Patrick Thompson looked at the man he had just killed and ran.
That single fact sits at the center of this story and refuses to move. On the evening of October 26, 2025, Thompson drove his car west on North Jerusalem Avenue in North Bellmore, attempted a left turn into a convenience store parking lot, and struck Daniel Bliss nearly head-on. Bliss, a 63-year-old man riding a 2003 Harley Davidson eastbound, was thrown from his motorcycle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Thompson got out of his car. He looked at Bliss lying in the street. Then he walked away.
Officers found Thompson more than an hour later, nearly half a mile from the crash, hiding in a tree-filled sump. A blood sample drawn approximately three hours after the collision showed his blood alcohol content at .18 percent. The legal limit in New York is .08 percent. Thompson was more than twice the legal limit, hours after the crash, after his body had already been processing alcohol for well over an hour. What his BAC was when he turned that wheel into Daniel Bliss is not difficult to estimate.
On Thursday, April 2, Nassau County Judge sentenced Thompson to six to 18 years in prison following his February guilty plea to aggravated vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an incident without reporting, and aggravated driving while intoxicated per se. Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced the sentence. Her words after the proceeding were precise and unsparing.
“Patrick Thompson tried to duck responsibility after driving while highly intoxicated and crashing into Daniel Bliss’ motorcycle,” Donnelly said. “After the crash, and a passing glance at Daniel as he died in the street, the defendant ran and hid like a coward. Thompson knew what he had done and thought only of himself.”
There is nothing to add to that. It covers the ground.
What deserves attention, though, is what this case represents on Long Island roads, and how often the same story gets told with only the names changed. A man makes a choice to drive drunk. Another man, minding his own business, going his own direction, dies for it. The drunk driver runs. The family of the dead man learns what happened from a police officer at the door.
Daniel Bliss was 63 years old. He was riding his motorcycle on a Sunday evening. He had done nothing wrong.
There is a tendency in cases like this to focus on the sentencing numbers, to debate whether six to 18 years is sufficient, to argue the philosophy of deterrence versus punishment. Those are legitimate conversations. But they risk abstracting what happened on North Jerusalem Avenue into a policy discussion, and Daniel Bliss deserves better than that. A man is dead because another man decided that his desire to drive outweighed every risk his impaired judgment could no longer properly calculate.
Thompson’s blood alcohol reading also points to something worth stating plainly. A .18 percent BAC is not a borderline case. It is not a glass of wine with dinner and a misjudgment. At that level, reaction time, depth perception, and judgment are severely compromised. Thompson did not drift slightly over the line. He drove into oncoming traffic at a level of intoxication that left him hiding in a drainage sump an hour later, apparently still not fully processing what he had done or unwilling to face it.
The six-to-18-year sentence means Thompson could serve as little as six years. He is a Levittown resident, and Long Island will presumably be where he returns when he is released. The roads will still be there. North Jerusalem Avenue will still be there.
Daniel Bliss will not be.
DA Donnelly closed her statement by saying her office’s thoughts remain with Bliss’s family and friends as they continue to grieve. That grief, unlike a prison sentence, has no minimum and no maximum term. It runs open-ended. For the people who knew Daniel Bliss, October 26, 2025 does not end with a sentencing date. It simply does not end.