Convenience store owner sued in fatal boat crash seeks dismissal from Alex Murdaugh case

A South Carolina judge took no action Wednesday on two key, but separate legal issues involving convicted killer Alex Murdaugh.

The first, a pending possible decision to approve $160,000 in additional legal fees requested by Murdaugh’s attorneys, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, a state senator.

That money, which would finance appeals from Murdaugh’s double-murder convictions in March, is now being held with other assets by receivers, who are waiting to distribute it and possibly other money at a later date to people claiming losses from Murdaugh’s various crimes and unlawful actions.

The second, whether to dismiss operator Greg Parker and his convenience stores from a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Renee Beach, mother of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in a 2019 boat crash purportedly driven by an intoxicated Paul Murdaugh.

Paul Murdaugh was later murdered by his father in June 2021, a Colleton County jury found in March.

In a nearly-three hour Wednesday hearing at the Lexington County Courthouse, Judge Daniel Hall told a sparse audience of mostly lawyers and reporters that he will rule on Parker’s dismissal request by May 26, and he’ll rule on the fee issue by May 12.

A trial in the widely-watched Beach wrongful death case has been set for August in Hampton County.

Appeals in the Murdaugh murder case may well take more than a year to play out.

Mallory Beach wrongful death suit

In a dramatic courtroom moment Wednesday, P.K. Shere, a lawyer for Parker, told the judge that Beach was responsible for the consequences arising from the collective decision by her and her four friends to get in a boat at nighttime driven by Paul Murdaugh off the coast of Beaufort.

“They all knew Paul Murdaugh was drunk, and they still got on that boat,” Shere told the judge.

Parke, who owns convenience stores in Georgia and South Carolina, is the main defendant in the Beach wrongful death lawsuit.

A clerk at one of his stores sold an underage Paul Murdaugh more than $45 worth of alcoholic beverages on the night of the 2019 boat crash. At the time, Paul Murdaugh, who was 19, was using a duplicate driver’s license belonging to his older brother, Buster, that Buster allowed him to use.

Shere told the judge that Beach and her friends assumed the risk of getting on Murdaugh’s boat in Beaufort because they knew Paul Murdaugh became wild and reckless when he was drunk, and that the boat had neither lights nor life preservers. He also told Hall the group had an opportunity to take an Uber back home from a dockside bar the night of Feb. 24, 2019.

Shere also played a video stitched together from a Netflix documentary of interviews with some members of the group on the boat — all underage, including Anthony Cook, Mallory Beach’s boyfriend — that showed Paul Murdaugh getting drunk and the others drinking that fatal night.

Paul Murdaugh’s reckless behavior was so well known his friends gave his unruly alter ego the nickname “Timmy,” Shere told the judge.

Shere asserted that the Parker’s store clerk who sold the alcohol to Paul Murdaugh checked the license and it was genuine, so the store should not be held responsible because the clerk did not knowingly sell the items to an underage customer.

For the Beach family, it is vital to keep Parker in the lawsuit because he is the only person with substantial assets who could pay them a large award. Under South Carolina’s joint and several liability law, one defendant can be responsible for all damages.

The other two defendants in the lawsuit — Alex Murdaugh and the estate of Paul Murdaugh — have few, if any, assets.

Shere’s arguments were vigorously opposed by Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley, who said young people under 21 can’t fully appreciate risks, and therefore Beach and others on the boat that night cannot be legally assumed to fully appreciate the risks of getting in a boat operated by drunken Paul Murdaugh.

“They cannot assume the risk because they do not understand the risk,” Tinsley told the judge, quoting a South Carolina Supreme Court opinion.

Besides, shortly before the crash, a concerned Mallory Beach realized the dangers of continuing to ride with Paul Murdaugh at the helm and asked to get off, Tinsley said.

The license Paul Murdaugh presented to Parker’s clerk was a duplicate of a license of Buster’s, who is 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, much taller and heavier than Paul Murdaugh, who at most was 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds. The clerk should have known Paul Murdaugh was not a legitimate holder of the presented license, Tinsley said.

Although the S.C. Law Enforcement Division investigated and did not press charges, Tinsley told the judge that doesn’t mean the sale was legal.

Tinsley also asserted training Parker’s stores offer clerks to recognize and prevent underage people from buying alcohol was woefully deficient.

Tinsley urged the judge not to dismiss Parker from the case, saying it should be up to the jury to weigh questions of whether the clerk acted lawfully and how much Mallory Beach was responsible for her own death that night.

Murdaugh attorney fees

As for the fees, Murdaugh attorney’s Griffin told the judge Wednesday that trying the Murdaugh case had used up all $600,000 that the judge originally approved, and defense attorneys needed an additional $160,000 for the appeal.

Griffin said the trial, which had been expected to last two or three weeks earlier this year, went on for six weeks.

Jordan Crapps, an attorney for the receivers who have control of Murdaugh’s assets, urged the judge not to give Murdaugh’s lawyers any additional money from the pool of the convicted killer’s remaining assets.

Money that went to defend Murdaugh at his trial came out of Murdaugh’s retirement funds, and presumably were not any of the millions of dollars that a state grand jury has accused him of stealing from clients and others over the years.

Murdaugh, 52, was once a successful lawyer who made more than $1 million a year.

Now disbarred and serving two life sentences for killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, he stands accused of stealing more than $8 million over the years. He is said by prosecutors to have spent much of the money on drugs, a high-life style and buying land.

More than $2 million remains unaccounted for.