00:00:00
Tonight, on Dateline. Mr. Murdoch, are you a family annihilator? A family annihilator?
00:00:05
You mean like, did I shoot my wife and my son? No. A bombshell on the notorious case of Alec Murdoch.
00:00:13
His guilty verdict overturned. This decision is nothing short of shocking. This never, ever happens.
00:00:19
Inside, this stunning new ruling. Jurors told you they felt coerced. Something really amiss went on in the jury room?
00:00:28
I mean my world stop. Revealing new interviews. The Attorney General. We intend to retry this case.
00:00:35
Two people were murdered and they deserve justice. The defense team. What was Alex's response when you told him?
00:00:41
He said, I didn't believe it was going to happen. The jurors. I feel like he didn't get a fair trial.
00:00:47
I was like, what? Why? They are dead on death. Yes, sir. That's what it looks like.
00:00:54
He didn't kill Maggie and Paul. Do you have new evidence to back that up? Private investigators are out there investigating.
00:01:03
If they have the evidence, we'd love to see it. The eyes of the world are on this trial.
00:01:07
We have a job to do, and we are going to do it. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
00:01:22
Here's Craig Melvin with In the Matter of Alec Murdoch. Just three short years ago, it was proclaimed the trial of the decade.
00:01:36
Did you take this gun or any gun like it and shoot your son Paul? No, I did not. I didn't shoot my wife or my son any time.
00:01:47
28 days, more than 70 witnesses, some giving dramatic testimony. It was hard because I know she wasn't going to be coming back.
00:01:57
no mother or father or aunt or uncle should ever have to see and do what I did that day.
00:02:05
Listen to that gathering storm that all came to a head on June 7th, 2021, the day the evidence will show he killed Maggie and Paul.
00:02:17
We got up this morning at 2 o'clock. We were here at 3 o'clock in line. It really has been worldwide.
00:02:23
It ended with one of South Carolina's most prominent attorneys from one of its most famous families convicted of murder.
00:02:32
Guilty verdict. Or did it? They overturned his murder conviction. This is huge true crime news today.
00:02:42
I just can't believe this is going to trial again. Social media blew up this week when the state's highest court ordered a do-over in the case of South Carolina versus Alec Murdoch.
00:02:56
How does the state of South Carolina convict a guy and then have it all undone? How does that happen?
00:03:04
Look, while I am disappointed, I don't put blame on anyone but one person. Tonight, how the verdict against Alec Murdoch came undone.
00:03:14
I did not pressure the jury. She was definitely manipulating this jury. What happened was so egregious, so disgraceful.
00:03:22
In the words of the court, they had no choice but to overturn this conviction. You'll hear from insiders who fought over the case once and seemed destined to do so again.
00:03:33
You dust yourself off, you get back up, you take a fresh look at it, and then you go do your job.
00:03:37
We didn't give up. And that's the secret to the business we're in. You don't give up.
00:03:44
But first, we'll take you back to the beginning and the man at the center of it all.
00:03:56
It was June 7th, 2021, a dark night in South Carolina's low country. Now I want to wait for emergency.
00:04:05
This is Alex Murdoch. My wife and Tom have gone badly. At 10.07 p.m., a call came into the Colleton County Sheriff's Department.
00:04:14
There was an emergency at a remote home outside of town. Sergeant Daniel Green was the first to arrive.
00:04:22
Central 717 is secure. Got a Whiskey Fox, Whiskey Mike, both gunshot wounds to the head.
00:04:29
His body camera rolled. I want to let you know because of the scene, I did go get a gun and bring it down here.
00:04:36
It's in your vehicle? Do you have any guns on you at all? No, sir. I was leaning up against the side of my car.
00:04:40
You're fine, man. You're fine. Green came face to face with the caller, Alec Murdoch, right away near a row of dog kennels.
00:04:50
It was bad. I checked the pulses. Yes, sir. There, by the kennels, Maggie Murdoch, 52, and Paul Murdoch, 22, each had been shot multiple times, including to their heads.
00:05:06
This is the firearm you brought from inside the house? Yes, sir. This is a long story.
00:05:12
My son was in a boat wreck months back. And while Alex said he didn't know who committed the murders,
00:05:19
he suggested the motive, retribution for a crash that killed a 19-year-old woman on a boat Paul Murdoch was said to be driving.
00:05:28
He's been getting threats. Most of it's been benign stuff we didn't take serious.
00:05:34
Okay. You know, he's been getting, like, punched. I know that's what it is. Murdoch also told the sergeant he had gone to visit his mother that night.
00:05:46
When did you get home? Right when you called, or did you go to the house first? Where is the house?
00:05:51
I came to the house first. My mom has late Alzheimer and my dad is in the hospital I left I don know what time I can go back on my phone and tell you the exact time As he told Green about the moment he found his wife and son his emotions spilled over
00:06:08
Did you check them? We got medical guys that are, that's what they're going to do, okay?
00:06:13
What are they doing? Can they hurry? They are. Yes, sir. Once the EMTs arrived, Green confirmed Alec's worst fears.
00:06:22
They are dead, aren't they? Yes, sir. That's what it looks like. Alec frantically called his friends and family, and they started arriving too.
00:06:33
Meanwhile, Green learned the central fact about the man who'd made that 911 call.
00:06:41
What's your first name, sir? My name is Alex Richard Alexander Murdoch. Murdoch.
00:06:48
That was a name known to nearly everyone in the Lowcountry. A name that meant power and influence for generations.
00:06:58
As more deputies arrived, they realized the gravity of what had happened here and to whom it happened.
00:07:08
Y'all familiar with this family? Yes. I wasn't until he told me the names. I don't know the names.
00:07:14
Last name. Murdoch. Then, investigators from SLED, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, arrived.
00:07:23
They were crime scene specialists who soon had a lot of questions for Alec Murdoch.
00:07:30
How was your relationship with Maggie? Very good. As good as it could possibly be.
00:07:41
I mean, you know, we had our issues. The tragic events on that warm, humid night would launch a southern gothic tale of epic proportions.
00:07:52
with a final chapter yet to be written. There's nothing that happened that day that would say to him,
00:07:59
I better go kill Maggie and Paul. Seems like we're getting a good little preview here at the Retro.
00:08:03
We're ready. Even before the sun rose on June 8th, 2021, residents of tiny Hampton, South Carolina, were playing a game of telephone.
00:08:29
Keep in mind that Hampton County is a small town, small place. You can't, your gossip travels faster than you do.
00:08:41
Just a few hours earlier, one of the town's most prominent figures, attorney Alec Murdoch,
00:08:47
said he had come home to find his 52-year-old wife Maggie and 22-year-old son Paul
00:08:52
shot to death on the family's sprawling property known as Moselle. They are dead, aren't they?
00:08:59
Yes, sir. That's what it looks like. Reporter Michael DeWitt was born and raised in Hampton.
00:09:10
That night and early in the morning, the people in the Murdoch circle found out.
00:09:17
They're getting phone calls. They're getting texts. Maggie and Paul have been shot and killed.
00:09:22
As the news spread, Colleton County Sheriff's deputies and agents from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED,
00:09:29
continued to gather evidence at the scene. A few things were clear right away. Maggie and Paul had been shot at close range,
00:09:40
each with a different gun. It was clear at the scene that Paul had been shot twice with the shotgun
00:09:48
and she had been shot multiple times with this high-powered rifle. That shotgun and rifle were nowhere to be found.
