CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A Long Island mother was arraigned Friday on charges she drove the wrong way on the Southern State Parkway while on drugs, sparking a multi-car crash that killed her 9-year-old son.
Kerri Bedrick, 32, of Centerport, sat quietly in court in a wheelchair as the judge called this one of the "most tragic cases" he’s ever heard.
During the arraignment at First District Court in Central Islip, prosecutors said Bedrick’s license had been suspended 56 times in the past.
She was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs, aggravated DWI with a passenger less than 16, endangering the welfare of a child, and possession of methamphetamine.
She pleaded not guilty through her attorney and was held on a $2 million bond.
According to prosecutors, Bedrick admitted to taking meth hours before before the crash, as well as drinking and taking pills she'd been prescribed.
She drove her 2022 Mitsubishi SUV westbound in the eastbound lanes of the Southern State Parkway for five miles before getting into a four-car crash around 2:30 a.m. Thursday near the Carleton Avenue exit in Bay Shore, according to state police and prosecutors.
A Suffolk County sheriff deputy had tried to pull her over, but she kept traveling into oncoming traffic before the crash, prosecutors 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 his injuries at South Shore University Hospital, where he'd been taken by ambulance. He was identified as Eli Henrys.
The force of the crash was so intense that the engine of the SUV was "thrown" into the woods adjacent to the roadway, Major Stephen Udice, of the state police, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Bedrick and two other drivers suffered minor injuries, while a fourth driver wasn’t injured.
Her attorney said she's a victim of domestic violence and suffers from various medical conditions, including spina bifida, epilepsy and narcolepsy.
Bedrick’s distraught mother told reporters outside the courthouse that she was a good mother. “She loves him so much,” she said, adding that she believes her daughter’s medical conditions may have played a role.