At approximately 2:17 a.m. on February 24, 2019, Paul Terry Murdaugh[1] crashed his family boat into the Archers Creek Bridge in Beaufort, South Carolina.
[3] Paul Murdaugh purchased alcohol in the hours before the accident at a convenience store in Ridgeland, South Carolina using his brother's ID.
[4] At 1 a.m., during the return trip, they stopped at a dockside bar in Beaufort where Murdaugh and another passenger, Connor Cook, drank shots.
[2] At the time, his father Alex Murdaugh theorized that Paul and Maggie had been killed in retaliation for the boat accident.
[4] In July 2023, the Beach family reached a $15 million settlement with Parker’s Corporation, owners of the convenience store which had sold alcohol to Paul Murdaugh.
[11] The Beachs were represented by Mark Tinsley, who filed a motion to compel Alex Murdaugh to disclose his finances after the latter claimed that he was broke.
Tinsley said "The fuse was lit", as the disclosure would reveal Alex Murdaugh's corporate fraud had run for years.