00:00:04
[theme music] JOHN CONRAD: The murders
themselves occurred in a place called Moselle,
in the low country,
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here in South Carolina. JOHN MONK: It's a region
of low lying swamps, Spanish moss hanging from trees.
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And it's pretty romantic and
kind of a frightening place to be at night. KENNY KENSEY: The
property is 1,700 acre,
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sportsman's paradise, with a
really, really nice residence in the middle of that property.
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It's a place that
most people would only be lucky enough to visit,
much less to call it home.
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[line dialling] RYAN NEIL: Alex
Murdaugh called 911. He starts the phone
call by saying
00:01:32
that I need help because my
wife and son have been shot. They keep him on the
phone for a little while,
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talking to him about the
incident and what he can recall. They also talked to him
through about rendering aid.
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And he basically tells them
that he can't render aid, that they're both deceased.
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During the call, he tells
the 911 operator that I'm going to go back to the house.
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And I'm going to get a
gun for my own protection. Then you can hear,
on the call, you
00:02:31
can hear the door chimes on the
vehicle and everything else. He goes back to the house and
then goes back to the scene.
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And he is standing by
until deputies get there. [sirens wailing] CREIGHTON WATERS: The
Murdaughs lifestyle
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was a very wealthy one. They had a beach
house in Edisto, which is a very nice and
fairly wealthy beach community.
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They had the Moselle property. And they traveled a fair amount. They were generally known.
00:03:08
And Alex was
generally known as one of the richest, most powerful
charismatic lawyers in town.
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They had a nice house. And they owned
several properties, including that 1,700 acre
Moselle and a nice beach house.
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They certainly lived a
very wealthy lifestyle. JOHN MONK: The Murdaughs
weren't just any family.
00:03:28
Alex Murdaugh was a
fourth generation member of a very powerful, political,
social, and legal dynasty
00:03:38
in South Carolina, which
started in 1910 when his great grandfather,
Randolph Murdaugh,
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founded the Murdaugh Law Firm. And in 1920, Randolph
Murdaugh became what's called the solicitor
or chief elected prosecutor.
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And that's just not any job. As chief elected prosecutor
over five county region,
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the prosecutor is
in charge of all the criminal cases and
interacts with sheriffs
00:04:04
and other elected officials. KENNY KENSEY: Very powerful. I would probably compare
their connections to--
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the only ones I could compare
it to is probably the Clintons. Quite a following here in
the south, in South Carolina
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and very connected. RYAN NEIL: Alex is one of three
sons to Randolph Murdaugh. Alec married Maggie.
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And they had two children, one
being Buster, who is the oldest. And Paul being the youngest.
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Paul was more
of a free spirit. He was an undergrad. I don't think he had any plans
to be an attorney in the future.
00:04:44
The aspect of the Murdaugh
lifestyle he enjoyed the most was the farming
aspect of Moselle.
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That's probably along
the lines of what he wanted to do in the future. CREIGHTON WATERS: He loved
to be on that property.
00:04:55
Wherever he went, he always had
a shotgun and a rifle with him. And then Maggie was very
much a doting mother.
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She was not one who had a job. She was a homemaker and lived
a life of luxury, I think.
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BLANCA SIMPSON: Alex
had this personality that would lure you in. You he made you feel
like, you were his friend.
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ALL: (SINGING) Happy
birthday, dear Creighton Happy birthday to you. MAN: Thank you all so much.
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BLANCA SIMPSON: She
just brought you in. He had that personality,
that southern gift of gab,
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I guess you can call it. So it was hard for
you not to like him. JOHN MONK: Alex and
Maggie Murdaugh,
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with their trappings of
wealth, and the prominence, and prestige in the community,
I mean, they were people,
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if you got in trouble,
they could help you. JOHN CONRAD: Alex, Paul,
and Maggie, quoting Alex,
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all met for dinner at Moselle. They had eaten dinner. He went and sat on a
couch and laid down
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and actually fell asleep for a
couple of hours after dinner. He got up around 9:00
ish, something like that.
00:06:22
And he wanted to go
check on his mother. He spent about 45 minutes at his
mom's house, visiting with her.
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And then he drove home. And he went to the main
house first, noticed that Paul and Maggie were
still not at the house.
