A long-awaited getaway for two best friends celebrating birthdays together ended in tragedy when a bartender allegedly shoved a woman down stairs, leaving her fatally injured outside a South Carolina beachside bar.Mary Lopez Hunt, 68, has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, according to Colleton County court records.Ruth Peterson recalled the painful memory to Fox News Digital on Oct.1, 2026, just two days before the one-year mark of her friend’s death.Peterson had just left to get their car, as her friend, 62-year-old Minnesota resident Joyce Tomlinson, went to settle their tab at Coot’s Bar & Grill on Edisto Island at about 11 p.m.
on Oct.3, 2025.Best friends since childhood, Joyce Tomlinson, left, and Ruth Peterson, right, enjoyed raising their families together, Peterson told Fox News Digital.
(Courtesy of Ruth Peterson)SEND US A TIPHearing her friend’s voice, Peterson turned at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, she said.At the top of the stairs, she saw Tomlinson — a woman she described as meek and friendly — exchange words briefly with another woman behind her.She couldn’t hear what was said."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 to her friend and couldn’t find a pulse, she said.Tomlinson began bleeding from her mouth and ears, she said."I knew it was bad."Hunt told authorities that Tomlinson was belligerent and yelled at bartenders before she was asked to leave, records show.
She alleges that Tomlinson fell down the stairs.Mary Lopez Hunt has been charged with voluntary manslaughter after allegedly pushing Joyce Tomlinson down the stairs outside Coot's Bar &...