Former Bishop Heather Cook Denied Early Parole For Drunk Driving Death
By Jen Krausz
Heather Cook, a former Episcopal bishop in prison for the 2014 drunken driving death of a bicyclist, was denied parole Tuesday morning in Maryland.
Parole commissioners said they denied Cook parole because she “took no responsibility” and “showed no remorse” at the 90-minute hearing, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Cook was driving drunk and texting when she drove into a bike lane and struck Tom Palermo, 41. Palermo was a senior software engineer at Johns Hopkins Hospital and also built bike frames in the cycling community. He was survived by a wife and two young children.
With a blood alcohol level of .22 30 minutes after the accident occurred, Cook was well above the legal limit.
She was eligible for parole in July after serving 25 percent of her sentence because Maryland doesn’t classify vehicular manslaughter as a violent crime.
The incident was Cook’s second alcohol-related offense; she was given a year of supervised release after a DUI arrest in 2010. Because of this and the fact that she left the scene and didn’t call 911, her parole request was denied outright.
Cook will not be eligible for parole again during the remainder of her sentence, but could get time off credits to be released in 2019, NBC4 reported.
Twitter did not have much sympathy for Cook.