The Murdaugh Family Murders

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Speaker 6 This is Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 9 I need to complete this answer semi-leaf. My wife and Job can stop bad with me.

Speaker 10 On June 7th, 2021, at 10.06 p.m., Alec Murdoch calls 911 and he is frantic.

Speaker 5 Are they breathing? No, ma'am.

Speaker 11 They're on the ground out at my kennels.

Speaker 12 He sounds extremely upset. His voice is in a totally different, high-pitched tone.

Speaker 13 The scene that Alec Murdoch is looking at is his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son, Paul.

Speaker 6 You're the one out with Burger.

Speaker 10 They were both shot to death outside their property, a place they call Mozell.

Speaker 11 Please hurry. We're getting somebody out there to you.

Speaker 14 Collins County Sheriff's Office Deputy Daniel Green was the first to arrive on the scene at Mozell.

Speaker 15 It is very dark, but he's able to see the two bodies that are laying on the ground.

Speaker 17 Got a whiskey fox, whiskey mic, both gunshot wounds to the head.

Speaker 18 Maggie and Paul are clearly dead.

Speaker 14 He sees sees Ellik Murdoch standing there as well in a t-shirt and shorts.

Speaker 21 Sir, I want to let you know because of the scene, I did go get a gun and bring it down here.

Speaker 17 It's in your vehicle.

Speaker 17 Do you have any guns on you?

Speaker 24 No, sir.

Speaker 25 She's leaning up against the side of my car.

Speaker 17 You're fine, man. You're fine.

Speaker 6 Turn around for me. I don't have any.

Speaker 17 Okay, yes, sir. I see that.
Okay.

Speaker 17 This is your wife and son.

Speaker 6 And son. Okay.

Speaker 14 This is a scene of a crime involving very powerful people.

Speaker 22 What's your first name, sir?

Speaker 23 My name is Alex Richard Alexander Murdoch.

Speaker 26 What unfolds on this June night will mushroom into a years-long saga that transfixes the nation and sees Alec Murdoch go from the seeming victim of a horrific crime to the accused in multiple crimes.

Speaker 27 Your Honor, he has fallen from grace.

Speaker 28 Our disgraced attorney has just been indicted for the murders of his wife and son. Mr.

Speaker 29 Murdoch, are you a family annihilator?

Speaker 23 A family annihilator? You mean like, did I shoot my wife and my son? Yes.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 30 It's one of the most interesting cases of the last two decades. It just never stopped making me wonder.

Speaker 26 The case now inspiring the new Hulu scripted series, Murdoch, Death in the Family.

Speaker 18 What happened?

Speaker 32 There's been an accident.

Speaker 26 Starring Jason Clark as Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 5 I need police and an ambulance immediately.

Speaker 26 And Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette as his wife, Maggie.

Speaker 31 This news to the Murdochs.

Speaker 4 Long may we live.

Speaker 6 Amen.

Speaker 20 These kind of people are unknowable, but they put on a really amazing show. They're very charming, they're fun, they're warm, they're diabolical, they're manipulative, they're cheaters.

Speaker 34 Oh, you cheating bastard.

Speaker 35 It's only cheating

Speaker 35 if you get caught.

Speaker 20 In multitudes of ways, I think he steamrolls through everyone.

Speaker 35 My daddy

Speaker 36 has this old saying.

Speaker 38 Son, he says,

Speaker 35 just because you don't want to pay a bill

Speaker 35 doesn't mean it ain't due.

Speaker 26 This is a man of huge appetites in every way. You portrayed every single one of them.

Speaker 40 There is an appetite, there is no filling this hole that he was digging. Man, you know what I mean? I dig, man, I just need more dirt.
But you know, I'm shoveling this dirt out, and eventually that

Speaker 40 caves in.

Speaker 43 Hey,

Speaker 44 I love you,

Speaker 44 baby.

Speaker 44 your sons love you.

Speaker 44 Please, please, please pull yourself together.

Speaker 18 I will.

Speaker 18 I will, I promise.

Speaker 26 The characters are so three-dimensional.

Speaker 33 It's not just victim-perpetrator.

Speaker 26 There's much more depth.

