The family of a 19-year-old woman who died aboard a boat owned by the prominent Murdaugh family in South Carolina in 2019 has reached a $15 million settlement agreement with the owner of a convenience store, according to the family’s attorneys.
Mallory Beach was 19 when she died during an allegedly booze-fueled boating trip on the South Carolina coast in the Murdaugh family’s boat on Feb. 23, 2019.
Paul Murdaugh, son of disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh, was driving the boat before it crashed into a bridge near Parris Island, tossing several passengers overboard.
Beach’s body was found nearly five miles from the crash site eight days later.
Paul allegedly used a credit card belonging to his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, and an ID belonging to his older brother, Buster Murdaugh, to purchase alcohol illegally while underage from a convenience store owned by Parker’s Corporation earlier that day.
Beach family attorney Tabor Vaux confirmed to Fox News Digital that Parker’s settled with the family for $15 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Vaux also said additional occupants on the boat settled their claims against Parker’s, including Conor Cook, Anthony Cook, Miley Altman and Morgan Dowdy.
“It wasn’t about the money, but that’s a number that represents a level of accountability that they hope would make people who sell alcohol take their responsibility seriously and keep it out of the hands of minors,” attorney Mark Tinsley, who also represents the Beach family, said. “The Beach family didn’t want this settlement confidential because they want other ‘Greg Parker’s’ to know, that if you sell alcohol illegally, you will be held accountable.”
The wrongful death lawsuit trial originally scheduled for Aug. 14, has been canceled.
In January, the Beach family reached a settlement with Buster Murdaugh and the estate of Alex Murdaugh’s deceased wife, Maggie Murdaugh. In a sensational trial, Alex Murdaugh was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, in June 2021.
“The Beach family’s fight is not over,” Vaux told Fox News Digital. “The [civil] conspiracy case is alive and active and we look forward to exposing the corruption and the depths to which Parker’s was willing to harass and intimidate the Beaches, trying to diminish their resolve to hold those accountable who contributed to the preventable death of their daughter.”
