#299: Woman Whines “Why Me??” After Killing Bride On Her Wedding Day

0:0225 year old Jamie was getting emotional. She was getting emotional talking about her cat. If anything she was getting angry. She was getting riled up. Her parents decided to give her cat. to grandma for the time being. And Jamie was not having it. She ranted on the phone to her friends and family in a recorded phone call. No, that's my cat. That's my cat. Grandma can get a new cat. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. That's not their cat. That's my cat. I'm going to be gone for a few months and then I'll be home. That's my cat. Look, grandma's cat, Theo, died from eating a toxic plant or something.

0:37And what did they do? What did they decide to do? Give my cat to grandma. They're not keeping her. So like, that's going to be a problem. Grandma is just going to have to get a new cat because that's my cat. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. I have to like say goodbye to Evan, my cat. Don't, listen, don't, don't worry about Evan and the cat and stuff right now. You worry about yourself. You understand? Someone on the other line tells her, hang on girl, you need a reality check. Girl, that's not your cat right now. Grandma is taking care of your cat. But Jamie could not stop worrying. It was a really rough time for her.

1:14She couldn't stop worrying about whether or not grandma was going to try and keep her cat, if grandma was going to try and rename her cat. She couldn't stop worrying about why she requested colored pencils and they hadn't given it to her yet. And she also couldn't stop worrying about why this was all happening to her. She said on a phone call with her dad, Why me? Oh my god, I just can't believe this. I can't believe this happened to me. Why me? I'm going to be here for years and years and years, and I just can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I just can't believe this happened to me.

1:53Why me, Dad? Why me? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm going to be here for years and years and years and years and years. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. 25 year old Jamie Komoroski made a series of decisions that led to someone's death. A bride coming home in her wedding gown right after the best night of her life. She would be found dead on the side of the street because of what Jamie did that night. But she wants to know who's getting her cat. She wants to know why her of all people. Dad and mom can be heard comforting their full grown daughters saying things like, I know, sweetie.

2:34I know. I know, sweetie. Don't worry about your future. Your future is going to be just fine. You know what they say about your attorney, right? They said the family must be mafia to hire them. Insinuating that the attorney the family hired is so prestigious, so expensive that the family must be a part of the mafia to afford them. Really? No. Yeah. Wow. Let's talk about the insane case of Jamie Komoroski and why her utter lack of remorse coupled with her parents' constant babying of her makes her, in my humble opinion, one of the scarier, more dangerous people that we've talked about recently.

3:12As always, full show notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com. This is an ongoing case, though. The perpetrator has not been tried in the court of law, and as of the time of this recording, I don't know when they're going to go to trial. So legally speaking, nobody has been found guilty of any crimes. as of now. But the evidence in this case is really, really damning. And there is, there's no debate of the facts of the incident. There's no like points of contention there. It's just one of those things where I think we need to go and wait through the legal proceedings as of right now. I'm also going to link the GoFundMe for the victim's family in the description.

3:48So with that being said, let's get into it. Wedding photographers, they always talk about how they might be better than a therapist at spotting which couples are going to make it after the big day and which couples are going to divorce. Sometimes it's so blatantly obvious. I mean, one wedding videographer from Reddit said, four days after he shot the wedding, the groom calls him and politely asks him to edit out any footage of him checking out the female guests. He said, you know, I got like vision problems. I wasn't actually like checking them out. Another wedding photographer said, okay, this one's pretty bad.

4:23He was working for a couple's wedding on a golf course. the bride had this grand idea for the first look the groom would ride down on the golf cart see her in the dress for the first time and it would be this massive cinematic moment well the groom starts riding down the hill on the cart but once he spots her he can't help it he jumps out the cart and runs full speed down the hill in the grass to get to her faster he picks her up twirls her around in the air and it was like the most genuine reaction that all of these wedding photographers they're dying to get these moments he was so happy to see her but the minute he puts her down the bride looks at the photographer well i wanted the golf cart so let's do it again wait i wanted the golf cart yeah she wants him to have the whole cinematic moment and drive down in the cart instead of running down she didn't even care that her husband loved her so much that he couldn't contain himself she's like no i want the damn shot they always say it's a really bad sign when the couple care more about the aesthetics and having the perfect wedding instead of their relationship those are signs that you would not find at samantha and eric's wedding i really hate to say it but they had the perfect wedding because it makes you want to roll your eyes when you're like oh they had the perfect wedding they had the perfect relationship but their idea of the wedding was fun.

