While probably the most gripping true crime tales take us into the darkest components of the soul, not often does a case open the ugly coronary heart of the nation itself. The labyrinthine case that’s come to be dubbed “the Murdaugh murders” appears like one that would solely occur in America — a story of generational energy and corruption. This is a Southern Gothic morality play a few rich however fading Southern household whose large quantities of wealth and affect fueled a jaw-dropping spree of recklessness, greed, and homicide.
The trial that gripped a nation — and resulted, March 3, within the conviction of Alex Murdaugh for the double murder of his wife and son — is about a lot a couple of household tragedy. Even months later, with Murdaugh pleading guilty to 101 fees of cash laundering and different monetary crimes, myriad questions stay about how huge his net of deceit actually was.
What one article aptly referred to as “a lot of dead people and crime” includes the Murdaugh (pronounced “Murdock”) household, which has amassed energy and wealth in South Carolina for over 100 years. But that century of energy has crumbled in simply half a decade as a consequence of an extended checklist of monetary crimes and 5 suspicious deaths starting in 2015: an alleged homophobic hate crime; a lethal boating accident; a mysterious fall and insurance coverage rip-off; the double homicide of the household matriarch and favourite son; and a weird roadside incident which will have been one other insurance coverage rip-off. The entire tangled net culminated within the indictment in a South Carolina county courtroom of the floundering patriarch, Alex Murdaugh, for the 2021 murders of his wife and son — bringing the overall quantity of fees he’s dealing with to over 80.
Murdaugh pleaded not guilty to the homicide fees on July 20, 2022, setting the stage for a bombshell trial and media circus that finally resulted in a guilty verdict and two consecutive life sentences. The lead-up to the double murder arguably took place partially as a consequence of successful podcast that started as one native journalist’s try and convey consideration to the case. En path to the trial, the Murdaugh murders turned a nationwide true crime obsession, spawning documentaries on HBO and Netflix and riveting tens of 1000’s of livestream courtroom viewers every day.
Ready to dive into the main points? You may need an oxygen tank for this one; as you may anticipate from simply this abstract, these are darkish waters.
Meet the Murdaughs
The Murdaughs have wielded energy over South Carolina’s “Lowcountry,” the luxurious, mossy wedge on the backside of the state, for over 100 years — ever since Randolph Murdaugh Sr. based his regulation workplace in Hampton County in 1910.
The agency ultimately grew into a big, highly effective apply continued by his son, Randolph Jr., and his grandson, Randolph III. From 1920 to 2006, all three males additionally successively held the put up of solicitor (a.okay.a. prosecutor) for South Carolina’s 14th Circuit Court. The Murdaughs’ 86-year stretch serving as circuit solicitors was the longest such household legacy in US historical past. As you may think, it additionally gave the household an unprecedented quantity of energy and affect, not simply over Hampton County however over the opposite 4 counties beneath the circuit’s jurisdiction.
Randolph IV and Alex, two of Randolph III’s sons, adopted of their father’s footsteps and turned legal professionals. Because South Carolina ultimately prohibited legal professionals from serving within the conflicting twin roles of public prosecutor and non-public lawyer, the lads didn’t function solicitors — however nonetheless served as “volunteer” prosecutors helping their father whereas persevering with the household’s regulation apply. The solicitor’s workplace finally fired Alex, and the household regulation agency modified its identify from Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth and Detrick, often shortened to PMPED, to Parker Law Group earlier this yr, more likely to escape the rising stigma of the Murdaugh identify — particularly its affiliation with Alex Murdaugh.
Alex, pronounced “Alec,” was a golden little one who sired golden kids. Born in 1967, he adopted in his household’s footsteps and studied regulation on the University of South Carolina, the place he met athlete-turned-sorority-sister Margaret “Maggie” Branstetter. They married in 1993 and subsequently had two sons, Buster, born in 1996, and Paul, born in 1999. The household lived in opulence, dividing their time amongst a seashore home, a pair of non-public islands, and an enormous 1,772-acre property generally known as Moselle — which, just like the regulation agency, was renamed to flee its connections with the Murdaughs.
But the household additionally lived lives of hedonism; Alex and each of his sons would face accusations of drug and alcohol habit and wild, out-of-control conduct within the lead-up to the collection of crimes. In explicit, Alex’s years of extravagant residing led to a litany of alleged monetary crimes together with fraud, embezzlement, and a number of tried insurance coverage scams — all of it including as much as an alleged $8.5 million in theft and resulting in a number of homicides.