00:09:56
But there were guns, a lot of them on the property, which was often used for hunting.
00:10:04
A lot of people hunt. The fact that the Murdoch family had at least 27 guns in their family gun room is not surprising.
00:10:16
Chris Wilson, a friend of the Murdoch family, was a regular at Moselle. Just a very social place.
00:10:24
they always welcome people into their home. His friendship with Alec dates back decades.
00:10:31
Grew up in towns that were close to each other, you know, 30 miles or so apart. Played some ball against each other
00:10:36
and then a little bit of ball with each other. The friends grew closer in law school.
00:10:42
And by that time, Alec had met Maggie. Chris was in their wedding party. They had a very close relationship.
00:10:51
I mean, Alec did what he needed to do to take care of the things that Maggie needed,
00:10:56
and Maggie did what she needed to do to take care of the things that Alec and the boys needed.
00:11:01
The boys' sons Buster and Paul became Maggie's world, according to Chris's wife, Dana.
00:11:08
When she had boys, she embraced that role and would fish with them and hunt with them,
00:11:14
and she probably even threw ball in the yard with them. But she was just such a great boy mom.
00:11:21
Moselle was one of three properties the family owned, and it's where Alec taught his wife and kids to love the lifestyle of the Lowcountry.
00:11:33
What did Maggie ever say about her life at Moselle? She loved being out there. It was away from everybody. And I mean, it was just such a beautiful place and so quiet.
00:11:44
Quiet and remote, it was a special place for Paul too. He was always outdoors and so good at it You know so good at tending the land and hunting and just being outside
00:12:05
It was a great place. 1,700 or so acres. Hogs, turkey, deer, dove, quail. A huge house that would sleep and welcome a number of people.
00:12:20
But now the property was the scene of a bloody whore. Sled Special Agent David Owen was leading the investigation.
00:12:32
He climbed into a car with Alec to ask him some questions. Can you go by Alec? Yes, sir.
00:12:40
Just start at the top, take your time. Alec told Owen he had been visiting his mother that night.
00:12:46
He described what happened when he got home. Maggie and Paul were not at the house, so he said he went looking for them at the dog kennels on the property.
00:12:58
I mean, I pulled up and I could see them. And, you know, I knew something was bad.
00:13:03
I ran out. I knew it was really bad. My boy over there, I could see. It was... Owen asked if the family had had any issues of late and Alec repeated the theory he had given
00:13:26
to Sergeant Green earlier. Have y'all been having any problems out here? Trespassers,
00:13:33
people breaking in? None that I know of. The only thing that what comes to my mind is my son Paul
00:13:39
was in a boat wreck a couple years ago. And there's been a, you know, he was charged with being arrested for being a driver.
00:13:51
There's been a lot of negative publicity about that. And there's been a lot of people online,
00:13:57
just really vile stuff. That 2019 boat wreck had upended the lives of Paul and four of his friends
00:14:05
and caused the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach. Paul was indicted on three counts of boating under the influence causing death and great bodily injury.
00:14:17
He faced a maximum of 55 years in prison and pleaded not guilty and awaited trial.
00:14:24
But now he lay dead alongside his mother on the family's beloved property. He's been getting threats.
00:14:31
Was Alec right? Was this the act of ultimate retribution? Has he received any direct threats related to the boat accident?
00:14:41
Oh, yes. from almost the very moment investigators arrived at his country home alec murdoch had been telling them the murders of his wife and son
00:15:05
had to be connected to a 2019 boat crash this is a long story my son was in a boat wreck. That boat crash had turned the lives of Alex's family and several other families
00:15:18
upside down. 911, where's your emergency? We're in a boat crash on Archer's Creek. It happened
00:15:26
in the middle of a February night at 2.30 a.m. Six teenagers, including Paul Murdoch,
00:15:32
were in the Murdoch's motorboat in a local creek when the boat sped up and slammed into a bridge
00:15:38
pilot, one of the passengers, Connor Cook, made the call. There's six of us and one is missing.
00:15:47
Please send someone. No, I'm coming. We're coming. We're coming. Okay. Connor and several other passengers were rushed to the hospital. Marty and Christine Cook
00:15:56
are Connor's parents. How did you find out what had happened? Connor called me. He said,
00:16:03
Daddy, we've been in an accident in Archer's Creek, and we can't find Mallory. 19-year-old Mallory Beach was still missing in the dark water.
00:16:14
Paul Murdoch was rushed to the hospital, too. His father and grandfather met him there,
00:16:20
and Alec reached out to the cooks, who were still on their way. Alec calling me, going on and on about an accident,
00:16:29
and that girl was missing, and then Connor was driving the boat. He told you Connor was driving the boat?
00:16:35
Yes, he did. Multiple times he called. To check on you? To check on Connor? No, hell no. To trying to get this scheme going.
00:16:42
To telling us about how he... To convince us that our son was driving the boat. That didn't make sense to the cooks.
00:16:50
Paul usually drove his family's boat. The cooks also say Paul was a known troublemaker
00:16:56
and thought Alec was wielding his considerable influence that night at the hospital to keep him out of trouble.
00:17:04
It would be easier for him to get Connor out of trouble than his son. That was his exact words.
00:17:09
I can look out of Connor better than I can't fall. Meanwhile, on Archer's Creek, the search for Mallory Beach went on for a week.
00:17:20
Crews are continuing to search for a former USC student who went missing over the weekend near Parris Island.
00:17:25
It ended tragically when two volunteers recovered Mallory's body. You know, there were so many opportunities for this not to have happened.
00:17:37
Attorney Mark Tinsley filed a wrongful death suit on the Beach family's behalf in March 2019.
00:17:44
They wanted to hold all those people responsible for her death accountable. But more than that, they wanted to make sure that it didn't happen to someone else's child.
00:17:53
The suit named Alec who owned the boat along with several others And why name Alec Murdoch in that When you promote a certain kind of behavior when you condone the sorts of things that Paul did
00:18:07
for the length of time without any consequences, he bears responsibility for what happened.
00:18:14
Tinsley requested Alec's financial records as part of the suit. What was the response?
00:18:21
Just an objection, a refusal. In fact, Tinsley said Alec told him he was broke. Tinsley didn't believe it.
00:18:38
The impasse dragged on for more than two years. Finally, in June 2021, both parties were scheduled to appear at a hearing where Alec would likely be compelled to turn over his financial records.
00:18:53
Then, June 7th, just a few days before that hearing, the unthinkable happened. I get a call about 1130 that Monday night that Paul and Maggie had been murdered.
00:19:13
Now, investigators had to find out if the boat crash had anything to do with those murders,
00:19:19
even as they seemed to be losing control of a crime scene that was being overrun by Alec's friends and lawyers.
00:19:44
Moselle, the Murdoch family retreat that was known for parties and recreation, had become a place where people came to grieve
00:19:53
and offer support to Alec Murdoch and his remaining son, 25-year-old Buster. Alec's friend, Chris Wilson, was one of them.
00:20:02
When you got there, what did you find? When I got there, pulled into the main gate,
00:20:10
was kind of headed up the driveway towards the main house. I saw a lot of lights and people.
00:20:16
you could tell there was a lot of commotion going on down at the kennels, which turned out to be law enforcement and other people.