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And then decided, well, I'll
drive on down to the kennels. And very quickly
discovered their two bodies
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and then called 911. SAVANNA GOUDE: The
police arrive at Moselle. It's very dark there, a good
distance away from the house.
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I wouldn't want to walk that
far, especially at night. I think it may have
rained earlier.
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It's kind of wet out there. RYAN NEIL: One of the
challenges we have whenever we arrive on scene is
that we're not controlling
00:07:13
that scene initially. We have to rely on
the local jurisdiction to control the scene
until our arrival.
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At that point, they had allowed
family members to gather. There were attorneys from
the law firm there as well.
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And they were all pretty
close to the crime scene. From Maggie's body, they were
probably within 40 yards.
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And they were all parked in
their vehicles around that area. KENNY KENSEY: The crime scene
where Maggie and Paul were
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killed, several hundred
yards from the main home, it was a dog kennel, where
hunting dogs were kept.
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It had eight or nine
runs, real nice kennel. And then adjoining
that was an area.
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And I called it the
feed room, where you would keep all
of your medications, and food, and that kind
of thing for your canines.
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Paul was in the
doorway of that feed room right outside the kennel. And Maggie was not far away in
front of Paul and to the left.
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And she was face down. And Paul was face down. And Paul's cell phone
fell out of his pocket.
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And what's your
son's first name? You said Paul. Paul Terry Murdaugh. What are they covering him up?
00:08:34
Paul was shot very
close, not a contact wound, but a near contact wound
to the middle of the chest
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with a double ought buckshot. And those buckshot-- the
reason we know it was close
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is because they didn't spread. They entered as one in
the middle of his chest. It traveled underneath his
skin and exited under his arm.
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And at that time, Paul,
probably in shock, walked several feet
toward the door. And when he cleared the
door from his shoulders
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up, at that time, he was shot
in the left arm, almost contact once again. And the shot went in, out, in.
00:09:22
And his brain was lacerated. And it ejected his brain. And that's where
he came to rest.
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Maggie had a through and
through in her thigh. She had a through and
through in her wrist.
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She had an abrasion
on her abdomen. And we surmised she had a bad
injury to her left chest area.
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And we believe that was a
continuation of one where she was down and shot from behind.
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And it actually
abrased her stomach, did the damage to her chest,
and then entered her head.
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RYAN NEIL: Our crime scene
unit arrived on scene. And they're now
tasked with processing
00:10:07
of the crime scene for us. While they're processing
the crime scene, our agents are doing their
initial interviews of family
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that's on scene, friends,
first responding deputies, and also Alex that night. They photographed inside of
each room or different angles.
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They do overalls or what
we call general pictures of the whole scene. And then they start
photographing individual items.
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And that's things that they see,
such as blood or shell casings. They photograph the
bodies, the vehicles.
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But two items are
specifically missing, and that's both firearms. We know we have two guns
that we're dealing with.
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And both of those are missing. The first was buckshot. The second was steel shot.
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So there are 100 and some odd
pellets in the second shot. There's only a dozen
in the first shot
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and much smaller
the second shots. SAVANNA GOUDE: Maggie
didn't die instantly. KENNY KENSEY: The weapon
that was used to kill
00:11:11
Ms. Maggie is very effective. And you can just tell
because it wasn't effective because the shooter
had to shoot her so many times.
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She was moving. I'm not saying she
was fighting, but she was moving to get away from him
or to at least put some distance
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between she and the shooter. If an ambulance
could have been called, maybe her life could
have been saved.
00:11:43
Well, the pathologist
concluded that this was obviously a homicide. When we met with her, we kind
of discussed how Maggie may have
00:11:53
been positioned when she
was shot in different times to figure out how that happened.
00:12:01
JOHN CONRAD: And so
death had certainly occurred within the
previous few hours of law enforcement arriving.
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They didn't occur
earlier that day. It was sometime that night. SAVANNA GOUDE: So the scene
was finished, processed earlier
00:12:16
that night or in the morning. And then it was released. In the next steps in
the investigation,
00:12:22
they're really just
trying to figure out what happened out there. Who could have done
something like this?
00:12:30
KENNY KENSEY: You've got
this prominent attorney from a prominent family. And everyone knew
the Murdaugh name.
00:12:37
So we knew that the
mother and one of the sons had been brutally murdered. And you couldn't turn the
television on that you
00:12:45
didn't see something about it. So we knew they were
brutally murdered. We knew that SLED was involved
and possibly other agencies.
