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The Family Massacre That EXPOSED An Empire... · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: For nearly a century, one family ruled the courtrooms of
0:03
Speaker 1: South Carolina's Low Country, prosecutors, powerbrokers, untouchable. The Murdocks didn't
0:09
Speaker 1: just practice law, they were the law. So when Alex
0:13
Speaker 1: Murdoch called nine to one one on a June night
0:15
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, sobbing over the bodies of his
0:19
Speaker 1: wife and son, the whole state held its breath. And
0:23
Speaker 1: at the time there was no suspects, no motive, just
0:25
Speaker 1: a grieving husband and father. But here's the thing about empires.
0:29
Speaker 1: Built on secrets, eventually they crumble, and what investigators uncovered
0:35
Speaker 1: wasn't just a murder case. It was a Pandora's box
0:39
Speaker 1: of fraud, addiction, suspicious deaths and lies stretching back decades, crime, conspiracy, gults,
0:47
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to
0:50
Speaker 1: consume and I.
0:51
Speaker 2: Know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded freak.
0:56
Speaker 1: And today we are doing just that, talking about a
1:00
Speaker 1: massive case, a very relevant case. I'm sure a lot
1:03
Speaker 1: of you guys have seen it on the news or
1:05
Speaker 1: on streaming services, but today we're going deep.
1:09
Speaker 2: We're getting deep.
1:10
Speaker 1: Into this case. So without further ado, let's rebuckle our seatbelts,
1:14
Speaker 1: go Mack five to the highway, slam on the bikes,
1:15
Speaker 1: and mustle this windshield into this case. Together, the Murdoch
1:33
Speaker 1: family had a firm grip on the legal system in
1:36
Speaker 1: South Carolina's Low Country for almost an entire century. Three
1:40
Speaker 1: generations of Randolph Murdoch's reign as solicitor aka chief prosecutor
1:46
Speaker 1: for the state's fourteenth Judicial Circuit in an eighty six
1:49
Speaker 1: year dynasty from nineteen twenty to two thousand and six.
1:54
Speaker 1: And it all began when Randolph Murdoch Senior became solicitor
1:58
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, establishing the first foothold and maintaining the
2:02
Speaker 1: position until his untimely death by train collision in nineteen forty.
2:07
Speaker 1: That's a rough way to go. And his son, Randolph
2:10
Speaker 1: Buster Murdoch Junior, then took his place for forty six
2:14
Speaker 1: years from nineteen forty to nineteen eighty six, and Buster
2:19
Speaker 1: became well known for his courtroom theatrics, reenacting murder scenarios
2:23
Speaker 1: for the court, and his skill was not taken lightly.
2:26
Speaker 1: And when it was time for Buster's son, Randolph Murdoch
2:29
Speaker 1: the Third to take the mantle, he did so with
2:33
Speaker 1: great poise. In fact, he was so well respected that
2:36
Speaker 1: he received the Order of the Palmetto in twenty nineteen,
2:39
Speaker 1: which is the state's highest civilian honor, though this was
2:43
Speaker 1: after he retired in two thousand and six, which was
2:46
Speaker 1: the end of the dynasty, so the Murdocks finally gave
2:49
Speaker 1: way to a new solicitor named Duffy Stone. Yet their
2:53
Speaker 1: legacy had left an undoubted mark of influence on the
2:56
Speaker 1: South Carolina justice system. So during their reign, the Murdoch's
3:00
Speaker 1: oversaw all criminal prosecutions in the fourteenth circuits five counties Allendale, Colton, Hampton, Beauford,
3:07
Speaker 1: and Jasper, and this circuit is the only one in
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Speaker 1: the state to encompass five counties, and the region was
3:14
Speaker 1: even called Murdoch Country, just demonstrating their dominance. So with
3:18
Speaker 1: their rather large jurisdiction, the Murdocks leveraged their power effectively,
3:23
Speaker 1: and locals and lawyers in the area viewed the justice
3:26
Speaker 1: system as a rigged in their favor, classic elite shit,
3:29
Speaker 1: even choosing to settle cases rather than ever facing Murdoch
3:33
Speaker 1: in their home court because few dared to go against them. So,
3:36
Speaker 1: along with their positions in public office, the Murdocks built
3:39
Speaker 1: a very successful law firm of their own in Hampton County,
3:43
Speaker 1: and the firm was founded as a one man practice
3:45
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten by Randolph Senior, but would later evolve
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Speaker 1: into Peter's Murdoch Parker, Elksroth and d Trich or PMPED
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Speaker 1: or like what I would like to say, PIMPED because
3:57
Speaker 1: that's way easier than Peter's Murdoch Parker trothen Diedricht doesn't
4:01
Speaker 1: really slide off the tongue so nicely, and they specialized
4:05
Speaker 1: in defending plaintiffs via personal injury litigation, utilizing South Carolina's
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Speaker 1: plaintiff friendly laws, and these state laws allowed legal action
4:13
Speaker 1: to be pursued in any county that a defendant corporation
4:17
Speaker 1: did business, and so lawyers at PIMPED were skilled at
4:22
Speaker 1: forum shopping, or choosing a favorable venue for a lawsuit
4:27
Speaker 1: two bring their cases into Hampton's preferred courts, and because
4:31
Speaker 1: of the consistent large sum winnings awarded by juries in
4:34
Speaker 1: Hampton County, the American Tort Reform Association even labeled it
4:38
Speaker 1: the third worst judicial hellhole for defendants.
4:41
Speaker 2: In the nation.
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Speaker 1: Basically, everyone just gets frecked except for the Murdocks and
4:47
Speaker 1: whoever they're representing. So companies began avoiding conducting business in
4:51
Speaker 1: Hampton County altogether, notably after pimped one significant settlements against
4:56
Speaker 1: CSX Railroads, so much so that they were even called
5:00
Speaker 1: the House that CSX built. But all good things must
5:04
Speaker 1: eventually come to an end, and the South Carolina Supreme
5:07
Speaker 1: Court and state legislator reformed laws regarding corporate venues, effectively
5:12
Speaker 1: ending pimp's golden days of form shopping. We love to
5:16
Speaker 1: see accountability, but the firm would still practice law, though
5:20
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two they would rename to become the
5:22
Speaker 1: Parker Law Group.
5:24
Speaker 2: See that that rolls up. That did a little better,
5:26
Speaker 2: you know what.
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Speaker 1: I mean, removing the Murdoch name entirely, and we'll get
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Speaker 1: to the reason for that in a bit so. Richard
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Speaker 1: Alexander Murdoch, known as Alex sometimes pronounced Alec, was born
5:37
Speaker 1: on May twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, and he earned
5:40
Speaker 1: his bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina in
5:43
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and his law degree from USC Law School
5:47
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. And as a son of aforementioned
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Speaker 1: Richard Murdoch, the third Alex continued on in the family
5:53
Speaker 1: business and became a partner at PIMPT and although he
5:57
Speaker 1: wasn't elected into the role of Solicitor law the Murdochs
6:00
Speaker 1: before him, he did part time volunteer work for the
6:04
Speaker 1: Solicitor's office, and at this point Alex was viewed as
6:07
Speaker 1: a prominent and generally successful attorney and for having extraordinary
6:11
Speaker 1: people and networking skills over particular courtroom prowess, and those
6:15
Speaker 1: who worked with him mentioned that he had a strong
6:18
Speaker 1: charisma which allowed him to manipulate people into settlements, and
6:22
Speaker 1: the CFO of PIMPT called this the art of bullshit. Basically,
6:27
Speaker 1: he was just really good at working people, but never
6:30
Speaker 1: quite seen as a legal scholar of any kind, and
6:33
Speaker 1: he was also described as loud, busy, and always.
6:36
Speaker 2: On the phone at the workplace.
6:38
Speaker 1: And Margaret Kennedy Murdoch, known as Meggie, was born in Nashville, Tennessee,
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Speaker 1: on September fifteenth, nineteen sixty eight, and she was Alex's
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Speaker 1: college sweetheart at the University of South Carolina and became
6:50
Speaker 1: his wife in nineteen ninety three, and thanks to the
6:53
Speaker 1: Murdoch resources, she was a homemaker and described as a
6:56
Speaker 1: devoted mother who lived for her children, Buster and Paul,
7:00
Speaker 1: and the wealth never seemed to change her as those
7:02
Speaker 1: who knew her also say that she was incredibly sweet, sociable,
7:07
Speaker 1: and down to earth. And Maggie was known to love
7:09
Speaker 1: spending time at the family's Aedisto Beach house as well
7:13
Speaker 1: as caring for the Mozille estate house in Islington, South Carolina.
7:16
Speaker 1: And then there's Paul Terry Murdoch who was the younger
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Speaker 1: son in the Murdoch family, and he was known to
7:23
Speaker 1: be a volatile and reckless young man. A family member
7:26
Speaker 1: even recounted a time that he told his aunt to
7:29
Speaker 1: go herself when he was just eleven years old, which
7:33
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not that notable. I mean eleven year
7:37
Speaker 1: olds can be little lass old, you know what I mean.
7:38
Speaker 2: But whatever. And he also.
7:39
Speaker 1: Struggled with authority and that never seemed to go away
7:42
Speaker 1: as he got older. And then there's Richard Alexander Murdoch Junior,
7:46
Speaker 1: known as Buster, and he is the older of the
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Speaker 1: two sons, and he was originally following on his father's path,
7:53
Speaker 1: but was reportedly kicked out of law school at the
7:55
Speaker 1: University of South Carolina after he was caught for plagiarism,
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Speaker 1: and Alex would eventually tried to pay his son's way
8:02
Speaker 1: back into school, spending around sixty thousand dollars to a well.
8:05
Speaker 2: Known lawyer to get him readmitted. Must be nice to.
8:08
Speaker 1: Have a rich dat e and it actually worked in
8:11
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, but Buster's law career was ultimately put
8:15
Speaker 1: on hold and it's unclear as to the status of
8:18
Speaker 1: that now.
8:19
Speaker 2: So by all.
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Speaker 1: Appearances, the Murdocks appeared to be the close knit, wealthy
8:23
Speaker 1: Southern family that they were known to be, at least publicly,
8:27
Speaker 1: and they were often seen spending time at one of
8:29
Speaker 1: their several properties, enjoying some of their favorite activities, including
8:33
Speaker 1: boating and hunting. So the Murdoch Mozille estate was a
8:37
Speaker 1: testament to the family's wealth because it was located on Islanton,
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Speaker 1: South Carolina, and the property extended for one thousand, seven
8:44
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy acres with shooting ranges, duck ponds, and
8:48
Speaker 1: was a prime spot for hunting. And it also featured
8:50
Speaker 1: a five two hundred and seventy five square foot main
8:53
Speaker 1: house and a cottage and an area for dog kennels.
