00:00:01
County 911. Your emergency [laughter] road. I need the police immediately. My wife and child.
00:00:15
>> Hi crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Brit. >> And the story I have for you today is
00:00:21
one that you have probably heard something about. a powerful low country dynasty, a double murder, and a trial
00:00:30
that gripped the country. And a system that let one family operate above the law for nearly [music] a century. And
00:00:37
with the possibility of a new trial on the horizon, one question is more important now than ever. Why? Why
00:00:44
[music] would a man who seemed to have everything choose to destroy it all by [music] murdering his own wife and son?
00:00:52
This is the story of the Murdoch family. >> 47 Mosel Road in Allison. [laughter]
00:01:06
>> Sir, >> you said 4147 Mosel Road in Allison. >> Yes, sir. 4147 Road. >> Stay on the line with me. Okay. Yes,
00:01:16
sir. Stay on the line with me. Okay. >> I've been up to it now. It's bad. Okay. How did they shoot? Did they shoot
00:01:23
theirel? >> Oh, no. Hell no. >> Okay. And are they breathing? >> No, ma'am. I can tell.
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>> And did you shot in the head and he shot really bad? >> Okay. Where is Where is he shot at?
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>> Ma'am, I don't know. But there's blood everywhere. Um, I brain I can see his brain
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face down. I tried to turn her a little bit. She's got a hole in her head. Hurry.
00:02:02
Those are just excerpts from the nearly 10-minute call Alec Murdoch made to 911 on June 7th, 2021 at 10:07 p.m. Between
00:02:12
sobs, he tells dispatch that he had just discovered the bodies of his wife and son near some dog kennels on his estate
00:02:19
in rural Colin County, South Carolina. And rural is for real because even speeding with lights and sirens on, it
00:02:27
takes South Carolina law enforcement about 20 minutes to get out to Moselle Road. Now, when they finally turn up the
00:02:34
long driveway to get to the dog kennels, the first thing they see is Alec standing by his truck with his hazard
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lights flashing. And leaning against his truck is his 12 gauge shotgun, which Alec says that he got from his house in
00:02:47
case whoever hurt his wife and son decided to come back. Now, officers immediately take the gun. They secure it
00:02:54
in their patrol car and make their way to the kennels to see for themselves what Alec described on the phone. His
00:03:00
22-year-old son, Paul, is lying face down in the open doorway to a feed room that's at the end of this like row of
00:03:08
dog kennels. He has traumatic chest and head wounds. And police know, as Alec told the dispatcher, that the majority
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of Paul's brain is actually lying next to him on the ground. Everything they're seeing is consistent with a gunshot
00:03:21
wound. Now, first responders also find Paul's iPhone laying on top of his body, like just resting on top of his shorts,
00:03:28
kind of like it was placed there. And there's no blood on it or anything. But Alec did tell the 911 dispatcher that he
00:03:34
had touched both of the bodies to try and see if they were breathing. So, the positions that they're found in might
00:03:38
not have been the positions that the killer left them in or that they naturally like fell in. I mean, Alec
00:03:43
actually said to the operator that [music] he tried to turn his 52-year-old wife, Margaret, who goes by Maggie, he
00:03:48
tried to turn her over a little bit, too, but she had a hole in her head. And first responders see what looks like
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five gunshot wounds to her back, her chest, wrist, and leg. [music] >> And is Maggie right there next to Paul?
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>> No, she's actually about 30 ft away, like across this gravel driveway, but there is this like clear line of sight
00:04:08
between the two victims. There are also 12 gauge shell casings and 300 blackout casings next to the bodies and like
00:04:15
strewn along the gravel driveway between them. So, it's definitely looking like both victims were shot. But what's weird
00:04:22
is that it seems like those two casings would have been fired from two different
00:04:26
[music] guns, a shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle. And neither of those weapons were
00:04:32
left behind. >> And what about the gun that Alec had with him when they showed up? Like that
00:04:36
was a shotgun, right? It was a 12- gauge shotgun, too, but it actually wasn't the
00:04:39
one used to kill Maggie or Paul. Investigators eventually are going to take it into evidence, but right now
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they're more focused on hearing from Alec. Their first interview with him actually happens in one of the officers
00:04:51
cars. [music] And again, between like sobbs and dry heaving, Alec walks them through the
00:04:56
events of that night. And here is some of that 34-minute interview. >> So, um, just start at the top. take your time.
00:05:08
>> Um, like when I came back here >> Mhm. >> I mean, I pulled up and I could see him
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and, you know, I knew something was bad. I ran out. I knew it was really bad. My my boy over there, I could see it was
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[laughter] >> [clears throat] >> And I ran over to Maggie. And actually, I think I tried to turn Paul
00:05:45
over first. Um, uh, you know, I tried to turn him over and, uh, I don't know. I figured it out.
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Um, his cell phone popped out of his pocket. I started to try to do something with it,
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thinking maybe, but then I put it back down really quickly. Um, then I went to my wife and I
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I mean I could see >> Mhm. >> Did you touch Maggie at all? >> I did. I touched them both.
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>> Okay. >> I tried to take I mean I tried to do it as limited as possible, but I I tried to
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take their pulse on both of them. >> Mhm. M and um you know I called 911 um pretty much right away and
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she was very good. Um I know you said the phone fell out the pocket. Um but did you see anything else
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that didn't belong or shouldn't belong or that wasn't part of Paul? >> No sir. Not. No. Not good.
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>> No, sir. >> How about Maggie? >> No, sir. >> You didn't see anything around them?
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>> What made you come out here at night? >> Um, I went to My mom's a late stage Alzheimer's patient. My dad's in the
00:07:15
hospital. Um, my mom gets anxious when she does. I went to check on them and Maggie. Maggie's a dog lover and she
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fools with the dogs and I knew she'd gone to the kennel. I was at the house. [snorts]
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I left the house and went to my mom's [cough and clears throat] for just a little while. Tried to call
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her when [cough] I left. Texted her. No response. Um, when I got back to the house, the house
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was obviously nobody was in there, so I figured they're still up here fooling around. Paul was um going to be getting
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set up to plant. Our sunflower seeds got sprayed and died, and he was refiguring
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to do to plant the sunflower seeds. >> [clears throat and snorts] >> So I came back up here and I drove up
00:08:15
and saw and called. [clears throat] The window of time from when Alec left to see his mom to when he came back is
00:08:26
small, 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.ish. The window for when Maggie and Paul were murdered is even smaller. The coroner
00:08:33
estimates that that was between 9 and 9:30, but Alex says that he didn't hear or see anything odd when he got home. In
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fact, he says he only went to the dog kennels because he was looking for Maggie, like he couldn't find her
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inside. >> Had Maggie and Paul been arguing over anything? >> No. >> What was their relationship like?