00:12:53
And knew that this was
going to be a big deal. JOHN CONRAD: I think the
date was June 7 of 2021.
00:13:12
I come in to work. And Creighton, my
boss, says, you know, so Paul and Maggie
were shot last night.
00:13:19
And I'm like, holy cow. That's pretty ridiculous. Our first thought was,
well, Paul Murdaugh was
00:13:27
involved in a boating accident. This is some sort of
revenge for the boat case because one young
lady tragically died.
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KENNY KENSEY: Paul had
been under a lot of stress with the boat wreck. And the reality is Paul was
probably going to do some jail
00:13:45
time, some prison time. CREIGHTON WATERS: It
was about 2:00 AM, I believe, on a February night.
00:13:58
It was about 40 degrees. And Paul was in a boat
that was owned by Alex. RYAN NEIL: The Murdaugh
family owns property
00:14:06
on the Chichester River. And Paul and a group of friends,
three boys and three girls--
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so Paul and his girlfriend,
Anthony and his girlfriend, and the other guy
and his girlfriend.
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They had left the
Chichester property and had gone over to Beaufort
by water, to an oyster roast.
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And after the oyster roast, they
were leaving there, where they had been consuming alcohol.
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And then they stop
in downtown Beaufort at one of the day docks. And then gone to a bar,
had a few more drinks.
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And the allegations were was
that Paul had been drinking heavily and was driving the
boat at a high rate of speed
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and in the dark. JOHN CONRAD: And people were
shouting at him to sit down. And he's yelling at them, I'm
the one who owns this boat.
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I'm going to be driving,
things like that. And the boat's going
faster and faster.
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And it crashes into the side
of a bridge, several miles from across the
bay and up a creek.
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It took the EMTs and
police awhile to get there because it was night. It was dark.
00:15:15
It was confusing. RYAN NEIL: So the young
lady that was missing was Mallory Beach.
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And that Mallory, when
they hit the bridge, she was ejected from the boat. And they attempted
to search for her,
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but they could not find her. Mallory was missing for
almost a week and a half before her body was located.
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JOHN MONK: Paul was still quite
drunk and quite obnoxious. He was taken to
Beaufort Hospital.
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And a deputy had to ride
in the ambulance with him because he was being
so unruly and rowdy.
00:16:03
We had heard some things
about Alex's behavior in the hospital, where all
the kids and Paul were taken
00:16:10
after the boating accident. He had supposedly
been very pushy, had tried to tell some
of the other kids,
00:16:17
maybe, hey, don't talk to
the cops, that kind of thing. And his concern was-- and
the whole issue in that case
00:16:22
was who was driving the boat. And obviously, our
theory was and I would say still is, Paul was driving.
00:16:29
But that was something that
was very much on Alex's mind that night, was to prevent
anybody telling law enforcement
00:16:36
who was driving the boat. And that was what he was
trying to do in the hospital that night.
00:16:41
RYAN NEIL: Upon admission
to the hospital, the hospital would have
drawn samples of blood.
00:16:46
That sample from Paul
was ultimately tested and showed that he
was intoxicated. And ultimately, Paul was
charged with the boat crash
00:16:58
based on his toxicology levels. CREIGHTON WATERS: When
you have something like this happen, Alex's wife
and son, Maggie and Paul,
00:17:09
had been shot, the first
thing you have to do is include or exclude people. We explored the boat
case, obviously,
00:17:20
and whether or not
anyone associated with that was involved. RYAN NEIL: Through our
investigation and interviews,
00:17:27
through people's voluntary
cooperating with us, and also through DNA samples
that we had collected,
00:17:33
we were pretty quickly able to
remove everybody from the boat case from this investigation.
00:17:49
CREIGHTON WATERS: When
you do an investigation, you have to keep that open
mind and consider everything.
00:17:54
There were literally hundreds
of interviews that were done. And every possible
lead was run down.
00:18:02
JOHN CONRAD: They did
extremely thorough job investigating a crime scene. And I'm pretty sure
they set a record
00:18:07
in any individual
case of the number of people they interviewed. It had to have been over
100 people they interviewed
00:18:12
over that couple of months. And as they proceed
in the investigation, they ruled this person out, this
theory out, this person out,
00:18:19
this theory out. The entire time, Alex was
still right in the middle of it and they could not rule
him out of the case.