00:20:24
Alec was there. I walked over and hugged his neck, and we cried. He didn't say anything.
00:20:29
He was whimpering and crying and seemed destroyed. We hugged. It was just there.
00:20:35
I mean, I was trying to be there for a friend that, you know, didn't know what to do for him, didn't know what to say,
00:20:41
just wanted to be there. Some questioned why the house wasn't cordoned off as a crime scene, like the kennels were.
00:20:51
It was clear the Murdoch family held a certain status with law enforcement. They basically allowed the family and all these attorneys from the law firm to just move over there and set up and console the grieving Alex, console the family.
00:21:07
While some investigators searched the home and property, others were looking into Alec's theory about the 2019 boat crash.
00:21:15
They wanted to know where the surviving passengers and their families were on the night of the murders.
00:21:22
That meant Connor Cook and his parents, Marty and Christine. When you heard, what did you think?
00:21:29
My first thought was, thank God Connor was home with me. Did they question him? Of course. They questioned me.
00:21:37
They questioned you. I was his witness that he, you know, got home from work and that he never left the house.
00:21:45
They questioned every passenger in that boat. But despite Alec's theory, it appeared no one involved in the boat crash was near Moselle on the night Maggie and Paul were gunned down.
00:21:57
They did, you know, got an alibi from everyone. And I think they fairly quickly eliminated the boat crash passengers as possible suspects.
00:22:09
Still, the boat crash and the Beach family civil suit against him were never far from Alec's mind.
00:22:17
In another interview with Sled Agent David Owen three days after the murders, Owen asked Alec to take him through how he spent that fateful day.
00:22:28
Alec mentioned the upcoming hearing where he was likely to be forced to turn over financial records.
00:22:35
I'm a defendant in a civil case involving my son. I told you about the boat wreck.
00:22:39
Yes, sir. And there were some motions coming up in that on Thursday. And I was mostly just getting ready for those things and then other junk.
00:22:48
Alec also gave Owen more details about his whereabouts that night. After work, he said he came home and rode around the property with Paul.
00:23:00
Paul can be heard laughing on this video from that evening as the two watched a tree bed.
00:23:07
Then they went home to eat. Maggie had gotten home and, you know, we sat down and we ate supper.
00:23:15
We usually eat supper together. After dinner, Alec said Maggie went to check on the kennels and Paul was outside too
00:23:23
I stayed in the house And I was watching TV, looking at my phone And I actually fell asleep on the couch
00:23:32
Alec told Owen he left to visit his mom after he woke up, a little after 9pm She lived about 20 minutes away
00:23:40
And Alec said he stayed there for a while before he returned home, a little after 10pm
00:23:46
Paul and Maggie weren't there, he said, so he drove around the property. He found them lifeless at the kennels and dialed 911.
00:23:58
Once again, he got a call. emotional about the moment he discovered his wife and son.
00:24:03
I know it's hard. And sitting here talking today is tough. It's just so bad. It did it so bad.
00:24:22
He's such a good boy, too. I'm sorry. Go ahead. After that second interview with Special Agent Owen ended, Alec got more bad news,
00:24:38
this time about his father, Randolph, who had been sick. Valerie Borlein is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
00:24:46
On June the 10th, there's all this incredible activity going on in the background,
00:24:50
trying to figure out what happened to Maggie and Paul. And his father, Randolph III, comes over to kind of huddle up with the lawyers and the family
00:25:00
and then goes back home and dies just a couple hours after that interview. That weekend, the family buried Maggie, Paul, and Randolph.
00:25:11
A community gathering to remember a mother and son killed in the Lowcountry. On June 25th, two and a half weeks after the murders, Alec and Buster put out a statement.
00:25:25
They asked for help to bring justice to Maggie and Paul and offered a $100,000 reward.
00:25:33
By all appearances, Alec seemed to be a grieving father and husband. but that summer was about to unravel Alex world and make so many question if they ever really knew
00:25:49
it he asked me to write the checks to pay the fees on the case that would have been payable to
00:25:54
his firm directly to him had you written him checks like that before no the summer of 2021 was a time of grief and confusion for the murdoch family chris wilson
00:26:22
did his best to be there for alec his friend of more than three decades i mean the guy seemed
00:26:29
destroyed to me not eating i didn't seem to be sleeping didn't go back to moselle to spend
00:26:34
another night that I know of. It was quite a contrast from their last happy time together.
00:26:41
Alec had celebrated his birthday just one week before the murders. That's Chris giving him a bear
00:26:49
hug. Everybody was having a good time that night. It was Maggie, Paul, Buster, my wife, my family,
00:26:55
a number of their friends, and we had had a good time together. Alec and Chris were lawyers in
00:27:00
neighboring counties and sometimes took on cases together to better serve their clients.
00:27:06
But Chris would soon discover his apparently wealthy friend was hiding some secrets.
00:27:14
In the spring of 2021, Alec was facing mounting pressure to turn over his financial records to
00:27:21
Mark Tinsley for the 2019 boat crash lawsuit. Around that time, Chris says Alec asked him to
00:27:30
do something unusual. Alec asked me to write the checks for the fees directly to him instead of to
00:27:36
his firm, which I did in March of 2021. He told me he had authority and approval from his firm.
00:27:41
And you had no reason not to believe him. I didn't have any reason not to trust the guy. I mean, we
00:27:45
had been dealing with each other, business and professional, for 30 years with no problems
00:27:50
whatsoever. But a few months later, Alec changed his mind. He contacted me and said, the fees can't
00:27:57
be paid to me this way. They had to be paid directly to my firm. He was supposed to send
00:28:01
me $792,000 back, the same amount of money that I had paid him. Chris said Alec only sent back $600,000.
00:28:10
I had to put $192,000 of my own money into my account to have that money available to
00:28:17
pay the way that it should have been paid had it been done the right way. What Chris did not know was that he wasn't the only one getting suspicious of Alec.
00:28:27
Murdoch's law firm had quietly started an internal investigation and found several missing payments related to his cases.
00:28:36
On June 7th, the CFO confronted Alec about it. That night, Maggie and Paul were killed.
00:28:47
After that, no one was asking questions about missing fees. They were doing their best to surround Alec with support.
00:28:55
Even Mark Tinsley had paused his civil case in the wake of Maggie and Paul's murders.
00:29:00
He thought, maybe for good. If Alec is the victim of some vigilante, the boat crash probably, as it relates to him, would have been over.
00:29:11
But then Tinsley noticed another lawsuit related to Alec had settled. It was the case of his longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a fall at Moselle in 2018.
00:29:24
The settlement seemed suspiciously small. The fact that she died, her age, how long she lived, case was worth a lot more than $505,000,
00:29:35
which was the only thing reported in terms of the settlement. He was right. Gloria's family should have gotten over $4 million.
00:29:45
Alec and two co-conspirators didn't tell the family that and kept most of the money for themselves.
00:29:52
And once that case became public other allegations surfaced about Alex stealing money from clients For years The allegations were a bombshell for the large group of people
00:30:07
who'd circled their wagons around Alec all summer. In September, Chris Wilson heard about those allegations, and he was shocked.
00:30:18
I told him that I needed to speak to him and I wanted it to be face-to-face. That conversation was tense.
