Bartender Charged After Woman Dies from Fall at Edisto Bar

There is a particular sorrow in a trip that was meant to celebrate life—a getaway planned for decades, delayed by the ordinary complications of family and work, finally taken by two friends who had known each other since girlhood. Ruth Peterson and Joyce Tomlinson had been friends for fifty years. They had promised to celebrate their sixtieth birthdays together, and in October 2025, they finally did. They rented a condo on Edisto Island, South Carolina. They went to a beachside bar called Coot's Bar & Grill. They danced. And then, at the top of the stairs, a moment of incomprehensible violence ended everything.

Peterson recalled the evening to Fox News Digital, two days before the one-year mark of her friend's death. She and Tomlinson, a 62-year-old Minnesota resident, had each had two drinks. When the bar became crowded, they decided to leave. Tomlinson went to settle the tab. Peterson walked down the stairs to get the car. From the bottom of the steps, she turned and saw her friend at the top, exchanging words briefly with a woman behind her .

"Next thing I know, Joyce had turned around to head back down, and this woman runs at her, and with both hands just pushes her, and she just sailed," Peterson said. "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 to her friend and could not find a pulse. Tomlinson was bleeding from her mouth and ears. She was flown to a hospital by helicopter and died a little more than three weeks later .

Mary Lopez Hunt, 68, a bartender at Coot's Bar & Grill, was charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, according to Colleton County court records . Hunt told authorities that Tomlinson was belligerent and yelled at bartenders before being asked to leave, and alleged that Tomlinson fell down the stairs . Hunt was released on $100,000 bond for each charge; bond was later revoked, and she was taken back into custody at the Colleton County Jail .

Peterson described her friend as an "itty-bitty, tiny" woman with a "meek and mild" personality—a legal aide who helped people resolve financial issues, someone who would not start a fight . They had been friends since they were girls in Minnesota, roller skating together, raising their children alongside each other. They had discussed the trip for years. "Life got in the way," Peterson said. Then in 2025, Tomlinson called and said she was coming .

At Tomlinson's funeral, family and friends remembered her as "a loving mom" and "a trustworthy friend." She left behind a son . "It's just been very surreal," Peterson said. "It's very hard to believe that she's gone and that somebody would do that to another person" . The criminal case continues. The friendship, fifty years long, ended on a concrete slab outside a beachside bar.

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Sources: Fox News, Opera News, Real Talk Radio, Flipboard