Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / The Murdaugh Family: Part 1

Transcript

The Murdaugh Family: Part 1 · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Discretion is it by its immediate murder and many true crime cases, investigators uncover
• 0:31
  more than they expected when looking into a suspect, hidden affairs, suspicious deaths,
• 0:38
  fraud, and theft. When Alex Murdoch, a highly successful lawyer in
• 0:43
  South Carolina, called the police to report that his wife and one of his
• 0:47
  children had been shot dead, nobody expected the course the investigation would take.
• 0:53
  Day by day, the secrets that Alex had been trying so hard to keep
• 0:58
  hidden began to see a light. Alex wasn't just a successful lawyer. He
• 1:03
  and his family were some of the most dominant legal forces in the entire state
• 1:08
  of South Carolina. His great grandfather, Randolph Murdoch, had been the one
• 1:14
  to bring the family's name into the public eye when he opened his own law
• 1:18
  office in the early nineteen tens. In nineteen twenty, Randolph was elected to
• 1:23
  serve as the first chief prosecutor for a three thousand mile region that incorporated five
• 1:29
  different counties. From that day forward, being in the Murdoch family guaranteed two
• 1:34
  things, a successful legal career and all the wealth that came with it.
• 1:41
  It was passed on through the generations, each son taking the role from his
• 1:45
  father. Alex's father, grandfather, and great grandfather had all sat comfortably in
• 1:51
  that role, exuding a huge amount of power over the slice of South Carolina
• 1:56
  that their legal firm ruled. The Murdos being so well known in the area
• 2:00
  meant that when two of them were murdered, it was the talk of South
• 2:05
  Carolina's Low Country region. It again on June seventh, twenty twenty one.
• 2:09
  Alex Murdah had spent most of the time at home with his loving wife,
• 2:14
  fifty two year old Maggie Murdoch, and one of their two sons, twenty
• 2:17
  two year old Paul. They lived in a rural area isolated sixty five miles
• 2:23
  outside of Charleston. In the late evening, at about nine o'clock that night,
• 2:29
  Alex had left home alone, intending to visit his mother. When he
• 2:32
  arrived back at his family home, it wasn't long before he made a nine
• 2:37
  one phone call. Before giving any details to the operator, Alex first took
• 2:43
  the time to introduce himself by his full name in between what appeared to be
• 2:47
  sobs of anguish. He then informed the operator, quote, I need the
• 2:52
  police and an ambulance immediately. My wife and son were just shot badly.
• 2:59
  The operator asked if the victims were still breathing. Alex responded that they were
• 3:04
  not, unlike most nine one one callers who remained close to their loved ones.
• 3:07
  While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Alex told the operator that he'd
• 3:12
  gone to the location of the bodies near his dog kennels, checked if Maggie
• 3:16
  and Paul were breathing, and then left again. First responders arrived at the
• 3:21
  scene and were unable to resuscitate Paul or Maggie, not that Alex had made
• 3:27
  any effort to do that himself. In the early crucial minutes after he discovered
• 3:30
  they had been shot, while talking to local law enforcement from the County Sheriff's
• 3:36
  office, Alex informed the officers that he was concerned that Paul had been the
• 3:40
  target of the attacks. A few years ago, Paul was charged with several
• 3:46
  felonies due to his involvement in a boat crash. Paul had been severely intoxicated
• 3:52
  and behind the wheel of his boat, and he'd crashed into a bridge,
• 3:54
  killing one of his passengers, nineteen year old Mallory Beach. According to Alex,
• 4:00
  somebody had been making threats to Paul. Ever since the crash, Alex
• 4:04
  told the police that he believed the person who had been making the threats might
• 4:09
  have been the shooter. One part of Alex's story was easily confirmed. Both
• 4:14
  Maggie and Paul had been fatally shot, and multiple shell casings from the same
• 4:17
  weapon were found at the scene. However, other evidence was hard to come
• 4:23
  by. Officers scoured through footage from neighbors surveillance cameras, but as time went
• 4:28
  by, the investigation appeared to come to a standstill. In the months after
• 4:33
  Maggie and Paul died, very few details were made public and nobody was placed
• 4:39
  under arrest. For over a year, it was a local mystery, and
• 4:43
  everybody had a theory about what might have happened to the two prominent members of
• 4:47
  the community. Before long, the killings were given a nickname, the Murdoch
• 4:53
  Murders. Even though the murders themselves remained a mystery, there was no shortage
• 4:58
  of information coming forward about the legendary Murdoch family. It began only a couple
• 5:02
  of weeks after Maggie and Paul were shot dead, when South Carolina's Law Enforcement
• 5:08
  Division made a surprising announcement. They were opening a new inquiry into another death
• 5:14
  connected to the Murdough name. In twenty fifteen, nineteen year old by the
• 5:18
  name of Stephen Smith was found dead lying in the road about ten miles away
• 5:24
  from the Murdoch family home. Stephen's family never received any closure from the starts.
• 5:30
  The entire case, to put it simply, was weird. Due to
• 5:34
  the location of Stephen's own vehicle, it seemed as if the nineteen year old
• 5:39
  had run out of gas more than a mile away from where he died.
• 5:43
  In the early days after the body was found, it was believed that Stephen
• 5:46
  died in a shooting incident. Then the course of the investigation changed and the
• 5:51
  police began to wonder if Stephen had been the victim of a hidden run.
