BALTIMORE (AP) — The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland says church leaders were concerned that a bishop-elect who’s now accused of hitting a bicyclist while drunk had been intoxicated months earlier at a dinner before her consecration.
Bishop Heather Cook has been charged with killing the cyclist Dec. 27 in Baltimore, nearly four months after that dinner. She left the scene before returning.
An official timeline of Cook’s election and her Sept. 6 consecration reports that Bishop Eugene Sutton told the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop he was concerned that “Cook is inebriated during pre-consecration dinner.”
The timeline says Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori “indicated she would discuss with Cook.” The timeline says another bishop met with Cook, who church officials knew had been involved in a drunk driving incident in 2010.
