A long-running mystery about who murdered the wife and son of Alex Murdaugh, an heir to a powerful South Carolina legal dynasty, could be solved this week, as police indicated they intended to Mr. Murdaugh for the murders. That’s what one of his lawyers said on Tuesday.
Mr Murdaugh had already faced a series of fraud and theft charges that resulted in: his arrest in September 2021 and a wave of consecutive charges† But no one had been formally charged with the deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were fatally shot at the family’s rural hunting estate in Islandton, about 105 miles west of Charleston.
One of the lawyers for Mr. Murdaugh, Jim Griffin, said state law enforcement officers had several relatives of Mr. Murdaugh had said they planned to charge Mr. Murdaugh to file for the murders. A spokeswoman for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which has been investigating the case, declined to confirm the attorney’s story.
It was Mr. Murdaugh, sounding deeply shocked, who called 911 on the night of June 7, 2021 and told a dispatcher that he had returned home to find the bodies of his wife and son lying near a dog kennel on the remote estate of the family. , which is set back from the road at the end of a winding driveway.
Mr. Murdaugh, 54, is a fourth-generation attorney whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather each served as the chief prosecutor in a district spanning a wide swath of the South Carolina Lowcountry region.
Understand the ‘Murdaugh Murders’
A mystery from South Carolina. The unraveling of the life of Alex Murdaugh, a prominent lawyer, is at the center of a sprawling saga of mysterious deaths — including the unsolved murders of his wife and son — and allegations of multimillion-dollar defrauding. Here’s what you need to know about the case:
But in the months following the double murder, Mr. Murdaugh’s life changed dramatically.
The law firm founded by his ancestors reported that Mr. Murdaugh had stolen money from the company and fired him, then, according to police, concocted a bizarre plan to get one of his distant cousins. shoot him on a deserted road† The nephew, Curtis Edward Smith, fired a shot that did not hit Mr. Murdaugh, and Mr. Murdaugh was later charged with fraud, while Mr. Smith was charged with assisted suicide and other crimes.
Last month, prosecutors filed additional charges against Mr. Murdaugh and Mr. Smith, accusing them of laundering millions of dollars over several years as part of a distribution network for the painkiller oxycodone.
Murdaugh has also been charged with stealing millions of dollars from customers and other people, including from the family of a housekeeper for the Murdaugh family who died after falling on the doorstep of their home early one morning in 2018. month that he mistakenly pocketed the settlement money and owed $4.3 million to the sons of the housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. Released shortly after his initial arrest, Mr. Murdaugh returned to prison in October on charges related to the settlement with the housekeeper’s family.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of South Carolina issued a warrant mr. Murdaugh for his theft from the Satterfield family.
Mr Griffin said Mr Murdaugh continued to proclaim his innocence in the deaths of his wife and son.
At the time of his murder, Paul Murdaugh was charged with drink driving after he was accused of driving a boat into a bridge, killing Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old passenger, after a night of drinking. Mrs. Beach’s family had sued the Murdaughs, and their attorney had tried to force Alex Murdaugh to provide details of his finances before his wife and son were killed.
The murders turned intense investigations back into the boating accident — including whether Paul Murdaugh had received favorable treatment from the police — and raised new questions about the Murdaugh family.
State police opened an investigation into Ms Satterfield’s death and said last month they planned to exhume her body. Investigators have also re-examined the death of a 19-year-old man, Stephen Smith, who was found dead in 2015 along a road about 10 miles from Murdaugh’s home. considered accidents.