Speaker 30 Absolutely. But we felt like Maggie Murdoch was sort of a footnote.
She was the matriarch of this family. And so we needed to know more.

Speaker 34 These Murdoch, men, they're tough.

Speaker 30 So you gotta be tough right back.

Speaker 6 What drew you to Maggie?

Speaker 20 I was really fascinated by the story as it was coming out, you know, this well-respected, beloved man of the community with this family. Then as it started to unravel, it was so hard to imagine.

Speaker 10 On the night of the murders, when the sheriff's deputies realized they're dealing with the Murdoch family, they decided to call in the state agency, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED.

Speaker 21 We've got SLED on the way.

Speaker 14 They are asked to take the lead on this investigation because they are the state's top police agency.

Speaker 16 Y'all familiar with this family?

Speaker 17 Everybody, for better or for worse, knew the Murdoch family.

Speaker 10 This family has been there for over a century, powerful in the legal community.

Speaker 14 Elli Murdoch is the fourth generation of this legal dynasty. And so there's already a sense that this is different, that this is not your everyday crime scene.

Speaker 10 In the meantime, the deputies are doing what they can to preserve the scene until Sled can get there and take over.

Speaker 16 Why are there so many showcases? There's one there.

Speaker 2 There's blood over here.

Speaker 45 Evidence at the scene suggested that Paul was shot with a shotgun and Maggie was shot with a rifle.

Speaker 10 Once Sled arrives, agents start to process the scene. Meanwhile, the lead agent wants to talk to Alec Murdoch to find out what happened, and he agrees to be interviewed.

Speaker 16 Just start the talk, take your time.

Speaker 46 Like when I came back here, I mean, I pulled up and I could see him. And, you know, I knew something was bad.
I ran out. I knew it was really bad.

Speaker 46 My boy, over there, I could see

Speaker 46 it was.

Speaker 47 Alex starts sobbing when he describes the condition in which he found Paul's body. And then from the back seat, these two hands come out and they comfort Alex.

Speaker 47 One is a detective who's working on the case, and the other one is his colleague who's working as his attorney.

Speaker 46 Actually, I think I tried to turn Paul over first.

Speaker 46 Then I went to my wife, and I

Speaker 46 mean, I could see.

Speaker 46 Did you touch Maggie at all?

Speaker 16 I did.

Speaker 46 I touched them both.

Speaker 10 Alec explained to the investigators that he had been at his mother's.

Speaker 14 He told them that he hadn't seen Maggie and Paul right before he left, and that he believed he'd even texted and called Maggie to let her know he was leaving, but that he hadn't gotten any response.

Speaker 49 So that was odd, but it wasn't that big a deal.

Speaker 47 Investigators ask Alec: is there anyone who would want to kill his family in such a violent manner?

Speaker 46 What comes to my mind is my son Paul was in a boat wreck a couple years ago.

Speaker 17 Paul Murdoch, who allegedly killed a young lady, has been shot and killed. Was this Backwoods Justice?

Speaker 15 He says that Paul is receiving threats.

Speaker 46 Recently.

Speaker 46 Yes, sir. I mean, he gets them all the time.

Speaker 47 This is not the first time that Alec had suggested that Maggie and Paul were killed because of the boat accident.

Speaker 15 He starts telling officers, whoever will listen, that there was a boat crash.

Speaker 25 This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck

Speaker 23 months back.

Speaker 49 He says somebody's out to get retribution against my family.

Speaker 2 I know that's what it is.

Speaker 17 The entire history of this newspaper, this is the biggest, most impactful story that we've ever covered.

Speaker 17 Even as it sprawls across the Low Country,

Speaker 17 this is a story that engulfs Hampton County people and Hampton County families.

Speaker 12 Hampton is a very small town in South Carolina. It's in the Low Country of South Carolina.

Speaker 13 There's an occasional church.

Speaker 17 I'll give you that walk.

Speaker 17 A good addition I could use to feed that.

Speaker 26 There's an occasional farm.

Speaker 13 There's a Piggly Wiggly grocery store.

Speaker 26 It's a quiet town. Everybody knows everybody, that's for sure.