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>> Wonderful. >> Wonderful. How about yours and Maggie's? >> Wonderful. I mean, I'm sure we had
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little things here and there, but we had a wonderful marriage, wonderful relationship. [snorts]
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>> And yours and Paul's relationship? >> As good as it could be. Have y'all been having any problems out
00:09:11
here? Trespassers? >> People breaking in? >> None that I know of. The only thing that
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what comes to my mind is my son Paul was in a boat wreck a couple years ago and there's been a, you know, he was charged
00:09:29
with being arrested for being the driver. There's been a lot of negative publicity about that. And there's been a
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lot of people online just really vile stuff. But when Paul's out and about, I mean, people routinely I don't think I
00:09:46
know the full story um cuz I don't think they give it to me, but I mean he's been
00:09:52
punched and hit and just attacked a lot. So, you know, but I mean nothing like this.
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>> Alec is downplaying the [music] situation here. The boat wreck he's talking about happened in 2019 and
00:10:08
resulted in the death of a 19-year-old girl named Mallalerie Beach. And a couple months afterwards, Paul was
00:10:14
charged with three felony counts of boating under the influence, which included causing Mallerie's death
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[music] and seriously injuring two other passengers. But the boat crash is just like the tip of the iceberg when it
00:10:26
comes to the Murdoch family. I mean, Mallalerie's death, Paul and Maggie's death, they're not the only suspicious
00:10:31
deaths that Alec [music] and his family have been tangled up in. >> Yeah. I remember when all of this was
00:10:36
like dominating the news, the Murdoch name was just being brought up with like one tragedy after another after another,
00:10:42
[music] it seemed like, >> right? And it's because like the Murdoch's, they're not just like any old
00:10:46
southern family. They were a huge name in South Carolina. I mean, for over a century, the Murdoch name was basically
00:10:53
synonymous with power and money. Three generations of Murdoch men served as the region's top prosecutors, overseeing
00:11:01
every criminal case across five counties. According to an article published in the state, they sent
00:11:06
thousands of people to prison and more than a dozen to death row. People seem to believe that they are untouchable.
00:11:14
But beneath that polished surface, there are cracks, like big cracks. And with the deaths of Paul and Maggie, for the
00:11:22
first time in nearly a century, they are about to split wide open. The world is full of mysteries that make
00:11:32
us question everything we've ever known to be true. These events leave us with a
00:11:37
sense of wonder and yearning for understanding. I'm Evette Gentile. And I'm her sister, Rasha Beckerero. And
00:11:44
each week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we take a deep dive into the world's most bizarre and puzzling
00:11:50
mysteries. Ready to dive into the unknown? Join us every Friday for a new episode of So Supernatural, available
00:11:57
wherever you listen to podcasts. The media latches on to Paul and Maggie's deaths immediately, and the
00:12:05
rumors and speculation are rampant. In the months that follow the incident, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division
00:12:11
doesn't name any suspects or people of interest, but they also don't publicly clear anyone. [music] And given the
00:12:17
Murdoch family history, people are quick to jump to their own conclusions. I mean, the first incident that starts
00:12:24
getting a lot of airtime is that boat crash, the death of Mallalerie Beach. On February 23rd, 2019, she was ejected
00:12:31
from Alec Murdoch's boat after it crashed into a bridge at 2:21 in the morning. Now, there weren't any adults
00:12:37
on the boat. It was just a group of teenagers with Alex's son, Paul, allegedly at the wheel. And while all of
00:12:42
the other kids made [music] it back to shore after the crash, Mallerie didn't. Her body was found 8 days later in a
00:12:49
marsh about 5 mi away from where the crash originally happened. Now, according to the coroner, Mallerie
00:12:54
[music] drowned after suffering a blow to the head from impact. When officers got to the scene that night and started
00:13:00
talking to all of the kids, it was clear that they had been drinking. A police report describes them as grossly
00:13:06
intoxicated and there was a cooler full of beers and seltzers on the boat and a bunch of empty cans, but no one was
00:13:14
breathalyzed at the scene, >> which I always get hung up on that part. Like, why not at least breathalyze Paul?
00:13:20
Like, if he was the one driving, >> so that's the thing. At least on paper, officers couldn't confirm who was
00:13:27
driving even though the passengers on the boat were all pointing fingers at Paul. And according to one of the
00:13:32
passengers that night, while everyone was focused on Mallalerie, Paul's main concern seemed to be getting in touch
00:13:38
with his grandfather, Randolph Murdoch, who was the former South Carolina circuit solicitor. In an
00:13:44
audio recording taken that night by first responders, you can hear one of the kids, Mallerie's boyfriend in
00:13:50
particular, shouting at Paul during his conversation [music] with an officer. >> BRO, YOU SMILING LIKE IT'SING FUNNY.
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>> Sit down. SIT DOWN. MYING GIRLFRIEND, FOLKS. >> You all know Alec Murdoch. >> Oh yeah, I know that name.
00:14:06
>> That's his son. >> Good luck. >> I feel like there's so much behind that. Good luck.
00:14:16
>> Yeah. So Mandy Matney, the investigative journalist who covered this boat crash
00:14:20
and went on to deep dive into the Murdoch family and break a lot of the news surrounding Maggie and Paul's
00:14:25
deaths, she told our reporters that immediately following the crash, she started getting tips from people saying
00:14:31
that there was going to be a cover up. She kept hearing that the alleged boat driver belonged to a powerful family of
00:14:38
lawyers that quote [music] got away with everything and did not believe that anybody could touch them. which seems
00:14:44
like it was the case if all the kids from the crash were telling the officers that Paul was driving the boat and the
00:14:50
officers were like you said on paper writing that no one really knew who was driving the boat,
00:14:56
>> right? And like I get it to some extent this was a chaotic scene. The kids aren't necessarily of sound mind, but it
00:15:02
is hard to shake the idea that maybe Paul might have been getting some favorable treatment because of [music]
00:15:07
his last name. I mean, Mandy actually said that when she began reporting on this boat crash story, people were
00:15:13
scared to talk to her or even say the name Murdoch out of fear of the family's power. [music] And the family's power
00:15:19
was in full force that night. When the kids were taken to the hospital, Paul's dad and grandfather were there waiting.
