Mr Murdaugh had already faced a series of fraud and theft charges that led to his arrest in September 2021 and a wave of subsequent charges. But no one has been formally charged in the deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were fatally shot on the family’s rural hunting property in Islandton, about 65 miles west of Charleston. One of Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers, Jim Griffin, said that state police investigators had informed some of Mr. Murdaugh’s relatives that they planned to seek charges against Mr. Murdaugh in the killings this week. A spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating the case, would not confirm the attorney’s account. It was Mr. Murdaugh, who sounded deeply shaken, who called 911 on the evening of June 7, 2021, and told a dispatcher that he had returned home to find the bodies of his wife and son near a dog kennel on the secluded property. of the family. , which is set far back from the road at the end of a winding road. Mr. Murdaugh, 54, is a fourth-generation lawyer whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as the top district attorney in a district spanning much of the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Understand the ‘Murdaugh Murders’
Card 1 of 6 A South Carolina mystery. The unraveling of the life of Alex Murdaugh, a prominent lawyer, is at the center of a sprawling story of mysterious deaths – including the unsolved murders of his wife and son – and allegations of multi-million dollar fraud. Here’s what you need to know about the case: The “Murdaugh murders” remain unsolved. The fatal shooting of Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh in 2021 shocked South Carolina’s Lowcountry, where the Murdaugh family’s powerful legal dynasty began. On July 12, 2022, police said they planned to charge Alex Murdaugh with the murders of his wife and son. The Murdaughs are powerful. The family has dominated the legal profession in a rural part of the state for more than a century. For nearly 90 years, the position of attorney general for a five-county district was held by a Murdaugh. And for even more, the family law firm was one of the state’s leading litigation firms. There was a failed suicide plot. A day after he was forced out of his family’s law firm for misappropriating funds, Alex Murdaugh reported being shot in the head. He soon admitted that he had actually asked a former client to kill him because he wanted to leave his oldest son, Buster, with a $10 million insurance payout. Mr. Murdaugh survived. Mr. Murdaugh has been accused of defrauding millions. The lawyer was arrested on October 14, 2021 and charged with stealing millions of dollars from a settlement meant for the children of a housekeeper who died at the family home in 2018 after falling on the front steps. But in the months following the double murder, Mr Murdo’s life took a dramatic turn. The law firm founded by his ancestors said Mr. Murdaugh was stealing money from the company and fired him, then, the police said, concocted a bizarre plan to have one of his distant cousins shoot him on a deserted road. His cousin, Curtis Edward Smith, fired a shot that missed Mr. Murdo, and Mr. Murdo was later charged with fraud, while Mr. Smith was charged with assisted suicide and other crimes. Last month, prosecutors filed additional charges against Mr. Murdo and Mr. Smith, accusing them of laundering millions of dollars over several years as part of a distribution network for the painkiller oxycodone. Mr. Murdaugh has also been accused of stealing millions of dollars from clients and others, including the family of a Murdaugh family housekeeper who died after falling on the steps of their home early one morning in 2018. Mr. Murdaugh admitted last month that he had mispocketed the settlement money and owed $4.3 million to the sons of housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. After being released briefly after his initial arrest, Mr. Murdaugh returned to prison in October on charges related to the arrangement with the housekeeper’s family. On Tuesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an order acquitting Mr. Murdaugh of stealing 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 he was killed, Paul Murdaugh was facing DUI charges after he was accused of driving a boat onto 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 lawyer was trying to force Alex Murdaugh to give details of his finances before his wife and son were killed. The murders have turned intense scrutiny back on the boat crash — including whether Paul Murdaugh had received favorable treatment from police — and raised new questions about the Murdaugh family. State police opened an investigation into Ms Satterfield’s death and, last month, said they planned to exhume her body. Investigators also reviewed the death of a 19-year-old man, Stephen Smith, who was found dead along a road about 10 miles from Murdaugh’s home in 2015. No one has been charged in those deaths, which were both ruled accidents.