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Speaker 2: Oh my god.
8:58
Speaker 1: And they also owned several boats and cars, further reflecting
9:01
Speaker 1: their lavish lifestyle, and Alex also had a retirement account,
9:05
Speaker 1: equity in his former law firm, Heavy Machinery and Equipment,
9:09
Speaker 1: and to share in two Ti Island, which is a
9:12
Speaker 1: share in the Green Swamp Country Club. And more so,
9:15
Speaker 1: the vast Murdoch wealth had come from generations of legitimate
9:19
Speaker 1: family income and supplemented with Alex's urnings as well. All right,
9:24
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11:24
Speaker 1: So February twenty fourth, in the very early hours of
11:27
Speaker 1: the morning, a boat crashed into the Archers Creek Bridge
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Speaker 1: in Beaufort, South Carolina, and on board were six young adults,
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Speaker 1: including Mallory Beach and Paul Murdoch, both nineteen years old
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Speaker 1: at the time, and Paul was seen purchasing alcohol using
11:43
Speaker 1: his brother's ID in the evening prior, because drinking at
11:47
Speaker 1: nineteen is illegal in the States, and the group also
11:50
Speaker 1: stopped at a bar that evening where Paul and a friend,
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Speaker 1: Connor Cook, who was also present in the crash, took
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Speaker 1: shots and the boat went straight into a piling on
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Speaker 1: the bridge to Paris Island and at approximately two seventeen
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Speaker 1: a m and the resulting impact caused several severe injuries
12:05
Speaker 1: and knocked three passengers into the water, and two of
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Speaker 1: them fortunately resurfaced and were recovered, and the third, Mallory Beach,
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Speaker 1: did not and her body would be discovered a few
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Speaker 1: miles from the incident a week later, and there were
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Speaker 1: rumors that the Murdoch family was using their considerable leverage
12:22
Speaker 1: to influence the investigation in their favor from the start,
12:26
Speaker 1: and four of the crash survivors were immediately taken to hospital,
12:29
Speaker 1: Paul being one of them, and his father, Alex and
12:33
Speaker 1: Grandpa ran off. The third showed up as the police
12:36
Speaker 1: were right about to take Paul's statement, and right off
12:38
Speaker 1: the third bluntly said that there would be no statement,
12:41
Speaker 1: and Alex allegedly went to visit the other survivors in
12:44
Speaker 1: what was described as an attempt to orchestrate something, and
12:48
Speaker 1: the hospital staff supposedly heard Alex tell Connor not to
12:52
Speaker 1: say anything, and Connor later said that Alex assured him
12:56
Speaker 1: everything was going to be all right as long as
12:58
Speaker 1: he shut up, and said he'd didn't know who the
13:01
Speaker 1: driver was at the time of the crash, and such
13:03
Speaker 1: actions naturally brought up concern that Alex was doing whatever
13:07
Speaker 1: he could to shift blame away from Paul, But regardless
13:10
Speaker 1: of the attempt, thanks to the other survivor's testimony with
13:13
Speaker 1: near certainty that Paul had actually been driving, he was
13:16
Speaker 1: charged with three felony counts on April nineteenth, twenty nineteen,
13:20
Speaker 1: one count a by resulting in death and two counts
13:23
Speaker 1: a by resulting in serious injury and BI is voting
13:27
Speaker 1: under the influence. For those of you who don't know,
13:29
Speaker 1: but allegedly thanks to his family name, he never actually
13:32
Speaker 1: was handcuffed when he was arrested, and he had his
13:35
Speaker 1: mugshot taken in the hallway of the courthouse on someone's
13:38
Speaker 1: iPhone instead of the usual mugshots people are familiar with,
13:43
Speaker 1: just classic elite entitled bullshit. And he never had to
13:47
Speaker 1: step into a detention facility to have fingerprints taken, just
13:51
Speaker 1: clearly showing preferential treatment. And Connor wasn't charged as in
13:56
Speaker 1: addition to his testimony his injuries suggested that he was
14:00
Speaker 1: indeed a passenger. But Paul, however, now faced up to
14:03
Speaker 1: twenty five years in prison, and he was released on
14:06
Speaker 1: bond after entering a plea of not guilty, and the
14:10
Speaker 1: case was proceeding somewhat slowly, potentially more preferential treatment, we
14:15
Speaker 1: don't know, but the Murdoch family was feeling the pressure
14:17
Speaker 1: from this event, to say the least, because on top
14:21
Speaker 1: of those charges as well, Renee Beach, whose Valerie's mother,
14:24
Speaker 1: filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alex Buster and Maggie
14:29
Speaker 1: Murdoch and the places that provided alcohol to the underage
14:32
Speaker 1: So on top of all of this negative mounting pressure
14:36
Speaker 1: on the Murdoch family, things were about to get even
14:39
Speaker 1: worse and more deadly. I would like to take a
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14:47
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14:49
Speaker 1: And as cute as they are, they are also annoying,
14:51
Speaker 1: but in acute way, you know what I mean. They
14:53
Speaker 1: just stare at me whenever I'm standing anywhere in the house,
14:57
Speaker 1: and they just mail at me constantly, and that is
15:00
Speaker 1: because I've been feeding them top tier meals and they
15:03
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15:06
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Speaker 1: back to it. So June seventh, twenty twenty one, began
16:40
Speaker 1: like any other day. Early that afternoon, Alex asked Meggie
16:44
Speaker 1: and Paul to come back to the Mozelle estate that evening,
16:48
Speaker 1: and he then made his way to pimped, arriving at
16:51
Speaker 1: twelve twenty four pm. Meanwhile, the household carry on with
16:54
Speaker 1: its usual routines. Their housekeeper prepared dinner and texted Maggie
16:59
Speaker 1: at three twenty eight eight pm to let her know
17:01
Speaker 1: that she had left it on the stove for her,
17:03
Speaker 1: and at three forty one pm, Alex attempted to reach
17:06
Speaker 1: Meggie via FaceTime, but the call went unanswered, and before
17:10
Speaker 1: four PM, a man named Roger Dale Davis stopped by
17:14
Speaker 1: Mozelle to tend to the animals, and he reported that
17:17
Speaker 1: no one was on the property and nothing seemed out
17:19
Speaker 1: of place at the time of getting to the property.
17:22
Speaker 1: So at six poht eight pm, Paul apparently called a
17:24
Speaker 1: contact saved as Dad on his phone, and then at
17:28
Speaker 1: six forty pm Paul called Pa, a contact that correlated
17:32
Speaker 1: with Alex's phone as well, and then Alex arrived at
17:35
Speaker 1: Mozelle at six forty two pm, followed by Paul at
17:39
Speaker 1: seven oh four pm, and at seven fifty six pm,
17:42
Speaker 1: Paul recorded a video of Alex and sent it on Snapchat,
17:51
Speaker 1: and Meggie appeared to arrive at Mozelle around eight seventeen PM,
17:56
Speaker 1: so sometime between her arrival and roughly eight thirty pm,
17:59
Speaker 1: the three of them sat down to have dinner together,
18:02
Speaker 1: and at eight thirty eight pm, Paul's phone location placed
18:06
Speaker 1: him by the dog kennels, and six minutes later, at
18:09
Speaker 1: eight forty four pm, Paul will record a video for
18:12
Speaker 1: his friend Rogan Gibson, and just minutes after the video
18:16
Speaker 1: was recorded, Meggie and Paul's phones were locked for the
18:19
Speaker 1: final time because Maggie and Paul would be brutally murdered,
18:24
Speaker 1: and that at ten oh five pm, Alex would drive
18:27
Speaker 1: down to the kennels where Paul and Meggie were and
18:30
Speaker 1: at ten oh six he would make a nine one
18:32
Speaker 1: one call. Seven Moselle wrote up up to it now
18:37
Speaker 1: it's bath Hawi and my sword, and his nine one
18:41
Speaker 1: one call was frantic. He hysterically sobs, relaying the murder
18:46
Speaker 1: of his wife and son, and at one point he
18:48
Speaker 1: begs the police to please hurry, and the dispatcher on
18:51
Speaker 1: the line questions him for information while trying to keep
18:55
Speaker 1: him calm, and he tells the dispatcher that he had
18:57
Speaker 1: been gone and just got back to the house and
19:00
Speaker 1: it had been about an hour and a half to
19:02
Speaker 1: two hours since he last talked to Maggie, and at
19:05
Speaker 1: one point he mentions going to get a gun as
19:08
Speaker 1: a precaution for someone else potentially nearby, to which the
19:11
Speaker 1: dispatcher urges him not to have a gun present. When
19:14
Speaker 1: the officers arrive, and as a dispatcher asks routine questions,
19:18
Speaker 1: Alex mentions that Paul had been getting threats for several months,
19:23
Speaker 1: and then Alex is instructed to turn on his vehicle
19:26
Speaker 1: lights so the officers can see his location, and he's
19:29
Speaker 1: also told not to touch the bodies or move anything
19:32
Speaker 1: so that no evidence is tampered with, to which Alex
19:36
Speaker 1: says that he has already touched them when he went
19:39
Speaker 1: to see if they were still breathing. But shortly before
19:41
Speaker 1: authorities arrive, he asks if he can hang up the
19:44
Speaker 1: call so he can call his family. I would like
19:47
Speaker 1: to take a moment, a moment for something that has
19:50
Speaker 1: quite literally changed my sleeping game, and sleeping is an
19:54
Speaker 1: extremely important part of life, and getting a good sleep
19:57
Speaker 1: is just as important. And I personally had no idea
20:00
Speaker 1: that it was my pillowcase that was making my sleep
20:04
Speaker 1: so bad and a pillowcase that could make it so great,
20:07
Speaker 1: because the pillowcase I was using before was satin, and
20:10
Speaker 1: it turns out satin is actually made from synthetics and
20:14
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20:17
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Speaker 2: And let's get back to it. So, just outside the feed.