• 5:56
  However, Stephen's mother never believed the hidden run theory. Nobody had found any
• 6:00
  vehicle to breathe at the location where Stephen's supposedly was hit. If he was
• 6:05
  a hid and run victim, then the vehicle that killed him had not hit
• 6:10
  anything else in the area and had driven away without a scratch. No arrests
• 6:15
  were ever made, and the Murdaws were never directly implicated in Stephen's death,
• 6:19
  even though his body was found in an isolated area relatively close to their home,
• 6:26
  and the decision to open a new inquiry into the death took place only
• 6:29
  weeks after Maggie and Paul were shot. Stephen's mother began fundraising efforts, hoping
• 6:34
  that Stephen's body could be exhumed and re autopsied in the search for more answers.
• 6:41
  The more awareness was raised about the case, the more people began to
• 6:45
  whisper about the Murdaus. It's worth noting that Stephen Smith was gay, and
• 6:50
  there were rumors that he was having a secret situation ship with Buster, Alex
• 6:57
  Murdaw's oldest son, But again, though are only rumors. After losing half
• 7:02
  of his family in one night, the remaining Murdoch's son, Buster made a
• 7:06
  public statement in response to the rumors about Stephen Smith, rumors which he described
• 7:13
  as vicious. He said, quote, I unequivocally deny any involvement in Stephen's
• 7:18
  death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family. Stephen Smith's mother
• 7:23
  doesn't necessarily believe that a member of the Murdoch family was responsible for her son's
• 7:28
  death. She just wants answers, no matter where those answers could be found.
• 7:33
  She explained her feelings at a news conference, saying, quote, I
• 7:36
  just love my son, and since I couldn't protect him, I'm going to
• 7:41
  fight for him. I hope to find the real reason for Stephen's death and
• 7:45
  the real why. Lawyers agreed to apply for a court order to approve Stephen's
• 7:49
  remains being exhumed, but clarified that there was no new evidence that linked the
• 7:55
  Murdoch family to Stephen's mysterious death. To this day, Steven Smith's case remains
• 8:01
  unsolved. Three months after the murders, the investigation into the Murdoch murders took
• 8:07
  another surprising turn. On the fourth of September twenty twenty one, Alex Murdoch
• 8:13
  was shot in the head. The previous day, Alex had willingly resigned from
• 8:18
  his job, even though he worked at a law firm that had been in
• 8:22
  the Murdoch family for more than three generations after being initially founded by Alex's great
• 8:26
  grandfather. The circumstances surrounding Alex's resignation and why he was shot the next day,
• 8:33
  or where the story begins to get murky. An employee at the firm
• 8:39
  had discovered something unusual, a check that was meant to be addressed to the
• 8:43
  firm as a whole, but it was instead addressed to only one person,
• 8:46
  Alex Murdoch. At first it was thought to be a mistake, but the
• 8:50
  firm was obligated to investigate the check. The deeper they looked, the more
• 8:56
  evidence of Alex's shady legal and financial practice this is they found. Finally,
• 9:01
  instead of firing him, they asked him to resign, which he did,
• 9:05
  and the next day he called nine one one to report that he'd been a
• 9:09
  victim of a drive by shooting. Okay, now one one was your emergency?
• 9:16
  Oh no, I'm Socca Hatchee Road. Okay, what's the address on
• 9:20
  Socca hat Ro I'm by the church. What church? What church are you
• 9:26
  talking about? Uh? I don't know the name of it with the red
• 9:31
  roof? Oh say what end of'm sucking hater role? Because I don't know
• 9:37
  who you're talking about? Um at the Hampley County side. Okay, what's
• 9:43
  going on? I stopped. I got a flat tire and I stopped and
• 9:48
  somebody stopped to help me, and when I turned my back, they tried
• 9:52
  to shoot me. Oh okay, will you shot yes, but okay,
• 9:58
  I'm okay you shot where where will you shot at? Huh? Did they
• 10:05
  actually shoot you? They're tied to shoot you? They shot me? But
• 10:09
  okay, where you need the ms? Uh? Well, I mean yes,
• 10:15
  I can't drive okay, and I'm bleeding a lot. When we're part
• 10:22
  of your body, I'm not sure somewhere on my head, your head.
• 10:26
  Somebody just stopped from me man um from nine one one? Okay, we're
• 10:33
  still hey, okay, and what's your name? I'm still here, I'm
• 10:37
  still on the line with you. What's your name? Alex Murdock. Alex
• 10:43
  Murdock, Yes, ma'am. And you see we're driving you out of flat
• 10:48
  tie. Somebody stopped to help you and need shot you? Well they pull
• 10:52
  over, yes, man, like they were going to help me. Okay,
• 10:58
  still on the line, one man, We're gonna get some I'm believing
• 11:01
  pretty bad, okay, John Missionary Saint John Missionary Church, Yes, ma'am.
• 11:09
  And can you give me a description of the person that shot you a
• 11:13
  shot at you? Yes, ma'am, I mean it was a white fellaw
• 11:20
  Uh. I'd say a white man's a fair amount younger than me, really
• 11:30
  really short hair. Um all right. Do you have an ambulance coming there,
• 11:35
  yes, sir, yes, sir