Contractor Alleges Murray's Mortuary Forced Work While Dead Bodies Lay In Waiting, Refused Payment
The Business Is Operated By Charlie Murray Jr, D. Candidate For SC House D116 & Chardale Murray, former SC Rep, Current Mayor Of Hollywood, SC
When Dream Team Constructions LLC, owned by Virgil Wade, won a contract with the family owned Murray’s Mortuary in Charleston, SC to put in an addition on their Rivers Avenue location, he thought it was a good gig. The politically connected family seemed like a good client at first glance. But he was eventually going to learn that some folks like to use their power to hurt others, rather than help.
The contracted work began sometime in May of 2019, and Murray’s Mortuary was meant to stop all their own work at their Rivers Avenue location, relocating that work to Canaan Missionary Baptist Church so that Dream Team Construction could do the job. Of course, Murrays Mortuary’s work involves embalming recently deceased individuals, meeting, planning and carrying out funeral services for their families, and other office work. Despite that being the agreement, according to court documents the Murray’s never stopped performing the functions of a funeral home during the construction project.
The construction understandably took more time than it otherwise would have; and in early 2020, of course, the entire world shut down…the entire world, that is, except for businesses like Murray’s Mortuary.
It may be hard for some to remember, but I guarantee any contractor you know will tell you the near impossibility of getting materials for construction in that year. This unfortunately caused some further delays. But, that was to be expected. construction projects everywhere were taking longer. What wasn’t expected though, was the constant battle that Virgil had to fight just to be paid for work he had already done, in order to keep the business moving along. According to Virgil, “80% of our invoices [were] paid tardily,” and the Murrays have been left owing Dream Team Construction upwards of $150,000.
The Murrays sued Dream Team Construction, and Dream Team Construction has counter sued the Murrays. I will provide the case numbers in the bottom of this article for anyone interested in reading through them. But I won’t bore you with all the details.
There are some pretty egregious things being alleged against the Murrays, however, that I am certain bear repeating. In a written formal statement, Virgil Wade states that Chardale, Charles, et al. were performing embalming services throughout the time of construction, even while construction was going on. He states that they have done this even though there was no certificate of occupancy at the time, a statement that the Murrays themselves reiterate in their own filed claim against Virgil’s company. All of this, of course, forced Dream Team Construction crews to work around deceased people during the Covid pandemic.
That seems insane to this writer.
While it may not be against the law to have contractors work around the dead, it needs to be pointed out that there was an agreement before the work began that ALL funeral home operations would entirely cease while the work was being performed, and it apparently never even slowed down. Quite the contrary, business picked up and became even busier during the pandemic. And again, it is not in dispute that there was no certificate of occupancy while this mortuary work was being performed.
He also states that, once presented with the final $150,000 worth of invoices and change orders, that the Murrays began filing frivolous complaints with their friends in North Charleston. Namely, the Chief Building Official, Darbis Brigham. According to Virgil, “Such complaints prompted the City of North Charleston to unfairly scrutinize and slander our company’s operations.”
The Murrays weren’t done yet. They then filed “unfounded and misleading complaints” with the South Carolina Labor and Licensing Board” claiming that the contractor had abandoned the project. This was after refusing to pay invoices and hiring unlicensed contractors to work on the building at the same time as Dream Team Constructions, which interfered with their own ability to perform their work.
Since then, in 2022, Murrays Mortuary filed a lawsuit, and has been using what Virgil calls their political influence to denigrate and harm his reputation & his business. A business and reputation that Virgil has worked very hard to build and maintain.
This is an ongoing story that, I’m sure, more will come of. But at this time, I think it is important to note that there is no shortage of politicians and would-be politicians in the lowcountry who don’t think twice about misusing their influence for favors and to destroy those who challenge them in any way.
And let’s not forget, the Murray Family has already been in hot water for misusing political influence. Recently Chardale Murray was sued for using the official Facebook account of Hollywood, SC to promote her brother, Charlie’s run for State Representative.
After reading through all of the documents associated with this situation, and speaking to numerous sources, the only conclusion any reasonable person would possibly be able to come to is that THIS is nothing short of a very clear example of just that. A political family who has used their political and social power to harm a small business owner in as many ways as possible while flippantly disregarding contracts, rules, and common decency.
I cannot imagine what would happen if we allow this family to make their way back into the state house. Not only to Virgil’s business, but to the community as a whole. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.
case number: 2022CP1002482 in Charleston court of common pleas
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