00:30:51
and I've been stealing from my clients and I've been stealing from my firm and I've done you wrong and I've done a number of people wrong. Wilson left the
00:30:59
meeting furious but also worried about his friend and he was right to worry because just a short time later I'm on my ride back to Columbia and I got a
00:31:11
phone call and told me that Alec had been shot on the side of the road. Alec Murdoch dialed 911 again.
00:31:21
Okay, what's going on? I got a flat tire and I stopped and somebody stopped to help me.
00:31:29
And when I turned my back, they tried to shoot me. Alec was on the side of this country road when he claimed the shooting happened.
00:31:39
Did they actually shoot you or they tried to shoot you? They shot me and I'm bleeding a lot.
00:31:44
When you heard about what had happened on the side of the road there, what was your initial thought?
00:31:49
I thought he'd tried to kill himself. Alec was airlifted to a Georgia hospital with a fractured skull and a minor brain bleed.
00:31:58
But one week later, he confessed that he'd made up the whole thing. It was a failed attempt to get life insurance money for his son, Buster.
00:32:08
He also admitted publicly to that 20-year opioid addiction and promptly entered rehab
00:32:15
Alec seemed to be spinning out of control He was fired by the law firm and he was facing charges related to both the botched suicide attempt
00:32:26
And the insurance fraud of his longtime housekeeper During that tumultuous summer, Alec and his lawyer also had an ominous meeting
00:32:36
with SLED Special Agent David Owen about the status of the murder investigation.
00:32:42
Everybody stays in that investigation until we can get them out. And right now, because of the questions that I have that I need explanations for,
00:32:52
I cannot get Alec out. So does that mean that I am a suspect? You were still in this with everything that we've talked about,
00:33:00
with the family guns, the ammunition. nobody else's DNA. I have to put my beliefs aside
00:33:11
and go with the facts. In October 2021, Alec was arraigned for some of his alleged financial crimes.
00:33:22
The Wilsons no longer recognize the man they considered family. We didn't want to believe it.
00:33:29
More came out, kept coming out. More still coming out, probably. I mean, it's just, who is this person?
00:33:36
We don't know this person. Who was he? The world was about to find out. What say you, Richard L. F. Murdoch, are you guilty or not guilty of the felonies wherein you stand and die?
00:33:48
After more than a year of speculation and questions, investigators appear ready to name Alec Murdoch as the killer of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.
00:34:09
On July 14, 2022, it happened. Alec Murdoch was indicted for killing his wife and son.
00:34:17
He pleaded not guilty. How shall you be tried? By God and my country. The trial was scheduled surprisingly quickly.
00:34:26
On January 23, 2023, the Colleton County Courthouse in tiny Walterboro, South Carolina, felt like the center of the universe.
00:34:36
An invasion of cameras, tents and trucks on every corner of the courthouse. A nation now hooked on the spectacle was greedy for every turn, every twist to come.
00:34:50
The trial was going to be live streamed, but spectators were out at dawn anyway, lining up for a courtroom pass.
00:34:59
Food trucks served breakfast. And reporters? The place was crawling with them. You will find every major TV network.
00:35:09
The New York Times is here, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal. Alec Murdoch arrived in an unmarked van at the court's back door,
00:35:18
straight from the jail cell where he spent more than a year, dressed in business casual, a jacket draped over his handcuffs.
00:35:31
Generations of Murdochs have tried cases here. In fact, a Murdoch family portrait was taken down on the judge's orders before opening arguments began.
00:35:42
Listen to that gathering storm that all came to a head on June 7th, 2021, the day the evidence will show he killed Maggie and Paul.
00:35:54
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters a 24 veteran of the state attorney general office opened with the prosecution version of how the murders happened
00:36:05
The defendant over there, Alec Murdoch, took a 12-stage shotgun and shot him in the shoulder.
00:36:12
Paul Murdoch was shot first. But after that, another shot went up under his head and did catastrophic damage.
00:36:19
Then Waters told the jury, Alec picked up an AR-style rifle and turned it on his wife, Maggie.
00:36:26
Pow, pow. Two shots at him in the leg and took her down. I've got multiple gunshots.
00:36:33
Two victims shot at close range. The scene, bloody, horrific. And the prosecution said a pile of evidence pointing to Alec Murdoch as the killer.
00:36:44
The motive? He was trying to deflect attention from his storm of troubles. You're going to reach the inescapable conclusion that Alec murdered Maggie and Paul, that he was the storm, that the storm was coming for them, that they died as a result.
00:37:01
Alec listened at the defense table, family members behind him, including his remaining son, Buster.
00:37:07
It is our honor to represent Alec Murdoch. Dick Harpootlian, a former member of the South Carolina Senate, with decades of lawyering behind him, was the lead defense attorney.
00:37:21
I submit to you what you've heard from the attorney general as facts are not. Now stand up.
00:37:32
This is Alec Murdoch. And Alec was the loving father of Paul and the loving husband of Maggie.
00:37:41
The facts were on his client's side, he told the jury. There was no direct evidence tying Alec to the murders.
00:37:50
He didn't do it. He is presumed innocent. Please be seated. Next morning, the prosecution called its first witness.
00:38:03
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony? Sergeant Daniel Green of the Colleton County Sheriff's Office
00:38:09
was the first to respond to the murder scene. The prosecutor used Green's body cam footage and testimony to examine Alec's behavior that night.
00:38:20
He was able to answer all the questions that I asked him. Was he panicking in any way?
00:38:24
He seemed upset, but I wouldn't say panicky. The prosecutor said Alec immediately tried to divert attention to other suspects.
00:38:32
My son was in a boat wreck. Casting suspicion on how he pointed to Paul's boat crash as a possible motive for a revenge killing.
00:38:41
And who brought up the bow dancing? Mr. Murdoch did. And he offered that right out of the gate as a possible explanation for what happened here.
00:38:47
Is that right? Yes. Prosecutors went on to attack Alec's alibi. Remember, Alec told everyone he had a nap after dinner while Paul and Maggie went down to the kennels.
00:39:00
Alec insisted he did not go with them. I was at the house. I left the house and went to my mom's.
00:39:08
But prosecutors unveiled an explosive exhibit that would gut Alec's alibi. A video that had been discovered on Paul's cell phone recorded at the kennels at 8.44 p.m.
00:39:23
when Alec said he was napping at the house. And just minutes before prosecutors say Paul and Maggie were shot.
00:39:32
Get back. Get back. Jurors were told to focus on the voices, not the pictures. Paul is heard calling to this dog named Cash.
00:39:42
Quit, Cash. Quit. Then Maggie. Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth. And a third voice.
00:39:51
Come here, Bubba. Come here, Cash. Come here, Bubba. Cash. A man's voice saying, come here, Bubba, to a dog.
00:39:59
Come here, Bubba. Come here, Bubba. Come here, Bubba. Cash. Half a dozen witnesses were asked to identify the voices on that video.
00:40:06
The answer was always the same. Whose voices did you recognize on that video? Paul Murdoch, Maggie Murdoch, and Alex Murdoch.
00:40:16
Paul Murdoch, Maggie Murdoch, and Alec Murdoch. Paul, Miss Maggie, and Mr. Alec.
00:40:23
It was a major blow to Alec's defense, but hardly the last. The prosecution had more surprises up its sleeve.
00:40:32
There were a significant number of particles characteristic of gunshot primer residue on the inside of this jacket, yes.
00:40:50
Disturbing new details coming to light in the Alec Murdoch murder trial. Alec Murdoch is charged with killing his wife and son.
