Coroner Makes Ruling in Suspicious Death Case

Dorchester County Coroner Chris Nisbet has ruled the initially suspicious death of a Summerville woman as accidental. 

Tabetha Grooms, 37, was found unresponsive in the bathtub of her home April 27. She died of blunt force injury to the head from a fall in the bathtub, Nisbet reported. 

At first, Grooms' death was labeled as suspicious by Nisbet and it sparked an investigation. Grooms' husband Larry had been arrested on a criminal domestic violence charge in the past. 

Nisbet reported that alcohol use may have contributed to her death.

"This death is an unfortunate accident," Nisbet said in a statement. 

Nisbet reported:

During the investigation it was proven that the decedent had fallen down on her own, multiple times that same day, and also a few days prior to the date of this incident in Florida, while visiting her 20 year old son when she fell down a flight of marble stairs when no one was present but her son. I do believe that the fall in Florida may have caused an unknown injury that then progressively got worse after the fact. Causing instability, mixed with alcohol consumption once returning to Summerville caused her to fall multiple times. At the time of her final fall at her home, her father and minor child where present and her husband was actually in the shower. The minor child is the one that actually alerted the husband to the fact that the decedent had fallen and was calling for help.