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They were like walking through the ER trying to talk to all of the kids while they were talking with officers, trying
00:15:32
to like prevent them from taking those sobriety tests and eventually stopping all police interviews.
00:15:38
>> Is that even allowed? >> Well, I mean like they're all lawyers, so if they were their lawyers, but
00:15:44
according to AP News, one nurse did actually tell Alec Murdoch to stay in Paul's room or like leave the hospital
00:15:50
and she asked security to keep an eye on him. Now, eventually over an hour after
00:15:54
the crash, Paul's blood was taken at the hospital. And even then, his BAC was more than three times the legal limit.
00:16:04
But at least at that time, no charges were filed. Over the next month, authorities continued their
00:16:11
investigation into Mallalerie's death. Her mom filed a civil lawsuit over it, accusing three Murdoch men of
00:16:17
wrongdoing. [music] and ultimately the county sheriff's office ended up recusing itself from
00:16:22
[music] the investigation due to their quote long-standing relationship with Randph Murdoch. So that's when the case
00:16:29
got handed over to the Department of Natural Resources and within a matter of weeks of them having it, they end up
00:16:35
charging Paul with voting under the influence resulting in Mallerie's death. Paul pleaded not guilty at his
00:16:41
arraignment, which two judges recused themselves from, by the way, because of the Murdoch family. But here's the
00:16:47
thing. He is murdered before the trial can take place. And two months after his murder, all charges get dismissed in
00:16:56
what officials describe as a formality. So all of that is a pretty far cry from how Alec was talking about this incident
00:17:05
to the cops the night of Paul's murder, >> right? And because Alec isn't just some
00:17:11
guy talking to police like he is used to dealing with law enforcement, used to dealing with judges, the whole system.
00:17:17
He knows the right things to say. He knows the right way to position himself to make sure things get handled quietly.
00:17:23
And the boat crash wasn't even the first time the Murdoch had inserted themselves
00:17:27
legally into the case of a dead teenager in [music] the area. I'm going to take one more detour to give everyone like
00:17:33
background before we come back to Maggie and Paul because like this is important
00:17:38
to know. So 6 years before the murders of Maggie and Paul, a 19-year-old named Steven Smith was killed. [music] And
00:17:45
from the jump, his death was suspicious as hell. >> Yeah. Full disclosure, this is the case
00:17:52
that I have the most questions about. I think it's the one that like most people
00:17:56
have the most questions about because none of the facts seem to be matter of fact. So on July 8th, 2015 around 4:00
00:18:05
in the morning, Steven's body is found in the middle of a road like 10 to 15 miles away from the Murdoch home. Now,
00:18:12
originally investigators thought that he had been shot. I mean like I've seen some of the like photos from the road
00:18:18
that day and it is like gruesome. But at autopsy, it was determined that he died
00:18:23
from blunt force trauma to the head, resulting from a possible hit and run. I mean, his shoulder had been dislocated.
00:18:29
But the thing to me that doesn't line up with a car crash is he had apparent defensive wounds on his hand,
00:18:35
>> right? And like, you aren't fighting a car. How do you get a defensive wound from a hit and run?
00:18:40
>> You don't. And that's one of the reasons that the coroner and the pathologist and
00:18:45
the detectives and Steven's family all seem to have different ideas about how Steven actually died. Sled South
00:18:52
Carolina Law Enforcement Division, they believe that Steven was on his way home when he likely ran out of gas on the
00:18:58
highway and decided to like walk the rest of the way. Like his car is found with the gas cap unscrewed about 2 to
00:19:04
three miles away from where he would have been killed. And to explain the severity of Steven's head injury, the
00:19:09
pathologist who performed the autopsy suggested Steven had been hit by like the mirror of a passing truck. But an
00:19:17
investigator from Highway Patrol wrote in reports that there was no evidence of Steven being struck by a vehicle. Like
00:19:23
things you would expect to see, right? Like no glass, no debris from a car found anywhere on the road or on
00:19:29
Steven's body. So the investigator asked the pathologist if it was possible that
00:19:34
like could Stephen have actually been struck with a baseball bat. Now she said no, but then he asked, "Okay, well what
00:19:42
if someone was like driving by and swung the bat from a moving car?" Cuz I think
00:19:47
she's saying like just a hit from a baseball bat wouldn't be this severe, right?
00:19:50
>> But what if they have the bat and it's like in a moving car? And the pathologist said, quote, "Well, I guess
00:19:56
that's possible." Now, the county coroner didn't buy the hit-and- run theory either. His theory was that
00:20:02
Steven was actually shot like they initially thought the first time, and Steven's mom, Sandy, was adamant that
00:20:09
her son's life did not [music] end from a vehicle collision. Sandy has said that
00:20:14
her son was skittish, like he would not have been walking in the middle of the road, and even if for some reason he
00:20:20
was, he would have gotten off the road once he saw the headlights coming. >> Mhm. And she doesn't think he ran out of
00:20:27
gas either. She thinks it was a setup and that he was beaten to death. I mean, so severely, by the way, that part of
00:20:33
Steven's face had to be rebuilt with putty for his funeral. >> So why does she think it was
00:20:39
premeditated? >> Well, Sandy tells Sled that Steven was acting strange in the weeks leading up
00:20:46
to his death. He was being more secretive, not studying as much, and playing hookie from school. So her
00:20:52
theory is that his classmates who were coming home from a baseball game that night were responsible.