The Murdaughs’ energy arguably hindered the preliminary and follow-up investigations into these deaths, resulting in accusations of cover-ups and corruption. Ultimately, what started as separate investigations into separate crimes would knot themselves into an interconnected net of tragedy. These deaths — all dramatically completely different however all doubtlessly linked by the Murdaughs — mirrored one thing of the chaos the Murdaughs introduced with them, regardless of their stature and status.
2015: The demise of Stephen Smith
On July 8, 2015, 19-year-old Hampton scholar Stephen Smith phoned his mom to inform her he’d run out of fuel. Later that night time he was found mendacity within the center of the highway miles away from his truck. He’d died of blunt pressure trauma, and his physique had been “laid out in the middle of the road like a snow angel,” in accordance with his mom.
Authorities with the South Carolina Highway Patrol initially assumed Stephen was the sufferer of a hit-and-run after leaving his truck and strolling to get fuel, and closed the case accordingly, regardless of quite a few observations by police that steered Smith’s demise was a murder. But police additionally later famous that the scene seemed staged, and city gossip started to swirl that Smith, who was rumored to be relationship Buster Murdaugh on the time, had been the sufferer of a hate crime or that the Murdaugh brothers had a job in his demise.
In June 2021, whereas the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, was investigating the opposite murders associated to the Murdaugh household, authorities reopened the investigation into Smith’s demise, issuing an announcement implying they have been one way or the other related. So far no fees or indictments have been issued, however the investigation remains to be open, and Smith’s mom has acknowledged that the newest indictments into the opposite murders give her “hope that we will get justice.”
2018: The demise of Gloria Satterfield — and an entire lot of fraud
On February 2, 2018, the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, suffered a extreme head harm on the Moselle property and died on February 26 of issues together with a stroke. The trigger of her demise is unclear, because the coroner was by no means notified and Satterfield’s physique was by no means autopsied; authorities later paradoxically described her demise as each “natural” and ensuing from an unintentional journey and fall.
Still, Satterfield’s demise won’t be precisely suspicious had it not been for what got here subsequent: According to a number of legal indictments and a number of lawsuits, Alex Murdaugh and two different males, banker Chad Westendorf and fellow lawyer Cory Fleming, then conspired to steal Satterfield’s $4.3 million insurance coverage coverage by deceptive Satterfield’s sons and diverting all of the funds to Alex himself by way of a phony enterprise Alex created referred to as “Forge” — an irony, since Murdaugh would later be charged with a number of counts of forgery. As half of the rip-off, Alex satisfied Satterfield’s sons to sue him for legal responsibility in order that they might be capable of obtain a hefty legal responsibility settlement. But he then stored all the cash for himself.
The Satterfield insurance coverage rip-off was only one of a laundry checklist of situations the place Alex embezzled and defrauded cash from purchasers at his regulation agency, often by settling their instances for big sums of cash and then failing to inform them about it whereas he spent the consumer’s settlement payout on himself. He repeated the identical sample with, amongst others, Hakeem Pinckney, a university soccer participant who turned quadriplegic following an auto accident. Pinckney died in 2011, and his household by no means noticed the greater than $750,000 payout.
In Satterfield’s case, Alex evinced extra suspicious conduct round her demise, together with arriving on the scene earlier than the EMTs and insisting he heard Satterfield say his canine brought about her fall, contradicting her personal assertion later that she had no thought what brought about it.
Satterfield’s sons have been finally in a position to recuperate greater than $6.5 million from subsequent lawsuits; in the meantime, authorities obtained permission to exhume Satterfield’s physique in June 2022 to be able to proceed the legal investigation into her demise.
2019: The demise of Mallory Beach
Mystery nonetheless surrounds the demise of Mallory Beach, however one factor is evident: Without the occasions of February 24, 2019, we would not even be speaking in regards to the Murdaughs right now.
That night, 19-year-old Paul Murdaugh and a gaggle of pals have been returning to the Murdaugh property by boat after an evening of partying. According to almost all witnesses current, Paul insisted on piloting the boat himself regardless of being extraordinarily intoxicated. He was reportedly in a belligerent, offended state and refused to surrender the wheel, driving erratically and too quick alongside one of the world’s many twisting waterways. At some level in the course of the early morning hours, Paul crashed the boat into Archers Creek Bridge, ejecting a number of passengers from the boat, together with 19-year-old Mallory Beach. It took every week for authorities to recuperate Beach’s physique.