00:40:57
I'm half a century old and there's never been a case like this in my neck of the woods.
00:41:02
The prosecution had undermined Alec's alibi with that video at the kennels. Now, they tried to poke holes in the rest of his story.
00:41:13
Remember, Alec said he napped after dinner, then went to visit his mother. Now call Miss Michelle Smith to the sink.
00:41:23
Shelly Smith was Alec's mother's caregiver. She was there when he arrived at his mother's house about 9.20.
00:41:30
an unusual hour for him to stop by, she said. Like he was fidgety. Fidgety? Yes.
00:41:37
Don't shame. Did he talk to his mother? She was asleep, yes. She was asleep? She said he left after 15 or 20 minutes.
00:41:46
Did she even know that he was there? No. Smith saw Alec again the next week. She testified they had an upsetting conversation where he appeared to be coaching her to tell investigators if they asked that he was at his mother home longer than Smith said he was
00:42:06
His phrase was, I was here, are you doing this? I was here 30 to 40 minutes. Days later, Smith testified, Alec was back at his mother's place, this time early in the morning with something balled up in his hands.
00:42:22
Like a blue tarp, like a tarp. Blue? Blue. Okay. Was it vinyl? It's like a tarp that you put on a car, you keep your car covered up.
00:42:31
What did you do when you walked in? Went upstairs. Investigators later searched the house and discovered a blue raincoat similar to a tarp,
00:42:40
balled up in a closet. Agent Megan Fletcher, a trace evidence analyst, examined it for GSR, gunshot residue.
00:42:48
residue. There were a significant number of particles characteristic of gunshot primer
00:42:53
residue on the inside of this jacket. Yes. Would your findings be consistent with that item
00:42:58
containing a recently fired firearm? It is possible. Yes. Other people in Alex Circle also found his behavior after the murders strange.
00:43:10
Prosecutors called Maggie's sister, Marion Proctor, to the stand. I'm Marion Proctor, P-R-O-C-T-O-R
00:43:18
She told the jury her family was terrified the killer would target Alec and Buster next
00:43:24
But Alec didn't appear worried at all I was scared for Alec and Buster I think everybody was afraid
00:43:32
And Alec didn't seem to be afraid. Marion told the jury Maggie was only at Moselle that night because Alec had asked her to be there.
00:43:57
He told her his father was gravely ill. The sisters talked on the phone as Maggie drove.
00:44:04
Marion, still haunted by that last call. And I said, well, Maggie, I said, you know, Alec and his dad are super close.
00:44:12
and that's probably what you should do. Go be with him if he needs you. You encouraged her to go to Moza?
00:44:21
I did. Was that the last time you talked to her? Yes. One apparent weakness in the prosecution's case
00:44:33
was the lack of blood evidence. They tried to turn this to their advantage by playing one of Alec's statements to police
00:44:40
were courted just hours after the murders. I think I tried to turn Paul over first.
00:44:48
You know, I tried to turn him over. Did you touch Maggie at all? I did. I touched them both.
00:44:54
I tried to take, I mean, I tried to do it as limited as possible, but I tried to take their pulse on both of them.
00:45:04
So, why wasn't he covered in blood? The implication was that he'd washed up after the murders.
00:45:12
Colleton County lead detective Laura Rutland was on the scene that night. How would you describe the defendant's hands when you saw him when you were interviewing him?
00:45:21
How would you describe his hands? They were clean. How would you describe his t-shirt?
00:45:24
Clean. How would you describe his shorts? Clean. Did he look like somebody who just changed his clothes?
00:45:30
Yes. Alex said something else prosecutors seized on in another statement to police.
00:45:37
Three days after the murders. Sitting here talking today is tough. It's just so bad.
00:45:44
They did it so bad. The prosecutor asked Senior Special Agent Jeff Croft to repeat the words.
00:45:54
What did he say? It's just so bad. I did him so bad. I did him so bad. Yes, sir.
00:46:00
Was it a slip of the tongue? An inadvertent confession? On cross-examination, Alec's defense attorney, Jim Griffin, played the tape at a slower speed.
00:46:11
The question, did Alec say I or they? I did it so bad. Did you hear they then? No, sir, I did not.
00:46:23
You would agree the jury gets to decide what he said on that tape? That's the best evidence.
00:46:29
I agree that they get to hear the tape and make their own mind up as to what he said, yes, sir.
00:46:34
But no matter how much testimony prosecutors elicited about Alec Murdoch's inconsistencies and lies, they still had to answer the most basic question of all.
00:46:48
What could motivate a man to brutally murder the wife and son he seemed to adore?
00:46:55
They would throw a Hail Mary to try to make that case. They've got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they have in evidence of guilt in the murder case.
00:47:20
Prosecutors had punched holes in Alec Murdoch's alibi and cast doubt over many of his statements.
00:47:26
But the biggest question of all lingered. Why? Why would Alec Murdoch kill his wife and son, especially since they seem to be a close knit family? Journalist Valerie Borlai.
00:47:40
And I think that is a high bar for the prosecution to have to get over to explain. Yes, those things do hold together.
00:47:45
Prosecutors had an explanation Alec Murdoch was a compulsive thief They alleged A spinner of scams
00:47:54
Who stole money from everyone And because those financial crimes Were about to be exposed
00:48:00
They argued he murdered his wife and son to win sympathy and time. He was eager to keep concealed this long-running financial fraud that would ruin his family and his family name.
00:48:12
This issue is before me on the motion of the state. Normally, jurors are not allowed to hear about a defendant's past bad acts.
00:48:20
But in this case, prosecutors believe they were crucial to explain motive. they asked the judge for permission to present testimony about Alex alleged financial crimes.
00:48:32
I would like to respond. The defense protested loudly. They've got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they have about a murder and evidence of guilt in the murder case.
00:48:46
But in a pivotal decision, Judge Clifton Newman decided for the prosecution. I find that it is so intimately connected with and explanatory of the crime charge that proof of it is essential to complete the story.
00:49:04
Prosecutors exhaled and called Jeannie Seconder to the stand. I would be CFO slash COO.
00:49:13
Seconder told the jurors the Murdoch family law firm, PMPED, operated on trust like a brotherhood.
00:49:20
She said Alec Murdoch was a successful lawyer largely because of his gift of the gab.
00:49:26
He did it through the art of bulls**t, basically. In May of 2021, Seconder learned of Chris Wilson's missing check.
00:49:35
She discovered other financial irregularities involving Alec, too. She confronted him about it for the first time that month and then again on June 7th.
00:49:45
He looked at me with a pretty dirty look, one I'd not seen before. and said, what do you need now?
00:49:52
The conversation was interrupted. He took a phone call and the call was saying that his father was in the hospital and he was terminal.
00:50:02
So at that point, it turned into a personal conversation. Prosecutors argued that was the day.
00:50:09
June 7th, Murdoch realized his crimes were about to be revealed. And that very night, Maggie and Paul were murdered.
00:50:20
As prosecutors demonstrated, Alec got a reprieve from the firm's investigation. After the murders happened, did it seem right to you to raise those issues to the defendant?
00:50:29
No, we were concerned about the welfare of Alec. We were trying to make sure that he was emotionally okay.
00:50:37
Old friend Chris Wilson testified he also stopped asking questions about that missing check after the murders.
