In an intriguing turn, a South Carolina judge has held crime reporter and podcaster Mandy Matney in civil contempt, demanding she pay $171,500 in legal fees and costs, along with a $5,000 fine. The court ruled she intentionally disregarded a subpoena connected to the Murdaugh family legal proceedings.

Judge R. Keith Kelly issued a comprehensive 22-page order on Monday, which determined that Matney had willfully ignored both a valid subpoena and a prior court directive to attend a deposition. Her defense, citing safety concerns, was dismissed by the court.

The civil contempt ruling is part of ongoing legal battles stemming from the tragic 2019 boat accident that claimed Mallory Beach’s life. Parker’s convenience stores are among those accused of unlawfully selling alcohol to a minor, Paul Murdaugh, who was involved in the fatal incident. Matney was summoned as a witness in this case despite not being directly involved as a defendant.

Beach, 19, was killed in the February 2019 crash in Beaufort County. Paul Murdaugh was later charged with boating under the influence, but those charges were dismissed after he and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, were fatally shot at the family’s Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021.

The Beach family’s civil lawsuit against members of the Murdaugh family and Parker’s alleges the convenience store chain illegally sold alcohol to the underage Paul Murdaugh before the crash. The litigation ultimately helped expose Alex Murdaugh’s finances as investigators uncovered the disgraced attorney’s financial crimes.

Kelly wrote that Matney refused to appear at the Bluffton deposition site on March 27 despite acknowledging she understood the court had denied her efforts to quash the subpoena and ordered the deposition to proceed. Instead, she remained at another law office in Bluffton while Parker’s attorneys waited at the noticed location.

The order notes Matney instead appeared by Zoom from another law office in Bluffton.

“Based upon the foregoing, there is clear and convincing evidence that Ms. Matney’s failure to appear was not the result of confusion, mistake, or inability, but rather was a deliberate decision to disregard the subpoena and the Court’s March 16, 2026 Order requiring that she be deposed within 14 days,” Kelly wrote.

Kelly also found Matney’s explanation that she feared for her safety was not credible, writing there was “no persuasive evidence” supporting her allegations that Parker’s attorneys were trying to harass her or place her in danger.

Kelly pointed to Matney’s social media posts after the aborted deposition, including photos showing her eating lemon pound cake with attorney Mark Tinsley and later dining in Savannah. The judge wrote the posts “evidence her intent to defy her obligation to appear at the noticed deposition location.”

Parker’s attorneys originally sought more than $310,000 in fees and costs, but Kelly reduced the award by nearly 45%, ordering Matney to pay $171,500, plus a $5,000 fine.

The court awarded $39,900 to Bannister, Wyatt and Stalvey, LLC; $45,950 to Deborah B. Barbier, LLC; and $85,650 to Maynard Nexsen, PC.

Matney criticized the ruling Monday in a Facebook post.

“I’m not angry that Judge R Keith Kelly found me in contempt of court. I’m angry that he’s ordering me to pay an unprecedented amount of legal fees ($171,000 + $5,000 in fines),” she wrote.

“The South Carolina Justice system is exactly what I’ve been saying all along — CORRUPT,” she added. “And this is my punishment for calling it like it is.”

Kelly wrote there was “no persuasive evidence” supporting Matney’s repeated allegations that Parker’s attorneys were using the deposition process to harass or bully her.

He also concluded the contempt proceedings resulted from Matney’s own conduct, writing that had she appeared for her deposition or accepted one of several alternate locations offered, “she would not be before the Court on a contempt motion.”

Not every partner in crime gets to choose their role in a heist.

A man in Maryland is accused of stealing a three-month-old kitten from a pet store, carrying her into a nearby bank, and asking a bank employee to hold her. Moments later, he allegedly handed a note to a teller demanding money, according to police and a local cat rescue organization.

The kitten, named Magnolia, was discovered unharmed after police from Prince George’s County apprehended the suspect.

Following the incident, Beltsville Community Cats humorously remarked on Facebook that Magnolia’s “life of crime” had officially ended.

Despite her unexpected encounter with an attempted bank robbery, the young kitten, affectionately called a “true purr machine” by Beltsville Community Cats, remains in search of her forever home.

Security camera video obtained by NBC Washington shows a man wearing a light-colored T-shirt and black beanie entering Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue before running out seconds later carrying the black-and-white tuxedo kitten.

Witnesses told the outlet the man ran directly to the nearby PNC Bank in the same shopping center.

Stephanie Stullich, with Beltsville Community Cats rescue, said she received a frantic phone call around 10:30 a.m. from pet store employees reporting Magnolia had been taken from the adoption area.

“I immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’” Stullich told NBC Washington. “But then I realized they all were going down to the bank.”

