DENVER – A South Carolina attorney who testified in the criminal case against convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh says the former attorney and local power broker is no different from serial killer Ted Bundy. 

Mark Tinsley represented the family of Mallory Beach, who died in an alcohol-fueled boat crash at the hands of Murdaugh’s son and eventual victim, Paul Murdaugh, in 2019. He later secured a $15 million settlement for the Beach family from a convenience store chain that was accused of selling booze to the underage Paul in the hours leading up to the crash. 

Part of that civil suit compelled Alex Murdaugh to reveal his desperate financial situation, exposing a vast breadth of financial crimes he committed to help maintain his image as a powerful and wealthy community leader. He later pleaded guilty to those crimes. 

“And so, in your whole life you’ve grown up with these people,” he said. “You see them in the grocery store, and you run into Alec while you’re in the grocery store after the boat crash. I mean, can you imagine turning the aisle? And there’s Alex like, ‘hey good buddy, how you doing?’ ‘I’m praying for you.'” 

Murdaugh’s manipulation turned to indignance when the community’s admiration for him turned to disdain.

Tinsley compared Murdaugh’s attitude to that of serial killer Ted Bundy’s, who was notoriously incensed that people whom he viewed as his inferiors were allowed to judge him. 

Mark Tinsley, an attorney who testified in the Alez Murdaugh trial, speaks with Fox News Digital at CrimeCon in Denver on Sept. 6, 2025. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)

“Tell the jury they were wrong!” Bundy infamously exclaimed upon his third death sentencing in 1980 for the murder of a 12-year-old girl. 

“If you find that video, Ted Bundy, in that moment where he challenges the world, ‘how dare you criticize me, because I’m above all of you.’ That’s Alex.” 

“It’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between Ted Bundy and that person in my mind. I mean, it’s just a monster.”