RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (1010 WINS) – The Long Island mother accused of killing her 9-year-old son in a wrong-way crash last month pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday as her attorney said she’d been prescribed the methamphetamine in her system.
Kerri Bedrick, 32, of Centerport, pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging her with second-degree murder, manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated driving while intoxicated with a child--among more than 20 counts she faces connected to the Aug. 22 crash in Bay Shore that killed her son, Eli Henrys.
Bedrick was audibly crying as she sat in a wheelchair in the courtroom. She was remanded to jail without bail.
Her defense attorney Scott Zerner said she has many medical conditions, including spina bifida, epilepsy and narcolepsy. He said she was on a prescription at the time of the crash but not alcohol.
“0.00% alcohol in her system,” Zerner said. “She was prescribed methamphetamine.”
While methamphetamine is often associated as a street drug, it can be prescribed by a doctor.
Suffolk County prosecutors said a prescription bottle with the name peeled off was found in Bedrick’s 2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse SUV after the crash and that she allegedly admitted to taking pills hours earlier that night.
She also had 56 license suspensions, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, Bedrick drove the wrong way for several miles on the Southern State Parkway, at times reaching speeds of 100 mph, before getting into a four-car crash around 2:30 a.m. near the Carleton Avenue exit in Bay Shore.
A Suffolk County sheriff deputy had tried to pull her over, but she kept traveling into oncoming traffic before the crash, prosecutors have said.
When police officers arrived, she was standing outside the SUV and her son was buckled in the backseat, according to state police. Troopers and sheriff’s deputies performed CPR on him, but he ultimately died of a blunt force injury.
Bedrick and two other drivers suffered minor injuries, while a fourth driver wasn’t injured.
“It's a nightmare,” Bedrick’s distraught mother, Diane Bedrick, said Wednesday. “She was only on prescription medications.”
She remembered Eli as “just innocent and sweet.”
“She’s devastated, just like the rest of us are,” Diane Bedrick said.