5:46Like that's what people said. I mean, I'm sure to a degree they cared about the photos. I'm not going to say, oh, no one cares about wedding photos and wedding aesthetics. Samantha had so much fun picking out the flowers and all the arrangements for the wedding. Their main focus was just on having fun. April 28th of 2023, their wedding was held on Folly Beach in South Carolina. About a hundred of their closest friends and family, I mean, some of them lived in the area, Some of them flew in to celebrate with the couple. And the whole wedding was a blast. Even the photographers were probably having fun.

6:19It did not feel like a job. Samantha's sister, Mandy, baked the wedding cake. And I feel like the wedding cake is symbolic of if a wedding is fun. It was half pineapple, half coconut. Yeah, it's just what Samantha wanted. And while the wedding itself was stereotypically perfect, I mean, it was on the beach. You've got the salty breeze. You've got the waves crashing in the background. the only thing that all the guests noticed though Samantha and Eric are like in their own little world they cannot keep their eyes off of each other the entire time if someone dropped a wedding cake a bottle of red wine on Samantha's wedding dress and like the DJ's power booth went out it feels like the couple wouldn't even have been phased everyone kind of wanted to roll their eyes and like tell the couple to get a room but they also knew that love like this wasn't easy to come by a lot of their friends said it's a love that you can only dream about it seemed really pure it seemed really real and it feels kind of impossible to find that these days so the memorable night it ends with every guest being past one of those sparklers that you use at the beach do you know what i'm talking about like the little new year thing yeah the new year thing okay so you light one end it's like a long little matchstick you light one end and it starts sparkling it's so pretty in pictures especially at night because it creates this like light orb a lot of people use it during the summer so every guest would light one up and they created this archway they would hold it up in the air created this arch above the couple's head so they had this aisle to walk out of their wedding ceremony and they were going to go and sit in their golf cart that was waiting for them outside it had a sign on the golf cart, just married.

8:02The two are holding hands under the sparklers that are held above their heads. And the couple would be driven back to their Airbnb by two of their family members. So there'd be four people on this golf cart. And it's going to be the start of their new lives as a couple, as newlyweds. As the golf cart starts driving off, the couple could see everyone waving, you know, waving their sparklers, waving their hands, cheering for the couple. Samantha looked into Eric's eyes and she said I want this day to last forever those would be Samantha's last words to Eric 20 minutes later the golf cart would be lying smashed on its side and Samantha Miller would be found dead in her wedding dress neighbors said it sounded like an explosion not as loud as like a gunshot or a crash but louder like an explosion it was just around 10 p.m.

8:54So most of the neighbors, they hadn't fallen asleep yet. And even if they had, it was loud enough to wake everyone up. They start rushing outside to investigate and they see bodies, bodies everywhere. Four bodies were laying on the road about a hundred yards away from a golf cart, all dressed to the nines, suits, tuxedo, wedding gown. It was a nightmare scene. A hundred yards. 100 yards length of a football field. Yeah. Length of a football field? Yes. The bodies were scattered, so not all of them were 100 yards, but they were, yeah. So in the golf cart, there had been four people, and I'm sure we're all pretty familiar with what a golf cart looks like.

9:35But if you've never been in one, to give you more context, golf carts don't really have real seatbelts. And if it does, you're still basically sitting on a seat that's exposed to the air. There's no doors. It's almost like a rudimentary frame of a vehicle. they're often used on golf ranges obviously and beaches because they're really light you can get out and in pretty easily since there's no doors i've even seen them in really high-end resorts and hotels because the back of the golf cart is kind of like a bench that bench faces backwards so resorts will let hotel guests just hop onto the back be driven to the room to the main building things like that you can just hop back off you're not facing forward with the driver you're facing the back.