00:18:26
CREIGHTON WATERS: When you have
a case where you have two family members who are killed and
you have the person who's
00:18:32
the last one to have
seen them alive, you have the person who is the
one who found them, obviously,
00:18:40
that's somebody that
you have to focus on to either include or exclude. JOHN CONRAD: Alex gave actually
three interviews to SLED.
00:18:52
And SLED, they interviewed
him the night of. MALE OFFICER: I hate
to have to do this.
00:18:56
ALEX MURDAUGH: I understand. I totally understand. So you don't-- The initial
interview is designed
00:19:02
to give us an overview
of what transpired or what was going
on at the time. They came back a
couple of days later
00:19:09
and interviewed him
a little further. The second interview is
more to lock his story
00:19:14
in at that point because,
well, let's face it, people are emotional. Are there some details he's
left out or something else?
00:19:22
So that second interview
is to set his story firm. And in this case,
he was firm with it.
00:19:45
He stayed pretty consistent
with what he told us initially to that second one. JOHN CONRAD: And
then a couple months
00:19:52
go by as the
investigation proceeds. And then they come
back and interview him a third time in August.
00:20:00
But by that third
interview, the agent had some very strong
suspicions about Alex
00:20:04
and had some things that
he wanted to clear up to see if Alex could explain. RYAN NEIL: So I would
say in that his story now
00:20:16
is locked in on what he's
done or what had happened. The investigation was
proving different.
00:20:30
We're thinking, why are you
being dishonest with us? What's your motive behind it?
00:20:34
So this third one is now
going to dig in a little bit deeper, to look at those
inaccuracies that are going on.
00:20:46
Paul's phone had been
with us several months. And we had experts
from our agency,
00:20:52
from the United
States Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation looking at his
phone and possibly
00:20:58
how to get into this phone. Our people had been in
contact with Cellebrite there,
00:21:05
the software and
hardware provider that we were using,
as they had the most advanced system at the time.
00:21:10
They got us into the phone. Now, that gave us all the data
that we needed to look at.
00:21:17
Obviously, when we're
looking at data, we're looking at call logs, text
messaging, social media apps.
00:21:25
We're looking at
instant messaging on those apps, everything that
you can possibly think of.
00:21:33
JOHN CONRAD: When
law enforcement arrived, Paul's phone-- he was laying more
or less face down.
00:21:40
And Paul's phone was kind of
laying on top of his back pocket on really kind of on his
butt, which was pretty unusual
00:21:49
for a crime scene to see a phone
sitting like that with someone-- really with their head
blown off, laying face down.
00:21:55
Why would their phone
be on their back pocket? It was pretty unusual. And of course, law
enforcement noticed that.
00:22:01
And that was one of the
questions they asked Alex in his first interview
and said, do you
00:22:06
have any idea why
Paul's phone would have ended up where it did? And Alex actually said
in that first interview,
00:22:12
he admits to picking
Paul's phone up. And he says, I was
going to go look at it.
00:22:16
And then he said, oh,
then I realized I probably shouldn't mess with it. And I put it back
down on his body,
00:22:19
is what Alex says in
that first interview. So that's one of the
things they asked him
00:22:23
about in that third interview. Alex kind of says,
well, I don't remember. In reality, he was probably
potentially worried
00:23:07
about what was on Paul's phone. Law enforcement couldn't
get into Paul's phone for many months
after the murder.
00:23:17
They found a video. And that video. MAN: Get back. Get back. RYAN NEIL: Well,
it's a short video.
00:23:25
And what it appears is that Paul
is attempting to video record the injury to Rogan
Gibson's dog's tail.
00:23:36
Because you see
Rogan's little dog moving all around the kennels. And you hear Maggie
yell out, oh, my god.
00:23:44
He's got a guinea,
being a guinea bird. Paul says back, no,
that's a chicken. JOHN CONRAD: The key piece
of evidence in this case
00:24:03
is and has always been that
dog video, where you hear Alex's voice in the background.
00:24:12
Because across the three
interviews with SLED, he was steadfast and said,
I never went to the kennels.
00:24:21
I never went to the kennels. I never went to the kennels. And when SLED finally
discovered that video
00:24:38
that I can clearly hear Alex's
voice in the background. All of a sudden, boom. That whole alibi is gone.
