The owner of a restaurant in Connecticut under investigation in connection to the car crash that killed the wife of ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman says her business was closed the day of the fatal wreck.
Carole Peck, owner of the Good News Café in Woodbury, told the Hartford Courant that the restaurant wasn’t open on May 9, when Katherine Ann Berman, 67, and another driver, Edward Bertulis, 87, died in a two-car crash.
“I proved to them through our computer sales and receipts that we weren’t open on the day of the accident and that we are never open on Tuesdays,” Peck told the newspaper. “So [the state] knows it wasn’t our restaurant.”
Peck said she was unsure why her café was under investigation by state alcohol regulators, adding that she had been in contact with investigators in the case starting about two weeks ago when they came to the restaurant asking about Berman. Peck said the woman must have visited another nearby restaurant on Woodbury’s Main Street.
The restaurant was identified Tuesday in a statement by the Department of Consumer Protection, the Courant reports. An investigation was launched after the state’s liquor control commission received a tip regarding the serving of alcohol to Katherine Berman.
“As soon as we learned there may have been a violation at the Good News Cafe, we opened a case,” spokeswoman Lora Rae Anderson told the Courant. “We are working hard to complete our investigation in a timely manner that is sensitive to friends and family that have been affected by this awful tragedy.”
The agency told NBC Connecticut investigators are looking into whether Berman had been at a private event.
“Our Liquor Control Division opened a case into this matter as soon as we received information indicating a liquor establishment may have violated the law,” the agency said in a statement. “We are working to complete our investigation in the most thorough manner possible, and our hearts go out to all those affected by this tragedy.”
An investigation by state police into the crash is ongoing. Berman died from blunt force trauma and drowning after veering off the road and overturning in a small body of water, the state’s chief medical examiner announced last month. Berman’s death was ruled an accident. The office declined to release toxicology results.