10:18Samantha and Eric were riding in the back facing the rear end. Samantha's brother Benjamin was in the front driving. Next to him in the front was his 17-year-old son, and we're just going to call him Benny. You can find his real name online, but since he was a minor at the time, we're going to call him Benny. The four, they had been waved off by all these wedding guests. After the couple departed, everyone at the wedding, they start making their way back home they start making their way back to the hotels airbnbs whatever their accommodations were if they were from out of town so lisa miller samantha's mom and mandy jenkins samantha's sister they drove back to their airbnb which was all kind of in like the general same area samantha and eric's place was really close to theirs so they're like okay let's just go home and wind down from this really beautiful but really exhausting day and all of a sudden they hear sirens.

11:13Lots of sirens. Moms just know. I don't know how they know, but they just know when something is wrong with their kid. It's one of those things where I feel like even science probably can't pinpoint how, or they'll say it's just a coincidence, but there have been so many times where mothers get a gut feeling and there is no reasoning other than, this is my baby, I think something happened to my baby. Lisa Miller had that gut feeling. It was so strong. She ran out of her Airbnb without shoes on. They took off down the street to where they could see ambulances and police lights flashing. They were still a little bit far from the scene and they didn't know what was going on yet.

11:52But Lisa remembers screaming, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. And she said it was like this bad Netflix movie unfolding in front of her eyes. This next part is a bit confusing. And I'm not sure if Lisa and Mandy weren't allowed near the scene for, I don't know, a lot of reasons. or if someone instructed them to go to the hospital instead. But they were under the impression that Samantha would be brought into the hospital and that's where they needed to be, to be right by Samantha's side once she was brought in. I'm kind of glad that they left for the hospital because the scene is really gruesome, to say the least.

12:24Now, according to officials, the golf cart that had Benjamin, the brother, his son Benny, and the newlywed couple in the back was completely mangled. It was on its side and the four passengers had all been launched out of the cart. All of them were bleeding. They were fading in and out of consciousness. All but one. Samantha Miller was lying on the ground on her back, still in her wedding dress, without a pulse. Officers tried their best to perform life-saving measures, but ultimately it was too late. Samantha Miller was pronounced deceased at the scene. She was only 34 years old. Looking at the scene, it wasn't difficult for officers to put two and two together.

13:09The golf cart had been driving down the road when a gray Toyota Camry had smashed into the car, sending every single person in that golf cart flying. The driver of the Toyota Camry came out unscathed. What? 25-year-old Jamie Camarasi stumbled out of the car and she said, something hit me, something hit me. It's said by neighbors and witnesses that she saw people laying on the ground and she started screaming, who? What happened? Just hours ago, Samantha was walking down the aisle. One foot in front of the other, she was steady. Not just in her walk, but her conviction to marry this man in front of her.

13:55She was really happy. Jamie Komoroski also put one foot in front of another. but she wasn't as steady it was a little shaky and then she almost stumbled she caught herself gained control over her balance again and then tried again she still had a few more bars to go to that she still wanted to hit up and all she had to do was get in her car these are not the exact timeline of events as i believe that's going to come out during the trial but i think it's the parallel of what's going on is very chilling while samantha walks down the aisle looking at all these faces tearing up at her, Jamie got off her shift at the Taco Boy Mexican restaurant and went for an after-work function.

14:38She starts drinking. She gets in her car and drives to another bar. While Samantha and Eric cut the cake, Jamie downs another drink at the second bar only to get behind the wheel once more and go to her third location. While Samantha and Eric share their first dance as husband and wife, Jamie was seen by multiple witnesses consuming copious amounts of beer and shots of tequila. She's by herself just bar hopping? Yeah. Jamie had gone to like five different bars that night. People reported seeing Jamie drunk. They said that she was behaving drunk. She was drinking a lot, yet she still got behind the wheel each and every single time.