00:20:59
>> Hence the baseball bat theory, >> right? And in a letter Sandy wrote to the FBI, she mentions Alec Murdoch's
00:21:07
sons specifically. Now, Alec's oldest son, Buster, went to high school with Steven. Buster is actually mentioned a
00:21:13
couple of times throughout the Highway Patrol report along with others that police were looking into. And I mean,
00:21:19
we're talking about a small town in South Carolina. That is far from the only connection between the Smiths
00:21:24
[music] and the Murdochs. Alec Murdoch coached the boys little league baseball team, and his brother Randy reportedly
00:21:30
repped Steven's dad in a workers's comp claim. And wasn't there a rumor that Steven and Buster were possibly in a
00:21:38
relationship at some point? Like, is that >> that just internet noise? >> No, that rumor is actually in the police
00:21:44
report. It is not verified or anything. just an early rumor that investigators were tipped off to. Steven was out as
00:21:51
gay and was in a relationship when he died, but people online have brought up the Steven Buster secret romance theory
00:21:57
to suggest that silencing Steven might have like been a motive. And Buster has never even explicitly acknowledged the
00:22:04
rumor. He said in a statement that he was not involved in Steven's death and that all of the vicious rumors swirling
00:22:11
about him were false. But what makes me like double take is that a sexual assault kit was ordered in Steven's
00:22:18
death by a coroner without consulting investigators. >> Which is that normal for a supposed hit
00:22:26
and run? Like you're investigating as a hit and run? >> One of the highway patrol officers who
00:22:31
responded the night said that he had never seen anything like that done before in any traffic accidents that
00:22:36
like he was aware of. And like the autopsy didn't know anything abnormal that would like prompt a sexual assault
00:22:42
kit. And what's so interesting is like the coroner who performed it is no longer in office. And because the
00:22:48
records have been sealed, I don't know the results of the kit, if there were any. I mean, it's not even clear. They
00:22:54
collected a kit. Was the kit actually tested? >> Now, because everyone seems to disagree
00:22:59
on what really caused Steven's death, we reached out to an Ohio based forensic pathologist, Dr. Kent Harshburgger to
00:23:06
get our own professional opinion. Full clarity like he did not work Steven's case, but he agreed to like look at the
00:23:11
autopsy photos and tell us his thoughts. And according to Dr. Harshburgger, the injuries don't look like a typical hit
00:23:18
and run. The head trauma is forceful enough that Steven had to have been struck by either a moving vehicle or
00:23:24
something in motion, but not in a way that matched the usual patterns. Like, it seems too much to just be a beating.
00:23:33
and a bat likely would have left a different, he said, narrower wound. What stood out most to him though was the
00:23:39
blood all pooling in one area. Like no sign of a second impact, which you would [music] normally expect in a hit and run
00:23:47
when the body like hits the ground. >> There's two impacts hit and then the ground.
00:23:52
>> Dr. Harshburgger said that he would have ruled it blunt force trauma to the head
00:23:55
and left the manor undetermined, not ruled it an accident with a car. But rulings aside, what really gives me
00:24:02
pause is that Sandy claims that the day of her son's death. The first call she received was from authorities notifying
00:24:10
her. But do you want to guess who the second call was from? >> Alec Murdoch. >> Not Alec, but his brother, solicitor
00:24:18
Randy Murdoch. Sandy says that he told her he was interested in working pro bono as a liaison between her family and
00:24:25
the authorities. Steven's dad accepted, though neither he nor Sandy had any idea
00:24:31
how Randy found out about the incident so quickly or why he would have been interested in it specifically. And
00:24:38
shortly thereafter, Randy just stopped returning their calls. So by June 7th, 2021, when Alec is sitting in the patrol
00:24:48
car talking to officers, he's telling them about the Mallerie Beach incident. [music]
00:24:53
>> Kind of >> yet way underplayed. But there is all this stuff just like bubbling under the
00:24:59
surface. So once Maggie and Paul are killed, every suspicion anyone's ever had, any rumor that they've heard about
00:25:08
this family, they're all getting spoken about louder and more often than ever before. I mean, this is all anyone is
00:25:17
talking about in this area at the time. Now, I don't know what police think of Alex's story early on, but they don't
00:25:23
arrest him that night. Per some redacted police reports I have, it doesn't even seem like he's even the first suspect. A
00:25:31
kid named Rogan Gibson is. And Rogan is like a third son to the Murdoch. And the
00:25:37
night of the murders, Paul had actually been dogsitting for him. That was likely
00:25:41
why he was out in the kennels that night to begin [music] with. And they know that Rogan was the last person Paul
00:25:46
talked to. But when they interview him the next day, they end up quickly ruling him out. It turns out Paul had called
00:25:53
Rogan at 8:40 p.m. to tell him that something was wrong with his dog's tail. The pair like tried to FaceTime, but
00:26:00
Paul had a bad connection. They end up disconnecting. And then after that, Rogan tried texting and calling Paul.
00:26:06
Tried texting Maggie to get Paul to call him back. Even tried Buster, but no one
00:26:10
was answering. So this FaceTime call and the logs proved that Rogan was telling the truth. But all the stuff they get
00:26:17
from the phone also proved that someone else was lying. Alec, there is a 50-second cell phone video that Paul
00:26:27
took via Snapchat at 8:44 p.m. on the night of his murder. And the video taken at the dog kennels shows Paul like
00:26:35
petting Rogan's dog. But it isn't the visuals that investigators are interested in. It's the audio. Because
00:26:40
in the background, you can hear Paul's voice talking to Rogan's dog. You hear Maggie's voice shouting that an off-
00:26:47
camerara dog named Bubba has a bird in his mouth. But then there's a third voice. Alex,
00:26:57
>> get back. Get back. Quit. Cash. Come on. Quit. It's okay. Come here. Come here, Cash.
00:27:14
[ __ ] Okay. >> Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth. >> Hey, Bubba. >> It's a guinea.
00:27:26
>> There's a chicken. >> Come here, Bubba. >> Come here, cat. >> Come here, Bubba. Catch. Quit.
00:27:39
You can hear him trying to get Bubba's attention to drop the bird. So, this video basically says that Alec was at
00:27:47
the crime scene right before the murders >> and he lied to police about it. Originally, he said that the last time
00:27:53
he spoke to Maggie was around like 8 or 8:30 p.m. that night, after which he laid down for a quick nap. Then, just
00:28:00
after 9:00, he woke up, left to go visit his mom. So, in his version of events, he never stopped by the dog kennels that
00:28:06
night or saw Maggie or saw Paul before leaving. Him leaving just after 9, though, which was always his story,
00:28:12
doesn't seem to be a lie. The telemetry data from his car shows that he left the
00:28:16
Moselle property at 9:07 p.m. >> So, he would have been there during the 9 to 9:30 window that Maggie and Paul
00:28:25
were presumably murdered. Like, at least a small portion of that. >> Yeah. And there's the fact that Alec
00:28:30
practically raced to his mom's house that night, driving faster than he had on any other trip that day. And that his
00:28:36
car idled for a period of time halfway up the driveway at his mom's house. Perhaps they suspect when he was trying
00:28:45
to conceal or stash the murder weapon. So, he did go to his mom's that night then. Yeah, they think he went to
00:28:53
establish an alibi, but he for sure went. And that is proven by his car's GPS data, which makes the evidence that
00:29:00
they end up finding in his mother's house all the more suspicious because there is this blue rain jacket in a
00:29:06
closet of hers. And when tested, this jacket is found to have a large amount of gunshot residue on the inside of it.