21:32
Speaker 1: Room area of the dog kennels, Paul was found deceased
21:36
Speaker 1: and he had been twice with a twelve gage. The
21:40
Speaker 1: first would hit him from a few feet away in
21:43
Speaker 1: his chest and his shoulder, and the second would hit
21:46
Speaker 1: his head, making him nearly unrecognizable. And Maggie's body was
21:50
Speaker 1: found a short distance from Paul's at the dog kennels
21:53
Speaker 1: as well, and she had five guns ranging from her
21:57
Speaker 1: thighs to her head, caused by three hundred blackout semi
22:02
Speaker 1: auto rifle as she tried to run from her attacker,
22:05
Speaker 1: but the final god would enter the back of her
22:08
Speaker 1: head aimed downward, possibly as she was kneeling from a
22:12
Speaker 1: book to the stomach facing her attacker and the final
22:14
Speaker 1: shot would have been fired at close range, and during
22:18
Speaker 1: the initial investigation, investigators were unable to locate the murder
22:22
Speaker 1: weapons at the crime scene, but they would find the
22:24
Speaker 1: twelve gage shotgun shells used in Paul's murder at the scene,
22:28
Speaker 1: and the three hundred blackout cartridge casings were also found
22:31
Speaker 1: at the scene, the ones that were used to murder Maggie.
22:34
Speaker 1: So Colton County authorities arrived at the scene on the
22:37
Speaker 1: night of the murders around ten twenty five PM, and
22:40
Speaker 1: they almost immediately saw the high profile situation before them
22:44
Speaker 1: and called for assistance from the South Carolina Law Enforcement
22:47
Speaker 1: Division or SLED. Securing the scene as they could, and
22:51
Speaker 1: SLED quickly took over with photography and cataloging the gruesome
22:54
Speaker 1: evidence and beginning their detailed investigation. But authorities at the
22:58
Speaker 1: time had to race against the weather that night, as
23:01
Speaker 1: it had began to rain, which possibly damaged or degraded evidence.
23:05
Speaker 1: And on top of that, multiple vehicles and people were
23:08
Speaker 1: allowed onto the Mozelle property in the hours following the murders,
23:11
Speaker 1: which potentially contaminated evidence in the house or on the grounds.
23:15
Speaker 1: So SLED made sure to keep details close to home
23:18
Speaker 1: in the weeks following the murders, and Alex, the husband
23:21
Speaker 1: and father of Paul and Maggie, was interviewed on June
23:25
Speaker 1: eighth and tenth, without officially naming him as a suspect publicly,
23:29
Speaker 1: though they did confirm the case was now being investigated
23:32
Speaker 1: as a double homicide and there was no public threat announced,
23:36
Speaker 1: and on June fourteenth, the coroner confirmed the time of
23:39
Speaker 1: death for Meggie and Paul to be between nine and
23:42
Speaker 1: nine thirty pm on June seventh, but it would later
23:45
Speaker 1: be believed that the time of the murder was around
23:48
Speaker 1: eight fifty PM, but it was during Alex's third interview
23:51
Speaker 1: with SLED, which took place on August eleventh, that had
23:54
Speaker 1: some inconsistencies at this time because the day after the murders,
23:58
Speaker 1: Paul's friend Rogan Gibson told sled's lead investigator, David Owen
24:03
Speaker 1: that he could have sworn he heard Alex's voice while
24:06
Speaker 1: he was on the phone with Paul the night before,
24:08
Speaker 1: because they had been talking about one of the dogs
24:11
Speaker 1: in the kennels, and Gibson made mention of a video
24:14
Speaker 1: that Paul attempted to send, but for some reason it
24:16
Speaker 1: couldn't go through, and Owen confronted Alex about Gibson's claim
24:20
Speaker 1: and a snapchat video that showed him in different clothes
24:23
Speaker 1: than the ones that he was seen in a few
24:25
Speaker 1: hours later in some questionable statements he made the night
24:28
Speaker 1: of the murders and more. And Alex mentioned in this
24:31
Speaker 1: interview that he was at his mother's house for around
24:34
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to an hour when a witness saw
24:36
Speaker 1: him there for only about fifteen to twenty minutes, further
24:40
Speaker 1: shutting doubt on his history. And then Slid finally had
24:44
Speaker 1: Paul's phone in their possession on August eleventh, though it
24:47
Speaker 1: would be some time before they managed to unlock it,
24:51
Speaker 1: and come October Sled was finally ready to announce that
24:53
Speaker 1: not only was Alex now a suspect in the murders,
24:57
Speaker 1: but he had secretly been a suspect all along. But
25:00
Speaker 1: still they had a fair bit of work to do
25:03
Speaker 1: to charge him, but it ended up all coming back
25:06
Speaker 1: to that one video, the video that Gibson had reference
25:09
Speaker 1: that could show that Alex was at the kennels.
25:11
Speaker 2: Just before the murders.
25:15
Speaker 1: Give It get Men. So at this point in the investigation,
25:26
Speaker 1: this was arguably the single most important piece of evidence
25:29
Speaker 1: in this case, because without it, definitively placing Alex near
25:33
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime near the time it was
25:36
Speaker 1: committed was just circumstantial. And SLED received the phone without
25:39
Speaker 1: full knowledge of how many attempts had been made to
25:42
Speaker 1: unlock it, and so they knew they needed to proceed
25:45
Speaker 1: with caution because after timoy failed attempts, the phone could
25:48
Speaker 1: lose precious data for the investigation. But eventually the passcode
25:52
Speaker 1: was cracked by Lieutenant Britt Dove, who later said, quote,
25:56
Speaker 1: I hollered out that I found it to nobody, in
25:58
Speaker 1: particular because I was in the office working by myself, unquote,
26:02
Speaker 1: just a classic movie moment, and the code was Paul's birthday.
26:07
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy that they didn't guess that a
26:08
Speaker 2: little sooner, but whatever.
26:10
Speaker 1: Zero four one four, nine to nine. So finally the
26:13
Speaker 1: video had been found and Alex's alibi was pretty much shattered,
26:19
Speaker 1: and it forced his team and Alex himself to admit
26:22
Speaker 1: that he had been lying this whole time.
26:24
Speaker 2: But why so?
26:26
Speaker 1: SLED investigators did thoroughballistics analysis to link the Murdoch family
26:30
Speaker 1: weapons to the crimes, and specialists in firearms analysis Paul
26:34
Speaker 1: Greer testified that the three hundred blackout casings located by
26:38
Speaker 1: Maggie had the same fingerprint as casings that were recovered
26:42
Speaker 1: at the other locations on the property, which demonstrates they
26:46
Speaker 1: were fired by the same rifle used by the family,
26:49
Speaker 1: so basically therefore, but he was unable to say specifically
26:53
Speaker 1: which weapon was used, as that weapon had not been found,
26:57
Speaker 1: but the clear implication is that the murder webs was
27:00
Speaker 1: one owned by the Murdochs. And in addition to the
27:03
Speaker 1: three hundred casings, the shotgun shells found near Paul's body
27:07
Speaker 1: were also matched with the AMMO found in the Murdoch's possession.
27:11
Speaker 1: And though the actual murder weapons eluded the investigation entirely,
27:15
Speaker 1: the ballistics laid a foundation confirming that they belonged to
27:18
Speaker 1: the Murdoch family. And when it came to reconstructing the
27:21
Speaker 1: true timeline of events for the evening of the murders,
27:24
Speaker 1: cell phone data proved to be of absolute necessity, and
27:27
Speaker 1: the most obvious, of course, is the video of the
27:29
Speaker 1: kennels from Paul's phone, and the phone records show that
27:33
Speaker 1: Paul's phone locked for the last time at eight forty
27:35
Speaker 1: nine pm, shortly after texting with a friend about movies,
27:40
Speaker 1: and his replies stopped altogether at eight forty eight pm,
27:44
Speaker 1: and Maggie's phone became locked at eight forty nine pm
27:46
Speaker 1: as well. Yet logs show that it changed orientation a
27:50
Speaker 1: few times before going fully dark, and investigators found it
27:54
Speaker 1: the next day alongside the road at a place matching
27:56
Speaker 1: where Alex's vehicle had traveled that night before, looking real
28:02
Speaker 1: bad for Alex, and Alex's phone showed no usage or
28:06
Speaker 1: movement from eight oh nine to nine o two pm,
28:09
Speaker 1: which is really convenient for Alex given the murders took
28:13
Speaker 1: place between that time period, and shortly afterwards he called
28:17
Speaker 1: Meggie and Poll's phones for the first in the series
28:20
Speaker 1: of calls, and later on a number of calls made
28:23
Speaker 1: between Alex and Maggie and Alex and Paul would not
28:26
Speaker 1: be found on Alex's phone at all, but could be
28:29
Speaker 1: seen on their phones, so he deleted them, and not
28:34
Speaker 1: thinking that the police would look at his son and
28:36
Speaker 1: his wife's phone because he's an idiot. So the phone
28:41
Speaker 1: records continued painting the picture that Alex's story wasn't quite
28:45
Speaker 1: adding up, and in twenty twenty three, General Motors provided
28:49
Speaker 1: SLED with a mountain of data regarding Alex's Chevy Suburban
28:53
Speaker 1: because the vehicle had on Star which gave precise time, location, speed,
28:58
Speaker 1: and internal view data such as whether or not the
29:02
Speaker 1: car was parked and where it was. And the data
29:04
Speaker 1: I just further confirmed the phone records, including that Alex
29:08
Speaker 1: likely threw Meggie's phone out of the vehicle on the
29:10
Speaker 1: way to his mom's house, and that he did only
29:13
Speaker 1: stay over at her house for a shorter period of
29:16
Speaker 1: time like the witnesses claimed, and that he arrived to
29:20
Speaker 1: the kennels and placed the nine one one call just
29:22
Speaker 1: seventeen seconds after arriving, which hardly fits his claim of
29:27
Speaker 1: being able to check the bodies to ensure they were breathing,
29:30
Speaker 1: and much less to process all that had happened and
29:33
Speaker 1: move past the point of grief to be able to
29:35
Speaker 1: make the phone call. And Special Agent Peter Rodowski compiled
29:39
Speaker 1: a timeline of all events through the cell phone GPS
29:42
Speaker 1: data totally eighty eight pages, and this timeline seemed to
29:46
Speaker 1: line up more with the prosecutions theory, which we'll discuss
29:50
Speaker 1: in a minute, and just went against everything Alex had claimed.
29:54
Speaker 1: So in the days after the killings, one of the
29:56
Speaker 1: caretakers for Alex's mom reported seeing Alex carrying a to
30:00
Speaker 1: which some believe could have had the missing weapons inside.