15:18Eventually, she decided it was time to go home, except she was probably so drunk, she didn't even realize that she was heading in the opposite direction of her house. she wasn't even supposed to be on the same road that samantha and eric were on that night she didn't even live near them she's going 65 miles per hour on a 25 mile per hour road called ashley avenue the same road where the newlyweds were traveling going speed limit there is footage from a neighborhood ring camera of this street and you can see that there's a golf cart going pretty slowly like you can make it out you see the headlights you see all the lights on it's pretty clear to see and it's it's just kind of cruising imagine driving down your local neighborhood you're not going to be speeding it there could be kids out there could be straight cats or dogs out you're not going to be booking it so you see them at a visibly safe speed on the residential street and then soon after you see jamie's car speeding down the street visibly it is scary fast and these two vehicles they're not going to pass each other they're going to collide at 65 miles per hour sam and eric were sitting in the open air with their faces to the back of the golf cart there was a 3 500 pound vehicle coming hurling straight at them i mean technically you can almost see it as so one is going 25 the other is going 65 you can almost assume that first one's going like standing there and a car just smashed into them at 40 miles an hour straight in their face and 3 500 pounds coming at you like that i mean that's not going to be 3 500 pounds it's going to be more like 36 000 pound heavy machinery coming at an unprotected human body directly that's like the weight of a whale shark there was someone who put this situation into perspective really really well they said that drunk drivers are like missiles once they're launching towards you, they're locked in and it's hard to change their direction.

17:23Missiles are designed to kill and destroy. If you're drunk and you're operating something that powerful, you basically become in charge of a deadly weapon.

17:36But I think the worst part of all this is Jamie's reaction to the whole thing. It's like a double slap in the face to the victim's family. At the scene, Jamie would tell the officers, I want my boyfriend. I want to go home. I did nothing wrong. So while Samantha Miller was found dead at the scene, the other three were rushed to the hospital to be treated for their wounds. The ambulance carrying Samantha would have their lights and sirens turned off. They don't turn on their lights and sirens because it was too late. It didn't matter how quickly Samantha got to the hospital. She had already passed.

18:12Samantha's mom and sister, who were waiting at the hospital, they would find out from Samantha's dad that she passed away at the scene. The other three, they get sent to the hospital. Eric was in really bad shape. I mean, he was immediately sent into critical care. He was knocked out. Like, he was not even conscious. It's stated that he had open fractures, massive trauma up and down his body. He had broken vertebrae. I believe both of his legs were severely injured, if not altogether broken. He sustained brain injuries. one of his eyes was completely black and purple and there was blood streaming down his face he could not even open his eyes he was unconscious for a while and eric's mom she was handed a clear bag from the hospital it had eric's wedding band in there because eric had to be scanned he had to be treated operated on and this is just hours after he put it on just hours after he vowed to take care of samantha for the rest of his life thankfully he did wake up and just as his mom guests the first thing that he asked about was where's samantha where's samantha eric's mom had to tell him that she was gone that samantha didn't make it and eric was an absolute wreck he said later in an interview that night was the best night of his life and he doesn't remember anything he wishes he remembers more but all he remembers was samantha wishing i wish today would never end and then he woke up in a foggy haze in a hospital asking where Sam, where Sam?

19:40He said that Jamie took something from him that night. She stole an amazing human being that should have not been taken. And I feel like Eric's mom in that moment, I mean she had layers of devastation. Eric's mom was devastated to see her son injured and then devastated to see her son so devastated at the loss of his newlywed life. But also Eric's mom herself was devastated at losing Samantha too. Samantha was something special to everyone. You know, they were all excited to have her in the family. She remembered the first thing that Samantha ever said to her. It was, hello, future mother-in-law.

20:15And if it was maybe anybody else, it might have come off a little bit weird, maybe a little strong. But both families, they just really knew that these two were in love. It was just a matter of time before they got married. And now this just felt like some sort of sick joke. They're both having the best day of their lives, marrying their soulmates in front of the people they love. I mean, the visual of them leaving on the golf cart, waving, smiling, getting teary-eyed from happiness, it's going to be burned into everybody's memories. Mandy didn't even get a chance to ask Samantha, did you like the wedding cake?