Despite the clear indicators of intoxication, nonetheless, authorities didn’t file his intoxication ranges on the scene; on the hospital later that night time, a number of witnesses confirmed that Paul was nonetheless drunk and uncooperative. They additionally noticed that Alex Murdaugh arrived on the hospital and started to threaten and try and coerce witnesses there, encouraging them to stay to a model of occasions that cleared Paul of wrongdoing; one witness described the environment as “a weird, corny teen drama.”
Mallory Beach’s demise led to a flurry of lawsuits and a legal investigation specializing in Paul Murdaugh. The Beach case additionally coincided with rising monetary troubles for Alex Murdaugh and suspicion about his many fraudulent actions, and later courtroom paperwork revealed a person who appeared determined to shift blame away from his son. Instead, in 2019, Paul was charged with three legal counts of felony boating beneath the affect; he ultimately pleaded not guilty.
Beach’s household sued your complete Murdaugh household, kind of, for her wrongful demise, alleging that Alex Murdaugh and his brother Randolph, and Paul Murdaugh and his brother Buster, had conspired to cowl up the trigger of her demise. Community members additionally accused the Murdaughs of utilizing their energy and affect to delay the trial. In the lead-up to the trial, a minimum of three completely different regulation officers recused themselves as a result of of their shut ties to the Murdaugh household.
In June 2021, Paul Murdaugh was simply days away from what would have been a expensive and costly trial for Beach’s demise. He would by no means make it to the courtroom date.
2021: The deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh — and a bottomless fallout
During the summer time of 2021, extra and extra public curiosity grew round Paul Murdaugh’s upcoming trial. After 30 years, Maggie Murdaugh was estranged from her husband Alex, residing on the household’s seashore home and reportedly trying into divorce. Alex was neck-deep in fraud schemes whose payouts have been dwindling, dealing with a expensive divorce and doubtlessly steep authorized charges for his son. He additionally claimed to be battling what he later described as a 20-year opioid habit.
On June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh reportedly lured Maggie to Moselle, prompting her to textual content a pal that Alex was appearing “fishy”; “he’s up to something,” she allegedly wrote to her pal. Upon arriving on the property, Maggie met her son Paul on the household’s canine kennels. While they have been there, mom and son have been gunned down with two completely different weapons — Maggie with an assault-style rifle, Paul with a shotgun. Alex appeared on the scene shortly afterward and referred to as 911 to report the deaths. An post-mortem later confirmed each died of a number of gunshot wounds.
The double murder of the Murdaughs brought about Alex Murdaugh’s home of playing cards to break down. He instantly fell beneath suspicion for the murders, and the case made nationwide headlines. Three days after the murders, his father, Randolph III, died. On September 3, 2021, Murdaugh resigned from the household’s regulation agency after the agency confronted him over his years of suspected embezzlement. The agency later sued him, and regulation enforcement opened its personal legal investigation into the alleged fraud.
The following day, on September 4, 2021, Alex referred to as 911 to report an odd roadside incident by which he claimed to have blown a tire. When a stranger stopped to assist him, Alex reported, they shot him within the head as an alternative. Though somebody clearly shot and grazed Alex within the head, even witnesses on the scene didn’t imagine his story; “it kind of looks like a setup, so we didn’t stop,” one 911 caller reported.
On September 14, Alex gave up the true plot: He’d supposed to have a pal shoot and kill him in order that his surviving son, Buster, might obtain Alex’s $10 million life insurance coverage payout. Authorities promptly arrested Murdaugh and his confederate, Alex’s alleged drug provider and former consumer Curtis Smith, charging Smith with assisted suicide and each males with conspiracy to commit insurance coverage fraud. Alex’s regulation license was instantly suspended, and he was later disbarred.
Alex posted bond and checked himself right into a drug rehab heart, solely to be arrested for felony fraud fees within the Satterfield case when he emerged. This time, his bail was denied and his property have been frozen.
By now, the case was a nationwide sensation making common mainstream headlines — largely thanks to at least one native journalist. Mandy Matney had allegedly alienated her former information outlet by pursuing the Murdaugh case in additional depth than her editors wished. In 2020, she joined the South Carolina web site FITSNews.com simply so she might cowl the Murdaughs. Days after the murders of Maggie and Paul, Matney and FITS launched the Murdaugh Murders podcast, which broke down the voluminous case piece by piece — beginning with what she dubbed “South Carolina’s Chappaquiddick.”