00:24:49
RYAN NEIL: Alex had
always stood firm that he had fallen
asleep at the house and then gone to
visit his mother
00:24:55
and never went to the kennels. And by his phone records and
all the records we obtained,
00:25:01
we knew that he had
left his residence sometime after 9 o'clock to
go to his mom and dad's house.
00:25:10
With the time stamp
on this shows that his presence at the kennel
was before he left
00:25:14
to go to his mom and dad's. CREIGHTON WATERS: Ultimately,
as we put together the evidence
00:25:19
in the case, as we in particular
put together a timeline based on all the cell phone evidence
and all the digital evidence
00:25:26
that we were able
to uncover, we were able to show that, not
only was Alex at the scene,
00:25:32
he was at the scene
with the two victims, just minutes before they died. And he had been lying about it.
00:25:39
For us, this
video showed that he is now officially lying to us. And that he is being
dishonest on purpose now.
00:25:55
[eerie music] JOHN CONRAD: After the
murders, when Alex is done, he's gone back from the kennels
to the house because I think he
00:26:08
had left his phone at the house
the entire time, but we see it get picked up at 9:15 ish.
00:26:15
And he's got it. And he's trying to call Maggie. We see him walking around. OK, so that's the end
of that hour and a half
00:26:20
where he had left the
phone at the house. We know, for a fact, that he
had to have the weapons with him
00:26:28
when he went back to the house
because they later disappeared. And we still haven't found them.
00:26:34
And so he had to have them
with him because he later on disposed of them in some way.
00:26:38
And I think when he came
back from the kennel, he brought Maggie's
phone with him.
00:26:53
RYAN NEIL: Because his
vehicle was so new, we reached out to
General Motors. They were able to
produce us with vehicle
00:27:00
data off of his vehicle. JOHN CONRAD: It turned out to
be an extremely detailed, almost
00:27:06
second by second location
data of where that truck went, and how fast it was going
throughout the night.
00:27:13
And on the surface, it seemed
to support Alex's alibi. It shows, at about the time he
said, he'd drive to mom's house
00:27:22
and then drive back. And one of the things
we saw was, on his way back from mom's
house to Moselle,
00:27:29
he was driving, at certain
points, over 80 miles an hour. These are very rural
two lane roads.
00:27:39
And it's extremely dark
out there at night. No street lamps. That's very fast to be driving
under those conditions,
00:27:45
for someone who's just
having a normal night drive. And the number two
thing is and really
00:27:52
the most important
thing to me is, we can show
precisely when Alex's car drove by where SLED found
Maggie's phoned the next day.
00:28:04
He sends Maggie a
text saying, hey, I'm going to mom's house or
M's house or whatever he says.
00:28:09
That is within about
a 10 second window of when he drives by right
where her phone ends up.
00:28:16
He sends her that last
text, setting up that alibi. And then he knows he can't
drive with Maggie's phone
00:28:21
to mom's house. So then he just tosses
it and we see his car drive by almost
at the same time,
00:28:28
right after he sends that text. And so he sends a text,
probably picks her phone up
00:28:33
to see if the text
comes in, tosses it. I think that's a
mistake he made. And he didn't
realize we were going
00:28:41
to be able to see to that
granular of a detail, but we do. And we also can see his speed.
00:28:48
And we can see that he does seem
to slow down a little bit right as he passes Maggie,
didn't stop, maybe
00:28:56
consistent with taking
your foot off the gas, rolling down the
window, and tossing it.
00:29:00
I think that's all
pretty much marries up. And I think that's
what the evidence shows is exactly what happened
with Alex and Maggie's phone.
00:29:18
MAN: I'll meet you
at the car, OK? A couple days
later, we learned that he is actually
shot on the side
00:29:24
of the road in Hampden County. I believe that date was
September the 4th of '21.
00:29:49
He is shot once in
the back of the head, but it's a grazing wound and
does not penetrate his skull
00:29:56
or cause any massive injuries. It's more of a cut to his head. And what we initially were
told is that he was riding down
00:30:06
the road in Maggie's Mercedes. And that the car
had a flat tire. And while he was
changing the tire,
00:30:14
a guy, a white male
in a pickup truck drives by, turns around,
and comes back towards him.