30:03
Speaker 1: There was also a rain jacket discovered that had had
30:06
Speaker 1: gunshot residue on it, but Alex denied possessing any knowledge
30:10
Speaker 1: of either item, of course, and according to forensic scientists
30:14
Speaker 1: specializing in gunshot residue Megan Fletcher, samples taken from Alex's
30:19
Speaker 1: hand and the clothes he was wearing that night of
30:21
Speaker 1: the murder also possessed gunshot primer residue, and though not
30:25
Speaker 1: completely conclusive as there was plenty of non murderous gun
30:29
Speaker 1: activity at the Murdock residence, it could mean that Alex
30:32
Speaker 1: had fired a weapon that evening. And Alex's shirt ended
30:36
Speaker 1: up being controversial for another reason because earlier on in
30:40
Speaker 1: that investigation, it was reported that there was blood droplets
30:43
Speaker 1: on the shirt resulting from high velocity impact spotter, suggesting
30:48
Speaker 1: that he was a few feet from the murder occurring,
30:50
Speaker 1: but the actual tests ran found that no human blood
30:53
Speaker 1: was on the shirt at all. So Alex was obviously
30:56
Speaker 1: a person of interest to sled from the get go,
30:58
Speaker 1: even in the absence of publicly stated suspects. The investigators
31:02
Speaker 1: quietly recognized the oddities in this situation because Alex was
31:05
Speaker 1: the only person known to be present that night besides
31:08
Speaker 1: the victims, and the victims seemed to be caught by surprise,
31:12
Speaker 1: potentially suggesting someone they knew or trusted carried out the murders,
31:17
Speaker 1: and the murders were carried out by Murdoch's weapons, and
31:20
Speaker 1: Alex's story had too many inconsistencies and he was later
31:24
Speaker 1: caught in the lies. And as evidence continued mounting, it
31:28
Speaker 1: pointed more and more in the direction of Alex and
31:32
Speaker 1: not anyone else. Essentially, he seemed to be the only
31:35
Speaker 1: credible lead. So in order to deflect the blame away
31:39
Speaker 1: from Alex, the defense offered up various alternate scenarios to
31:43
Speaker 1: explain the situation, and one that they ran with, initially
31:46
Speaker 1: suggested by Alex himself, was that Paul was indeed the
31:50
Speaker 1: target of retaliation from the boat crash, and he had
31:53
Speaker 1: received a number of threats resulting from the incident, and
31:56
Speaker 1: it was suggested that maybe they didn't take the threats
31:59
Speaker 1: seriously and it cost Paul and Meggie their lives. But
32:03
Speaker 1: based on the two different weapons used Another theory was
32:06
Speaker 1: that there was actually two shooters to match each weapon,
32:10
Speaker 1: and they claimed that due to the explosive nature of
32:12
Speaker 1: Paul's death, the killer would likely have been too stunned
32:15
Speaker 1: too quickly to switch weapons and also kill Meggie before
32:19
Speaker 1: she could get away and take some sort of action.
32:21
Speaker 1: And they also put out the idea that the killer
32:23
Speaker 1: would have had to have been short based on how
32:25
Speaker 1: the wounds were created, which if true, ruled Alex out
32:30
Speaker 1: as he was quite tall, but experts refuted the idea altogether,
32:34
Speaker 1: stating there were too many variables to accurately determine the
32:37
Speaker 1: height of the killer with the information they had, But
32:40
Speaker 1: in the end, a Sled simply ruled out everyone else,
32:44
Speaker 1: and their formal investigation was unable to find any viable
32:47
Speaker 1: suspects other than Alex himself because the most straightforward explanation
32:51
Speaker 1: proved itself to be the best one. And in a
32:54
Speaker 1: lot of cases like this, it is often someone you know,
32:57
Speaker 1: and it's often a spouse or a child, or a
33:01
Speaker 1: father or mother. It's usually someone you know. It's the
33:04
Speaker 1: usual suspect. But aside from Alex's aforementioned interviews, there are
33:09
Speaker 1: a few other notable interviews given by the family. Like Buster,
33:13
Speaker 1: Murdoch was interviewed by authorities three days after the murders,
33:16
Speaker 1: where he relayed what he knew as best he could,
33:19
Speaker 1: and he mentioned speaking to Maggie multiple times a day,
33:22
Speaker 1: showing that he was blindsided, and eventually he would do
33:25
Speaker 1: a formal interview with Fox Nation in an attempt to
33:29
Speaker 1: tell the truth of the scenario and speak to all
33:31
Speaker 1: the negative publicity shown about him and his family. And
33:34
Speaker 1: Alex's brothers Randy and John Marvin appeared on Good Morning
33:38
Speaker 1: America to speak about the situation just one week after
33:41
Speaker 1: the murders. Seems like a lot of people aren't really
33:44
Speaker 1: mourning and they're just trying to get their family name
33:46
Speaker 1: like polished own or whatever.
33:48
Speaker 2: It just seems odd.
33:49
Speaker 1: And Maggie's sister, Marian Proctor gave an interview and testimony
33:53
Speaker 1: stating that she found it weird that Alex wasn't concerned
33:56
Speaker 1: about a killer being.
33:57
Speaker 2: On the loose.
33:58
Speaker 1: That's fair and of course, of course, there were critical
34:01
Speaker 1: witness interviews as well, including Shelley Smith, Alex's moms caregiver,
34:05
Speaker 1: that testified Alex only visited his mother for fifteen to
34:07
Speaker 1: twenty minutes instead of the longer time that Alex claimed
34:10
Speaker 1: and block A. Simpson, the Murdock's housekeeper, was also interviewed,
34:14
Speaker 1: and there was Rogan Gibson's interview in which he revealed
34:17
Speaker 1: hearing Alex's voice while on the phone with Paul and
34:20
Speaker 1: the Kennel video. Paul called me at eight forty four
34:24
Speaker 1: Okay pm PM and said that there was something wrong
34:28
Speaker 1: with my dollars. And though the interviews with Buster and
34:30
Speaker 1: Alex's brothers hoped to shed positive light, the witness interviews
34:34
Speaker 1: served only to further incriminate Alex as the murderer. But
34:38
Speaker 1: the murders of Maggie and Paul were unfortunately not the
34:42
Speaker 1: only instances of death surrounding the Murdoch family, because in
34:45
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, Stephen Smith died and a Stephen Smith case
34:50
Speaker 1: had been reopened shortly after the Paul and Maggie murders
34:53
Speaker 1: due to the new evidence found in the Murdoch investigation.
34:57
Speaker 1: Because Stephen was found dead at July eighth, twenty five, fifteen,
35:00
Speaker 1: on Sandy Run Road in Hampton County, South Carolina, and
35:04
Speaker 1: he was an openly gay nursing student just nineteen years old,
35:08
Speaker 1: at first glance, it looked as if he were just
35:10
Speaker 1: killed in a hit and run, but several circumstances seemed
35:14
Speaker 1: a bit odd because his body was found in the
35:17
Speaker 1: middle of the road with blunt force trauma and a
35:19
Speaker 1: hole above his eye, and it was unconfirmed as to
35:22
Speaker 1: what specifically caused that hole, and his car was found
35:26
Speaker 1: a few miles away off the side of the road
35:28
Speaker 1: with the gas tank door and cap open, and the
35:31
Speaker 1: official report notes that state troopers saw no evidence suggesting
35:35
Speaker 1: a hit and run quote I saw no vehicle debris,
35:38
Speaker 1: skid marks, or injuries consistent with someone being struck by
35:41
Speaker 1: a vehicle. After consulting with Maait, we see no evidence
35:45
Speaker 1: to suggest the victim was struck.
35:46
Speaker 2: By a vehicle unquote.
35:48
Speaker 1: Yet the report also seems to have the Murdock name
35:51
Speaker 1: appear several times, specifically Buster as he was Stephen's classmate,
35:57
Speaker 1: because it was rumored that Buster and Stephen were romance involved,
36:01
Speaker 1: and the case file also allegedly mentioned a tip from
36:04
Speaker 1: a man claiming his step son struck Stephen d quote
36:08
Speaker 1: Randy Murdoch told him to call unquote. In one article
36:12
Speaker 1: says Randy allegedly claimed he would take the case for free,
36:16
Speaker 1: though no public information officially was released as to why
36:19
Speaker 1: the case was reopened, and the fact that it was
36:22
Speaker 1: reopened after evidence was found in the Murdoch murders strongly
36:26
Speaker 1: suggests that something was found to link Stephen's death to
36:30
Speaker 1: the Murdoch's Now Buster completely denied any sort of connection
36:34
Speaker 1: to Stephen's death, and in twenty twenty three, he released
36:37
Speaker 1: a statement saying, quote, this has gone on far too long.
36:41
Speaker 1: These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his
36:44
Speaker 1: death are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death,
36:48
Speaker 1: and my heart goes out to the Smith family unquote.
36:52
Speaker 1: And to further deny the connection, he even filed lawsuits
36:55
Speaker 1: against Netflix, Warner Brothers and others for defamation in twenty
36:59
Speaker 1: twenty four for falsely accusing him of murder, and that
37:02
Speaker 1: lawsuit is still ongoing today. And the case did make
37:05
Speaker 1: a bit of progress after being reopened in twenty twenty one,
37:09
Speaker 1: and a GoFundMe was started to raise funds to exhume
37:12
Speaker 1: the body and have a second autopsy performed, and the
37:15
Speaker 1: campaign was successful in March of twenty twenty three, and
37:18
Speaker 1: sled officially ruled the death a homicide that same month,
37:22
Speaker 1: and As of twenty twenty five, the case remains unsolved,
37:25
Speaker 1: but the Smith family continues to hope and search for answers,
37:28
Speaker 1: answers that they deserve. And then there's fifty seven year
37:32
Speaker 1: old Gloria Saderfield, who was a longtime nanny and housekeeper
37:36
Speaker 1: for the murdochs and she allegedly tripped over one of
37:40
Speaker 1: the dogs at least as Alex claimed, which led to
37:43
Speaker 1: a serious head injury, hospitalizing her for almost a full month,
37:48
Speaker 1: and on February twenty six, Gloria succumbed to complications from
37:51
Speaker 1: her wounds, yet her death was attributed to natural causes
37:55
Speaker 1: despite no autopsy performed. And alongside his old friend and
38:00
Speaker 1: colleague Corey Fleming, Alex filed claims with his homeowner's insurance
38:04
Speaker 1: for the incident, and he told the Saderfield sons that
38:07
Speaker 1: they should sue him so his insurance would pay and
38:11
Speaker 1: then he would take care of everything for them, and
38:13
Speaker 1: he also directed them to hire Fleming as their attorney,
38:17
Speaker 1: and Alex's insurance companies settled just as he predicted, paying
38:21
Speaker 1: out approximately four point three million dollars, but Alex and
38:25
Speaker 1: Fleming kept the Saderfield estate in the dark and pocketed
38:29
Speaker 1: the money for themselves.
