Alex Murdaugh indicted in June 2021 murders of his wife, son at their SC estate

Disbarred Hampton County attorney Alex Murdaugh was formally indicted Thursday by a Colleton County grand jury in the June 2021 double murders of his wife and youngest son.

The indictments only named Murdaugh, and were announced by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office and the State Law Enforcement Division, two days after news broke that SLED was planning to charge Murdaugh, 54, in wife Maggie and son Paul’s shooting deaths.

Murdaugh, a fourth-generation member of a proud and wealthy South Carolina legal dynasty, was indicted on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

A bond hearing was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 20, at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro before Judge Clifton Newman.

Murdaugh is currently in custody at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County, unable to post a $7 million bond on dozens of financial charges.

Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, were found shot to death — Maggie by a rifle and Paul by a shotgun, the indictments said — in the evening of June 7, 2021, on their 1,700-acre hunting lodge estate in rural Colleton County, which locals referred to as Moselle.

Murdaugh, in a statement released by his attorneys, denied the killings.

“Alex wants his family, friends and everyone to know that he did not have anything to do with the murders of Maggie and Paul. He loved them more than anything in the world,” said the statement, released by attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin.

“It was very clear from day one that law enforcement and the Attorney General prematurely concluded that Alex was responsible for the murder of his wife and son. But we know that Alex did not have any motive whatsoever to murder them.”

It all adds up to not just a long-running murder mystery, but also a stunning fall from grace involving Murdaugh — a once-esteemed, now-disgraced fourth-generation lawyer from one of South Carolina’s most prominent legal dynasties known for big-money verdicts and criminal case wins.

Murdaugh was also prominent in his own right, being a past president of the S.C. Association of Justice, a statewide organization of trial lawyers.

The Murdaugh name has for years been synonymous with power, wealth and prestige throughout the southeastern part of the state’s Lowcountry. For nearly 90 years, Murdaugh’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were solicitors, or prosecutors in the five county 14th Judicial Circuit, who prosecuted thousands of people accused of crimes over the years.

The family law firm, located in Hampton, was known for high-dollar settlements and verdicts.

“People were expecting the indictments, but that doesn’t make this any less shocking,” said Michael DeWitt, the longtime editor of the Hampton Guardian newspaper, who is working on a book about the Murdaughs and the murders. “It’s hard to imagine somebody murdering their wife and especially their own child.”

John Marvin Murdaugh, Murdaugh’s younger brother, and family members were informed on Tuesday that formal murder charges were to be brought against Murdaugh.

“We have said all along that we want the truth, and we stand by that,” John Marvin, 51, said Thursday.

No evidence or motives for Murdaugh murders

Harpootlian and Griffin said Thursday they would immediately file a motion for a speedy trial.

“We are requesting that the Attorney General turn over all evidence within 30 days as required by law and we demand to have a trial within 60 days of receiving that evidence,” they said.

Thursday’s indictments were short on details and gave no information about evidence. There was no mention about any accomplice.

The lack of information was a marked contrast from a series of 16 state grand jury indictments against Murdaugh over the last nine months alleging a series of financial crimes, including embezzlement. Those indictments were highly detailed.

Thursday’s indictments also did not mention motive or say how Murdaugh is alleged to have carried out the killings with two different weapons. It was not immediately known whether either weapon had been found. Previously, his lawyers have said he was away from the Colleton County estate visiting an ailing relative when the killings happened.

Jack Swerling, a veteran Columbia defense lawyer, said that although the previous indictments against Murdaugh were issued through the state grand jury, it was not surprising that Thursday’s murder indictments were issued by Colleton County’s grand jury.

State grand juries by law usually deal with complex multi-county financial or other crimes, and county grand juries deal with localized crimes, including murder, Swerling said.

Pete Strom, a former U.S. Attorney and Columbia lawyer, said it is not surprising Thursday’s grand jury indictments contained little information about evidence because such indictments are “bare bones.”

“That is the common practice in South Carolina,” said Strom, the son of the late and legendary SLED Chief J.P. “Pete” Strom.

Because the case has been indicted, Murdaugh’s attorneys will not be able to request a preliminary hearing, at which prosecutors would have to reveal some of the evidence against him, Strom said. Both defense and prosecution will likely seek to limit the volume and nature of evidence made public before a trial begins to ensure that Murdaugh gets a fair hearing from jurors, he said.

Evidence in a double murder case like the deaths of Maggie and Paul, where there were no eyewitnesses, is likely to include much expert testimony on matters such as blood splatter, fingerprints, weapons, cellphone and text records, as well as “black box” information from Murdaugh’s Suburban SUV, Strom said.

“Black box” information from a vehicle can include data on GPS location and stops, he said.

Because Murdaugh’s defense team will likely need to retain its own experts to study the technical evidence, it might be six to 18 months before a trial can take place, Strom predicted.

“This is the most notorious murder case in the history of South Carolina,” Strom said.

Indictments: rifle, shotgun

The indictment for killing Maggie read:

“On or about June 7, 2021, the Defendant, Richard Alexander Murdaugh, in Colleton County, did kill another person with malice aforethought, to wit: Richard Alexander Murdaugh did fatally shoot the victim, Margaret ‘Maggie’ Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh, with a rifle, and Maggie Murdaugh did die as a proximate result thereof,” one indictment read.

The indictment for killing his son, Paul, contained the same language, except it said Murdaugh killed his son with a shotgun.

“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.”

In those 13 months, state prosecutors and law enforcement officials have refused to comment publicly on their investigation, rarely releasing any information in the case.

At the time of the murders, law enforcement said that the community was not at risk. Murdaugh had been described by one of his attorneys as being a “person of interest” in the gruesome slayings.