00:29:13
Now, it's probably sounding like all of this is happening fast, but keep in mind
00:29:18
the [music] Murdoch of it all. I feel like hoops had to be jumped through because this search of mom's house,
00:29:24
which seems like something you would search early on knowing that's exactly where he went at the time of the
00:29:28
murders. >> Yeah, that's his like supposed alibi, >> that doesn't happen until 4 months after
00:29:33
the murders. And I think it was only prompted by information from the woman who took care of Alex's mom's house. She
00:29:41
said that she saw Alec carrying what looked like some sort of blue tarp under his arm to like go into the house. And
00:29:47
given the placement of the gunshot residue, sled agents put forward that aside from shooting a gun while wearing
00:29:53
the jacket inside out, the residue could have gotten there if the jacket was like
00:29:57
wrapped around the weapon that had recently been fired. >> No, I thought that they never found the
00:30:02
murder weapon, though. >> They didn't. I mean, this is just circumstantial evidence,
00:30:07
but it definitely doesn't do Alec any favors. And by month four when they're finding this, there is already so much
00:30:15
more that they've learned to make Alec look suspicious. I mean, for starters, everyone by now is talking about
00:30:22
Mallalerie's case and Steven's case. And Stevens had so much that was like glaringly suspicious around it that it
00:30:30
actually got reopened. Not officially tied to the Murdoch though, just reopened. But another case undeniably is
00:30:40
being connected to the Murdoch. It's the case of Gloria Sadderfield. Her death and specifically the aftermath of it
00:30:48
starts to raise a lot of eyebrows. Gloria had worked as a nanny and a housekeeper for the Murdoch for over 20
00:30:56
years. I mean, she helped raise their kids, practically spent more time with them than her own family. I mean,
00:31:02
Gloria's sister said in an interview with People magazine that she would have given Alec anything she had. So, Gloria
00:31:08
was 57 years old when she allegedly suffered a trip and fall accident at the Murdoch home. According to the family,
00:31:15
she tripped over their dogs and fell down the front steps of their house. Gloria got admitted to the hospital with
00:31:21
severe head trauma and just over 3 weeks later, she died from the injury. What's
00:31:26
weird though is that the coroner wasn't notified about Gloria's death, nor was an autopsy performed. And on Gloria's
00:31:34
death certificate, her manner of death is listed as natural, which is obviously not consistent even with a trip and fall
00:31:41
accident. >> Right. Like Gloria didn't just happen to die of natural causes at the exact
00:31:46
moment she tripped down the Murdoch residence stairs. >> Exactly. But with no autopsy or police
00:31:51
involvement, there is just no way to know what happened. Or was anything about her death intentional. I mean, I
00:31:59
can't find anything that might have motivated them to [music] want her dead. >> But the weirdness doesn't even like stop
00:32:04
there. At Gloria's funeral, Alec apparently approached her sons and told them that they should file a wrongful
00:32:10
death suit against him or technically claim it against his home's insurance policy, which would be able to pay them
00:32:16
compensation. And so her sons do, but they like never hear anything. The whole thing just sort of like fizzles away,
00:32:26
which is like catching a theme here. >> Yeah. >> So by fall, Sled seems to be focusing
00:32:32
specifically on Alec, and they expand their investigation into his finances, which uncovers some irregularities. It
00:32:41
comes out that the very day that Paul and Maggie were shot to death, June 7th, the CFO of Alec's law firm confronted
00:32:49
Alec about funds that seemed to be missing from the firm's settlements. Now, Alec tried to talk his way out of
00:32:54
it, and then, of course, everyone became distracted by the slaying of his wife and son,
00:33:00
>> but not forever. On September 3rd, the firm confronts Alec again after another
00:33:06
employee discovers that instead of making sure settlement money went to the firm's clients, Alec was actually
00:33:11
redirecting it into a personal account or accounts that he had set up to look like they belonged to the law firm and
00:33:18
using the money himself. And he had been doing this for years, by the [music] way. And this is where Gloria
00:33:24
Satderfield comes back in. So remember, he like tells the Suns, "You should file
00:33:28
a claim against my insurance." They're like, "Okay, we're going to do it." They did it. Never see a dime. Well, it turns
00:33:33
out his home insurance did pay out $4.3 million, but the Satderfields never received a
00:33:41
dime. Alec was the one who pocketed all of it. He and some associates diverted the money and Gloria's kids were
00:33:50
completely in the dark. And so now, after learning about the payout, they file a lawsuit against Alec and his
00:33:57
associates. And also, Sled decides to open a criminal investigation into Gloria's death. They even get permission
00:34:04
from her family to exume her body so they can finally do an autopsy. So, I mean, the information is just
00:34:11
avalanching at this point. But before anyone can dive fully into this twisted string or like web or whatever you want
00:34:19
to call it of deaths and fraud and forgery, on September 4th, 911 gets a call that turns everything on its head.
00:34:31
>> Okay. 911. Where's your emergency? >> I stop. I got a flat tire >> and I stopped and somebody stopped to
00:34:39
help me >> and when I turned my back they tried to shoot me. >> Did they actually shoot you or? They
00:34:45
tried to shoot you. They shot me. Okay. Wait, you need EMS? Uh, well, I mean, yes. I I can't drive.
00:34:56
>> Okay. Seeing and I'm bleeding a lot. >> Where? Where part of your body? >> Uh, I'm not sure. somewhere on my head.
00:35:04
>> Okay. And what's your name? I'm still here. I'm still on the line with you. >> What's your name?
00:35:10
>> Alex Murdoch. >> Alex Murdoch. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Shortly after that call, Alec [music] is
00:35:18
airlifted to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia for treatment. >> Airlifted. He sounded totally fine on
00:35:23
the phone for someone who'd just been shot in the head. So, authorities say Murdoch had a superficial head wound,
00:35:30
though his attorney will later call it significant head trauma. I mean, there definitely was a lot of blood on him
00:35:37
coming from his head. Enough to have spilled into his car when he went to get his phone to call 911 and enough for
00:35:43
somebody driving by to feel like they needed to pick him up from the side of the road and bring him to a nearby
00:35:48
ambulance. So, in my mind, like it might be a protocol thing, like when you're dealing with a head injury like this,
00:35:53
cuz I mean, it turns out he did have a bullet wound to the back of his head and he suffered a skull fracture and a brain
00:36:00
bleed. He was hospitalized for 2 to three days in which time he tells sled agents that the man who pulled over to
00:36:07
help him with like a flat tire he had, he's the one that did this, and he was driving a blue pickup truck.