38:31
Speaker 2: That's illegal, and the.
38:32
Speaker 1: Sadderfield sons did not see a dime from the settlement
38:35
Speaker 1: funds until they heard of Alex's other misdeeds, which led
38:39
Speaker 1: them to seek new council. And once Alex had been
38:41
Speaker 1: exposed for fraud in twenty twenty one, he admitted that
38:45
Speaker 1: he had made up the story about the dogs to
38:47
Speaker 1: force his insurance to pay and in order to make
38:49
Speaker 1: the Saderfields hole. He also agreed to pay back the
38:52
Speaker 1: four point three million dollars and Nautilus, one of his
38:56
Speaker 1: insurance companies, sued Alex for damages, and the judge ruled
38:59
Speaker 1: in their favor, ordering Alex to pay fourteen point eight
39:04
Speaker 1: million dollars. Karma is a bitch, so for his crimes
39:07
Speaker 1: involving the Sadderfields and others, Alex was hit with several charges,
39:12
Speaker 1: which will discuss in more detail shortly, and Corey Fleming,
39:15
Speaker 1: who pleaded the guilty to twenty three charges, was disbarred
39:19
Speaker 1: and sentenced to thirteen years and ten months in prison.
39:22
Speaker 1: And the Sadderfield's new lawyer, Eric Bland, helped them to
39:25
Speaker 1: recover over six point five million dollars in later lawsuits
39:29
Speaker 1: and though the civil side of the case has been resolved,
39:31
Speaker 1: it appears as if the criminal side has yet to
39:34
Speaker 1: reach a resolution, and Sled's investigation still appears to be open.
39:38
Speaker 1: So three months after the murders of Maggie and Paul,
39:40
Speaker 1: Alex claimed to have been shot while changing a tire
39:43
Speaker 1: on the side of the road, and this was the
39:45
Speaker 1: day after he resigned from pimped and his claim was
39:49
Speaker 1: that a truck saw him, slowed down, shot him and
39:52
Speaker 1: then drove off and Alex called nine to one one
39:55
Speaker 1: and was escorted to a nearby hospital to recover, and
39:58
Speaker 1: on a six he checked into rehabit for substance treatment.
40:01
Speaker 1: But the story and situation just didn't quite add up
40:05
Speaker 1: for those who heard it, and it didn't take long
40:07
Speaker 1: for the real story to surface, because it turns out
40:10
Speaker 1: that Alex admitted the incident was a conspiracy to collect
40:13
Speaker 1: ten million dollars from his life insurance policy, and he
40:17
Speaker 1: hired a man named Curtis Edward Smith to commit assistance
40:21
Speaker 1: to get the money to buster, believing that would not
40:24
Speaker 1: activate the policy. Despite his growing depression from his opiate addiction,
40:29
Speaker 1: Alex came up with the assisted side murder plan, a
40:33
Speaker 1: plan that was born from pure desperation. Because his financial
40:36
Speaker 1: schemes were being made public, he could no longer practice law,
40:40
Speaker 1: his wife and son were deceased, so he must have
40:43
Speaker 1: felt that this last ditch effort was all he could
40:46
Speaker 1: do to end his suffering while also taking care of
40:49
Speaker 1: his only remaining son. But Curtis's account, however, told a
40:53
Speaker 1: slightly different story. In the sixty one year old man
40:56
Speaker 1: who also happened to be Alex's drug supplier after they
40:59
Speaker 1: met when he needed a lawyer, claims he never shot Alex,
41:03
Speaker 1: and instead he showed up and fired the gun into
41:06
Speaker 1: the air to smack some sense into Alex.
41:09
Speaker 2: Quote.
41:09
Speaker 1: If I'd shot him, he'd be dead unquote, Smith would say, goddamn.
41:15
Speaker 1: And after Alex's admission of the staged shooting, he was
41:18
Speaker 1: faced with charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud,
41:23
Speaker 1: and filing a false police report on September sixteenth, and Smith,
41:28
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was charged with assistance, assault and
41:32
Speaker 1: battery of an aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm,
41:36
Speaker 1: insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and they
41:39
Speaker 1: both would eventually be charged with possessing, manufacturing, or distributing
41:43
Speaker 1: narcotics in June of twenty twenty two.
41:46
Speaker 2: So these charges are piling up.
41:49
Speaker 1: On top of the fact that Alex is being looked
41:51
Speaker 1: at as the prime suspect of a murder case involving
41:54
Speaker 1: his wife and his son. And the crimes committed by
41:58
Speaker 1: Alex Murdoch were extensive, spanning over a decade, allegedly beginning
42:03
Speaker 1: as early as two thousand and five up to twenty
42:05
Speaker 1: twenty one, and his schemes brought in about nine point
42:09
Speaker 1: three million dollars in stolen cash and eight point eight
42:12
Speaker 1: million dollars from clients at about four hundred and ninety
42:16
Speaker 1: thousand dollars from the state and those some reports estimate
42:19
Speaker 1: even more, and racked up over one hundred separate financial
42:23
Speaker 1: charges against at least eighteen victims, including money laundering, embezzlement,
42:28
Speaker 1: computer crimes, forgery, et cetera. And Alex was rather created
42:32
Speaker 1: and bold when it came to his stealing methods, and
42:35
Speaker 1: he regularly convinced his clients to send their settlement checks
42:39
Speaker 1: to accounts he controlled, or sometimes even send them right
42:43
Speaker 1: to him.
42:43
Speaker 2: And one of the most well known ways.
42:45
Speaker 1: He pulled this off was through a fake bank account
42:48
Speaker 1: that he set up entitled Forge to trick people into
42:52
Speaker 1: believing it was actually Forge Consulting, which is a real company,
42:57
Speaker 1: and he would make checks payable to Forge and to
43:00
Speaker 1: posit them into the Forge account, stealing the money for himself.
43:04
Speaker 1: Just a ripe piece of shit human being. And he
43:08
Speaker 1: create fake expenses and even lied directly to his clients
43:11
Speaker 1: about how much money they made in settlements, pocketing the
43:15
Speaker 1: rest or all of the money. And in another one
43:18
Speaker 1: of his main schemes, Alex conspired with Russell Lafitte, who
43:22
Speaker 1: was the CEO of Palmetto State Bank and his personal banker,
43:26
Speaker 1: and Lafitte would give Alex large personal loans as conservator
43:30
Speaker 1: for Alex's personal injury clients using minimal documentation, and Alex
43:35
Speaker 1: would tell various law firm employees to write checks addressed
43:38
Speaker 1: to Paul Metto State Bank, which Lafitte would then distribute
43:41
Speaker 1: back to Alex to pay off whatever debt he wanted
43:44
Speaker 1: to or to simply withdraw the cash. And once the
43:47
Speaker 1: two were caught, Lafitte was convicted of federal charges in
43:50
Speaker 1: November of twenty twenty two, which included bank fraud, wirefraud,
43:55
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and wirefraud and the misapplication
43:59
Speaker 1: of bankfund and he was sentenced to seven years in
44:02
Speaker 1: prison and nearly one year later, in August twenty twenty three,
44:05
Speaker 1: I feel like that's kind of light, to be honest,
44:08
Speaker 1: And for his part in the scheme, Alex pleaded guilty
44:11
Speaker 1: to one count of bank fraud, two counts of wire fraud,
44:15
Speaker 1: and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud.
44:18
Speaker 1: And Alex would also drag other lawyers, often unwittingly, just
44:22
Speaker 1: like in the final of his main schemes, which was
44:25
Speaker 1: the one he ran with Corey Fleming against the Sadderfields.
44:28
Speaker 1: So all in all, Alex wouldn't necessarily match his forefathers
44:32
Speaker 1: legal careers, but he sure found a way to make
44:35
Speaker 1: his mark in South Carolina history anyway. And notable victims
44:39
Speaker 1: from his many schemes include the aforementioned Gloria Saderfield Estate
44:44
Speaker 1: and Hakim Pickney.
44:46
Speaker 2: And Hakim was a.
44:47
Speaker 1: Young man whose life was forever altered from a two
44:50
Speaker 1: thousand and nine car crash which left him death and quadriplegic,
44:54
Speaker 1: and Alex began representing him in twenty ten, but in
44:58
Speaker 1: twenty eleven he died after his life support ventilator was
45:01
Speaker 1: mysteriously unplucked, and when his mother won the settlement funds,
45:05
Speaker 1: Alex took just under four hundred thousand dollars for himself.
45:11
Speaker 2: And this was just about, if not all of it,
45:14
Speaker 2: which is disgusting, like he is below whale shit, this guy.
45:19
Speaker 1: And then there's the Blonde del Gary family and Blondell
45:22
Speaker 1: was killed in a car accident in twenty twelve and
45:24
Speaker 1: Alex would steal from them one hundred and twelve thousand dollars,
45:28
Speaker 1: and people like Sandra Taylor, Arthur Badger, Dion Martin, Johnny Bush.
45:32
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on with more of the
45:35
Speaker 1: same despicable behavior from Alex against people who needed that money,
45:40
Speaker 1: people who needed him to just do what he was
45:43
Speaker 1: entrusted to do in those moments, but he didn't, and
45:47
Speaker 1: he just took advantage of them and took everything from them.
