Motorist Pleads Not Guilty in Crash That Killed Moorestown Woman

A Pemberton Township woman who fatally struck a Moorestown woman in a car crash last year has pleaded not guilty to charges of vehicular homicide.

According to the Burlington County Times, Shannon Sidorek, 30, was arraigned in Superior Court Monday, where she entered the not guilty plea.

Authorities allege Sidorek was high on morphine and Oxycontin when she veered across the center line of the Pemberton Bypass and struck 81-year-old Elizabeth Smith's vehicle head-on on Feb. 28.

Smith, of Moorestown, died at the scene of the crash. Sidorek was pulled from her 1997 Acura and flown to a Trenton hospital, where blood samples were drawn and submitted for forensic testing, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office. The tests came back positive for narcotics.

Sidorek has been charged with vehicular homicide and possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

She was sent to the Burlington County Minimum Security Facility in Pemberton in lieu of $100,000 bail, which was reduced to $85,000 in August, the Times reported. Sidorek has been free on bail since December, according to her attorney, Burlington County Deputy Public Defender Kevin Walker.

Smith was a founding member of Save The Environment of Moorestown (STEM) and was a member of the First Presbyterian Church.