MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun
By Jonathan Pitts
The Baltimore Sun
An inquiry by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland into a fatal hit-and-run crash involving its second highest-ranking official, Bishop Suffragan Heather Elizabeth Cook, will include a reassessment of the process by which Cook was elected to the post last May, according to a letter the church’s No. 1 bishop posted online Tuesday.
The diocese is praying for the family of Thomas Palermo, the 41-year-old bicyclist killed in the Dec. 27 accident, Archbishop Eugene Taylor Sutton wrote, “and we continue to pray for our sister Heather in this time of her tremendous grief and sorrow.” He added that a “disciplinary process is underway to consider consequences for her actions as well as review the process that resulted in her election.”
Sutton wrote that the church is in such pain that “words barely express the depth of [its] shock and despair” and cited Scripture and theologians in an effort to encourage fellow Episcopalians.
Cook, 58, who became the Maryland archdiocese’s first female bishop last May 2, is in jail in lieu of $2.5 million bail. She faces charges of manslaughter, driving under the influence, leaving an accident scene and texting while driving.
A District Court judge, Nicole Pastore Klein, on Monday rejected a request from Cook’s attorneys to lower her bail to $500,000, saying she couldn’t trust Cook’s judgment.
The allegations against Cook show a “reckless and careless indifference to life,” Klein said.
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