WALTERBORO, S.C. – After Paul Murdaugh drunkenly crashed his boat into a bridge, killing 19-year-old passenger Mallory Beach in 2019, the Murdaugh family was given special treatment at the crime scene, a lawyer testified Monday. 

The victim's distraught mother, Renee Beach, wanted to go down to the Archer Creek Bridge in Beaufort, South Carolina, where the boat crash had occurred, but the scene was cordoned off, the family's attorney Mark Tinsley said.

"[Renee Beach] is told she can’t go down there and just a few minutes later Alex’s father and his wife pulled up in a car and are waved under the tape, and they go down to the bridge, and she was very upset by that," said Tinsley, who represents the Beach family in their wrongful death lawsuit against the Murdaughs.

Alex's father, Randolph Murdaugh III, was the top prosecutor overseeing South Carolina's Lowcountry until 2005 – including Beaufort County where the accident occurred. The family wielded enormous influence in the region.

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After witnessing the favoritism shown to the powerful Murdaugh family, Renee Beach called Tinsley – setting in motion an unthinkable spiral of destruction. 

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Tinsley testified Monday in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, outside the presence of the jury as part of a hearing to determine whether evidence of Alex's alleged financial crimes will be admitted at his murder trial. 

He's accused of gunning down his son Paul Murdaugh, 22, with a shotgun and his wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52, with a rifle June 7, 2021, in a desperate bid to fend off a financial reckoning.

The boat wreck was the beginning of the unraveling of the Murdaugh dynasty. 

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Paul had taken out five friends in his father's boat Feb. 23, 2019, and they were all drinking heavily. Paul had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit when he smashed into the piling of the bridge.

After the collision, it took more than a week to recover Mallory Beach's body about five miles from the crash site.

"The beach family stood on a causeway for eight days while their daughter’s body was in the water," Tinsley testified. "I don’t think there’s any amount of money someone would be willing to take to go through what they’ve gone through."

Tinsely also said Alex approached him at a bar while he was representing the Beach family and tried to bully him "into backing off" the case.

The attorney faced pressure from the community not to pursue the Murdaughs.

"There’s a lot of grumbling and shock that I’m actually going to hold Alex personally responsible," Tinsley said of his experience at the time.

Tinsley had been told that Alex was "broke" at the time Beach's family had been attempting to reach a settlement over their daughter's tragic death.

But the attorney was aware that Alex was actively making money as a partner at the personal injury firm founded by his great-grandfather and came from "generational wealth."

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The Beach family attorney filed a motion to force Alex to disclose his books and prove his dire financial straits. Three days before the murders, a hearing was scheduled to determine whether Alex would be compelled to share the sensitive information.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters has argued that if Alex hd open his accounts to Tinsley, his decade-long financial schemes would have been exposed.

After Tinsley's testimony, Judge Clifton Newman ruled that evidence of Alex's alleged financial crimes and details of the boat crash litigation could be admitted to prove motive.

Alex was later charged in 18 indictments with stealing nearly $9 million from his law firm and his client's settlements.

Three years after the lawsuit was filed, on Jan. 24, a South Carolina judge approved a settlement agreement between the Beach family and Buster Murdaugh and the estate of Maggie Murdaugh.