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The Murdaugh Family: Part 2 · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:13
  Discretion is advised. This is ten minted murder. Alex's initial story was that
• 0:32
  he was pulled over on an isolated road to change attire on his car when
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  an unidentified vehicle zoomed passed, firing a gun at Alex and hitting him in
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  the head. He wasn't seriously injured, and as soon as he was questioned
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  by authorities while in the hospital, his wild story began to come apart.
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  At the seams, investigators quickly discovered that Alex wasn't driving alone. He had
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  a passenger, Curtis Edward Smith, who was his relative and friend. When
• 1:00
  pressed about Curtis's involvement in the incident, Alex eventually admitted that Curtis had been
• 1:07
  the one to shoot him because Alex had asked him to. It was a
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  convoluted suicide plan, and he'd wanted his suicide to appear to be a murder
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  so that his eldest son, Buster, would be able to collect a large
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  payout on his life insurance policy. But obviously the plan had gone wrong,
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  and despite being shot in the back of the head, Alex was still alive
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  and well. Two days after this failed suicide attempt, Alex wrote a statement
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  addressed to his family, friends and colleagues, in which he apologized for his
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  recent actions and stated that he was about to go to rehab for his substance
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  abuse problem. Alex's accomplice, Curtis Smith, was arrested and charged with assisting
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  in a suicide attempt, attempted insurance fraud, and aggravated assault. Curtis argued
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  that initially agreeing to the plan, he had not meant to shoot Alex,
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  He'd actually grabbed the gun to prevent Alex from shooting himself, and that the
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  gun had accidentally gone off. There was no version of events that truly made
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  sense, but to police, this story in particular seemed very unlikely. On
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  the sixteenth of September two, twenty one, Alex Murdaugh willingly turned himself in.
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  He was charged with three felonies, filing a false police report, insurance
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  fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. It was the first time that
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  Alex and Curtis were charged for the same crime, but it would not be
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  the last. In mid twenty twenty two, both men were indicted for money
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  laundering related to the distribution of the opioid oxycodone, with Alex Murdaugh's shady financial
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  practices becoming widely known. The next piece of the puzzle began to slot into
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  place, this time with an event that occurred three years before. In twenty
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  eighteen, Gloria Saderfield, the Murdoch family housekeeper and nanny, had been injured
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  at their home due to a fall. She had been hospitalized, but after
• 3:13
  two weeks she was unable to recover from her injuries. At the time of
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  her death, Gloria had been employed by the Murdoch family for more than two
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  decades. Once the funeral was over, Alex Murdoch asked to meet with Gloria's
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  adult children, telling them that he could put them in touch with the lawyer
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  Corey Fleming, who could supposedly help them with their issues surrounding Gloria's death,
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  the issues being money. However, Gloria's sons were unaware that the lawyer he
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  had recommended was actually a close friend of Alex's. Corey Fleming reached a settlement
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  with Alex for four point three million dollars, with two point eight going directly
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  to Gloria's sons, but Gloria's sons never saw that money. In September two
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  twenty one, they revealed that they didn't even know that Alex had reached a
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  settlement with their lawyer. Alex Murdau pocketed that money. In October of two,
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  twenty one, Alex was arrested for a second time, this time because
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  of those settlement funds that he had never given to his housekeeper's family. As
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  he'd said in his apology statement to family and friends, Alex was residing in
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  a drug treatment facility located in Orlando, Florida. Police apprehended him there,
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  charging him with an additional felony to add to the existing three that he already
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  faced. This time, the charge was for obtaining property through false pretenses.
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  The following year, Alex admitted that he had never paid Glorious sons the settlement
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  and still owed them millions of dollars. Gloria had worked for the Murdahs for
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  so long that she and her children trusted them, considering them like family.
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  When Alex Murdah told Glorious children how she died, they never thought to question
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  the story. But with all the information that had surfaced about the family in
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  the years since Gloria died, how likely is it that Gloria happened to die
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  accidentally in the Murdoch family home, leading to the millions of dollars being siphoned
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  by Alex Murdoch. As it turns out, the cause of Gloria's death remains
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  a gray area. This was Alex Murdoch's story. Gloria had not been looking
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  where she was going, causing her to be tripped by one of the family
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  dogs. She had fallen down the steps out of the front of the house,
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  leading to her severe injuries. But on Gloria's death certificate, the cause
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  of death given is natural causes, which in medical terms means caused by a
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  disease or not directly influenced by external forces. If a person dies because of
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  a fall, their cause of death is trauma. The fall and whatever object
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  their body hits is an external force. Gloria also never had an autopsy performed.