20:52Benjamin, Samantha's brother, was also extremely injured. He had separated joints in his hip. He had two broken vertebrae in his back. he had severe road rash which is when you slide across the pavement so quickly and with so much force that your skin is basically shaved off he had to be sent to the burn unit during his recovery he had to undergo multiple surgeries to clean out and patch up his injuries and thankfully the nephew benny he was okay he only sustained some cuts and bruises along with a concussion which makes it sound like a concussion isn't bad but it's really bad but compared to the other three victims, it could have been a lot, lot worse.

21:30Eric and Benjamin were in such bad shape that it was originally believed by many that at least one of them wasn't going to make it through the night. Thankfully, they both survived. So while the medical teams are doing everything to help the wounded, officers arrive at the scene and it's pretty obvious that Jamie was messed up. I mean, they could smell the alcohol that just permeated from her skin. It's like a perfume at this point not even just from her breath they asked her where she was headed she said home like i said she was heading in the opposite direction of her home why do i why do i feel like she's not heading to home then yeah is she heading to another bar weird thing yes i don't know that's weird did you did you have anything to drink tonight no i had two drinks one beer and a drink what kind of drink like a tequila pineapple an hour or so ago which is just tequila with pineapple juice.

22:25Okay, on a scale of 1 through 10, how drunk are you? 1 being completely sober and 10 being the most drunk that you've ever been. 8. After that, Jamie immediately asks for an attorney. Now, none of this is adding up. If she went to that many bars before the crash, it's hard for me to personally believe that she only had a beer and a tequila pineapple. I mean, maybe she could be super lightweight, but like, I don't believe it. They didn't do a test right there? She wouldn't let them. Oh. She was driving in the wrong direction. I feel like that's very telling. And that's not to say that she's purposely lying or misleading the police.

22:59But if it does come out that she had way more to drink than that, which is what everybody believes and what her BAC levels show, then she could have been so drunk that she didn't even know what was going on when she's responding to these questions. Maybe she blacked out and truly didn't remember having so many drinks, which in and of itself is another huge, huge problem. club she knew she was drunk but she also knew that she wanted to go into self-preservation mode and get an attorney and refuse a sobriety test yeah instead she asked multiple times if her boyfriend could come she said she wanted her boyfriend and there is no mention of her boyfriend being an attorney and when officers asked why she wanted her boyfriend she couldn't really say for what she just refused to complete any of the sobriety tests that they requested so what do they do they try to lift her feet to her arm yeah it's interesting what does that mean they try to lift up one of her legs uh-huh in like almost a kicking motion and she's basically a rag doll like if if someone does that to you slowly you're able to balance right you might be like uh what are you doing but you're able to balance right she was basically a rag doll because she immediately lost her footing and nearly fell ah jamie was arrested at the scene she had to be reminded three times of why she was being arrested.

24:15And I don't think that this is a situation of Jamie being combative. Like, why are you arresting me? What authority do you have to arrest me? Like, on what grounds? I don't think that's what it was. But more so, she has no idea what's going on. She's like, why am I getting arrested? Yeah. Okay. Which, honestly, I don't know which one is worse. Once they get her to the police station, officers give Jamie another chance to take a breath test. And she refuses again. She simply asks for her boyfriend and her father. The officers had to get a literal warrant from the judge to force her to get her blood tested.

24:50The results came back as three times over the legal limit. At levels like that, it was 0.261 for anyone who's into the BAC levels, or if you know what that number exactly means. But typically, levels like this, a lot of people are barely conscious. much less able to operate a vehicle and or heavy machinery jamie was also booked under suicide watch because after her arrest she mentioned that she wanted to off herself she was charged with one count of reckless vehicular homicide three counts of felony dui with death or great bodily injury have you ever heard the phrase bad things happen to good people i really don't like this phrase, but I think it's most commonly used when you have nothing else to say.

25:39When something just feels so unfair at Samantha's vigil, which was held on the very beach that she got married on, that was the main thought that everybody had in their mind. Why do bad things happen to good people? And some people just said that Samantha had this gravitational pull. You know, there are just some people out there for whatever reason, sometimes the reason itself is unclear, you know, but you just want to be around them. Maybe they have good energy. Maybe when you talk, it seems like they genuinely are listening to you and not just feeling the silence. And it's hard to pinpoint, but you feel like a magnet.

