DTwo of them, the mother and the youngest son, were brutally murdered. Another of them, the father, faked his murder. And the other member of the respectable Murdaugh family, the eldest son, is either involved or, if he isn’t, he must be the most shocked and sorry man in the world. Because his mother and his brother, in addition to being dead, are involved in the death of at least three other people and his father is a suspect in the murder of his wife and his son. There is no series of true crime in which so many homicides fit… from a ‘normal’ family.
Well, the Murdaughs—whose last name is pronounced a lot like murder, ‘murder’ in English) are not just a ‘normal’ family, but what is considered a lucky family, with money, success and a ‘traditional’ southern surname, that of a saga that has occupied the main positions for generations of the District Attorney and the Bar in Hampton County, South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh, the father, 53, was until recently a prominent lawyer.
The fate of the Murdaughs began to twist on February 23, 2019, when Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old girl, drowned after the boat she was traveling in collided with the pillar of an Archers Creek bridge. Paul Murdaugh, also 19, was piloting the ship under the influence of alcohol. Paul, his girlfriend, and two other couples of young friends were on their way to a party. Although, in reality, the party for them had started hours before by buying alcohol illegally (with the license of Paul’s older brother). Around 2:20 in the morning, after a confrontation with his girlfriend, Paul accelerated excessively and Mallory, who was on her boyfriend’s lap, fell into the water. Mallory’s body didn’t turn up three miles away until a week later.
The mother and young son were riddled with bullets. The bodies were found by the father who called the emergency room sobbing
The Murdaughs were quick to cover up for their son, though a blood test revealed that the young man was triple the legal alcohol limit. On April 18, 2019, Paul was charged with “boating under the influence of alcohol,” causing Mallory’s death and injuring others. He denied the charges and was released pending trial.
Paul, who already had a reputation as a little psychopath among the neighbors, due to his fondness for torturing animals since he was a child and the fights he caused as a teenager, developed from then on an increasingly erratic and violent behavior, seasoned by the consumption of alcohol and drugs. Until they killed him.
He and his mother, Maggie, 52, were shot to death in their home on June 7, 2021. The bodies were found by the father, Alex Murdaugh, who sobbed to call 911. The boy had been shot with a shotgun, the woman with an assault rifle. To this day, it is still unknown what happened and although the father was suspicious for some, he has not been charged with any charges related to this crime.
The suspicious ‘accidents’
The murders of the mother and the youngest son of the Murdaughs aroused the logical interest of the press and soon the focus ended up on two previous deaths, which had also taken place in the family environment. The first, that of her domestic worker, Gloria Satterfield. On February 26, 2018, the Murdaughs’ faithful housekeeper had died after falling down the stairs of the farmhouse. She suffered a head injury and died three weeks later; she never regained consciousness. The injuries were consistent with the fall and there would be nothing suspicious if it weren’t for the fact that the Murdaughs’ insurance settlement, as owners of the house where the accident took place, reached a staggering $4.3 million. And that money never reached the housekeeper’s children.
Did Satterfield, a 57-year-old active woman, fall or was she pushed? The only two people who know are dead: Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. They were at home with the cleaner and they called the emergency room that morning. In the 911 call they did not specify how the accident had occurred, but Alex Murdaugh, the family patriarch, later said that Satterfield had run into her two hunting dogs. Drawing on his legal expertise, Murdaugh allegedly suggested that Satterfield’s two sons sue his insurance company. As the owner of the house, Murdaugh took responsibility and negotiated with the insurer a monetary settlement that was originally going to go to the orphans. After months of evasion, Murdaugh declared a settlement of half a million dollars for the Satterfield family. But that amount, it was learned after the murders of his wife and his son, was only the first payment of a total of 4.3 million, money that “disappeared” through a “cover” company.
And one freak accident led to another… with the Murdaughs’ names also involved. In June 2015, the lifeless body of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old boy, was found lying on a country road. His car had run out of gas and, presumably, he was walking home at dawn. Everything pointed to a crash. But there was no evidence of that kind of incident, like glass shards, abrasions, ripped clothing… Just a fatal blow to the head. To this day it remains a cold case, but the investigation was reopened after the murder of Paul and Maggie. Why? The police received several calls in the days after Stephen’s death implicating the Murdaughs, although they were still rumours.
Everything pointed to a crash. But there were no glass shards, no abrasions, no ripped clothing… Just a fatal blow to the head. To this day it remains an unsolved case.
Anonymous calls suggested that Paul Murdaugh, although only 16 years old, might have been involved. The cause? A homophobic crime. Stephen’s mother is sure he was killed for being gay. Although she clarifies that she is not pointing the finger at the Murdaughs, she has recounted that, strangely, the same morning that she went to identify the body of her son, she passed Alex Murdaugh on the side of the road where she died.
Assisted suicide… by a hit man
But there is still more. Because the strangest was yet to come. On September 4, Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head. He suffered a minor brain hemorrhage, but his injuries were not serious. Murdaugh later acknowledged asking a distant relative to act as his hitman. He wanted his death to look like a murder and not a suicide so that his surviving child, Burster, 25, could access the $10 million life insurance policy. Murdaugh has been charged with false police report and attempted insurance fraud. “My world was collapsing,” Murdaugh explained at trial: “I made a terrible decision that I regret and frankly am ashamed of.”
The alleged hit man denies Murdaugh Sr.’s version and says all he did was try to grab the gun from him when he shot himself. But neither has explained why Murdaugh allegedly paid him nearly $2 million over six years in 17 payments in hard-to-trace checks.
What were they for? Nobody knows yet. But the scandals continue to surface. New accusations point to Murdaugh embezzling money from numerous settlements he struck as a lawyer when he represented people who had been in accidents or seriously injured. The family patriarch is now in jail and faces dozens of financial crimes charges, while the murders are reinvestigated.
About the surviving son, Buster, 25, little is known. The last time he was seen, according to TheDailyMail, it was last year at a casino in Las Vegas and, soon after, at the family’s vacation home on Ediso Island, South Carolina. The other country house, located on a huge hunting estate, where her mother and her brother were murdered and where the housekeeper suffered the fatal accident, has just been put up for sale for $3.9 million. It does not seem that it will be enough to pay for the defense of her father, who, in any case, is imprisoned without the possibility of bail.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.