00:36:13
>> [music] >> and he tries to give details to a sketch artist, but Sled never releases any
00:36:18
images because they are apparently not satisfied [music] with them. Like they say, at first Alec didn't have enough
00:36:25
information about the driver's features, >> and the rest of us online just didn't
00:36:29
buy the story from the jump. I mean, it seems like this guy's MMO is when he gets backed into a corner. Uh-oh, a gun
00:36:35
goes off. >> It definitely felt fishy to me at the time. Now, after this, like within a
00:36:41
couple of days, Alec releases a statement announcing his resignation from the law firm and that he'll be
00:36:48
entering rehab for a 20-year opioid addiction, which has only gotten worse since the deaths of his wife and son. He
00:36:57
essentially uses the addiction to explain his financial misconduct. And his lawyer says that it was an
00:37:03
enormously expensive habit and that he stole the money to fund that habit. So 2 days after that statement, Alec's law
00:37:10
license is suspended indefinitely. And not even a week after that, some new details come out in this roadside
00:37:17
shooting. Basically, Alec admits to police that this was staged. He said it was a staged suicide attempt and he had
00:37:27
asked a man named Curtis Smith to shoot him during a fake car breakdown in order
00:37:32
to make his death look like murder because he believed it would help his surviving Sunbuster collect his $10
00:37:38
million life insurance payout. And for what it's worth, Mandy Matney believes that the insurance settlement thing is
00:37:47
actually made up, too. >> Did he really mean to die, though? >> I don't know. This is one of the things
00:37:53
that I haven't seen a bunch of theories about and Alec doesn't address it in his
00:37:57
statement, but it's kind of like you said, like he's done so many things wrong at this point. Like maybe it's too
00:38:03
much to handle. Maybe he felt like backed into a corner. And okay, where does this Curtis guy fit
00:38:11
into everything, though? >> So Curtis, who doesn't go by Curtis, he goes by Eddie. He's this 61-year-old
00:38:18
former client uh from like a workers comp case and like also apparently like a distant cousin of Alex. So they find
00:38:25
him on September 14th. He's arrested on charges of assisted suicide and assault and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud
00:38:32
among [music] others. But Eddie's version of things don't quite line up with what they heard from Alec. Eddie
00:38:37
actually goes on the Today Show and says that he was not a willing accomplice in
00:38:40
the whole scheme. He says, quote, "I didn't shoot him. If I had shot him, he'd be dead.
00:38:46
>> Fair enough. He claims that he had a close relationship with Alec, but said that he was he thinks he was basically
00:38:51
set up. He said he had no clue about the stage suicide plot. And in his telling,
00:38:56
he didn't know why Alec asked him to even meet him on [music] this like remote in Hampton County, but he went
00:39:02
anyways. And then he says Alec showed up with a gun, asked Eddie to shoot him. When Alec made a sudden movement, Eddie
00:39:09
intervened. The gun went off, but Eddie says that when it went off, that bullet didn't hit Alec. And once he realized
00:39:15
Alec was okay, he took the gun, drove off, and disposed of it. >> So, how does Alec end up with the bullet
00:39:23
to the head if Eddie drove away with the gun? >> Honestly, nothing about this incident
00:39:29
adds up. It's Alex's word against Eddie's word. Alex's attorney says Eddie was basically Alec's primary drug
00:39:36
dealer. Eddie's attorney says that's not true. >> Eddie said he just did like odd jobs for
00:39:43
Alec and that they stayed friends after Alec represented him. I mean, it's reported some places that Alec hired
00:39:48
Eddie to kill him. Other places say that Eddie shot Alec willingly without pay. I
00:39:54
mean, there is so much conflicting information out there, it is almost impossible to pin down what exactly
00:39:59
happened on the side of that county road, but one thing is clear. Alec has been committing financial crimes for
00:40:05
years. And finally, authorities are charging him for them, and they are not holding back.
00:40:11
>> But that's just for the financial crimes, right? Like not for murder. That eventually comes, too. So, according to
00:40:18
NBC News, Alec first faces 84 criminal charges and 11 lawsuits by July 2022. We're talking fraud, moneyaundering,
00:40:27
computer crimes, forgery, criminal conspiracy, narcotics offenses, conspiracy to purchase and distribute
00:40:34
oxycodone. And honestly, like none of these charges seem to be very shocking. >> And Alec will end up pleading guilty to
00:40:40
a number of them eventually. Then that same month, Alec is finally indicted by a grand jury for the double murder of
00:40:48
his wife and son, Maggie and Paul Murdoch. [music] And he does not go down without a fight.
00:40:56
Alec pleads not guilty to the murder charges and a trial date is set for January 2023. Now, that trial has been
00:41:04
covered extensively. It was one of the longest in South Carolina history. And according to Alex's lawyer, Dick
00:41:10
Harpulian, who we spoke to for this episode, people came from across the country to spectate. So, I'm only going
00:41:16
to walk everyone through like the highlights. The prosecution puts forward that Alec killed Maggie and Paul on the
00:41:22
night of June 7th and then left to alibi himself at his mom's house. Their theory
00:41:27
is that leading up to the murders, Alec feared that his financial crimes were on
00:41:31
the verge of being exposed, [music] basically, and that he saw no way out. So he draws up this scheme to protect
00:41:38
himself by becoming the victim. Like they think in his mind if he could be seen in the eyes of the public as a
00:41:44
grieving husband and a grieving father, maybe all that sympathy would drown out the growing suspicions about his fraud
00:41:50
and his theft. Plus, he wouldn't get caught because the murders could be attributed to the threats that Paul had
00:41:57
been getting at the time since Mallerie Beach's boat crash in 2019. Because that
00:42:01
was he was getting a lot, >> you know, with all the financial stuff in the mix. It really strikes me as kind
00:42:06
of classic family annihilator situation, right? Like Alec reached a point of desperation, saw no way out, and made
00:42:14
like this incredibly violent decision in a distressed state. >> And so many times with the family
00:42:19
annihilator stuff, I see over and over what it comes down to is not even so much like trying to not get caught for
00:42:24
financial crimes. It's like this um image of themselves they don't want. >> Right. Yeah.