45:50
Speaker 1: And though it's not entirely the firm's fault to blame
45:54
Speaker 1: must obviously be placed on Alex. The fairly lacks atmosphere
45:58
Speaker 1: of PIMPED contributed to Alex's ability to commit fraud because
46:02
Speaker 1: there were minimal internal controls in place, and partners more
46:06
Speaker 1: or less had free reign to do whatever the hell
46:08
Speaker 1: they wanted to do with their cases and settlements, and
46:11
Speaker 1: there was no requirement for anyone else to sign off
46:14
Speaker 1: on what they were doing, leading to essentially no scrutiny
46:17
Speaker 1: at all. So if a partner told, say a bookkeeper,
46:20
Speaker 1: to cut a check to whoever, it was just done,
46:23
Speaker 1: just no questions asked, and people would raise concerns from
46:27
Speaker 1: time to time, like CFO seconder, but these concerns were
46:31
Speaker 1: met with any excuse, which was just accepted since the
46:34
Speaker 1: firm primarily operated on mutual trust. So Alex was initially
46:39
Speaker 1: faced with around one hundred charges for his financial crimes
46:43
Speaker 1: at the state level, and he managed to secure a
46:46
Speaker 1: plea deal bringing the charges all the way down to
46:49
Speaker 1: twenty two, to which he entered a guilty play. And
46:52
Speaker 1: the crimes include embezzlement, conspiracy, money laundering, and more, and
46:57
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to twenty seven years in prison on
47:00
Speaker 1: November twenty eighth, twenty twenty three. But separate from his
47:04
Speaker 1: state charges, Alex was also charged with twenty two federal counts,
47:09
Speaker 1: and in September of twenty twenty three, Alex fleeted guilty
47:12
Speaker 1: to all twenty two accounts and he was sentenced to
47:16
Speaker 1: forty years in federal prison in April of twenty twenty four.
47:19
Speaker 1: So although Alex's numerous financial sins drew significant attention to
47:24
Speaker 1: him and his situation, they were nothing compared to the
47:27
Speaker 1: murder of his wife and son, because this all comes together,
47:31
Speaker 1: This was all. All these sentences were after the fact,
47:34
Speaker 1: but they were building up up until the murders. So
47:37
Speaker 1: on July fourteenth, twenty twenty two, Alex Murda was indicted
47:41
Speaker 1: by a Colton County grand jury, charging him with two
47:44
Speaker 1: counts of murder, one for Maggie and one for Paul,
47:48
Speaker 1: as well as two counts of possession of a weapon
47:51
Speaker 1: during a violent crime during the commission of those murders.
47:54
Speaker 1: And each of those first two charges carried a potential
47:56
Speaker 1: life sentence, and prosecution announced that they would not pursue
48:00
Speaker 1: the death penalty, So, standing before Judge Clifton Newman on
48:04
Speaker 1: July twentieth, Alex pleted not guilty to all counts relating
48:09
Speaker 1: to the murders. So both sides had a literal mountain
48:13
Speaker 1: of evidence to go through and to prepare, and so
48:17
Speaker 1: the trial start date was set for January twenty third,
48:20
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. And it was originally set for January thirtieth,
48:23
Speaker 1: but was moved forward a week. So the journey to
48:26
Speaker 1: the trials saw numerous battles for what would be in
48:29
Speaker 1: on and off limits for each side, but the most
48:32
Speaker 1: significant was the battle for whether or not the jury
48:35
Speaker 1: would be allowed to hear Alex's financial crimes and the
48:38
Speaker 1: pressure that came with them at the time of the murders,
48:41
Speaker 1: because there's your motive in just getting nailed with all
48:46
Speaker 1: these financial crimes and then this happening to his wife
48:51
Speaker 1: and his son, like it's just it's terrible, but that
48:55
Speaker 1: that is the motive they're working off of. So the
48:57
Speaker 1: prosecution argued that this information was absolutely essential to proving
49:02
Speaker 1: motive in the case, and naturally the defense was against
49:05
Speaker 1: it and argued that it would prejudice the jury and
49:08
Speaker 1: put him on trial for all of his crimes at once,
49:11
Speaker 1: rather than the current ones being examined, which were the murders,
49:15
Speaker 1: which hasn't really had up to me. It's like every
49:17
Speaker 1: murder needs a motive, and that is always discussed in trial.
49:21
Speaker 1: It's like why did this person do this or why
49:23
Speaker 1: would this person have a reason to do this? Those
49:26
Speaker 1: crimes are very relevant. So the defense is just weak
49:29
Speaker 1: as hell in my opinion. You know, I'm just a YouTuber,
49:32
Speaker 1: what do I know. So a pre trial hearing was
49:35
Speaker 1: held in December of twenty twenty two so that both
49:37
Speaker 1: sides could be properly heard, and in February, Judge Newman
49:41
Speaker 1: had his decision and the financial crimes would be heard
49:44
Speaker 1: in the trial.
49:46
Speaker 2: Quote.
49:46
Speaker 1: I find that the jury is entitled to consider whether
49:48
Speaker 1: the apparent desperation of mister Murdoch, because of his dire
49:52
Speaker 1: financial situation and threat of being exposed for committing the
49:55
Speaker 1: crimes of which he was later charged with, resulted in
49:58
Speaker 1: the commission of the electe crimes. While motive is not
50:02
Speaker 1: a necessary element, the state must prove malice, and evidence
50:06
Speaker 1: of motive may be used to prove it. Unquote Mike Drop,
50:10
Speaker 1: we love Newman.
50:12
Speaker 2: He's got he's got a noggin on him, all right.
50:14
Speaker 1: And then defense lawyer Jim Griffin said in response, quote,
50:18
Speaker 1: they've got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct
50:22
Speaker 1: than they do about evidence of guilt in the murder case,
50:25
Speaker 1: and that's what this is all about.
50:27
Speaker 2: Unquote.
50:28
Speaker 1: Well, then it shouldn't be an issue, now, should it be?
50:30
Speaker 2: Jim it shouldn't be an issue, but they do have evidence.
50:34
Speaker 2: They have enough.
50:35
Speaker 1: Whatever we'll get, we're going to get into it. This
50:37
Speaker 1: case makes me so incredibly angry. But regardless of the
50:41
Speaker 1: major win for the prosecution, the defense did at least
50:44
Speaker 1: get a minor win with a blood splatter controversy which
50:47
Speaker 1: wouldn't be pursued because there was something that looked like
50:51
Speaker 1: blood on Alex's shirt, but it ended up being tested
50:55
Speaker 1: and it didn't come back as blood that matched Maggie
50:59
Speaker 1: or so that was vetoed out of the case. So
51:04
Speaker 1: the trial began in the beginning of twenty twenty three,
51:07
Speaker 1: around the end of January two March, and he was
51:10
Speaker 1: held at the Colton County Courthouse in Waterboro, South Carolina,
51:13
Speaker 1: with the judge being the Honorable Clifton Newman the Goat,
51:17
Speaker 1: and the prosecution team was led by Creighton Waters, whose
51:20
Speaker 1: title is a giant mouthful. It's the chief attorney of
51:25
Speaker 1: the State Grand Jury Section of the South Carolina's Attorney
51:28
Speaker 1: General's Office. Why But at his side were John Meters,
51:34
Speaker 1: an extremely experienced murder trial attorney, and the Attorney General himself,
51:38
Speaker 1: Allan Wilson. And then there's Alex's defense team who was
51:41
Speaker 1: compromised of Richard Harpoutlian and Jim Griffin. Harputlian who was
51:46
Speaker 1: a South Carolina state senator or was at the time
51:49
Speaker 1: of the trial, and Griffin is a seasoned attorney who
51:52
Speaker 1: was a former prosecutor turned defense attorney. So the prosecution's plan,
51:55
Speaker 1: as we know, was based on a clear motive. The
51:58
Speaker 1: financial reckoning that fast approached Alex for his crimes in
52:01
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one placed severe pressure on him, and the
52:04
Speaker 1: millions of dollars he had embezzled were about to be
52:06
Speaker 1: displayed for the world to see thanks to the Beach
52:09
Speaker 1: death lawsuit and increased scrutiny from his firm, and the
52:13
Speaker 1: state proposed that Alex murdered his wife Maggie and son
52:16
Speaker 1: Paul in order to gain sympathy and create a distraction
52:20
Speaker 1: amidst the growing turmoil in his life.
52:22
Speaker 2: These people, all it is is about, is about with
52:25
Speaker 2: the public images. It's sick. It makes me sick to
52:29
Speaker 2: my stomach.
52:30
Speaker 1: They acknowledged that the boat case hearing regarding his financials
52:34
Speaker 1: was canceled and that his firm wasn't pressing him as
52:36
Speaker 1: hard about his missing money, which is exactly what Alex
52:40
Speaker 1: would have wanted, and in support, they pointed to CFO
52:43
Speaker 1: Gene Seconder's confrontation about the seven hundred and ninety two
52:47
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and Mark Tinsley's testimony stating that the scheduled
52:51
Speaker 1: financial hearing was only three days after the murders took place,
52:56
Speaker 1: so if he.
52:57
Speaker 2: Did it, it was really well timed.
53:00
Speaker 1: And the comment Alex made to Marian Proctor, Maggie's sister
53:04
Speaker 1: about how whoever had done it had thought about it
53:07
Speaker 1: for a really long time.
53:08
Speaker 2: I don't know if I said that.
