Bucks woman caused fatal car crash while high on fentanyl, Montco DA says

A Doylestown woman was driving high on fentanyl last summer, prosecutors said, when she veered into oncoming traffic in Cheltenham Township, striking another vehicle nearly head-on and killing its driver.

Kaitlyn Dilemmo, 32, was charged Friday with homicide by vehicle, reckless driving, DUI and related offenses in the June 2022 crash that caused the death of Jacqueline Kovach, 77, court records show.

Dilemmo was released on $100,000 unsecured bail. She did not respond to a request for comment, and there was no indication she had hired an attorney.

Kate Delano, a spokesperson for Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, said the large length of time between the crash and the charges being filed was due, in part, to the detailed process of reconstructing the crash scene. Medical reports were also slow to be submitted, with some only arriving last week, she said.

Officers who responded to the crash, at the intersection of Cheltenham Avenue and North Fifth Street at the border of Philadelphia and Cheltenham, found Dilemmo lying in the roadway near a heavily damaged Toyota RAV 4, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed in her arrest.

She was transported to Jefferson Abington Hospital for treatment, given the extent of her injuries, the affidavit said. Meanwhile, officers found Kovach trapped inside her vehicle, a Subaru Outback, and had to cut into the vehicle to free her.

Kovach was taken to Einstein Medical Center in critical condition, the affidavit said. She remained there for 10 weeks, later dying from a seizure, according to her husband, Brian Kovach. The injuries from the crash, he said, left her bedridden and debilitated, unable to eat on her own and requiring frequent visits to a physical rehabilitation facility.

When his wife died on Aug. 18, Kovach was by her side, holding her hand, he said Friday.

“She was an innocent person killed by a speeding bullet,” Kovach said. “She never did harm to anybody, and always helped everybody.”

The two, both natives of Western Pennsylvania, met as students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Kovach was smitten immediately, he said, and asked her to marry him on their first date. The following 55 years of marriage were filled with countless happy memories, including the births of the couple’s two children.

The couple were both musicians, Brian Kovach a trained pianist, and his wife a talented oboe player. Brian Kovach taught music for many years at the Community College of Philadelphia, while his wife took many freelance gigs, including time with the Old York Road Symphony, with which she recorded an album of American band music.

Four days before the crash, Jacqueline Kovach had returned to the Philadelphia area after a trip to visit her son, Gabriel, a French horn player in the Phoenix Symphony, who was recovering from a serious infection, her husband said. She was on her way to an eye doctor’s appointment when the crash occurred.

Witnesses told investigators that Dilemmo was speeding down Cheltenham Avenue when she encountered stopped traffic at a red light, the affidavit said. She veered to the right, driving up and over a concrete barrier in the road and into oncoming traffic.

There, she collided with Kovach’s Subaru at a high rate of speed, sending both cars spinning, the affidavit said.

At the hospital, Dilemmo’s urine tested positive for fentanyl, and she had seven full and four empty bags of the powerful narcotic among her personal possessions, police said. She was also combative with hospital staff and tried to leave the hospital multiple times, which doctors treating her told investigators was a common sign of fentanyl intoxication.

Dilemmo’s mother later spoke with police and told them she had been “in and out of rehab,” but believed her daughter had been clean for several weeks.

Court records indicate Dilemmo has had several convictions for drug charges and retail theft in both Bucks and Montgomery Counties.