Mallory Beach family conspiracy lawsuit up after $15M settlement against Murdaugh, store operator
While a wrongful death lawsuit in the boating death of Mallory Beach has been settled, another lawsuit alleging conspiracy to harm her family is ongoing against Greg Parker and his convenience-gas station business.
Parker’s store in Okatie sold alcohol to underage Paul Murdaugh before he crashed his father’s boat into a Lowcountry bridge piling, killing Beach in March 2019.
The wrongful death lawsuit brought by the Beach family in 2019 was settled Sunday for $15 million.
The conspiracy lawsuit was filed in December 2021 and alleged Parker conspired with New York journalist Vicky Ward, Parker’s attorneys and employees of Private Investigations Services Group to cause emotional distress on the Beach family through a social media campaign.
The lawsuit alleges that Parker conspired with Private Investigation Services Group to create fake social media accounts to harass the Beach family in hopes of discouraging them from continuing the wrongful death suit.
The lawsuit calls the investigation firm “social media ‘knife fighters.’
Ward was dismissed from the lawsuit last year after she told the court she received the confidential materials from an investigative journalist once hired by Parker.
Parker has said he had nothing to do with releasing the confidential materials.
The lawsuit alleged Ward was given a video that Beach attorney Mark Tinsley had given to the defense during mediation that was to remain confidential.
She also obtained photographs of Mallory Beach’s dead body in a mudflat, where her body was found in a Beaufort County river, as well as images of other Beach family members.
Portions of the video were included in what the lawsuit called a trailer promoting Ward’s documentary to be called “The Murdaugh Murders.”
She said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed that the video in question was not a promotional video but intended for internal use only and was inadvertently uploaded to a public website. She also said she did not conspire with Parker and in fact had never met him.
In July, Parker and the investigations firm employees agreed to mediation, according to court records.
Paul Murdaugh pleaded not guilty to three felony boating under the influence charges. He was awaiting trial when he and his mother, Maggie, were shot to death at their Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021.
His father, Alex Murdaugh, was convicted earlier this year of killing Paul and Maggie and is in the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections serving two life sentences.