00:30:22
And as he goes to
walk towards the guy because he thinks the guy
is going to offer help,
00:30:27
the guy pulls out a gun,
and shoots him once, and flees the scene. Alex is treated by
EMS on the scene
00:30:34
and transported to Savannah
Hospital, which is the closest trauma unit for a gunshot
wound, especially one
00:30:40
possibly to the head. JOHN MONK: The
rumors, the things we talked about where
somebody trying to assassinate
00:30:48
Alex, you know, they
are going to finish off the rest of his family. RYAN NEIL: We're talking about,
now, two random acts of violence
00:30:56
on this family. But we're also
thinking, could this be a person that's now come
back to finish off the job,
00:31:04
that he was trying to kill Alex? [music playing] After the roadside shooting of
Alex, some of his law partners
00:31:19
had grown suspicious
of some things. And there was actually some
confrontation between him
00:31:25
and some of his lawyer friends,
that he had been stealing from the law firm and stealing
from his friends, which
00:31:31
ultimately led to that
roadside shooting. We went ahead and opened
a case into his financials
00:31:39
because we felt like
his financial stuff may be partially motive for
Maggie and Paul's death as well.
00:31:48
After the roadside
shooting, the law firm provided us basically
with a spreadsheet that
00:31:53
showed these are the clients. And this is how much he
stole from those clients, in various ways.
00:32:00
CREIGHTON WATERS:
And that really became crucial in describing
why these murders happened.
00:32:06
What we uncovered and what came
to light in a couple of months after the murders
was that Alex had
00:32:12
conspired with his
buddy, another attorney by the name of Corey Fleming. He was a member of that law firm
and was very close with a number
00:32:20
of lawyers in the area. Many have considered
him a great friend and ultimately were very shocked
when they found out that he had
00:32:26
betrayed them as their partner. JOHN CONRAD: And
really, the reason he was doing that was to keep
supporting his lifestyle,
00:32:34
and to keep supporting
Maggie's lifestyle, and keep supporting the boy's
lifestyle because when we traced
00:32:39
all those financial records,
the vast majority of money that he made
legitimately and he stole
00:32:45
went to fund the lifestyle. Alex took things
into his own hands to make sure they could keep
living that type of lifestyle.
00:32:54
RYAN NEIL: We were
kind of in shock that financial
issues were coming up because the lifestyle they led.
00:33:03
They live on this nice house. They have this huge
piece of property, which the property itself was
in the millions of dollars.
00:33:10
Flying private planes to
college baseball world series, to eat an expensive
dinners and stuff.
00:33:16
We were kind of in shock
that financial problems were existing with him. JOHN MONK: On the
outside, Alex looked
00:33:25
like a very prosperous lawyer,
being part of multimillion dollar settlements. And his house at Moselle, the
estate and his 1,700 acres,
00:33:36
and his house at the
beach, Edisto Island, and another house on an island. He had all the trappings
of wealth, but underneath,
00:33:43
he was drowning in
debt, struggling to keep up payments for various
mortgages and the high life
00:33:49
he liked. So you had these
two, Alex Murdaugh. One outwardly
showy and confident
00:33:56
and brash and prosperous. And the other, desperate
and grubbing for money and becoming a man who would
do anything to get more money.
00:34:14
RYAN NEIL: A couple days
after the roadside shooting, Alex ends up telling
us the full story.
00:34:19
And that is that he confirms
to us that he wanted to die. And he asked Eddie to shoot him
because he felt like if it was
00:34:25
a suicide, it was not
going to pay the life insurance out for Buster. And that he felt like the
stress had become too much.
00:34:33
And he was losing everything
with the law firm and everything going on with Maggie and Paul.
00:34:42
And so therefore, he wanted
to die, at that point. His lawyers, at this
point, are now involved.
00:34:49
And this is Dick Harpootlian
and Jim Griffith. They are now representing him
officially because this case
00:34:57
is now taking a different turn. And we have already told them
that we're going to charge him
00:35:02
the minute he comes out of
rehab, which they have put him in for an opioid addiction.
00:35:08
They blame everything
on an opioid addiction. And that when he was a
football player-- because Alex
00:35:13
did play football for the
University of South Carolina. He at one point got injured and
became addicted to painkillers.
00:35:22
BLANCA SIMPSON: When
he got arrested, it was devastating
because being around them,
00:35:27
seeing the family unit, you
know, how they flowed together. It was hard. And it still is.