53:09
Speaker 1: Quote before, but he said that quote, which is very
53:12
Speaker 1: telling now that he's on trial for it. Because although
53:15
Speaker 1: motive isn't required to convict someone, the prosecution felt important
53:18
Speaker 1: to understand why he might have killed his family, and
53:22
Speaker 1: it may have seemed a bit far fetched without full context,
53:26
Speaker 1: but the jury would soon understand, and the prosecution's narrative
53:29
Speaker 1: relied on several key points. Alex was the only one
53:33
Speaker 1: who had the opportunity to commit the murders. He was
53:36
Speaker 1: the only one there with them just before they died,
53:39
Speaker 1: and it shows through Paul's kennel video, and the timeline
53:43
Speaker 1: of his movements seemed so tight that it's absurdly unlikely
53:46
Speaker 1: that someone else could have committed the crime between when
53:49
Speaker 1: he was there and when he found the bodies, and
53:52
Speaker 1: the fact that Alex lied about being at the kennel's
53:54
Speaker 1: just demonstrates an awareness of guilt, and multiple people confirmed
53:59
Speaker 1: that the voice in the video was indeed Alex's voice,
54:02
Speaker 1: and repeatedly lying over an extended period about something so
54:06
Speaker 1: critical suggests that he had something to hide, that he's
54:11
Speaker 1: maybe guilty, you know, because innocent people tend to not
54:15
Speaker 1: lie about these types of things. Not to mention, the
54:18
Speaker 1: only reason he admitted it was because the video caught him,
54:22
Speaker 1: and forensic evidence points to one specific shooter who had
54:25
Speaker 1: access to the family's weapons, and the casings found at
54:28
Speaker 1: the scene matched other casings found on the Murdoch property,
54:32
Speaker 1: and Alex's behavior itself was also just suspicious to say
54:37
Speaker 1: the least is why did he have no blood on him,
54:40
Speaker 1: even after claiming that he touched the bodies to see
54:43
Speaker 1: if they were breathing? One plus one does an equal three,
54:46
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And also the change of
54:48
Speaker 1: clothes as well, And furthermore, the rapid calls immediately after
54:51
Speaker 1: the murders look as if he was trying to establish
54:54
Speaker 1: an alibi, like he planned it for a very long time,
54:59
Speaker 1: like he said to somebody else, And just so together
55:02
Speaker 1: these points begin to paint a big picture, a very
55:06
Speaker 1: clear picture, and the jury was urged to examine things
55:09
Speaker 1: in a pattern rather than alone, and the evidence was
55:12
Speaker 1: presented systematically by the prosecution and first responders described the scene,
55:17
Speaker 1: and bodycam footage was shown, including Alex's emotional state and statements,
55:22
Speaker 1: and sled crime scene texts testified on the collection of
55:25
Speaker 1: shell casings, and pathologist doctor Ellen Reimer gave graphic testimony
55:29
Speaker 1: as to the victim's wounds and how they would have
55:32
Speaker 1: been achieved because both victims were shot at close range,
55:36
Speaker 1: and ballistic experts demonstrated how the casings at the scene
55:39
Speaker 1: matched the other's Murdox had fired before, which strongly pointed
55:43
Speaker 1: to Murdoch's weapons as the murder weapons, and though it
55:46
Speaker 1: couldn't be conclusively demonstrated with the weapons still not found,
55:51
Speaker 1: Special Agent Peter Rodowski extraordinarily detailed cell phone and GPS
55:55
Speaker 1: timeline reconstructed the evening events from a new light, establishing location, timings,
56:01
Speaker 1: and context, and of course, the Kennel video where the
56:04
Speaker 1: jurors themselves could hear the voice of Rogan Gibson and
56:08
Speaker 1: testified he was certain that Alex's voice was on the
56:10
Speaker 1: other end. And with financial information approved, the jury heard
56:14
Speaker 1: of Alex's great many misdeeds, showing Alex's extended lies as
56:19
Speaker 1: character evidence, because if he would lie to family, friends, clients, etc.
56:24
Speaker 1: Then maybe lying about the crime isn't so crazy a thought.
56:28
Speaker 1: So the defense had their work cut out for them,
56:31
Speaker 1: but they went with the tried and true reasonable doubt
56:34
Speaker 1: strategy because that's all they had. And they argued that
56:37
Speaker 1: there was no direct evidence tying Alex to the murders.
56:40
Speaker 1: There was no fingerprints, no confession, no eyewitness, no blood
56:44
Speaker 1: splatter on Alex, nothing of Alex's that was out of place,
56:48
Speaker 1: and no murder weapon and how could he have gotten
56:51
Speaker 1: rid of the weapons without leaving any sort of confirmed trace.
56:55
Speaker 1: And they pointed to the sloppy handling of the investigation
56:57
Speaker 1: by Sled and the crime scene was contaminated through allowing
57:01
Speaker 1: multiple family members around and not properly protecting evidence in
57:05
Speaker 1: the rain, et cetera. And they also proposed the idea
57:08
Speaker 1: that there may actually have been two shooters, specifically noting
57:11
Speaker 1: the two different murder weapons used in close proximity of
57:14
Speaker 1: each other, and the theory seemed primarily to be mentioned
57:17
Speaker 1: as a way to increase doubt, and the evidence tended
57:20
Speaker 1: not to clearly support the idea. Alex was clearly a
57:24
Speaker 1: loving family man. He repeatedly demonstrated that he adored his family,
57:29
Speaker 1: and those who knew him also struggled with imagining he
57:32
Speaker 1: was capable of doing such horrible things, and his nine
57:36
Speaker 1: to one one call in following breakdowns also appeared to
57:39
Speaker 1: be genuine, and Alex's own theory was echoed as well,
57:43
Speaker 1: as the defense pointed to the threats and social media
57:46
Speaker 1: bullying that Paul had received in regards to the boat crash.
57:49
Speaker 1: So the defense called a number of witnesses to the stand,
57:52
Speaker 1: both expert and character and expert witnesses of note were
57:56
Speaker 1: Colton County Coroner, who testified that he had only taken
57:59
Speaker 1: the vitim's bodies temperature and thus the proposed time of
58:02
Speaker 1: death was an estimate, and forensic pathologist Jonathan Einstadt testified
58:07
Speaker 1: that he agreed with doctor Rymer's assessment on some things,
58:10
Speaker 1: but questioned some of her conclusions about the autopsy of
58:14
Speaker 1: the victims, and mainly about the fatal shots because he
58:17
Speaker 1: claimed that both of the shots would have actually have
58:20
Speaker 1: been aiming downward based on the way the wounds were formed,
58:24
Speaker 1: and this was yet another instance in which the defense
58:26
Speaker 1: simply aimed.
58:27
Speaker 2: To plant a seed of doubt. Everything was about planting
58:30
Speaker 2: seeds of doubt for the defense basically.
58:32
Speaker 1: And Tim Palmback, a crime scene analysis and expert in
58:35
Speaker 1: blood splatters, testified that with a type of wound, Paul
58:39
Speaker 1: sustained the shooter would have had to have been at
58:42
Speaker 1: point blank range, which meant that the shooter would have
58:45
Speaker 1: been covered in blood and other bodily fluids slash parts,
58:51
Speaker 1: and he also believed that the wounds support the two
58:53
Speaker 1: shooter theory. The prime character witness was Alex's surviving son, Buster,
58:58
Speaker 1: and he testified in overwhelming support of his dad and
59:02
Speaker 1: family relationships were good and he wouldn't do something like this,
59:06
Speaker 1: and Buster's presence had a humanizing effect for Alex, and
59:10
Speaker 1: the fact that he was willing to stand up for
59:12
Speaker 1: his dad illustrated the potential that he was the good
59:16
Speaker 1: father Buster.
59:17
Speaker 2: Claimed him to be.
59:18
Speaker 1: But if Buster was an accomplice, I imagine he would
59:21
Speaker 1: stand up for his dad because he wouldn't want to
59:23
Speaker 1: go to jail either. So on February twenty third, Alex
59:26
Speaker 1: took himself to the stand and he testified for about
59:30
Speaker 1: ten total hours over the course of two days, and
59:33
Speaker 1: during direct examination, Alex firmly denied guilt, saying, quote, I
59:38
Speaker 1: did not shoot my wife or my son any time ever, unquote,
59:42
Speaker 1: But after denying his presence at the kennel's, he finally
59:45
Speaker 1: admitted that he had been lying this whole time and
59:48
Speaker 1: confirmed that it was actually his voice heard on the
59:51
Speaker 1: kennel video, and when asked why he had deceived investigators,
59:56
Speaker 1: he blamed it on paranoid thinking from his opioids addiction,
1:00:00
Speaker 1: and after he had lied once, he continued to lie
1:00:04
Speaker 1: and in his version of the events that he relayed
1:00:07
Speaker 1: for jurors. He arrived home, spent time around the property
1:00:10
Speaker 1: with Paul, and then took a shower just before Maggie
1:00:14
Speaker 1: got home, and shortly after dinner, Meggie invited him down
1:00:17
Speaker 1: to the kennels, and he didn't go immediately but followed
1:00:21
Speaker 1: shortly after, and he came back to the house and
1:00:24
Speaker 1: sat for a little bit before heading to his mom's house.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: He went returned home and only then found the bodies
1:00:30
Speaker 1: after ten pm, and Alex broke down on the stand
1:00:33
Speaker 1: as he described the events, saying, quote, it was so bad.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: My boy was lying face down. I could see his
1:00:40
Speaker 1: brain lying on the sidewalk. I didn't know what to do, unquote.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: And one thing he wanted to make very clear is
1:00:47
Speaker 1: that he loved his wife and son and would never
1:00:50
Speaker 1: do anything to hurt them. And when it came time
1:00:53
Speaker 1: for prosecutor Waters cross examination, he came out swinging, immediately
1:00:58
Speaker 1: challenging Alex's credit ability, and he accused Alex of his
1:01:02
Speaker 1: seemingly natural ability to bend the truth, saying, quote, You've
1:01:06
Speaker 1: been able to lie quickly and easily and convincingly if
1:01:09
Speaker 1: you think it'll save your skin for well over a
1:01:12
Speaker 1: decade unquote. Ooh, that stays, noting that he willingly deceived
1:01:17
Speaker 1: those close to him for years to protect himself, and
1:01:20
Speaker 1: he also commented on the convenience of this new story
1:01:24
Speaker 1: of Alex's saying quote, so you, like you've done so
1:01:28
Speaker 1: many times over the course of your life, had to
1:01:31
Speaker 1: back up and make a new story that kind of
1:01:33
Speaker 1: fits with the facts that can't be denied. Isn't that true, sir, unquote,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: to which Alex replied, quote, no, sir, that's not true unquote,
1:01:43
Speaker 1: Coupling this deceptive framing with his financial schemes, which he
1:01:47
Speaker 1: admitted were true and done to support his addiction, which
1:01:50
Speaker 1: only Sourger's views of him because years prior, Alex had
1:01:54
Speaker 1: spent upwards of fifty thousand dollars a week for his
1:01:59
Speaker 1: opioid addiction, which is crazy, but that was just another
1:02:04
Speaker 1: thing on top of all the financial crimes and everything else.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: He also had in opioid addiction to oxycodone specifically, and
1:02:10
Speaker 1: several jurors didn't even need Walters to convince them, and
1:02:14
Speaker 1: one even admitted, quote, when he got on the stand,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, so it was him. I don't
1:02:20
Speaker 1: know him, so I never knew his voice, but I
1:02:22
Speaker 1: realized it was him in the kennel video and that
1:02:25
Speaker 1: just kind of sealed the deal unquote, and another juror
1:02:28
Speaker 1: stated that they quote were able to read right through
1:02:32
Speaker 1: unquote Alex's emotional outbursts while on the stand, and many
1:02:36
Speaker 1: felt it was a mistake for him to testify, as
1:02:39
Speaker 1: quote he didn't help himself unquote, and deliberations would be quick. So,
1:02:44
Speaker 1: in addition to the more standard courtroom drama. There were
1:02:47
Speaker 1: a few notable moments. A bomb threat was phoned into
1:02:51
Speaker 1: the courthouse on February eighth, forcing an emergency evacuation and
1:02:55
Speaker 1: recess in the trial. I can't help but think that
1:02:58
Speaker 1: Alex had supidity with that, but whatever. As the fourth
1:03:00
Speaker 1: week of the trial began, two jurors were dismissed after
1:03:04
Speaker 1: testing positive for COVID, and this left only three alternates,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: but Judge Newman decided to continue on, requesting that people
1:03:11
Speaker 1: mask up. And Alex received a misdemeanor arrest warrant against
1:03:14
Speaker 1: him for an unknown offense on February twenty fourth, and
1:03:17
Speaker 1: allegedly it had to do with a contraband violation, possibly
1:03:21
Speaker 1: a book that was handed to him when it was
1:03:23
Speaker 1: not supposed to or something. And on March first, the
1:03:26
Speaker 1: jury got to take a field trip to see the
1:03:29
Speaker 1: crime scene and Kennel's at Mozelle before closing arguments were given.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was the thing, but that's very interesting.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: I think that's very good. And finally, on March second,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: the infamous egg jur that asked to grab a dozen
1:03:42
Speaker 1: eggs they had left in the courtroom was actually dismissed
1:03:45
Speaker 1: by Judge Newman for discussing the case outside of the courtroom,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: which you're not allowed to do. But all these moments aside,
1:03:52
Speaker 1: Waters gripped the jury's attention and during closing arguments, and
1:03:56
Speaker 1: he reaffirmed that Alex was the only person with the motive,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: means an opportunity to carry out the murders, urging the
1:04:03
Speaker 1: jury to hold him accountable for all his lives. Alex
1:04:07
Speaker 1: is a master liar, he claimed, one who is trying
1:04:10
Speaker 1: to fool the jury.