According to Stullich, police officers later told her the suspect walked into the bank holding Magnolia before asking an employee, “Can you hold this?” He then allegedly handed a teller a note demanding cash.

Prince George’s County police confirmed they took a man into custody at the bank.

Pet Supplies Plus manager Aaron Kurkowski told NBC Washington the suspect had visited the store nearly every day for the past couple of weeks and routinely headed straight for Magnolia.

“He just went right to her and ran right on out,” Kurkowski said.

The rescue later posted on Facebook that Magnolia was recovered safely after the rescue said she bonded with the bank manager during the ordeal.

“The robbery was unsuccessful, the suspect was arrested, and Magnolia was found safe and sound,” the organization wrote.

The rescue said Magnolia remains available for adoption and describes the 3-month-old tuxedo kitten as affectionate and playful, adding that she loves cuddles, adventures and following her people around.

Because she’s so social and energetic, the group recommends she be adopted into a home with another young, playful cat or alongside one of its other cats.

“She’s looking for a law-abiding citizen with a lot of love in their heart,” Stullich told NBC Washington.

The family of an 18-year-old woman, tragically murdered after a New Year’s Eve celebration, revealed that the man responsible took the truth about her missing body to his grave. This revelation comes after his execution in Florida.

On Tuesday, 74-year-old Dennis Sochor was executed for the murder of Patricia Gifford, which occurred on January 1, 1982, just hours after their initial meeting. The execution, which involved a three-drug lethal injection, was carried out at Florida State Prison, with Sochor declared dead at 6:16 p.m.

Patricia’s sister, Marilyn Gifford, who witnessed the execution, expressed that while it provided the family with some closure, the absence of Patricia’s remains left it bittersweet.

Reading from a prepared statement, Gifford remarked, “For 45 years, he could have returned Patty’s remains to us, but instead, he cruelly chose to withhold them.”

“We were never able to lay her to rest in God’s arms,” she continued. “Without the closure we needed, every fond memory of Patty is swiftly overshadowed by the tragedy of her untimely death.”

Gifford also pointed out that Sochor spent more than twice as many years on death row as her sister was alive. 

‘Tonight´s execution was appropriate because Dennis Sochor was a lifelong brutal and sadistic man,’ she said.

The mystery surrounding Patricia’s body has remained unresolved for 44 years, with her sister telling the South Florida Sun Sentinel before his execution: ‘Even with the death penalty, he lived twice as long on death row as Patty ever lived at all.’

The killer’s own brother testified that Sochor, who was 29 at the time, raped and killed Patricia before hiding her body.

‘He has, multiple times, told law enforcement, and also told me, that he was too drunk to remember where the body is,’ Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty advocate who has met with Sochor as a spiritual adviser, told the outlet. 

‘He has been unable to remember,’ he added. ‘He wants people to know that if he could help locate the body, he, of course, would.’

Sochor’s brother Gary also testified under oath that he believed Sochor was ‘demon-possessed’ when he attacked and raped Patricia and said he didn’t know where her body was.

In an interview with the Sun Sentinel earlier this month, Patricia’s sister questioned the sincerity of Sochor’s claims that he wanted to help police find her body.

‘I don’t believe him for a second,’ Marilyn told the outlet.

She said his supposed willingness to help was strikingly similar to his brother’s own efforts after Sochor was arrested and charged with murder in 1986. 

‘He knows damn well where she is,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe him for a second. He’s a liar. He’s a murderer. He’s a brutal killer whose word cannot be trusted.’

Marilyn said Sochor’s death meant the secret her sister’s remains would die with him, leaving her family without the answers they had spent decades waiting for. 

With an IV in his arm and strapped to a gurney, Sochor watched as the curtain to the death chamber opened. Asked by the warden if he had any last words, he answered that he did. 

In his final statement, he repeatedly apologized to the Gifford family, saying he was ‘deeply sorry’ and expressed gratitude to his own loved ones for standing by him. 

He then commended his spirit to Jesus Christ shortly before the lethal drugs began flowing at 6.03pm. Sochor breathed heavily for roughly a minute and briefly sputtered before becoming still. 

After about two minutes without movement, the warden looked into his eyes, shook his shoulders and called his name. A medic was then summoned, and Sochor was officially pronounced dead. 

Patricia was celebrating the New Year with a friend at the Banana Boat lounge in Fort Lauderdale when she met Sochor and his brother. 

She was later supposed to meet her boyfriend, chef Johnny Vasel, who was working a nearby hotel party, according to the Sun Sentinel.

The group spent hours talking before Patricia’s friend became ill and went to sleep in her car. Investigators said she then left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast, but he instead drove to a secluded area and attacked her.