Speaker 51 And they're all in everybody's business, that type of small town life.

Speaker 12 Palmetto trees, sweepy Spanish moss everywhere. Swampy is probably a word that you would describe, the low country, but beautiful setting.

Speaker 17 If you knew where Hampton County was at all, you associated us with the Watermelon Festival. Started in 1939.

Speaker 17 It used to be a seed spitting contest. The mayor of every town would get together and see who could spit a watermelon seed the farthest.
Welcome to life in the rural South, right?

Speaker 6 You know, most folks have roots here, usually, and have family here, and we certainly did.

Speaker 47 Alec Murdoch lived a very comfortable life on this sprawling estate called Moselle. with his wife Maggie and his two sons, Paul and Buster.

Speaker 13 They were college sweethearts. They fell in love.
They got married.

Speaker 7 He truly doted on her and wanted her to be happy at all times.

Speaker 7 After law school, he came back and worked with Randy and Daddy at the firm.

Speaker 26 The firm is also the family business, a thriving law practice with a big footprint in Hampton for more than a century.

Speaker 26 In addition to their civil firm, the Murdochs also serve as top solicitors in the area.

Speaker 12 We have to go back to the history of the Murdoch family and it goes back a very long time.

Speaker 13 For 85 consecutive years, some member of the Murdoch family was the solicitor.

Speaker 3 What we call solicitor in other states, it's district attorney.

Speaker 12 They're connected to every single police department and every single sheriff's office. All of law enforcement has connections within because they work with each other.

Speaker 17 But the Murdochs took it further and it was a social thing. They might go hunting or fishing with the Jasper County Sheriff.
They might drink whiskey with the Buford County Sheriff.

Speaker 17 They might invite the Hampton County Sheriff over to the house for barbecue.

Speaker 13 They were the big fish in the small pond.

Speaker 45 In the area, the Murdochs weren't above the law.

Speaker 2 They were the law.

Speaker 17 The name still brings respect or even fear to some people.

Speaker 26 But in 2019, the influence of the Murdoch name would be tested. It all starts when Alec's son Paul and five of his friends head out for what should have been an evening of fun.

Speaker 12 Paul, who was 19 at the time, was borrowing his father Elec Murdoch's boat for the night. And it was a 17-foot center console boat, so it wasn't very big for six kids.

Speaker 3 These are kids who grew up together. They played together as kids.
And they went out on boats all the time.

Speaker 10 Paul Murdoch was there with his girlfriend, Morgan Doughty. Anthony Cook was there with his girlfriend Mallory Beach.
And Anthony's first cousin Connor Cook was with his girlfriend Miley Altman.

Speaker 12 They were all together that night because the girls wanted to do a date night.

Speaker 26 The group makes a couple of stops that night. First a cookout on the water where there's hours of drinking.

Speaker 26 Then to a local bar where Paul continues to drink before finally getting back on the boat to head home.

Speaker 17 There's video footage. We can see them walking on the dock.

Speaker 10 Paul is swaying. He clearly is intoxicated.

Speaker 12 Mallory and Anthony were sharing such sweet moments. It's heartbreaking because you know what's about to happen to them.

Speaker 10 The following day, Miley Altman does an interview with law enforcement and it's videotaped.

Speaker 53 Paul was just driving. doing doughnuts.

Speaker 12 We're not going anywhere.

Speaker 53 We're just like, just doing circles and Morgan gets mad and like yells at him and was like, listen, like you need to stop. Like I want to go home.

Speaker 12 And his behavior was getting increasingly belligerent.

Speaker 53 When he gets drunk, you just don't mess with him.

Speaker 10 And they are telling him, let Connor drive. You can't drive.

Speaker 53 We were just like, if anything is better than Paul right now, because like who knows like what he would do.

Speaker 53 Like, because I mean, he was like riding close to like sandbox to the park and just like being very reckless.

Speaker 16 He wouldn't stop and wouldn't let anybody else drive.

Speaker 17 Eventually Paul is like, y'all want to go home? We're going home. So he puts the throttle down, plans the boat out.

Speaker 17 There's no big bright searchlights on this boat. One of the boys was holding a flashlight ahead of them while they were driving.

