By Aaron Miller-
A Former prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh has been indicted for double murder in the killings of his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, almost 13 months after he made an emergency call saying he had found them dead near a dog kennel at the family’s country home.
The dramatic news is a remarkable development in a case which has spanned seven separate investigations in a saga which had failed to pin down the accomplished lawyer up until now.
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Murdaugh(pictured ) was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, after evidence was presented to a grand jury sitting in Colleton county. Court documents released on Thursday allege Murdaugh shot his wife with a rifle and his son with a shotgun.
The prominent South Carolina lawyer last December also agreed to pay a $4.3 million (£3.25m) settlement with the family of a former housekeeper that claimed he stole settlement funds following her death in 2018. This was on top of further charges he faces for organising a failed attempt on his own life to pave the way for his son could collect $10m in life insurance.
The civil attorney, who was disbarred earlier this week, had told investigators he went to the property after visiting with his ailing father, and discovered the two bodies.
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South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson offered very limited information in a statement which read: “All the efforts of our office and the law enforcement agencies involved in this investigation have been focused on seeking justice for the victims’ families.”
South Carolina state law enforcement division (Sled) chief Mark Keel said: “Today is one more step in a long process for justice for Maggie and Paul.”
On Tuesday, state police told family members that they planned to bring criminal charges against Murdaugh, and did not mention any other suspects in the case.
Murdaugh, the scion of a well-connected legal family in South Carolina. Over the course of three generations, his great-grandfather, grandfather and father all served as the top prosecutor for a five-county region in the state.
In June, Mr Murdaugh’s wife Margaret, 52, and son Paul, 22, were found murdered near their home.
At the time of his death, Paul was also facing criminal charges stemming from a 2019 incident in which authorities say he drunkenly caused a boating accident that left a woman dead.
Murdaugh had reported finding his wife and son shot dead shortly after 10pm on 7 June last year. Investigators released little information on the killings, but word soon surfaced that they had been killed with different guns – an assault rifle and a shotgun. Investigators said no threat existed, prompting speculation that a suspect must already be known to them.
The killings also placed a spotlight on the prominent Murdaugh family, which has for almost a century represented wealth, power and privilege across the lowlands of South Carolina.
Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh Image:people.comThe Murdaughs were kingpins in the legal field, well known for their brilliant legal expertise. Fir three generations, a member of their family had served as the chief prosecutor for the state’s southern tip, and the family law firm had made a fortune from corporate litigation, often against the railroad running through the area.
Murdaugh is also facing 79 fraud-related charges, alongside two others who have also been indicted in connection with the alleged financial crimes. A federal investigation into the Murdaugh empire is also under way, according to Fits News, a South Carolina news website.
The portfolio of alleged scams include a $3.5m insurance payout due to the family of his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a slip-and-fall accident at the Murdaugh home. Authorities are now preparing to exhume her remains.
Authorities have also opened an investigation into the unsolved death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, whose body was found with blunt-force head trauma on a nearby county road in July 2015. Smith’s death was initially investigated as a homicide, then blamed on a hit-and-run.
A sign welcomes people to Hampton county, South Carolina, where the Murdaughs have been prominent for generations. Photograph: Jeffrey Collins/AP
But files with the state highway patrol showed that a Murdaugh family member – a personal injury lawyer – called Smith’s family on the day he was found, offering to represent them at no charge. The family told police they thought the offer was “weird”.
Smith had attended high school with Buster Murdaugh, Alex’s surviving son. “I do think it [his death] was because he was gay. I said that from the beginning it was a hate crime,” Smith’s mother, Sandy, said last year in an interview.
Separately, Paul Murdaugh, the son found dead last year, was awaiting trial on charges of boating under the influence. The charges stemmed from a 2019 crash in which 19-year-old Mallory Beach, a passenger in the boat, died after being thrown overboard in a collision with a bridge pier.
Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley told the Guardian last year: “The Beach family are incensed at the way the criminal investigation was conducted while their daughter’s body was missing and believe people were actively trying to cover up what had happened.”
The murder indictments have begun to clarify the chain of events that investigators believe may have led, three months later, to a fake suicide-for-hire plot, in which Alex Murdaugh was allegedly shot in the head by a cousin, Curtis Smith, on a country road, in what may have been a plot to give his surviving son, Buster, a $10m life insurance payout.
The apparent gunshot grazed Murdaugh’s head; a toxicology report found opioids and barbiturates in his blood. Smith claimed he was 1,000% certain Murdaugh was not shot. Ten days later, Murdaugh was arrested in connection with the country-road shooting. Curtis Smith has been charged with assisted suicide, insurance fraud and several other counts. He denies the charges.
Days later, Murdaugh checked into an addiction rehabilitation service to treat a long-standing opioid dependency and was later arrested at a second rehab location in Florida on charges that he diverted millions in wrongful death lawsuit settlement funds from the family of Satterfield, the housekeeper, in what prosecutors described as a scheme “to sue himself in order to seek an insurance settlement”.
At the bond hearing in October, assistant attorney general Creighton Waters said the Satterfield fraud “is the tip of the iceberg”. Outside court, family lawyer Ronnie Richter said that issues of class pervade the case.
“We have a problem in the country with the perception that power and influence, true or not, gets you a second tier of justice from rank-and-file,” he said.
“Over the last 13 months, SLED agents and our partners have worked day in and day out to build a case against the person responsible for the murders of Maggie and Paul and to exclude those who were not,” SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement. “At no point did agents lose focus on this investigation. From the beginning I have been clear, the priority was to ensure justice was served. Today is one more step in a long process for justice for Maggie and Paul.”
The indictment does not provides many details—including what allegedly prompted the slayings—but does state that Murdaugh fatally shot his wife with a rifle and his son with a shotgun, allegations his attorneys deny. While the prospect of such charges was teased in the media in recent days, their announcement represented the most disturbing episode yet in the saga of the once-prominent lawyer, a man whose downfall has taken on the veneer of a Greek tragedy.
“All the efforts of our office and the law enforcement agencies involved in this investigation have been focused on seeking justice for the victims’ families,” Attorney General Alan Wilson said on Thursday. “We want to thank the State Law Enforcement Division, the attorneys and staff in our office, and everyone who worked on this case for their tireless efforts to gather evidence and follow where it led. We also want to thank the Colleton County Grand Jury for listening to that evidence and for their service to the people of the state.”
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