00:35:35
It still bothers me. It's hard. After we released this story,
which made headlines all around,
00:35:43
not only the state,
but the country, people were just
going, holy cow. I can't believe this.
00:35:49
What's going on? And even then, many
people didn't believe that a husband and a father
could kill his wife and son,
00:35:57
certainly not Alex Murdaugh from
the nobility of the low country and the former president
of the South Carolina
00:36:04
Trial Lawyers Association. No, he wouldn't have done that. And he was a Murdaugh.
00:36:10
And Murdaugh's don't
murder their kin. The trial started
January 23, 2023. And when it started, most
people weren't sure that there
00:36:30
would be a guilty verdict. People thought-- by people, I
mean court observers, reporters,
00:36:36
people who'd been
around thought, well, the most probably the attorney
general can hope for would be
00:36:42
a hung jury, a divided
jury because it takes a unanimous jury of 12
people to find a guilty verdict.
00:36:50
And they thought a hung
jury because of the prestige of the Murdaughs, because
of the unlikelihood of a man
00:36:57
killing his wife and
grown son, it just seemed a bridge too
far for any prosecutor
00:37:04
to be able to pull off. CREIGHTON WATERS: I think that
we presented evidence and argued
00:37:07
to the jury that
neither one of them had defensive wounds, the
traditional defensive wounds
00:37:12
that you would expect. And so that indicated to us that
they were caught by surprise,
00:37:17
that they did not see the threat
coming until it was too late. And obviously, that's
consistent with someone
00:37:22
they wouldn't have expected
to be their killer. There was a shotgun
that killed Paul.
00:37:28
They had multiple
blackout style AR rifles. They had bought three of them. One had been lost years ago.
00:37:35
And there had been a
replacement bought. When SLED searched the property
a couple of days later,
00:37:41
they only were able to
account for the one blackout. And it was not the blackout
that was used to kill Maggie.
00:37:48
The other blackout was missing. Alex's shotgun was
missing as well. And so even though there
were a lot of weapons that
00:37:56
were recovered at
the property, the two weapons that were used to kill
those victims were not there.
00:38:02
And they have never been
recovered to this day. The body cam footage, those
were the first two witnesses
00:38:10
that I presented at the trial. And that was very crucial. I put up the officers who were
the first responders on scene.
00:38:16
And in doing that, there
was a couple reasons. Number one, I knew I needed to
get the jury familiar with Alex
00:38:23
Murdaugh's voice because that
was going to be huge later when they saw and heard the kennel
video, which showed that he was
00:38:31
actually at the scene right
before the murders happened and lied about it. ALEX MURDAUGH: Are
they covering them up?
00:38:40
CREIGHTON WATERS:
He also did not appear to have any
blood or anything on him when you look at the
body cam from the scene.
00:38:47
And this was a very,
very bloody scene. Both the victims had
terrible injuries and it was as bloody a
scene as I've ever seen.
00:38:56
We wanted the jury to get
familiar with his voice, but we're also telling
his version of events.
00:39:01
And so I wanted them to be
thinking critically about how he was acting and what he was
saying because that was all
00:39:07
going to become so important
later when we presented evidence that refuted that.
00:39:13
What this case became
about-- and this is what I argued to the jury. I said, ladies and
gentlemen, this case
00:39:19
has a different type
of forensic evidence. And I held up my cell phone. And I said, there's a new
kind of forensic evidence
00:39:26
that's just as powerful. And it's just as
objective as DNA. And it's what's in
these cell phones.
00:39:33
Ultimately, when we were able
to get into Paul's phone, he had taken a video at
the kennels just a couple
00:39:40
of minutes prior to that. And that you could
hear, very clearly, Alex's voice on that video.
00:39:50
Another real highlight was
when Alex took the stand, he was Alex, the good
old boy, aw shucks.
00:39:58
By that time,
financial information had come out in the trial about
Alex's extensive hidden life
00:40:07
of treachery and
betrayal of his friends, and his law partners,
and his family. Alex had a reputation of being
very friendly with people,
00:40:17
very sociable, very well-liked. And psychologists say that
Alex probably thought he could
00:40:23
convince the jury of anything. He was such a con man
and had such confidence. JOHN CONRAD: We got a
verdict within three hours.
00:40:31
And with my rationale and
my thinking at the time, I was feeling pretty
good at that point.