Duffie Stone, the 14th Circuit solicitor, was originally the lead prosecutor on the case, but recused himself from the investigation, which initially prompted speculation that investigators had honed in on a suspect.

The case was later taken over by prosecutors in Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office.

“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,” Wilson said in a statement 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.”

Investigation into deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh

Around 10 p.m. last June 7, Murdaugh, father and husband of the victims, called 911 to say he had found their bodies.

Later, with his surviving son Buster, Murdaugh offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

The Colleton County Sheriff’s Office was the first police agency to respond before SLED took over as lead investigating agency.

Paul, 22, a student at the University of South Carolina, was shot in the head and upper body with a shotgun, while his mother, 52, was killed with what appeared to be an assault rifle, sources familiar with the investigation said, adding that casings were recovered at the scene.

Their bodies were found separated from one another near the dog kennels on the property.

It is believed that neither weapon used in the killings has been recovered, sources had said.

Investigators had a black Chevrolet Suburban towed from the Murdaugh property the morning after the killings, the owner of the towing company told The Island Packet at the time. The SUV, which sources said was owned by Murdaugh’s law firm and driven by him, was parked near the dog pens, the towing company’s owner said.

That same day, police found Maggie’s cellphone on the road near the home, about a quarter of a mile from the entrance to the estate. Paul’s phone was found near his body.

His student apartment in Columbia’s Olympia neighborhood was searched on June 8 after a property manager noticed the door was open and called police. Evidence was collected, but there were no signs of forced entry or anyone inside.

On June 17, Murdaugh’s brothers, John Marvin Murdaugh and Randolph “Randy” Murdaugh IV, appeared in a pre-recorded interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saying Paul received threats from strangers leading up to his murder, but that the family didn’t believe the threats were valid.

John Marvin Murdaugh also described how he got one of the first phone calls his brother Alex had made after discovering the bodies.

“He said, ‘Come as fast as you can. Paul and Maggie have been hurt,’” John Marvin told ABC. “It was the worst phone call because of his voice, the fear. ... He was only able to tell me it was very, very bad. He said he thought they were dead.”

The murders have also reignited interest in two other cases involving violent death tied to the Murdaugh family.

They are a fatal boat crash in 2019 that implicated Paul as driving the boat while drunk, and the still unknown circumstances that led to the death of Stephen Smith, 19, whose body was found on a rural road in 2015.

The 2019 boat crash off Archers Creek had sparked a lawsuit by the mother of Mallory Beach, 19, who died in the crash, against Murdaugh and others that Beach’s mother alleged were responsible for her daughter’s death. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

Financial indictments and lawsuits

Even without the murder indictment, Murdaugh stayed in the news plenty as financial charges against him stacked up.

Murdaugh is now the target of 16 indictments containing 81 charges for fraud and money laundering, as well as 10 civil lawsuits that together allege he stole nearly $8.5 million from his firm, clients and associates in various financial schemes.

Three months after Maggie and Paul’s deaths, in September 2021, Murdaugh was kicked out of his law firm for allegedly stealing millions of dollars out of the firm’s client trust account. The state Supreme Court later suspended his law license, and on Wednesday officially disbarred him.

That same month, Murdaugh was charged with staging a botched suicide attempt in what authorities said was a failed effort to collect on a $10 million life insurance policy for his sole surviving son Buster. The alleged shooter, close friend and relative Curtis “Eddie” Smith, also was charged. At the time, Harpootlian said Murdaugh was in a “massive depression.”

Murdaugh’s lawyers released a statement saying he had been distraught because of two reasons.

One, he had just been fired from his family law firm after the firm discovered evidence he had been stealing from it, and he had a longstanding opioid drug addiction he was battling.

Weeks later, in November, Murdaugh was indicted by the state grand jury on charges of defrauding clients and associates, including the $4.3 million estate of his former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died of injuries received in a fall at Murdaugh’s country estate in 2018.

More indictments against Murdaugh alleging theft from clients and other types of fraud followed in December through April. Charges included obtaining property by false pretenses, money Laundering, computer crimes, forgery, and criminal conspiracy.

In June 2022, days after the one-year anniversary of Paul and Maggie’s deaths, Murdaugh and Smith, 62, were indicted on new charges that included drug trafficking oxycodone and running a longtime money laundering scheme involving $2.4 million in stolen money.

Altogether, the state grand jury has issued 16 indictments containing 81 charges against Murdaugh for schemes to defraud victims of roughly $8.4 million, according to the state Attorney General’s office.

In addition, two longtime friends of Murdaugh’s —former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte, 51, and Beaufort County attorney Cory Fleming, 53 — were named as defendants in some of the indictments as being part of his fraudulent schemes and are now facing various charges including criminal conspiracy.

Investigations now swirling around Murdaugh have also raised questions about how South Carolina law firms keep track of clients’ money. The FBI is also probing how Murdaugh used the Palmetto State Bank, a bank in his former law firm’s hometown of Hampton, to execute alleged illegal money transfers.

One of the biggest unanswered questions still remaining is what Murdaugh did with the millions of dollars he is said to have stolen.

Murdaugh’s lawyers have said much of it went to buy drugs for his addictions, and indictments said he also used stolen money to buy cars, pay off loans and give money to family members.

Others say much remains unaccounted for.

Eric Bland, the crusading Columbia lawyer whose lawsuit against Murdaugh last September paved the way for law enforcement investigations into Murdaugh’s finances, said that Thursday’s indictments are “another chapter in the downfall of an evil man devoid of morality.”

“What is sad,” he said, “is the number of victims in his wake — clients, family members, colleagues and partners.”