26:16You feel like you just want to hang out with them. And Samantha Miller was that magnet. People said she just had this very bright air around her. You couldn't even look away when she's in the room. She would be the type to go run errands, go grocery shopping, pick out the prettiest, freshest bouquet of flowers in the entire store, go to checkout. And when everything is paid for, she's about to walk out. She would hand the bouquet over to the cashier, a complete stranger and say, for you, have a nice day. That was Samantha Miller. I'm sure like every couple, they fought, they had their down times, but the two met in 2019, moved across the country twice to be with each other.

26:56they adopted a kitten and started making plans to get married and start their own family. They lived near Folly Beach. This was Samantha's favorite beach in the whole wide world and they would walk down to the beach at least once a day. They were at that beach every single day and at Samantha's vigil again people just couldn't stop asking why do bad things happen to good people? That's also what Jamie's dad told her when she was sitting in her prison uniform staring at her hands and she told him, I just don't know why this had to happen to me. Oh my God, I just can't believe this happened to me.

27:33Why me? I'm going to be here for years and years and years. That's what she said? Yeah. And her dad responds, because bad things happen to good people, honey. And again, you know, bad things happen to wonderful people and that's what happened. Now you have to make the best of the situation. Her father reassures her that this was all fate. It's already happened. There's nothing they can do to change it. And now they just need to focus on their best to overcome it. If anything, this will help her become a better person. Listen, if you need someone to pass away in order for you to become a better person, in my humble opinion, you're just not a good person.

28:15Also, how does bad things happen to good people even apply to Jamie in this situation? A bad thing didn't happen to her. she did the bad thing and whether or not she's a good person i mean i guess that part is up for debate right at first jamie is responsive she's listening nodding her head listening to her dad but then she would slip back and remember all the hard bad things that she was dealing with they're just chatting in prison yeah facetime call basically it's like the prison video call system yeah which is available online to see so they were chatting it was recorded yeah and this is everything they said this they had no idea i'm assuming that this would be public information jamie would um have these screaming fits so i i listened to a lot of their phone conversations she would just have these screaming fits i'm not sure how to categorize them and i tried really hard to understand where Jamie is coming from.

29:13Just like trying to have a little bit of nuance on both sides. I'm pretty close to Jamie in age. I also struggle with anxiety and depression, which is what Jamie said she struggled with. And I don't have an alcohol addiction problem. But considering all of that, these screaming fits, I truly can't imagine anyone that I have in my life myself i can't imagine someone my age throwing these screaming fits it's like screaming bloody murder it's not even what is she screaming though she's like like screaming and it's odd because her parents her parents reaction is very very odd they just kind of focus on calming her down the minute she starts screaming they're almost using this soft babyish voice with her It just felt very inappropriate.

30:00But the most intriguing call to me was Jamie complaining to her dad on the phone about how much media coverage this case was receiving. Jamie asks him why the media is so involved in the case. It just like makes me scared that the media is so involved in it. Why are they so involved in it? He states it's most likely because the story sells. And Jamie gets frustrated and she states, but that's not gonna help me but that's not gonna help me like oh my god it's gonna be so bad when i get out everybody's gonna be so mean to me wow what what is that there's no sense of what happened but everything is about how does that impact her self-being okay so i saw some clips on tiktok where Jamie sounds a little bit more remorseful when talking to her parents and she's apologizing to her parents.

30:57I'm not exactly sure for what, whether she's apologizing for what she's done, which I don't think is the case, or if she's apologizing for putting her parents in a situation that's this stressful. But I do see some sympathy for Jamie out there, which I think is very interesting to me. I see a lot of people bringing up alcohol addiction. I know someone who struggles with alcohol addiction and trust me, they're not drunk driving. Alcohol addiction does not equate to drunk driving. It's still a choice that she made and yeah, alcohol does impair judgment but it's still a choice that she made and someone died because of that choice.