HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – A third victim of the fatal 2019 boat crash that resulted in the death of a 19-year-old girl has brought a lawsuit against disgraced Hampton County attorney Alex Murdaugh, who owned the boat at the time.
Anthony Cook was among the six passengers on the boat allegedly driven by Alex Murdaugh’s late son, Paul, when it crashed near the Archer’s Creek Bridge on February 24, 2019.
Paul was drunk at the time of the crash, but there is some discrepancy about whether he was actually the one driving the boat when it rammed into a piling, sending Cook and his then-girlfriend, Mallory Beach, into the water.
Cook and other passengers were injured in the crash; Beach was killed and her body was found a week later.
The lawsuit filed by Cook names Alex Murdaugh as a defendant, claiming that “he knowingly and purposefully entrusted [the boat] to his son, Paul Murdaugh, under circumstances that he knew or should have known were unsafe and improper given Paul Murdaugh’s intoxication on the date of the events in question, and also due to Paul Murdaugh’s proclivity for underage drinking, and also due to Paul Murdaugh’s reckless and dangerous boating habits, all of which were known” to Alex Murdaugh.
Also named as defendants in the suit are Parker’s convenience store and related parties. Paul Murdaugh, who was underaged at the time of the crash, used his older brother’s ID to purchase alcohol from Parker’s before going out on the boat.
The suit claims that the cashier, who is also named as a defendant, should’ve known that Paul was using a fake ID.
Further, the suit says that “although Parker’s has policies and procedures relating to safe alcohol sales, they routinely violate their own policies and the applicable state laws regulating alcohol sales, because they are more concerned with the speed of the customer transaction and the financial profits to be realized from alcohol sales rather than safe and responsible alcohol sales.”
Cook is the third party involved in the boat crash to bring a lawsuit against Alex Murdaugh.
The Beach family has a pending wrongful death suit against him, and Connor Cook brought a case accusing Murdaugh of orchestrating a “whisper campaign” to shift blame for the crash from Paul to Connor.
Charges were brought against Paul for the crash, but he was killed before the trial and the charges have subsequently been dropped.