Speaker 54 Mallory was in the back of the boat, seated on a cooler that's immediately behind the console.

Speaker 12 The boat's going pretty fast at this point. Mallory is on Anthony's lap.

Speaker 53 I saw the bridge coming and I was just in shock. And then like at the last second like I like scream.

Speaker 54 The boat had a dolphin head which is three pilings that are sort of lashed together.

Speaker 10 The boat hits the piling, it throws Anthony and Mallory into the water

Speaker 10 and Mallory's nowhere to be found.

Speaker 13 There's a panic that starts. There's a feeling that this isn't just a little accident.
This is really, really bad.

Speaker 53 Connor had his phone still on him, so I was like, call 911.

Speaker 12 It's absolutely disturbing. You hear screaming in the background, screaming for Mallory.

Speaker 42 Who are you going to come somewhere?

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Speaker 59 Paul, what bridge is this?

Speaker 9 Paul, what bridge?

Speaker 30 911, where's your emergency?

Speaker 9 Hello?

Speaker 13 So when the boat hits, it's a bad crash. Everybody's kind of thrown around, and Mallory Beach is thrown off the boat.

Speaker 38 We're in a boat crash on Archer Street.

Speaker 9 Where about in Archer Street?

Speaker 38 In Archer Street, the only bridge on Archer Street.

Speaker 38 We have no one missing.

Speaker 17 At first, nobody can pinpoint exactly which bridge and which river they're talking about.

Speaker 34 Is everybody there? Is anybody injured?

Speaker 54 Morgan's hand is injured. She's bleeding.
Connor has a fracture in his jaw and a laceration where he hit the console during the impact.

Speaker 41 Paul is in the water, comes out of the water.

Speaker 54 He's only wearing his boxer shorts.

Speaker 55 Anthony apparently injures his shoulder and then

Speaker 54 Mallory's missing.

Speaker 6 Please send someone. No, I'm coming.

Speaker 11 We're coming. We're coming, okay?

Speaker 43 How far? I'll be Andrew Offset of Bell Bridge.

Speaker 17 This scene is chaos from the start. You've got law enforcement from several different agencies responding.

Speaker 12 Between EMS, fire,

Speaker 12 and police.

Speaker 12 The first job is to find Mallory.

Speaker 10 One of those agencies has a dash camera camera recording and although you can't see much, you can hear quite a bit.

Speaker 10 You hear Anthony Cook, Mallory's boyfriend. At one point, he's yelling at Paul.

Speaker 60 My fing girlfriend's gone, bro. Sit down.
You take your fing buddy. Sit down, sit down.

Speaker 17 Anthony Cook is losing his mind. He's telling them that SOB killed my girlfriend.

Speaker 26 And what Anthony says next is telling. He seems to warn officers of just who they're dealing with.

Speaker 38 You all know Elliot Murdock?

Speaker 60 That's his son.

Speaker 60 That's so driving, bro. Good luck.

Speaker 55 And he says he's never going to go to jail.

Speaker 13 Paul is still still being aggressive. Paul is still acting like he's drunk.

Speaker 13 And so you would think that that would be a signal to the first responders that they need to do a field sobriety test, but that isn't done.

Speaker 51 I got a call from my mom. She asked me if Mallory was home with me, and I told her no.

Speaker 51 And she just said that there had been a boat accident.

Speaker 38 I had a phone call from Mallory's mom.

Speaker 61 She was frantic.

Speaker 9 I hung up the phone and said, no, God, not my child.

Speaker 10 Paul and the others were transferred to the hospital.

Speaker 13 So there are investigators there at the hospital, and they're trying to figure out what happened. That's their job to do.

Speaker 26 Alec Murdoch and his father, Randolph, that former solicitor, also arrive at the hospital, but they appear to have a different job to do.

Speaker 17 Alex and Randolph Murdoch come in. All right, it's not just a concerned parent and a concerned grandfather.
You've got two attorneys walk in.

Speaker 17 Randolph was reported as saying, you're not talking to him anymore. You're talking to us.
We're his attorneys.

Speaker 26 Okay.

Speaker 47 You can clearly see that Alec is wearing his volunteer solicitor's badge on the outside of his pants.