1:04:11
Speaker 2: Quote.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: He fooled Maggie and Paul and they paid for it
1:04:14
Speaker 1: with their lives. Don't let him fool you too, unquote
1:04:19
Speaker 1: another mic drop moment to this guy needs an oscar,
1:04:22
Speaker 1: except he's not acting. He's being real as fun and
1:04:25
Speaker 1: Jim Griffin offered the defense's response, arguing that the prosecution
1:04:29
Speaker 1: hadn't done their one job to prove Alex's guilt beyond
1:04:33
Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt, and he again pointed to a sloppy investigation,
1:04:36
Speaker 1: contaminated evidence, and lack of actual direct physical proof that
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Alex had committed these crimes. And he appeals to common
1:04:44
Speaker 1: sense because he believed that will lead the jurors to acquit,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: and Jim argued that Alex loved his family and that
1:04:50
Speaker 1: it makes no sense for someone to go out and
1:04:53
Speaker 1: get caught committing a murder to distract from getting caught
1:04:56
Speaker 1: for financial crimes.
1:04:57
Speaker 2: Quote.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: If there is any reasonable cast for you to hesitate
1:05:01
Speaker 1: to write guilty, then the law requires you to write
1:05:04
Speaker 1: not guilty, unquote. And the state gets the last word
1:05:08
Speaker 1: with John Meeter's closing rebuttal. And he also argues that
1:05:11
Speaker 1: the jury should use quote unquote common sense and he
1:05:14
Speaker 1: recognizes that they didn't leave it behind when the trial started.
1:05:18
Speaker 1: Common Sense says that Alex didn't go to his mom's
1:05:22
Speaker 1: because he loved his mom. No, he went because he
1:05:25
Speaker 1: loves Alex and wanted to create his alibi. Common Sense
1:05:29
Speaker 1: says that Alex took Maggie's phone, threw it out the
1:05:31
Speaker 1: window as he drove, and texted it as he went away.
1:05:35
Speaker 1: He ultimately said that he believes Alex loved his wife
1:05:38
Speaker 1: and son, but he loves himself more and the self
1:05:41
Speaker 1: love caused him to perpetually lie. Quote the state requests
1:05:45
Speaker 1: that it stop here find him guilty unquote.
1:05:48
Speaker 2: Another micdropt moment.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: So on March second, twenty twenty three. The jury deliberated
1:05:54
Speaker 1: for less than three hours. That's not a lot of
1:05:57
Speaker 1: time if you read a lot of cases like I do.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: That's literally like a minute injury injury hours, and they
1:06:03
Speaker 1: returned with a guilty verdict on all counts for the
1:06:07
Speaker 1: murder of Meggie, for the murder of Paul, and for
1:06:10
Speaker 1: both counts of possessing a weapon during a violent crime
1:06:12
Speaker 1: in the deaths of both Maggie and Paul. And Alex
1:06:15
Speaker 1: showed almost no visible sign of emotion as a verdict
1:06:19
Speaker 1: was delivered, and the once mighty lawyer had essentially lost everything,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: and the defense instantly moved for a mistrial, but Judge
1:06:27
Speaker 1: Newman shut it down, saying, quote the evidence of guilt
1:06:32
Speaker 1: is overwhelming unquote, and cheers erupted in and out of
1:06:37
Speaker 1: the courtrooms at the conviction. Justice has been done. An
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Attorney General, Alan Wilson exclaimed, quote, a great day for
1:06:44
Speaker 1: the people of South Carolina. Today's verdict proves that no one,
1:06:48
Speaker 1: no one, no matter who you are in society.
1:06:51
Speaker 2: Is above the law, unquote.
1:06:53
Speaker 1: And the verdict was seen as having given a voice
1:06:56
Speaker 1: to Maggie and Paul and people everywhere, especially all the
1:07:00
Speaker 1: victims of Alex whether it was in death or financially so.
1:07:04
Speaker 1: Within twenty four hours of the verdict, court was reconvened
1:07:08
Speaker 1: in the presence of Judge Newman for sentencing, but before
1:07:11
Speaker 1: the punishment was revealed, Alex affirmed his innocence one more time, saying, quote,
1:07:16
Speaker 1: good morning, your honor. I am innocent. I would never
1:07:19
Speaker 1: hurt my wife, Maggie. I've never hurt my son, pawpaw.
1:07:22
Speaker 1: Thank you unquote, and Judge Newman responded that maybe it
1:07:26
Speaker 1: wasn't him in his own mind, maybe a creature come
1:07:29
Speaker 1: from the opiates, but the jury found otherwise, and he
1:07:33
Speaker 1: doesn't question the state's decision not to pursue the death penalty,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: but he comments that people have received it for less
1:07:39
Speaker 1: than what Alex did. And Alex was sentenced to two
1:07:42
Speaker 1: consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, served back
1:07:46
Speaker 1: to back in state prison, which was the maximum sentence,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: and the weapons charged also added a five year term
1:07:53
Speaker 1: for each charge, which ran concurrently, and the defense make
1:07:57
Speaker 1: sure to note they will appeal the decision. So Alex
1:08:01
Speaker 1: Murdoch away for the rest of his miserable, goddamn life
1:08:06
Speaker 1: as he deserves. He is a waste of oxygen human being.
1:08:09
Speaker 1: In my opinion, I mean he's guilty. I genuinely, in
1:08:14
Speaker 1: looking at this case, think he is extremely guilty. And
1:08:17
Speaker 1: there's been there's been so much coverage on this case
1:08:20
Speaker 1: as well. There's multiple docuseries about it on HBO, Max
1:08:24
Speaker 1: and Netflix, and I think something just came out on
1:08:26
Speaker 1: Hulu as well, So if you want even more and
1:08:28
Speaker 1: to get more interviews and everything, you can watch those
1:08:30
Speaker 1: as well. But in watching it, it's just like it's
1:08:32
Speaker 1: really sad, the corruption and just the elite taking advantage
1:08:36
Speaker 1: of the system and then just treating human beings like
1:08:39
Speaker 1: they're nothing just to gain sympathy to distract It's it's horrible.
1:08:44
Speaker 1: It's horrifying, and I'm really glad that justice system did
1:08:47
Speaker 1: their job. But yeah, he absolutely got what he deserved.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: And it even newer news, the Mallory Beach who boat
1:08:53
Speaker 1: crash settlement was finally complete and the wrongful death suit
1:08:57
Speaker 1: finally concluded for the Beach family. In twenty twenty five,
1:09:00
Speaker 1: or after Alex's conviction, he settled a lawsuit and the
1:09:03
Speaker 1: boat insurance company agreed to pay five hundred thousand dollars
1:09:06
Speaker 1: to the Beach family for their loss and hardship, and
1:09:09
Speaker 1: also in twenty twenty three, they managed to settle their
1:09:11
Speaker 1: suit with Parker's, the convenience store that Paul bought the
1:09:14
Speaker 1: alcohol from, for fifteen million dollars, and the family says
1:09:18
Speaker 1: it was never about the money, of course, just about
1:09:21
Speaker 1: their beloved Mallory. But I'm sure the fifteen million really
1:09:24
Speaker 1: helps out, so I'm really glad that they got.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: Something out of that.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: But yeah, Alex Murdoch will remain in prison for the
1:09:30
Speaker 1: rest of his miserable life. And the most significant development
1:09:35
Speaker 1: is the pending Supreme Court appeal potentially bolstered by criminal
1:09:39
Speaker 1: charges against Becky Hill, who testified in Alex Murdoch's trial
1:09:44
Speaker 1: but was found a wrongful in her testimony.
1:09:47
Speaker 2: So that that's a whole other thing that's going on.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: And the Stephen Smith case remains one of South Carolina's
1:09:53
Speaker 1: most frustrating unsolved mysteries, despite renewed attention and resources. But
1:09:58
Speaker 1: that is it for the murder murders and everything else
1:10:02
Speaker 1: involved the murder crime dynasty. This was a very big one.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: A lot of you guys asked me to deep dive
1:10:08
Speaker 1: into this one, so I appreciate that. If you have
1:10:10
Speaker 1: any other cases you want me to deep dive into.
1:10:12
Speaker 2: Let me know down below.
1:10:13
Speaker 1: It could be conspiracy, could be you know, crime, could
1:10:16
Speaker 1: be cults. You know crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers and murders.
1:10:19
Speaker 1: You know that's how it goes. So please let me
1:10:21
Speaker 1: know what else you want me to deep dive into.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: And until then, please stay safe and stay beautiful, and
1:10:25
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.
1:10:26
Speaker 2: All right, Bye,