00:40:36
I felt like-- this jury,
they went back there, where they talked about it. They deliberated.
00:40:40
But the fact that they were able
to come to a unanimous decision within three hours, to
me, was a pretty good sign
00:40:45
that they were going
to come back guilty, which is what they did. The sentence was two
consecutive life terms, which
00:40:56
means if the sentences sustain
or withstand the appeals process, which every
defendant has a right,
00:41:01
then he will never leave prison. And it's just simply
never going to get out, which I think is just result.
00:41:06
MAN: I sentence you
to prison for the rest of your natural life. JOHN MONK: Some people might
have wanted Alex to face
00:41:13
the death penalty, but a
life sentence was the most that the judge could give him.
00:41:18
And I think most people
would consider that justice. BLANCA SIMPSON: I didn't
want to hear the verdict.
00:41:22
My husband told me, you know,
they have found him guilty. It hurt me. I don't know how
else to describe it.
00:41:30
Because you don't know,
was I really your friend? After Maggie and Paul were
killed, I was around him,
00:41:41
you know, still
taking care of him. It was like a betrayal. JOHN CONRAD: Alex is a
very narcissistic person.
00:41:48
And you know, like
a lot of criminals, the first lines he crossed
were probably not a big deal.
00:41:55
The first time he stole money
was probably not a lot of money. And probably nobody
would have ever noticed.
00:42:01
But he probably
realized nobody noticed. And then he stole
more the next time. He stole more.
00:42:06
And he got more and more brazen. And at some point in
there, he lost whatever grounding on morality he had.
00:42:14
And it became about himself. And it became about sustaining
what he had been doing
00:42:19
and not getting caught,
which is why, I think, the murders occurred. What we argued to the jury
is that Alex's perception
00:42:29
of what people thought
of him as being this powerful, influential,
wealthy, charismatic heir
00:42:36
to this family legacy,
the Murdaugh family name, the Murdaugh legal family name,
which was so important to him.
00:42:45
And we argued to the jury that
nothing mattered more to Alex than Alex. So the prospect of him facing
accountability-- and this
00:42:54
was a man who had
not had to face accountability his entire life. Those were very powerful
motivators and stress words
00:43:00
to him, and they were more
important to him than anything to ensure that nothing
undid his power.
00:43:11
JOHN MONK: Alex had a motive
for killing his wife and son. I think everybody
in the courtroom,
00:43:17
even though Alex had been
charged with these crimes, was just amazed at the
extent of his treachery,
00:43:24
and his double life
that he was leading, and the money that he had
stolen from motherless children.
00:43:32
In all, Alex is said to have
stolen about 10 million, maybe as high as 16 million
over the course of 15 years.
00:43:43
BLANCA SIMPSON: Despite
what I've heard people say, I believe that it was money.
00:43:52
I think he got desperate. I think he got desperate. CREIGHTON WATERS: You
have to put yourself
00:43:59
in the position of someone
like Alex, who was facing the prospect of his family's
legacy of domination
00:44:08
in that area for over
100 years falling apart, was facing the prospect
of his public persona
00:44:15
of this powerful, charismatic,
wealthy, influential person falling apart and being
exposed as a criminal.
00:44:22
This was a man that hundreds
and hundreds of people would tell you that they
thought that they knew him well.
00:44:32
And not one person
knew who he really was. And there's something
chilling about that.
00:44:38
The sentencing hearing was
actually fairly impactful for me and the judge in
this case, who did
00:44:45
an amazing job, Clifton Newman. He gets a philosophical
in a way that touches me because
he talked to Alex
00:44:53
and got at the
heart of the matter. When he says, Alex, I'll bet
you hear from Maggie and Paul
00:45:01
every night, don't you,
when you go to bed? And Alex agreed with that. I think Maggie and
Paul are going to haunt
00:45:06
Alex for the rest of his life. BLANCA SIMPSON: All I can say is
Maggie and Paul did not deserve
00:45:15
the brutality of their murders. They did not. The last few memories I have of
Paul and Maggie are good ones.
00:45:23
We were laughing. We were joking. You know, I can still see Paul
walking through the door, what
00:45:28
up, Ms. B? You know, that's
what he called me. All the love that I saw and
all the family, you know,
00:45:35
the united family unit that
I saw on a regular basis was not displayed the
day of the murders
00:45:43
by the man who
claimed to love them. [theme music]