An off-duty police officer warned him that he was going the wrong way and offered to guide him.
Matthew Broderick, then 25 years old and already famous for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, refused the help. Minutes later, on August 5, 1987, near Enniskillen, his BMW crossed into the opposite lane and collided head-on with the Volvo driven by Anna Gallagher, 30. She and her mother, Margaret Doherty, 63, died instantly. Broderick, who was traveling with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Grey, later said he remembered nothing from that afternoon.
The original charges could have cost him up to five years in prison. The court ultimately convicted him of a lesser offense, reckless driving, and the sentence was a $175 fine. No one went to jail. Broderick paid $4,075 bail to return to the United States and continued his career as if nothing had happened. Would it have been the same if he had not been famous?