Speaker 17 We also know from court records that Alex went from room to room telling these young kids to be quiet, don't talk.

Speaker 26 According to police interviews, many people at the hospital felt Paul's dad and grandfather's main goal was to circle the wagons and protect Paul.

Speaker 47 The family has always denied that they tried to influence this investigation in any way.

Speaker 47 Authorities say the Murdoch name had no sway over their investigation.

Speaker 54 I've never been involved in a fatality where the operator of a vehicle was under the influence that that person didn't go to jail immediately.

Speaker 51 And so that night I'm worried about finding my child and they're worried about how they're going to cover up Paul driving.

Speaker 62 The search for Mallory went on about a week. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people were spreading out over the marshes of the Low Country.

Speaker 17 You had DNR searching, the Coast Guard searching, volunteers, anybody with a boat.

Speaker 17 They were putting it in the water and they were looking for Mallory.

Speaker 42 911, forced your emergency.

Speaker 9 We're on the search team rescue.

Speaker 5 We think we found her.

Speaker 47 Mallory's body was found one week later by two fishermen about five miles from where the boat crashed.

Speaker 10 Paul is not charged. Even after she's found, months goes by, he's not charged.
And people in the community, some thought, you know, maybe he's going to get away with it.

Speaker 2 He's a murder.

Speaker 17 You began to see this wondering, is justice going to be served.

Speaker 17 There was talk of a whisper campaign to cover this thing up.

Speaker 47 The family of Mallory Beach hires an attorney, Mark Tinsley, and he files a wrongful death lawsuit against the Murdochs.

Speaker 36 They believe that Ellick should have been held accountable for his part in contributing to the death of their daughter.

Speaker 39 He knew that he was entrusting his vehicle to someone who was habitually abusing alcohol.

Speaker 51 What motivated me was getting evidence of everything.

Speaker 6 I knew who we were up against and how things would probably disappear if

Speaker 51 we didn't act quickly.

Speaker 38 Her life meant something.

Speaker 9 For us, she was our baby.

Speaker 61 We had to defend her honor.

Speaker 26 In their reply to the Beach Family wrongful death suit, Alec Murdoch's attorneys denied all wrongdoing and even claimed Paul wasn't driving the boat at the time of the crash.

Speaker 12 We all doubted that there would ever be charges, but we kept covering it and kept pressuring DNR. What are you guys doing? What's taking so long?

Speaker 10 As powerful as the Murdochs are, they could not prevent Paul being charged with voting under the influence, three counts.

Speaker 17 I've heard it described as a gentleman's treatment, if you will. He was not handcuffed in the courtroom.

Speaker 10 When one of the deputies, after he's arraigned, went to cuff him, which is the procedure, he was waived off by the prosecutor. No, no, no, it's not necessary, not necessary here.

Speaker 12 When we found out that Paul was charged, I thought for sure he'll at least have to spend some time in jail.

Speaker 12 He'll have to wear the orange jumpsuit like everybody else in Beaufort County does and have his mug shot taken.

Speaker 12 Later that day, I asked the Attorney General's office for a mug shot and I was sent a photo where Paul was in just regular outfit. He had a plaid shirt on.

Speaker 12 And I opened the files of that photo and saw the properties. And it was taken from an iPhone 7 in the hallway of the courthouse.

Speaker 10 Who has her mugshot taken in the hallway of the courthouse? I've never seen that.

Speaker 26 Paul Murdoch was released on his own recognizance and for two years the criminal case just dragged on.

Speaker 26 But that civil case was moving forward. Tinsley determined someone must be held accountable for Paul's actions.

Speaker 51 I wanted accountability. I wanted Paul to just own up to, yes, I was driving the boat.
It was an accident. I'm sorry.

Speaker 36 But the only way to do that is through a settlement for money or an award of money damages.

Speaker 26 But lawyers for the wealthy and successful Alec Murdoch contend you can't squeeze blood from a stone. Tinsley is told Alec Murdoch is broke.

Speaker 36 If you claim that you're broke, I want to see your bank accounts.

Speaker 26 Tinsley is determined to follow the money and take a long, hard look at Alec's finances.

