Joyce Tomlinson, a 62-year-old Minnesota resident, traveled to Edisto Island, South Carolina, last October for a birthday trip with her best friend of nearly 50 years, Ruth Peterson. On the night of October 3, 2025, the two had dinner and drinks at Coot's Bar & Grill on the water. Ready to call it a night, Peterson went to get the car while Tomlinson stayed behind to settle the tab. Within minutes, tragedy struck.
Peterson told Fox News Digital that she heard her friend's voice and turned at the bottom of the stairs. At the top, she saw Tomlinson with another woman behind her. "Next thing I know, Joyce had turned around to head back down the stairs, and this woman runs at her, and with both hands just pushes her, and she just sailed," Peterson said, stifling tears. "She didn't fall down the steps. She didn't roll down the steps. She didn't touch the steps. She went head first and landed on this concrete slab."
Peterson rushed over and could find no pulse; Tomlinson was bleeding from her mouth and ears. Edisto Beach police found her lying on the pavement, breathing but unresponsive. She was airlifted by helicopter to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where doctors performed a craniotomy to relieve swelling on her brain. She died a little more than three weeks later.
Mary Lopez Hunt, 68, a bartender at Coot's, has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, according to Colleton County court records. WCSC (Gray News) reports the charge carries two to 30 years in prison.
A witness told police Hunt had been yelling at Tomlinson inside the bar and had grabbed her by the throat while trying to pull her outside, according to the probable-cause account cited by local outlets. Voluntary manslaughter is a rare charge in the Lowcountry — prosecutors across Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester and Berkeley counties have filed it fewer than 100 times since 2020, and more than half of the convictions in that span drew sentences of 20 years or more. Hunt is currently in the Colleton County Detention Center awaiting trial; local reports say she was granted a $100,000 bond but is back in jail after violating its conditions.
Hunt's account differs sharply. She told authorities Tomlinson was belligerent, yelled at bartenders, and was asked to leave — and that she fell down the stairs on her own. The police report is heavily redacted. Whether the death was an act of aggression or an alcohol-fueled accident is the question a jury will eventually have to decide.
The Fox News Digital interview, published October 1, 2026, came two days before the one-year anniversary of the death. Peterson described Tomlinson — a "loving mom" — as meek and friendly, not someone who would clash with anyone. Best friends since childhood, the two had raised their families together. "I just can't believe she's gone, just like that," Peterson said.