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A South Carolina judge on Tuesday approved a settlement agreement between members of the Murdaugh family and victims of a deadly 2019 boat crash on the Murdaughs’ boat.
Earlier this month, the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who died aboard the Murdaughs’ boat during the accident, reached a settlement with Buster Murdaugh, 26, the only living son of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, 54, as well as the estate of Alex Murdaugh’s deceased wife, Maggie Murdaugh. Alex Murdaugh is accused of murdering his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, in June 2021.
While the Beach family is “pleased” with Judge Daniel Hall’s ruling, they do not feel it was the “best decision given the circumstances,” Beach family attorney Mark Brandon Tinsley told Fox News Digital in a statement. It was, however, “the only decision for all who had any real interest,” he said.
“We also believe the ruling will help give some closure to the people who so desperately deserve it,” Tinsley added.
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The two remaining defendants in the case were Alex Murdaugh and Parker’s Kitchen, a convenience store where Paul Murdaugh, who was then underage, is believed to have purchased alcohol for the boating excursion. Hall finalized the settlement on Tuesday.
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Mallory Beach died during an allegedly booze-fueled boating trip along the South Carolina coast in the Murdaugh family’s boat, which Paul Murdaugh was driving at the time, before it crashed into a bridge near Parris Island, sending several passengers flying overboard.
Beach never made it out of the water that night, and her body was found eight days later, about five miles from the crash site.
Paul Murdaugh allegedly used a credit card belonging to his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, and ID belonging to elder brother Buster Murdaugh, to illegally purchase alcohol while underage from a convenience store owned by Parker’s Corporation earlier that day.
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The boat Paul Murdaugh was driving that evening belonged partially to Maggie and partially to Alex Murdaugh, Tinsley previously explained.
Renee Beach, Mallory’s mother and personal representative of her daughter’s estate, along with co-receivers Alex Murdaugh and John Murdaugh, will receive a $275,000 settlement from the sale of the Murdaugh family’s nearly $4 million Moselle property across Hampton and Colleton Counties. Buster Murdaugh will receive $530,000 from his mother’s estate once the property is sold, and attorneys fees will also be settled.
“The Co-Receivers have determined that the Settlement Agreement is reasonable and in the best interested of the Receivership as a whole,” the settlement agreement states.
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Alex Murdaugh, a former defense attorney and assistant prosecutor from a prominent family that wielded power in the state’s Low Country for a century, has been accused of confronting other injured teen passengers of the fatal 2019 boat crash at the hospital, telling them not to speak to law enforcement.
The former attorney faces a total of 99 financial criminal charges stemming from 19 indictments.
He has pleaded not guilty to the killing of his wife and younger son, and the jury selection in his trial began on Monday.
Fox News’ Rebecca Rosenburg contributed to this report.