00:50:44
We all talk regularly about keeping an eye on him, about being there for him. If prosecutors thought evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes would provide a motive,
00:50:55
they counted on their last witness to prove opportunity. Special Agent Peter Rudofsky.
00:51:01
The prosecution's final witness, SLED Special Agent Peter Rudofsky, unveiled a digital tour de force.
00:51:09
using cell activity from Alex, Maggie's and Paul's phones and GPS data from Alex's car.
00:51:17
He built a timeline of the night of the murders. It showed Alec had time to kill and to cover it up.
00:51:27
How long you been working on this document right here? Roughly about a year on this document.
00:51:32
Rudofsky's timeline showed that not long after Maggie and Paul's phones went silent forever at 8.49 p.m.,
00:51:40
about the time prosecutors believe the two were killed, Alex's phone, which had been inactive for nearly an hour,
00:51:48
suddenly came alive. From 9.02 to 9.06 p.m., it counted his steps. How many steps?
00:51:55
283 steps. 70.75 steps per minute, estimated. He was a busy guy right then, wasn't he?
00:52:04
At 9.07 p.m., Murdoch's Suburban left Moselle, heading to his mother's home. As it neared the location where Maggie's phone was later found, the vehicle was going 42 miles an hour.
00:52:17
After passing that location, does the defendant's vehicle start to accelerate? It does.
00:52:23
Then, the Suburban sped up to 74 miles an hour, reaching Murdoch's mother's home at 9.22 p.m.
00:52:30
It departed at 9.43 p.m. traveling back to Moselle This time clocking a maximum of 80 miles an hour
00:52:40
Would you at night, or did you ever at night On the roads as they existed at the time of June 7, 2021
00:52:47
Run in code with your lights on, run 80 miles an hour down that road I would not, no
00:52:52
Please hurry We're getting somebody out there to you The suburban arrived at the kennels at 10.05 p.m.
00:53:01
Allen called 911 less than 20 seconds later, telling the dispatcher he checked both bodies and neither was breathing.
00:53:11
With that, prosecutors rested. In the matter of the indictments, the state of South Carolina rests.
00:53:18
In all, they'd called 61 witnesses, elicited hours of damaging testimony. But was it enough?
00:53:27
The defense had its own cards to play, starting with insinuations of a botched and biased investigation.
00:53:35
What effort, if any, was made to take fingerprints at the scene? None that I observed.
00:53:40
Alec Murdoch attorneys lead the groundwork for his defense long before the prosecution rested Is that preservation of the scene that your standards require
00:54:05
Not, not exactly, no. Not exactly? In their cross-examinations of state's witnesses,
00:54:12
Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin criticized the way the murder investigation was handled.
00:54:17
Should the police be walking through the scene? No. Do we know what other evidence they may have destroyed?
00:54:25
I have no idea. That's right, we don't. You've described this investigative circle.
00:54:30
So you draw a circle around potential persons of interest. And Alex was in that circle.
00:54:36
We don't draw a circle around any individual person. We work with the crime scene, which is what we consider the circle.
00:54:44
There was a circle, and it was only around Alex. He was the only living and breathing person in the circle.
00:54:50
Is that correct? That is the only person that we could place in the circle at that time.
00:54:55
They accused law enforcement of conducting a sloppy investigation from the very start.
00:55:02
Do you know whether any of those showers or tubs were in any way swabbed or checked for blood or tissue or any DNA,
00:55:10
anything that would indicate somebody had washed off evidence of a crime? Nothing that I'm aware of.
00:55:16
The defense also called its own expert witnesses to make the same point. If this had been your crime scene, would you say that she and save disclosed?
00:55:29
Definitely. What effort, if any, was made to take fingerprints at the scene? None that I observed.
00:55:36
At the end of the day, the defense argued, there was no physical evidence tying Alec to the murders of Maggie and Paul.
00:55:43
no murder weapon no blood evidence on him sure alec had lied about being at the kennels that
00:55:50
night they said but that wasn't evidence he killed his wife and son the defense also called people close to alec and the family to attest to alec's grief and pain
00:56:05
after the killings he was devastated i mean he was crying he was i mean just just beside himself.
00:56:14
He said, look at what they did, look at what they did to them. He was pretty distraught.
00:56:21
When I got there, he and I saw each other, and he gave me a hug and just started crying
00:56:25
and told me they were gone. Alex's older son, Buster, had sat quietly in court for weeks.
00:56:34
When it was his turn on the witness stand, he relived the horror of losing both his mother and brother.
00:56:43
My dad called me. He asked me if I was sitting down. And I was like, yeah. And then he sounded odd.
00:56:52
And then he told me that my mom and brother had been shot. Buster said his father didn't act like a man who had just slaughtered his own family.
00:57:02
His demeanor was, I mean, he was destroyed. He was heartbroken. And I walked in the door and saw him and gave him a hug and just broken down.
00:57:12
Could he speak? Not really. Was he crying? Yes, sir. Alex's brother, John Marvin, also took the stand in his defense.
00:57:21
As devastating as it was for me, it was a thousand times worse for him. So I knew as a brother I needed to be there for him.
00:57:33
And I was. I would have to create a new word to describe how distraught he was. Pausing to wipe away his own tears, John Marvin told the jury about the morning after the murders.
00:57:44
I walked over to the feed room. It had not been cleaned up. I saw blood. I saw brains. I saw pieces of skull. It was terrible.
00:57:53
And for some reason, I thought it was mine. Something that I needed to do for Paul to clean it up.
00:58:01
And I can promise you, no mother or father or aunt or uncle should ever have to see and do what I did that day.
00:58:13
And he asserted his brother Alex's innocence by revealing a promise he made to his nephew Paul, Alex's son, in that tortured moment at the kennels.
00:58:25
I don't know, I just, I loved him and I promised him that I'd find out who did this to him.
00:58:31
Have you found out? I have not. But when the story of Alec Murdoch's defense is ultimately written,
00:58:39
it will not dwell on those emotional statements from family and friends or accusations about sloppy crime scenes or even withering cross-examinations.
00:58:50
It will focus instead on the testimony of one man. The defendant, Richard Alexander Murdoch, wishes to take the stand.
00:59:01
As day 23 of the Alec Murdoch trial dawned, there was a lot of buzz around the Colleton County Courthouse.
00:59:22
Would he take the stand? The decision was only one man's to make, and Alec Murdoch gave his answer.
00:59:30
I am going to testify. I want to testify. Attorney Jim Griffin started by cutting to the chase.
00:59:39
Did you take this gun or any gun like it and shoot your son Paul in the chest in the feed room at your property off Moselle Road?
00:59:48
No, I did not. Mr Murdy did you take this gun or any gun like it and blow your son brains out on June 7th or any day or any time No I did not I didn shoot my wife or my son any time
01:00:06
Ever. For three weeks, prosecutors had branded Murdoch a serial liar and believe they caught him perhaps in his biggest lie
01:00:18
with that video placing him at the dog kennels that June night in 2021. Alec and his attorney confronted that head on.
01:00:27
Is that you on the kennel video at 844 p.m. on June 7th, the night Maggie and Paul were murdered?
01:00:35
It is. Were you, in fact, at the kennels at 844 p.m. on the night Maggie and Paul were murdered?
