Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Reuters
A GoFundMe campaign started on behalf of a prosecution witness in the Alex Murdaugh family murder case sparked a dispute in the middle of the disgraced South Carolina lawyer’s trial on Thursday.
The fundraiser was meant to reward Mushell “Shelley” Smith—who was the caretaker over Murdaugh’s mother—“for her bravery” in taking the stand earlier this week to testify about seeing the defendant after he allegedly murdered his wife and son in 2021.
The “very first donation” to the GoFundMe came from Mark Tinsley, another prosecution witness, the defense revealed in court. Tinsley is a lawyer who represented the family of Mallory Beach, a teen killed in a 2019 boat crash that set in motion the bizarre chain of events that prosecutors say led to Murdaugh’s downfall.