COLUMBIA, S.C. — Alex Murdaugh has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a teenager killed in a boating accident involving Murdaugh’s youngest son that prosecutors say provoked the disgraced South Carolina attorney to kill later his wife and their son who destroyed the boat.
An insurer’s agreement to pay for the $500,000 policy Alex Murdaugh had on the boat ended the wrongful death lawsuit that ultimately exposed Murdaugh’s finances and exposed his plans to steal millions from his clients and his law firm.
The family of the Mallory Beach 19-year-old sued the Murdaugh family and others after authorities said the boat Paul Murdaugh was driving crashed into a bridge in Beaufort County in February 2019. Beach was killed and several others were injured.
Paul Murdaugh, who was 19 at the time of the crash, was charged with misdemeanor boating under the influence. Investigators said he had a blood alcohol level of more than 0.28% – more than three times the legal limit.
Beach’s family has already received more than $15 million from a settlement with the Parker’s Kitchen chain of convenience stores and others, as well as lawsuits involving a family that held an oyster roast that the group on the boat attended, a bar that served Paul Murdaugh liquor just before the crash, and Paul Murdaugh’s older brother, Buster, whose ID he used to buy the beer.
A problem with the boat’s insurer, Progressive, prevented the entire case from being settled last summer. Progressive would not pay until Alex Murdaugh was dropped as a defendant in the Beach family’s lawsuit, court records show.
Once special recipients Assured that all of Murdaugh’s assets had been paid out, Beach’s family agreed to end the case and paid the insurer the $500,000, Judge Daniel Hall wrote in an order filed Monday.
Court records show that the other passengers on the boat who were injured have also settled their lawsuits against Murdaugh and others involved in the crash.
Alex Murdaugh, 56, is serving life without parole for the June 2021 shooting deaths of his wife Maggie and son Paul at their Colleton County home. He has denied killing them and is attractive his murder convictions.
But even if his murder convictions are overturned, he will remain in prison. Murdaugh admitted to stealing about $12 million from his family’s law firm and from clients, including a man who was paralyzed after an accident, and from a trust fund intended for children whose parents died in an accident. He was convicted up to 40 years in federal prison.
Prosecutors said one of the last things Murdaugh did before going home the night of the murders was work on a financial statement that he would likely have to present at a court hearing for the Beach trial that would take place three days later .
Murdaugh feared an investigation His testimony allegedly showed he stole millions from clients and his law firm, prosecutors said, and the killings were a sinister, methodical scheme to buy time to get his finances in order and resolve the wrongful death lawsuit over the boat crash. to derail.
The trial, which became known in the true crime world as the “Boat Case,” showed his family’s long-lasting influence over Hampton County where they controlled much of the criminal and civil courts for decades and cracked their control over their rural empire.
Nurses at the hospital where the injured teens were taken said Paul Murdaugh and his father tried to talk to them alone in the emergency room. One teen said it appeared the family was trying to convince them to say someone other than Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat.
Beach’s attorney Mark Tinsley testified at Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial he wanted him to pay $10 million, and Murdaugh’s lawyer said he was broke and might be able to scrape together $1 million.
Tinsley said this was not true given Murdaugh’s reputation and outward signs of wealth and requested records of all of Murdaugh’s finances for the hearing in the lawsuit, which was postponed after the murders.
Alex Murdaugh killed his son Paul with two shotgun shots and his 52-year-old wife Maggie with four or five gunshots outside their home, authorities said.
Alex Murdaugh said he called 911 after finding the bodies following a brief visit to his sick mother.
He told investigators who arrived that he wondered if the anger towards his son about the boat crash that led to the murders.
