Crime

'Victims Are Getting Lost in All This': Mallory Beach Family Attorney on Murdaugh Murder Mysteries

"There are a number of victims who are entitled to justice," Mark Tinsley, an attorney for Mallory Beach's family, tells PEOPLE

Published on September 30, 2021 02:32 PM

The bizarre twists of the alleged botched suicide plot of South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh have commanded rapt media attention for weeks.

But a lawyer for Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who authorities have alleged died as the result of Alex's son Paul's drunken boating in 2019, believes the many victims associated with tragedy surrounding the powerful Murdaugh family have been overlooked.

"The sad part is that the victims are getting lost in all of this," says Mark Tinsley.

Mallory, a college student and animal lover, was one of the passengers on the boat that crashed into a bridge piling in Beaufort County, S.C., on Feb. 24, 2019. Mallory fell from the boat. Her body was found a week later.

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Her family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alex, the boat owner, and Buster, Alex's older son, for allegedly providing his driver's license to his underage brother, Paul, so he could buy alcohol.

Tinsley says Mallory's death devastated many in the Lowcountry community, where the Murdaugh's are a powerful legal dynasty. At the visitation, Mallory's family "stood in line for over four hours receiving friends in a line before the funeral," he says.

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He adds: "What I have learned about her is that she was unquestionably a people person, and people loved her. Just a very bright, vibrant person. She had a strong belief in her faith, and she was active in the church, and she loved adopted animals."

Two years later, tragedy struck again.

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On June 7 of this year, Alex's wife, Maggie, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, by then 22, were fatally shot on their 1,770-acre hunting lodge in Islandton. Alex found the bodies and called 911 for help. Their deaths have yet to be solved.

The family tragedy took a bizarre turn in early September when news broke that Alex had also been shot. Lawyers for Alex initially said he was shot in the head while changing a tire on the side of a rural Hampton County, S.C. road. He survived the attack but suffered, according to his attorneys, "an entry and exit wound, a skull fracture, and minor brain bleeding in two places."

murdaugh family — Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh.

Alex soon resigned from his family's law firm, Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth & Detrick (PMPED) and announced he was entering rehab.

But more details about the shooting were soon released when police said Alex directed his former client, 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith to shoot him so his surviving son Buster would receive $10 million in life insurance. Alex's lawyer blamed Alex's scheme on his 20-year opiate addiction and his depression after the murders of Maggie and Paul.

Amid all this, police said that based on information gathered in the Murdaugh murder investigation, they were looking into the 2015 death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, who was found dead in the middle of a rural road in Hampton County, three miles from where his car had run out of gas.

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Law enforcement also announced they were reopening the investigation into the 2018 death of Murdaugh family housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a "trip and fall" accident at the family's home in Hampton. Satterfield's sons are also suing Alex Murdaugh and others, alleging they never received any of a $505,000 insurance payout in connection with their mother's death.

For Tinsley all the Murdaugh drama that has come out since Mallory's death is "a three-ring circus" — but he says the focus should remain on tragedies.

"There are a number of victims," he says, "who are entitled to justice."