00:42:29
>> And like like you just said, like not just the image of himself, but like painting himself as sympathetic even
00:42:35
versus like distracting from a poor image >> and family annihilator like that is a
00:42:39
phrase that the prosecution throws [music] out repeatedly. But the defense counters that the case against Alec is
00:42:45
[music] entirely based on circumstantial evidence. They know his car left Moselle
00:42:50
at 9:07, but it's impossible to say whether Maggie and Paul were alive or dead at 9:07. They also claimed that law
00:42:58
enforcement was biased against Alec from the beginning, deciding that he was guilty and then they say fabricating
00:43:04
evidence. They say someone else committed the murders, if not multiple someone's. And they point to some data
00:43:11
from Alec and Maggie's phone, suggesting that a person other than Alec was in possession of Maggie's phone after the
00:43:18
murder. >> Wait, did they find her phone? >> They did. So remember, Paul's was like
00:43:23
on top of him. Hers wasn't anywhere near her body. They actually had to track it
00:43:27
down using the find my iPhone feature on Buster's phone. So, her phone is found on Moselle Road just beyond the Murdoch
00:43:35
property, >> like on the ground. >> Uh, it sounds like it was tossed in the woods. But anyways, the defense uses the
00:43:42
data from Alex's phone to argue that it couldn't have been him who tossed Maggie's phone. But like you have to
00:43:49
remember just because someone's phone is somewhere, it doesn't mean they're with
00:43:54
the phone, >> right? >> And there are some wild theories out there about why Alec might have even
00:44:00
tossed Maggie's phone that honestly like I say they're wild, but like some of them kind of make sense. Like one theory
00:44:07
is that basically Alec, Maggie, and Paul all rode down to the kennels together in
00:44:11
one of the family's golf carts, which wouldn't have recorded the trip. Right. >> Once they got there, Alec killed Paul
00:44:18
and Maggie and then quickly jumped back in the golf cart to go back to the house. But here's the problem. Maggie
00:44:23
had left her phone in the golf cart. So when Alec drove away, >> he has it with him.
00:44:28
>> He accidentally took it with him, right? Investigators say that the phone data
00:44:31
backs this up. Like no steps are logged on Maggie's phone while she's at the kennels. And then it suddenly unlocks
00:44:38
and changes orientation just as Alec or someone would have been handling it. And
00:44:44
you know, the theory goes like once Alec realized that he had Maggie's phone, he
00:44:48
like panicked. He didn't have time to go back to the kennels because he needed to
00:44:51
rush to his mom's house for an alibi, >> but he definitely couldn't go there with
00:44:54
Maggie's phone still in his possession, so he just like tossed it into the woods.
00:44:58
>> And does anybody ever explore the possibility that Alec may have had an accomplice?
00:45:03
>> I mean, with regard to his financial crimes, definitely. With the double murder, it seems like Sled really just
00:45:09
hones in on him. Now, the defense, they present a two shooter theory based mainly on the fact that there were two
00:45:17
different guns that were used, but they obviously assert that neither of those two shooters was Alec.
00:45:23
>> Honestly, we're so deep into the story, I kind of forgot that there were two different guns that were used. I know.
00:45:28
And like, it's such an oddity in this case. And like when you talk about the guns, like the other weird thing that I
00:45:34
don't think I touched on is they did a bunch of crime scene analysis and the angle of the shots fired also were weird
00:45:41
to me. Like they point to an asalent that was shorter than Alec. Alec is like 63 6'4.
00:45:46
>> And is that like [music] the analysis of all the shots or just one or just like
00:45:51
some of them? >> So the what they think is I think they believe that Paul was shot first. The
00:45:56
initial shot to Paul's shoulder seemed more straight on. All of the others were like angled up. I'm I'm also just
00:46:05
thinking like Alec was a trial lawyer and we already know about one incident that he staged involving a gun. Like he
00:46:11
would have known that using two weapons would complicate a case against him in a
00:46:16
courtroom. Like two guns makes more sense with two people. He's only one person.
00:46:21
>> Yeah. And listen, >> it makes things muddy. >> Yeah. And muddy is usually like for a
00:46:25
defense good at trial. Yeah. Listen, there are so many theories out there about exactly how these shootings might
00:46:32
have gone down. I mean, there's literally even videos of people online who have like literally rebuilt the dog
00:46:37
kennels and acted out the shooting with dummies. And like basically, one of the other theories that they like play out
00:46:43
explains the low angle shots by suggesting that Alec may have like fallen down from the recoil or like
00:46:50
tripped after shooting once at Paul in the shoulder, which then would have even forced him to like take a second shot
00:46:56
from the ground. like did he do it intentionally? Did he fall? Did he is there some other excuse? But basically,
00:47:01
he's like when he's like on the ground, that's when he like fires at Maggie. That's they say there's a theory. That's
00:47:05
why the angle doesn't make sense. >> Okay. So, if it's not Alec, then who, right? Like, who does the defense put
00:47:13
forward? If I'm a juror and I'm supposed to believe Alec didn't do this, [music]
00:47:16
I kind of want to see an alternate theory, like someone else that we aren't looking at.
00:47:22
>> Yeah. So Dick Harpull, his lawyer, uh, suggested in our interview with him that
00:47:27
he suspects Eddie, that guy that was tangled up in Alex like roadside shooting thing, but even though he said
00:47:33
that to us, like Eddie was never put on the stand or called as a witness at this
00:47:37
trial >> because again, like you don't have to say I know the jury wants it. You don't
00:47:41
have to say who. You just have to provide reasonable doubt. And to provide that reasonable doubt, I mean, the
00:47:47
defense points out that there was unknown DNA found under Maggie's fingernail and a brown hair in her hand
00:47:54
that ostensibly had not [music] been tested or explained. I mean, Alec had red hair. And these are two details that
00:48:01
the internet has really run with. Some people say that the hair in Maggie's hand was her own. Like maybe it got
00:48:07
there when she was shot in the head. She was dirty blonde, so I don't know. I haven't seen it myself. or they say
00:48:14
like, "Was it from one of the dogs?" I again haven't seen it. How long was it? And then there's all these Reddit
00:48:19
threads that pour over the DNA under her fingernails. Like some attribute it to the fact they say Maggie went to the
00:48:25
nail salon earlier that day where other people would have obviously been like touching her hands. She also went to the
00:48:31
doctor's office. I I don't know. And honestly, the defense doesn't spend nearly as much time on either of those
00:48:38
pieces of evidence as like I would have expected. And yeah, I I've this trial is just like
00:48:46
such not even a mess, just confusing. Like what about the car data and the blue jacket and stuff? Like how does the
00:48:53
defense explain those things? >> Not even the defense. Alec actually ended up taking the stand in his own
00:49:01
defense to explain it himself. Oh, how could [laughter] you? >> So in his testimony, he says he's clear.