The podcast was so profitable it reportedly ranked among the many world’s high podcasts in 2021; it’s presently being developed as a real crime drama collection for a division of Universal. HBO Max and Netflix every produced true crime documentary collection in regards to the case. The extra consideration Matney drew to the case, the extra investigators appeared to ramp up their very own work. Between November 2021 and July 2022, dozens of indictments have been doled out towards Alex Murdaugh and his co-conspirators. Community accusations leveled towards the household for abusing its affect continued too, as one more solicitor recused himself from the case, and proof allegedly connecting Alex to the double murders was suppressed from the general public. “You’ll know a Murdaugh did it if no one is arrested,” ran one apocryphal Facebook remark.
On July 14, 2022, nonetheless, Alex Murdaugh was indicted for the double murder of his wife and son. “Today is one more step in a long process for justice for Maggie and Paul,” mentioned Mark Keel, head of South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division.
But Alex Murdaugh apparently didn’t intend to make the method simple. On July 20, 2022, he pleaded not guilty, within the first of many controversial courtroom proceedings earlier than the trial, which lastly started on January 23, 2023. With the nationwide media trying on, the courtroom spectacle that unfolded over the following six weeks gave onlookers a glimpse into what that century of collected energy has actually achieved: Judge Newman needed to order the elimination of a portrait of Murdaugh’s grandfather from the courthouse to be able to guarantee a good trial. Would Murdaugh, with his high-powered state senator lawyer, be capable of persuade a jury of his innocence? What would that say about South Carolina’s small-town political panorama?
Much of the proof the prosecution offered at trial was circumstantial, but it surely was typically dramatic and compelling. And it kicked off with a game-changing reveal from the prosecution: A never-before-seen cellphone video from Paul’s cellphone shortly earlier than the murders. While on the kennels, Paul took a video of himself taking part in with one of the canine. In the background, you’ll be able to clearly hear two extra voices — one of them seems to be Maggie saying, “He’s got a bird in his mouth!” referring to Paul’s canine, Bubba. The different voice, calling, “C’mere, Bubba!” within the background, is clearly that of Alex Murdaugh.
Prosecutors alleged that this video, which was filmed on Paul’s cellphone at 8:44 pm, occurred roughly 5 minutes earlier than the shootings, primarily based on when Paul and Maggie stopped taking a look at their telephones and replying to texts. That would place Alex firmly on the scene earlier than the murders, contradicting his model of the timeline. In one other dramatic second, Alex Murdaugh unexpectedly took the stand in his personal protection and admitted that his earlier longstanding declare he hadn’t been on the kennels was a lie. Instead, he claimed, he had solely been down on the kennels for a number of moments earlier than returning to the home simply earlier than Maggie and Paul have been murdered.
It was a flimsy, clear try and justify an online of lies, and the jury noticed by way of it: On March 2, 2023, after barely two hours of deliberation, they found Murdaugh guilty. Circuit courtroom Judge Clifton Newman dressed down Murdaugh for his fall from grace, calling out his ongoing “duplicitous conduct.”
“Amazingly, to have you come and testify that it was just another ordinary day,” he mentioned, referring to the day of the murders, when every thing in Murdaugh’s life was collapsing. “Not credible. Not believable.”
“You can convince yourself about it,” Newman continued, “but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else. If you made any such arguments as a lawyer, you would lose every case like that — cases you’ll never have an opportunity to argue anymore, except perhaps your own, as you sit in the Department of Corrections.”
Judge Newman then sentenced Murdaugh to 2 consecutive life sentences. Murdaugh’s sentence begins instantly on the Kirkland Correctional Institution, a maximum-security jail in Columbia, South Carolina.
The murders surrounding the Murdaugh household appear to have revealed a justice system that turned a blind eye whereas Alex Murdaugh dedicated felonies for years — to say nothing of homicide. For so lengthy, the Murdaughs have been allowed to rule their nook of the world as a result of they knew that system in a means most individuals don’t, whilst their train of these privileges drove them and these round them to wreck. Questions nonetheless stay concerning the deaths of Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield, together with the extent and full nature of Alex Murdaugh’s lengthy checklist of fraudulent actions. Though the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh have lastly seen a grim decision, they’re only one side of a case which will by no means be totally resolved. Murdaugh was scheduled to start trial on November 27 for his many monetary crimes; his last-minute guilty plea avoids that, but additionally probably implies that many of the sordid particulars of his actions previous to the murders might by no means be broadly recognized.
Update, November 17, 2023, 2:25 pm ET: This story was initially printed on August 2, 2022, and has been up to date a number of instances with new particulars in regards to the trial and Murdaugh’s most up-to-date guilty plea.