Hutchinson’s aunt signed.
A visitor leaves flowers at the site of a fatal vehicle collision on East Ashley Avenue in Folly Beach on May 3, 2023. The estate of the deceased, Samantha Miller, is nearing a settlement with three bars accused of plying the driver with liquor.
Bars settle lawsuit, with one paying $1M
Jan. 29, 2024: Both the plaintiffs and the defendants filed a motion to seal the settlement approvals from the public eye.
Jan. 30, 2024: The court agreed to seal the settlement findings for the bars The Drop-In, Snapper Jacks and The Crab Shack.
Feb. 1, 2024: Not everyone heeded the judge’s order.
An attorney representing Snapper Jacks told The Post and Courier the restaurant’s insurer had agreed to pay $1 million to settle all claims of injury made by Miller’s estate and the other injured parties.
The seven-figure amount was the maximum the restaurant was covered by its insurer and the minimum liquor liability coverage allowed under state law.
Feb. 5, 2024: A petition showed Hutchinson’s 17-year-old nephew was poised to receive almost $107,000 over the next seven years, pending a judge’s approval (settlement hearings were ordered to be closed to the public).
He sustained the least-serious injuries, suggesting larger payouts for the others. But the nine-page document was only publicly available for three hours before being sealed.
Driver gets out of jail; bride's mom changes lawyers
March 1, 2024: Komoroski was released from jail after prosecutors couldn’t bring the 26-year-old to trial less than a year after she allegedly smashed into a wedding party, killing Miller.
She is on house arrest in Charleston County and can only leave for medical emergencies. She is required to wear an electronic monitoring device that detects alcohol consumption through sampling her sweat. She is not allowed to drive.
It is unclear when the criminal case will be resolved.
March 20, 2024: Lisa Miller switched attorneys, hiring Matthew Yelverton and Yelverton Law Firm in place of Jerry Meegan and Christopher Murphy at MCM Law Group.
Hutchinson's attorneys agreed to give the new lawyer time to get acquainted with the case before moving forward and attempting to work out the remainder of the case.