01:00:41
I was. did you lie to Sled Agent Owen and Deputy Laura Rutland on the night of June 7th
01:00:51
and told them that you stayed at the house after dinner? I did lie to them. Did you lie to Agent Owen and Agent Croft on the follow-up interview on June 10th
01:01:01
that the last time you saw Maggie and Paul was at dinner? I did lie to them. So why did he lie?
01:01:10
He said his addiction to painkillers was the reason, up to 60 pills a day. As my addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations or circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking.
01:01:29
And it could be anything that triggered it. It might be a look somebody gave me.
01:01:33
It might be a reaction somebody had to something I did. It might be a policeman following me in a car.
01:01:40
He said he distrusted SLED intensely and his drug-induced paranoia, coupled with the shock from the murders, fogged up his mind.
01:01:51
On June the 7th, I wasn't thinking clearly. I don't think I was capable of reason.
01:02:03
And I lied about being down there. And I'm so sorry that I did. Did you continue lying after that night?
01:02:16
Did you not? Once I lied, I continued to lie, yes sir. Why? You know, oh what a tangled web we weave.
01:02:25
Murdoch went on to give a new account of that afternoon and evening. Constantly using the nicknames Mags and Pawpaw for his wife and son.
01:02:34
And offering details he had never mentioned in his interviews with law enforcement.
01:02:39
He described driving around Moselle with Paul on his son's last afternoon. You could not be around Pawpaw.
01:02:54
You could not be around him and not have a good time. I love doing anything with Pawpaw.
01:03:01
It was an absolute delight. After dinner that evening, he said, Maggie asked him to go out to the kennels where she and Paul were checking on the dogs.
01:03:12
And this was his new story. He said he drove a golf cart out there. I'm talking to Maggie for just a short time before Bubba catches the chicken.
01:03:23
Alec said he tried to pull it away from him. Did you get the chicken out of Bubba's mouth?
01:03:30
I did. I took the chicken from Bubba and I put it on top of that what looks to me like a portable dog crate.
01:03:36
What did you do after you got the chicken out of Bubba's mouth? I got out of there. I left. I went back to the house.
01:03:43
So you went back to the house, you laid down on the couch, and then what happened next?
01:03:47
I'm not positive. I dozed off for a minute or didn't doze off for a minute, but I got up off of the couch and I made up my mind I was going to visit my mom.
01:04:01
He described that trip over to his mother's house. All routine, he claimed. When he got back to the house about an hour later,
01:04:10
he said he didn't see his wife or son anywhere inside. So he started searching. And now did you drive down to the kennels in your suburban?
01:04:21
I did. What did you see? I saw what y'all have seen pictures of. So bad. What did you do when you went up to Paul at some point in time?
01:05:01
Paul was so bad. At some point, I know I tried to check him for a pulse. I know I tried to turn him over.
01:05:17
When you say you tried to turn him over, why were you trying to turn him over? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I tried to turn him over. Me and my boys lay face down. He's done the way he's done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidebar. I didn't know what to do.
01:05:44
He said in the weeks after the murders He was ready and willing to give the police
01:05:49
Anything they needed Whether it exonerated him or not But the bottom line for the defense Was this Murdoch had no motive To kill his wife or son I would never hurt Maggie and I would never hurt Paul ever under any circumstances
01:06:09
But Alec wasn't finished on the stand. Now, it was the prosecution's turn to question him.
01:06:16
You've been able to lie quickly and easily and convincingly if you think it'll save your skin for well over a decade.
01:06:23
Isn't that true? Alec Murdoch had lied to police for a year and a half. He told them he was not at the dog kennels before his wife and son's murders.
01:06:48
Now, he said he was. All this time later, this is the first time you've ever said that.
01:06:55
Yes, sir. Prosecutor Creighton Waters wanted to underscore that point. This defendant was a liar and not just about the murders.
01:07:06
For years, he'd been using one hand to shake with trusting clients and the other to rip them off.
01:07:12
You would agree with me that for years you were stealing money from clients? Yes, sir, I agree with that.
01:07:23
And that you were stealing from your law firm? Yes, sir, I agree with that. And that had been going on since at least 2010?
01:07:33
I'm not sure of the exact date, but it's been going on a long time. I'll agree with that.
01:07:36
This defendant, said Waters, stole millions of dollars, even from people he claimed to care about.
01:07:44
What was going through your head and how it went down when you sat there and looked them in the eye
01:07:49
and convinced them that you were doing them right while you were lying to them and stealing their money?
01:07:55
Yes, sir. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of my clients that I cared about.
01:08:01
And so I will tell you that I had conversations with them where I misled them and I lied to them and I took their money.
01:08:11
The only reason Alec stopped lying about stealing money, the prosecutor argued, was because he got caught.
01:08:18
Just as the only reason he stopped lying about being at the kennels was the tape.
01:08:24
You agree that the most important part of your testimony here today is explaining your life for a year and a half that you were never down at those kennels at 844.
01:08:36
Would you agree with that? I think all of my testimony is important, Mr. Waters.
01:08:43
Would you agree that that's an important part of your testimony? Sure. The prosecutor attacked Murdoch's new version of that night, which went like this.
01:08:55
He was at the kennels at 844, but only for a minute or so, to rescue a chicken in distress.
01:09:02
Then he went back to the house. So we got you back around 849 and you didn't hear anything at all.
01:09:08
Did you hear anything at all, Mr. Murdoch, during that time period? No, I did not.
01:09:13
That's possibly because he was napping by then, Alex said. He had missed his wife and son's murders by mere seconds, missed the sound of multiple gun blasts, likely because he was out cold.
01:09:28
According to your new story, how long did you doze? If I dozed, extremely short time.
01:09:36
Extremely short time? Because you would agree with me that at 9.02, you're up and moving, according to the data.
01:09:44
I agree that according to that data, my phone's recording steps at whatever time it is, 902-something.
01:09:53
So what was he doing, Creighton Waters asked. I know what I wasn't doing, Mr. Waters, and what I wasn't doing is doing anything,
01:10:04
as I believe you've implied, that I was cleaning off or washing off or washing off guns,
01:10:11
putting guns in a raincoat, and I can promise you that I wasn't doing any of that.
01:10:17
Waters dismissed the latest alibi as the words of a man who routinely lied to escape trouble.
01:10:24
And you've been able to lie quickly and easily and convincingly if you think it'll save your skin for well over a decade.
01:10:32
Isn't that true? I have lied well over a decade. And you want this jury to believe a story manufactured to fit the evidence that you brought forth just yesterday after hearing this trial's worth of testimony?
01:11:02
No, sir, that's not correct. The trouble Murdoch was trying to save himself from this time, the prosecutor argued, was impending financial exposure at his law firm and in the Mallory Beach civil case.
01:11:15
To avoid that, he seized on a harebrained scheme, commit a greater crime to blot out the lesser ones, kill two loved ones to attract sympathy instead of scrutiny.
01:11:30
Mr. Murdoch, are you a family annihilator? A family annihilator? You mean like, did I shoot my wife and my son?
01:11:41
Yes. No. Nothing further. As a former attorney, Alec Murdoch had a knack for reading juries.
01:11:48
But all that mattered now was how these jurors were reading him. After 28 days of testimony, the case was theirs to decide.
01:11:59
Yes. They did it in less than three hours. The defendant will rise. Docket number.
01:12:05
It fell to the court clerk, Becky Hill, to read the verdict. Guilty verdict. Alec Murdoch was sentenced to life in prison.