00:49:08
He says, "I didn't kill my wife. I didn't kill my son." and he like breaks down multiple times in describing how he
00:49:14
allegedly found them that night. I mean, he admits that he lied to law enforcement in early interviews, but
00:49:20
claims that it was because he was on a massive amount of oxycottton, which made him paranoid and distrustful of law
00:49:27
enforcement. And he said that he was basically afraid that if he told investigators he was at the kennels that
00:49:31
night, like the video they have of or the video at 8:44 they have of his voice, he thought that they would
00:49:36
immediately set their sights on him. And he's [music] like, "If you look at me, if they were looking at me as the
00:49:41
suspect, that's going to distract them from finding like the real killer." Now, he explains that stopping in the
00:49:47
driveway of his mom's house was because he was trying to grab his phone, which had like fallen in a crack between like
00:49:51
the seat and the console. He says he doesn't remember bringing a blue anything there. Knows nothing about the
00:49:58
rain jacket. So, he doesn't really explain it. He's just like non-factor. But in the end, like it's not enough to
00:50:04
convince a jury. Even Alex's lawyer, Dick, told us that while he believes Alec's story is credible in the context
00:50:12
of a man that is quote lied and cheated and stolen millions and millions of dollars, absolutely not. End quote. It
00:50:20
takes the jury less than 3 hours to return a guilty [music] verdict. On March 2nd, 2023, Alec was found
00:50:27
responsible for the murders of Maggie and Paul and later sentenced to the maximum, which is two consecutive life
00:50:33
sentences. I think the one thing I'm still struggling with in this case is just the why. Like to be clear, I feel
00:50:43
really really certain of Alex's guilt, but like why would he go so far as to kill his wife and son just to
00:50:53
>> essentially distract people from his financial crimes? Like >> is that really the only explanation we
00:51:00
get out of this? I know it like it which like every family annihilated case I feel like this is where we end up. We're
00:51:07
like like really this is why >> there are like a million other options that don't include killing your own
00:51:12
family. >> When we spoke to Mandy Matany who in my mind she's like one of arguably like the
00:51:17
deepest in the trenches of this case. >> She's like in the same boat. She says that the motive in this case is one of
00:51:22
the most misunderstood parts of the story. She told our reporters that she believes Alec was in this sort of like
00:51:30
downward spiral before he killed Mackie and Paul and that we have to remember that he like grew up with this belief
00:51:36
that because of his last name, he could just get away with anything. Now, I didn't mention this before cuz I didn't
00:51:42
want to distract from the other cases I told you about, but just 3 days after Maggie and Paul were murdered, Alex's
00:51:48
father, Randolph Murdoch, died in his home. And and I don't bring this up to suggest in any way that like Alec was
00:51:55
involved in his father's death. Like Randolph died after a battle with cancer, but what Mandy suggested is that
00:52:01
Alec was used to relying on his father to get him out of messes that he made. She said that Randolph was really the
00:52:09
one who had the pull at police stations and with solicitors and judges. So maybe
00:52:14
Alec believed that this mess was just another thing that he could get away with. and he had no way of knowing that
00:52:19
his father wouldn't be around to help him anymore. >> That safety net disappeared after he
00:52:24
took these drastic actions. >> Yeah. And maybe that that's why like things continued to escalate or we saw
00:52:30
him like >> scrambling >> scrambling, making those like drastic moves. Now, did Alec really believe that
00:52:37
he could get away with double murder? I don't know. But I also don't really have
00:52:43
a better theory to give you. Like, [music] no one does. So, can I ask like what happened to Buster?
00:52:51
I feel like he >> don't really hear about him. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He's he's tried pretty hard to
00:52:54
like keep just a low profile. Like from what I can tell, he seems to still be living in South Carolina. I know he was
00:53:00
enrolled at um the law school at the University of South Carolina. But by 2021, he'd actually been asked not to
00:53:06
return, according to court records, citing plagiarism and low grades. Recorded phone calls that Alec made in
00:53:14
prison to him show that he was like trying to pull any strings he could to get Buster back in. But in 2022,
00:53:20
Buster's attorney stated that Buster had quote put his desire to go to law school
00:53:24
on hold for now. Now, I know our reporter tried every number we could find online to contact him. And we even
00:53:29
emailed his long-term girlfriend turned wife as of earlier this year for any kind of comment, but we never heard
00:53:35
back. And all I know is that Buster maintains that his dad is innocent. And Alec also continues to maintain his
00:53:43
innocence from protective custody at a maximum security prison in South Carolina. We sent him a letter and asked
00:53:49
Dick to make sure that he got it, but we never heard anything back. And all the while, Alex lawyers are still fighting
00:53:56
to appeal his conviction. They also pushed for a new trial alleging jury tampering. Now, a judge denied that
00:54:03
motion back in January of 2024 after an evidentiary hearing. But Alex team didn't stop there. in August of 2024.
00:54:11
They elevated the issue to the South Carolina Supreme Court. Oral arguments are pending and until then, Alec will
00:54:19
remain in his 8x10 single cell unit. According to Dick, he's now sober, busy with prison jobs, and of course, still
00:54:28
pouring over his own defense, still strategizing, still looking for a way out. Now, Mandy
00:54:36
Matney ended up writing a book on this case called Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the
00:54:41
Murdoch Dynasty, and her work has been optioned into a dramatized limited series that's about to come out. So, I
00:54:49
don't think that this is the last we'll be hearing about the Murdoch. In 2023, South Carolina law enforcement
00:54:56
officially declared Steven Smith's death a homicide rather than a traffic accident. But still, it's never been
00:55:03
fully explained, and no one has ever been arrested in connection with it. And we reached out to SLED for more
00:55:08
information about [music] Steven's case, but they declined a comment saying that
00:55:13
it is an ongoing investigation. So, if you know anything about his roadside death in July of 2015, please come
00:55:20
forward. Mallerie's family was able to settle a lawsuit with one of the places that served Paul that night and with
00:55:26
Maggie's estate and Buster, whose ID Paul used to buy the alcohol, but no one has ever been put behind bars. [music]
00:55:33
And as far as I can tell, Gloria Satderfield's body was never actually exumed. The criminal investigation into
00:55:40
her death is ongoing. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkkey.com.
00:55:48
And if you want to listen to more episodes like this and all of our episodes completely adree, be sure to
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join our fan club. You'll also get early access [music] to new episodes every week and episodes that we've never
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released here. And you can follow us on Instagram @ crimejunkiepodcast. >> We'll be back next [music] week with a
00:56:05
brand new episode.