Bluffton settles with estate in man’s hit-and-run death after police courtesy ride
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information on the beneficiaries of the estate.
Bluffton officials agreed to a settlement with the estate of an intoxicated pedestrian who died in a hit-and-run in March 2022, shortly after being dropped off at a hotel by a first-year officer.
The department reached a $275,000 settlement in early December with relatives of 40-year-old Andrew “Andy” LeMaster, who family members said was heavily intoxicated when police dropped him off at the Hampton Inn & Suites, a hotel outside of Bluffton’s jurisdiction.
The settlement would be divided between LeMaster’s five children and his partner, according to court documents. Reports and family members said his partner was his girlfriend, but the lawsuit refers to her as his wife.
Police encountered LeMaster “exhibiting obvious signs of intoxication,” the lawsuit claimed, after he tried to enter a neighbor’s home by mistake the evening of March 21, 2022, in the Cypress Ridge community. His girlfriend, whom he was having issues with, had locked him out of their home.
Without an ID or means to pay for a room at the Okatie hotel, his family claimed, LeMaster stumbled onto U.S. 278 and was killed by a hit-and-run driver around 8:30 p.m. that night. Lora Knoppel, LeMaster’s aunt, alleged the department caused her nephew’s death by not instead taking him to a jail or hospital, where he could be monitored.
“They should never have left him in that condition on a highway hotel,” said Knoppel said in a 2022 interview. “And don’t even take him in to make sure he gets a hotel room. They don’t even do that.”
Tiffany Provence, an administrator of LeMaster’s estate, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Town of Bluffton and its police department in January 2024, alleging officers “abandoned” the man against his wishes when he was in no condition to fend for himself. A toxicology report revealed LeMaster had a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.495, which is over six times the legal limit in South Carolina.
The Bluffton Police Department was dropped from the suit a few months later because it is “a subdivision of the Town of Bluffton,” according to court documents.
Police did not charge the driver of the car in the pedestrian fatality, who reached out to police the day after when he saw news coverage of LeMaster’s death. It was dark out when the driver struck something in the roadway he thought “fell off a truck.”
Terry Finger, an attorney for the Town of Bluffton, denied any wrongdoing on the part of police but called LeMaster’s death “tragic.” He said officers concluded LeMaster’s condition “didn’t warrant medical attention” and that LeMaster agreed when police suggested they take him to a hotel for the night.
LeMaster’s neighbor, Kimberly Handley, said it should have been obvious to police officers that he was heavily intoxicated. The man was too drunk to tell which home was his own and had fallen over twice during his interaction with officers.
“I said, ‘sir, he can’t even stand up!’” Handley said she told a Bluffton police officer when LeMaster was being given a ride.
LeMaster was a father to five children, three of whom he was raising in Bluffton with his girlfriend. He loved the outdoors, his family said, and never went anywhere without his lucky baseball cap.
In the summer of 2022, on what would have been LeMaster’s 41st birthday, his family installed a white cross near the intersection of Fording Island Road and Okatie Center Boulevard, where he was struck and killed.
“We will remember him as long as I have breath,” Knoppel said at the time. “I will always want answers ... this was unjust, uncalled for and certainly preventable.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2025 at 2:37 PM.
