Murdaughs condoned son’s underage drinking, amended Mallory Beach lawsuit says
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2019 Boat Crash Coverage
The crash of a Murdaugh family boat in 2019 killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach and started a chain of events that would remain in the news two years later. Here are the stories from that crash.
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One week after the last two passengers aboard the boat that crashed and killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in 2019 filed suit against suspended Hampton attorney Alex Murdaugh and the Parker’s gas station, Beach’s mother filed an amended wrongful death suit that added the estates of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh as defendants.
The amended complaint, filed Wednesday by Allendale attorney Mark Tinsley, accuses the mother and son of negligence in the crash that killed Beach. It was filed one day before the three year anniversary of the wreck.
It alleges, among other allegations, that a drunk Paul Murdaugh spoke with his mother on the phone roughly two hours before the crash and she “failed to stop” him from driving the boat.
The lawsuit paints Paul’s parents, Alex and Maggie Murdaugh, as willful contributors to their son’s underage drinking.
“Paul Murdaugh’s consumption of alcohol was condoned, encouraged and facilitated by Richard Alexander Murdaugh and Margaret Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh,” the lawsuit said.
Court filings show that attorney Mitch Griffith, who represents Parker’s, and attorney John Tiller, who represents Alex Murdaugh and his remaining son Buster, on Wednesday consented to Tinsley’s move to add the two defendants.
By adding the two estates, the amended complaint also adds as defendants Alex Murdaugh’s brothers John Marvin Murdaugh and Randolph Murdaugh IV in their roles as personal representatives of Paul’s and Maggie’s estates, respectively.
The amended complaint stems from a Feb. 24, 2019, boat crash that killed Beach and implicated Paul Murdaugh as the drunken driver.
Two months after the crash, a Beaufort County grand jury directly indicted Murdaugh on three felony charges: one count of boating under the influence causing death and two counts of boating under the influence causing great bodily injury. He pleaded not guilty.
Those charges were dropped last August shortly after Murdaugh and his mother were found murdered on the family’s sprawling hunting property that splits Colleton and Hampton counties.
Renee Beach, Mallory Beach’s mother, in March 2019 filed the first version of her wrongful death lawsuit against Alex Murdaugh and the Parker’s gas station (where Paul Murdaugh bought alcohol before the crash).
The crash has since resulted in several other lawsuits, including ones filed by the four other passengers: Anthony Cook, Connor Cook, Miley Altman, and Morgan Doughty.
The complaint
Tinsley’s amended complaint includes identical allegations laid out in the two suits he filed last week on behalf of Altman and Doughty.
It alleges that Maggie and Alex Murdaugh had “actual and constructive knowledge” that Paul Murdaugh “would drink to excess and drive vehicles” such as the family’s boats. They say Paul Murdaugh “was incompetent, unfit, and/or reckless based on his almost constant consumption of alcohol.”
Paul Murdaugh operated the boat while under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicating substances, failed to take “evasive action” to avoid the crash and refused to stop the boat at the passengers’ request so they could safely get off, according to the lawsuit.
He used his mother’s credit card to purchase alcohol, including the alcohol he bought from Parker’s gas station the day before the boat crash, the lawsuit said.
Roughly two hours before the crash, Maggie learned that her son was drunk during a phone conversation, the lawsuit said. It accuses her of failing to stop him from operating the boat.
Maggie Murdaugh also “liked” social posts depicting her son drinking alcohol while underage, the lawsuit said.
The events of the boat crash are well known in the South Carolina Lowcountry: Starting from when Paul Murdaugh bought alcohol at Parker’s, to 1 a.m. shots at a Beaufort waterfront bar, to Beach’s tragic death.
The boat crash and the murders of Paul and Maggie thrust the prominent Murdaughs — whose family served as top elected prosecutors for more than eight decades — into the international spotlight and sparked Alex Murdaugh’s dizzying fall from grace.
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Murdaughs condoned son’s underage drinking, amended Mallory Beach lawsuit says."
