Murdaugh Murders: Alex Murdaugh's son reaches settlement with victim Mallory Beach's family
WALTERBORO, SOUTH CAROLINA: A South Carolina judge authorized a settlement agreement on Tuesday, January 24, between members of the Murdaugh family and victims of the Murdaughs' boat disaster in 2019. The family of Mallory Beach, 19, who died onboard the Murdaughs' boat during the tragedy, agreed on a settlement earlier this month with Buster Murdaugh, the only surviving son of infamous South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, 54, and the estate of Alex Murdaugh's dead wife, 52, Maggie Murdaugh.
Mallory Beach died during an allegedly drunken boating trip down the South Carolina coast in the Murdaugh family's boat, which Alex's other son Paul Murdaugh was driving at the time before it slammed into a bridge at Parris Island, throwing several travelers overboard. Alex is accused of killing his wife and son Paul, 22, in June 2021.
READ MORE
Alex and Parker's Kitchen, a convenience shop where then-underage Paul was thought to have acquired alcohol for the boating excursion, were the two defendants left in the case. Paul purchased alcohol from a Parker's Corporation convenience shop earlier that day using his mother Maggie Murdaugh's credit card and his older brother Buster Murdaugh's identification.
Beach's body was recovered eight days later some five miles away from the crash scene. According to Beach family attorney Mark Brandon Tinsley, the boat Paul was operating that evening belonged to both Maggie and Alex.
While the Beach family is "pleased" with Judge Daniel Hall's decision, they do not believe it was the "best decision given the circumstances," Tinsley said in a statement to Fox News Digital. However, it was "the only decision for all who had any real interest," he remarked. "We also believe the ruling will help give some closure to the people who so desperately deserve it," Tinsley added.
Renee Beach, Mallory's mother and personal representative of her daughter's estate, will receive a $275,000 settlement from the sale of the Murdaugh family's approximately $4 million Moselle estate throughout Hampton and Colleton Counties, along with co-receivers Alex Murdaugh and John Murdaugh. When the property is sold, Buster Murdaugh will receive $530,000 from his mother's estate, plus attorneys' expenses. "The Co-Receivers have determined that the Settlement Agreement is reasonable and in the best interested of the Receivership as a whole," the settlement agreement states.
Alex, a former defense lawyer and assistant prosecutor from a well-known family that ruled the state's Law Country for a century, is accused of confronting other injured teen victims of the fatal 2019 boat accident and ordering them not to speak to law enforcement while they were being treated at the hospital. A total of 19 indictments and 99 financial criminal charges against the former attorney are brought against him.