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  In fact, the coroner was never even notified that she had died.
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  In mid twenty twenty two, South Carolina law enforcement announced that they were starting
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  the process of exhuming Gloria's remains so that the cause of her death could be
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  investigated further. There is another family secrets that began to surface during the investigation.
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  Although this one was only partially hidden Paul Murdole's broke crash. When police
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  first arrived at the scene of Maggie and Paul's murders, Alex Murdle had been
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  strangely very upfront with them, blaming the shooting on whoever was supposedly sending Paul
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  threats after the boat crash took place. Partially he was telling the truth his
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  son Paul had been at fault in a boating incident that led to the death
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  of an innocent passenger. The rest of the story, however, did not
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  quite line up. In twenty nineteen, Paul Murdoll was charged with driving his
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  boat while intoxicated, leading to Mallory Beach's death and the injury of other passengers.
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  In two twenty one, when he was shot to death, he was
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  out on bail. It was only after Paul died that the video evidence of
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  police documents about the incident became public knowledge, causing many people to question if
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  Paul's locally famous family and their money had led to Paul getting a much lighter
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  treatment than he deserved. Immediately after the crash, one of Paul's passengers gave
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  a statement to the Department of natural Resources, telling the officer that at the
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  time of the crash, Paul had been driving the boat. That statement didn't
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  quite make it into the incident report. In fact, the officer wrote down
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  that the passenger said that he was unsure about who was behind the wheel.
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  The charges against Paul Murdoch were both felonies, boting under the influence causing great
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  bodily injury and boating under the influence causing death. Following Mallory's death, a
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  lawsuit was filed against several people thought to be liable in the crash. One
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  of those people was Alex Murdoch. At the time Paul was shot dead,
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  he wasn't being threatened in relation to the crash, but his father was.
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  Alex was being pressured by the Mallory family lawyer, who was demanding that he
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  released certain details about his finances. Only three days after Paul's death, the
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  hearing was set to begin. This information gave investigators their best theory as to
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  Alex's motive for killing two of his family members in cold blood, trying to
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  gain sympathy in the public eye and provide a distraction from the financial crimes that
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  he was barely able to hide. Alex might have been a renowned lawyer for
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  much of his adult life, but he was not a good liar. He
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  was so disconnected from the real world that when it all came crashing down on
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  him, he wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences of his actions, and
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  now he was facing murder charges in addition to several other felonies. He was
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  indicted for the murders of Paul and Maggie in July of two twenty two,
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  more than a year later. In court, when he took to the witness
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  stand, he admitted that he had lied to his associates and friends and stolen
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  from people who was close to but he blamed his addiction to opioids for these
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  actions, and he insisted that he wasn't the one to kill his family.
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  In March twenty twenty three, Alex Murdoch was convicted by the jury and found
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  guilty of murdering his wife, Maggie and son Paul. He was sentenced to
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  life behind bars, as well as two counts of murder. Alex was charged
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  with an impressive series of financial crimes. He'd consistently siphon money out of his
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  family's own law firm, and he'd stolen money from his own clients without remorse,
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  including clients who had received life changing injuries or disabilities due to car accidents.
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  State prosecutors stated that Alex Murdole had stolen almost nine million dollars from an
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  array of different victims. Alex Murdoch was the king of a local legal empire.
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  From the day he was born. He was guaranteed success, but nothing
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  was ever enough for him. Not enough painkillers, not enough money, not
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  enough power. He was so desperate for his crimes to remain undiscovered that he
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  murdered half his family, leaving his only remaining son effectively an orphan. Alex
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  spent his life getting away with whatever he wanted, but in the end he
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  took it one step too far and the Murdoch Castle came crashing down around him.
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  That is ten Minute Murder for today, brief and bingeible true crimes.
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• 11:26
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