01:12:17
Outside the courthouse, Attorney General Allen Wilson celebrated the state's victory.
01:12:22
It was all worth it because we got to bring justice and be a voice for Maggie and Paul Murdoch
01:12:27
and bring justice for the people of South Carolina. He jubilately thanked everyone who worked the case.
01:12:33
I want to thank the Carlton County Clerk of Court, Becky Hill, and her entire team and their staff.
01:12:39
Including that court clerk, Becky Hill. I call her Becky Booth, that's her nickname, but Madam Clerk, wherever you are tonight.
01:12:46
General, I hear you. Little did he realize how quickly he'd come to regret that shout out.
01:12:55
My name is Becky Hill. A whole new chapter in the Murdoch saga was about to begin.
01:13:02
This is stunning. This is a bombshell. None of those are overstatements. This never, ever happens.
01:13:09
It had taken jurors less than three hours to convict Alec Murdoch. They said they didn't come to that decision lightly.
01:13:30
You have to be very sure in your answer. That's not something that I want to live with if it wasn't right.
01:13:36
Jurors James McDowell, Gwen Jennerette, and Amy Williams talked to me just after the verdict.
01:13:43
There's no doubt in any of your minds that Alec Wernock's the one who did it. I believe he did it.
01:13:49
No doubt. No question. Becky Hill, the clerk of court who read the verdict, praised the jury's care and diligence when she talked to Dateline after the trial.
01:14:02
This jury was definitely a jury sent by God. They were very persistent. They were prayerful.
01:14:12
She also talked about the jurors at length in a memoir she published about the case.
01:14:18
Just four months after the verdict, that book raised a lot of eyebrows. NBC News legal analyst Laura Jerry.
01:14:26
I could not believe it that an officer of the court thought that she could cash in on something that she was supposed to take an oath to uphold her duty As soon as I saw it I knew that this was going to be a fight This is going to come back to haunt this case for a long time By that point Alec lawyers were hearing rumors that Hill had not just observed trial proceedings
01:14:51
but that she'd been an active participant, allegedly trying to sway jurors toward a guilty verdict.
01:14:59
We had some indication that something really amiss went on in the jury room. And so we actually got in the car and went to the jurors' homes.
01:15:11
On a Sunday afternoon. Yeah. Those who agreed to talk said the clerk had not pressured them.
01:15:18
But one of them remembered a specific comment Hill had made about the defense. She said that Ms. Hill said, don't let them fool you.
01:15:28
I mean, my world stopped. I mean, that is so improper and so unheard of that, I mean, you know, this woman had no reason.
01:15:39
I mean, she was very suspicious of us. But when she said that, I mean, it was game on at that point.
01:15:45
What the lawyers were hearing was a potential crime, jury tampering. They filed a motion asking for a new try.
01:15:54
Good morning. Please be seated. A special judge heard the defense's motion and in a highly unusual move, she even brought back the original jurors to testify.
01:16:06
Most of them said Becky's behavior did not influence them. Did you hear Becky Hill, clerk of court for Collington County, make any comment about this case before your verdict?
01:16:20
No, ma'am. I wasn't purviewed to any of that. But one of them said she had pressured them.
01:16:26
Was your verdict influenced in any way by the communications of the clerk of court in this case?
01:16:35
Yes, ma'am. And how was it influenced? To me, it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty.
01:16:42
My name is Becky Hill. That's correct. Then the clerk herself took the stand. She insisted she'd done nothing wrong.
01:16:50
At any time did you tell the jury not to be fooled by evidence presented by Mr. Murdoch's attorneys?
01:16:57
I did not. The judge was less than convinced, but did not find that the clerk's actions warranted a new trial.
01:17:06
I simply do not believe that the authority of our South Carolina Supreme Court requires a new trial in a very lengthy trial such as this on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity clerk of court
01:17:25
Good morning, everyone. Becky Hill resigned her position and a year later faced a new set of charges on a separate issue,
01:17:34
leaking sealed crime scene photos to the media. She pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice.
01:17:41
She was sentenced to probation and community service. But Becky's role in Alec's case wasn't over.
01:17:55
Late last year, his lawyers raised her behavior with jurors again when they appealed the case all the way to South Carolina's Supreme Court.
01:18:04
When that court's ruling came out, it hit like a thundercrack. A shocking twist in a double murder case.
01:18:12
Alec Murdoch's murder conviction was thrown out. South Carolina's Supreme Court has overturned the double murder convictions of Alec Murdoch.
01:18:23
The court called Becky Hill's conduct shocking and stated that she placed her fingers on the scales of justice and denied Alec Murdoch a fair trial.
01:18:35
What was Alec's response when you told him that he was going to be getting a retrial?
01:18:40
He said, Jim, I didn't believe it was going to happen. I'm reading the opinion, and I got to tell you, I still have a hard time believing it.
01:18:50
We reached out to Becky Hill for comment. She did not respond. Mandy Pierce, one of the jurors who first raised the alarm about Becky, talked to NBC News after the decision.
01:19:04
I was okay that he got a new trial because I feel like some of the things that happened during his original murder trial, he didn't get a fair trial.
01:19:18
Juror Amy Williams disagreed. I was like, what? Why? The evidence was overwhelming. He was guilty.
01:19:28
In the middle of all the uproar, Attorney General Allen Wilson vowed to fight on.
01:19:35
All I can promise the people of South Carolina is that we're going to continue to seek justice.
01:19:40
But some wonder what the point of that would be. Murdoch is already serving 40 and 27 year sentences for his financial crimes.
01:19:50
He pleaded guilty to those charges in 2023. Mr Attorney General to folks who might say why retry the case What would you say to those people Well I would ask those people to think about the position they would take if they had members of their family
01:20:06
who were brutally murdered, and the person who brutally murdered them were spending time in prison for financial
01:20:11
crimes, would you want us to abandon seeking justice for your murdered loved ones?
01:20:16
Legal analysts say a new trial would likely be very different from the first. For one thing, in their decision, the Supreme Court justices call the trial prosecutors' focus on Alec's financial crimes excessive and prejudicial.
01:20:33
The justices have made it clear, do not spend as much time as you did in that first trial trying to litigate all of this evidence of him preying upon vulnerable victims.
01:20:43
The court is saying you cannot do that the second time around. A retrial would also give the defense opportunity to introduce new evidence.
01:20:53
You've maintained from the beginning that it was someone else who killed Paul and Maggie.
01:20:58
Do you have new evidence to back that up? We've been given a lot of different leads and information.
01:21:07
We got a call from someone who says that he knows where the guns were disposed of.
01:21:16
And by who? And by who? Yeah, and we've been given other information from people, private investigators,
01:21:24
and they've come up with some really solid information. The attorneys say they and their client are ready for a new fight.
01:21:34
Would he consider a plea deal? No. That's a quick no. No. Why not? Because he didn't do it.
01:21:41
How about that, okay? The state is ready, too. All options are on the table. But as of right now, today, at the time of this interview, we intend to go back to trial in this case.
01:21:53
The attorney general told us his office may even seek the death penalty this time.
01:22:00
So it seems like everyone involved in the Murdoch case is destined to do it all over again.
01:22:07
Another week's long trial in the Lowcountry with the whole nation tuning in. another examination into the troubled life of Alec Murdoch,
01:22:17
and another jury trying to find justice at last for Maggie and Paul. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.