According to authorities, his brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor later confessed on tape to choking her and disposing of her body. 

In 1986, Sochor was arrested in Georgia on unrelated charges and later extradited to Florida. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, sending him to death row.

His last legal challenge ended Tuesday when the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal without comment. 

Florida executed another 74-year-old inmate just last month, only a week younger than Sochor. Now, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old later this month, a first for Florida. 

The back-to-back executions highlight the growing age of death row inmates and Florida’s unusually active death chamber. The state has carried out 10 of the 16 executions nationwide this year – more than every other state combined. 

It remains unclear why the Sunshine State scheduled the three executions within the span of a month. 

Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Florida’s governor has broad authority to set execution dates, while courts typically handle that role in many other states. 

On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer for the killing of his wife, Karen. Until Tuesday’s execution, Spencer was the oldest inmate put to death in the state. 

Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed on July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant late last month.

Occhicone was sentenced to death in 1987 for fatally shooting Raymond and Martha Artzner at their home, just months after their daughter called off the engagement. 

His legal team filed a motion in Pasco County last week in an attempt to stop his execution, arguing that his advanced age and poor health should spare him, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 

They argued that, over the past 39 years, Occhicone has rarely slept more than three hours at a time each night and now suffers from poor vision and hearing loss, requiring the use of a hearing aid. 

According to court documents, he has declining renal function, kidney disease and cysts on one of his kidneys. His attorneys also claimed that their client has a blocked artery and suffers from irregular heart rhythms. 

His defense argued that carrying out executions places a significant mental burden on prison staff, urging the judge to impose a six-month moratorium on all state executions. 

If executed as scheduled, Occhicone would become the second-oldest person executed in modern US history, behind Walter Moody Jr, who was put to death in Alabama in 2018 at age 83 for killing a federal judge and a black civil rights attorney in mail bomb attacks. 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A tragic incident unfolded off the coast of San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon, when a pontoon boat carrying mostly family members as part of a memorial service sank. This accident resulted in one fatality, three missing persons, and the successful rescue of 16 individuals.

When crews reached the area near Alcatraz Island, they encountered a troubling sight: a three-deck pontoon vessel almost completely submerged. The boat’s motor was still running and leaking fuel, according to San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen.

By Tuesday evening, a vigorous search was underway for the missing, extending into the open ocean west of the Golden Gate Bridge. The operation, involving divers, helicopters, and various vessels, was slated to continue through the night, officials mentioned.

Initially, authorities reported two individuals missing, but after receiving additional witness information, this number was updated to three.

“We are currently in full rescue mode,” Crispen stated, noting that three individuals who sustained injuries from falling overboard had been hospitalized but were anticipated to be discharged by Tuesday night.

Alcatraz Island, once a federal prison infamously inescapable due to the strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters that surround it, is now a tourist destination. It is located in San Francisco Bay about a mile (about 1.6 kilometers) north of the city’s shoreline, in an often windy area that attracts sailboats and other recreational vessels.

Videos of the scene showed boats deployed to rescue people who had been on the vessel, which was largely submerged with objects floating nearby.

The boating mishap was initially reported as a fire, “but we now don’t have any evidence of that,” Crispen said.

The person who died was alive when plucked from the frigid waters by rescue crews but later died. A dog onboard also died.

All those rescued were taken to Gashouse Cove Marina, a small craft harbor in San Francisco.

Aaron Anfinson, captain of the Bass-Tub, told the San Francisco Chronicle his boat was carrying guests toward the Golden Gate Bridge in “pretty windy, a little choppy” waters when a man on a smaller vessel flagged them down and pointed to a pontoon boat in the middle of the bay that appeared to be on fire.

By the time the Bass-Tub reached it, the flames were out, but the pontoon was sinking. Some people were already in the water while others remained aboard, Anfinson said, adding that they tried to hand out life jackets to the passengers.

One woman’s head was injured.

“We figured we would get her first,” Anfinson said. A deckhand lowered a swim ladder and threw a life ring into the water to help pull her aboard.

“It was scary,” Anfinson said. “I don’t want to see anybody in that situation.”

Fire Lt. Mariano Elias said the vessel, described as a “pontoon pleasure boat,” was about 600 yards (about 550 meters) from Alcatraz and the emergency call came in just after 3:30 p.m.

Crispen said the vessel was believed to have launched near the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. A person who answered the phone there said the club did not have any information on what happened.

Live video from the scene showed a man and a woman wrapped in blankets and sitting on a curb before walking to a nearby ambulance. A yellow tarp covered a body on the dock.

The Coast Guard and Oakland police also helped in the rescue, Elias said.

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