Husband of bride killed in wedding-night crash gets $1.3M settlement

Now, Miller’s husband of just a few hours, Aric Hutchinson, will receive more than $1.3 million through a settlement reached Wednesday in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed weeks after the April 2023 wedding. Several businesses accused of serving the driver, including bars and a car rental company, agreed to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to resolve claims of negligence, among other allegations.

The driver, Jamie Lee Komoroski, and the businesses had turned “a fairytale love story into a fateful night of unspeakable tragedy,” the lawsuit says. Komoroski is not a party to the settlement.

An attorney for Hutchinson did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Attorneys representing the businesses involved in the settlement also did not respond to calls and emails.

Miller, 34, and Hutchinson had been a couple for about three years when they married in Folly Beach, S.C., where they lived. Hutchinson’s mother, Annette Hutchinson, wrote on a fundraising page for Aric in May 2023 that Miller “instantly fit into our family” and “was everything to my son.”

About a week after the pair met, Miller called Annette her “future mother-in-law,” she wrote in another post.

During the wedding ceremony, Hutchinson and Miller exchanged vows they had written themselves and placed rings on each other’s fingers. Then they danced at their reception, fed each other pineapple cake and celebrated with their guests on the beach before making their exit.

Photos from the wedding showed Miller and Hutchinson holding hands and smiling, their faces “filled with all the hope and promise of what would have been a truly beautiful life together,” according to the lawsuit filed in Charleston County Circuit Court.

As the couple exited through a line of sparklers, they paused for a kiss.

Miller was “the happiest ever” that day, her mother, Lisa Miller, told The Washington Post last year.

“To go from that to your daughter’s been killed — there was a lot of screaming and crying,” she said. “It’s hard to wrap your head around it.”

After the send-off, Samantha Miller and Hutchinson, along with his nephew and brother-in-law, climbed into a golf cart to go to their rental property for the night. But about a block from the beach, a vehicle driven by Komoroski hurtled toward them and slammed into the back of the cart, the lawsuit says.

Miller died on the scene. Hutchinson was critically injured, and the two others in the golf cart were also hurt.

“What began as, and should have remained, the happiest day of Sam’s and Aric’s lives ended in a horrifying and unbelievably devastating, yet altogether preventable, tragedy,” the lawsuit says.

Komoroski, then 25, had spent the hours before the crash at several bars, where she was served “despite being noticeably and visibly intoxicated,” the complaint alleges, adding that her blood alcohol content at the end of the night was more than three times the legal limit.

Komoroski is charged with reckless homicide, driving under the influence resulting in death and driving under the influence resulting in great bodily injury. She was released on bail in March, court records show. Asked for comment on the charges Saturday, an attorney for her said only that the case was pending.

The settlement stipulates that Hutchinson will receive payments from some of the businesses he sued. About one-third of the more than $1.3 million will cover attorneys’ fees.

Lisa Miller told The Post last year that as Samantha’s family members grieved, they were trying to remember the wedding itself, which Samantha had planned in great detail. She had hoped that day would be perfect, her mother said.

After the crash, Samantha’s older sister, Mandi Jenkins, said her family wanted to call attention to the tragedies that drunken driving can create.

“No one should go through this,” she said. “And we are going through it. That’s the reality; we can’t change it now. But maybe we can make someone else think twice.”

Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.