Speaker 36 There was no possibility that he was broke.

Speaker 62 What brings you in, Mark?

Speaker 64 Well, you heard I was representing Renee and Phillip Beach.

Speaker 35 Yes, sir, I did.

Speaker 64 I'm sorry, but they decided to file a lawsuit.

Speaker 54 Enjoy those tacos now.

Speaker 36 I mean I think by most people's standards if you have to write a check for $10 million

Speaker 55 it's a level of accountability and it's a I mean that's what the Beach family wanted.

Speaker 10 Paul Murdoch may have been criminally charged in the death of Mallory Beach and that boat crash, but Mallory's family is convinced the Murdoch name will still protect him.

Speaker 51 Paul's gotten in trouble before, but he knew to call his family before

Speaker 5 any, like anyone else.

Speaker 19 We see words like dynasty used and power, and I don't know exactly how people use those words, but we're just regular people.

Speaker 47 Fearing that Paul might never actually face any time behind bars, Mallory's family is determined to hold Alex Murdoch himself personally responsible for allowing his underage son to allegedly drive the boat while under the influence.

Speaker 47 They want him to pay out of his own pocket for this tragedy.

Speaker 49 Mallory Beach's family have been pushing to get access to Alex's financial records.

Speaker 49 He had told their lawyers, even if they won a judgment against him, he didn't have money to pay and they didn't buy it.

Speaker 36 There was no possibility that he was broke. And beyond the money that he was making, he had property.

Speaker 41 And so if you claim that you're broke, I want to see your bank accounts because I don't trust what you're going to say.

Speaker 49 And so they've been going back and forth for months and finally they were going before a judge to find out whether he was going to have to give up access to his books.

Speaker 14 Elli Murdoch was preparing to be at this June 10th hearing and he was looking at what he might have to disclose.

Speaker 10 But then, just three days before that hearing.

Speaker 6 This is Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 5 I need the police to pass this immediately.

Speaker 10 The murders change everything.

Speaker 14 In the aftermath of the slayings of Maggie and Paul, that June 10th hearing was delayed and it was never rescheduled.

Speaker 66 Instead of being in in court on June 10th, I'm a defendant in a civil case involving my son. I told you about the boat wreck.

Speaker 10 Alex is in this car with his lawyer, giving his second interview to law enforcement, describing everything he did on the day of the murders, starting with going to work.

Speaker 66 And there were some motions coming up in that on Thursday, and I was mostly just getting ready for those things.

Speaker 47 He says that around five o'clock, he went home and he met up with Maggie and Paul.

Speaker 67 Maggie had gotten home and you know we sat down we ate supper, which we usually eat supper together.

Speaker 66 You know, we hung around the house for a little while.

Speaker 66 I know that Maggie went to the kennels. I don't know exactly where Paul went, but he left the house too.

Speaker 17 Okay.

Speaker 16 What did you do once Maggie and Paul left?

Speaker 66 I stayed in the house.

Speaker 18 Okay. And

Speaker 66 I was watching TV,

Speaker 23 looking at my phone, and I actually fell asleep on the couch.

Speaker 24 Okay.

Speaker 10 He says they weren't at home when he woke up around 9.

Speaker 66 It wasn't much time between me waking up and me leaving the house. I drove to my mom's.

Speaker 21 I checked on my mom. She lives right out here.

Speaker 10 After visiting his mother, who has dementia and had a caregiver with her, he says he made the roughly 20-minute drive back home.

Speaker 66 I got to the house.

Speaker 67 I went inside. Nobody was there.

Speaker 66 I got in the car. I went back to the kennels and,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 23 I saw Maggie and I saw Paul laying down.

Speaker 66 I knew, you know, I didn't know,

Speaker 66 you know,

Speaker 66 I knew it was bad.

Speaker 18 I went over there and, you know, I saw it.

Speaker 22 He had a difficult time talking.

Speaker 65 And he would, he would try to talk and he would break down.

Speaker 47 It seems like overnight the news media was all over this story.

Speaker 4 Tonight, investigators working to unravel a mysterious double homicide involving one of South Carolina's most prominent legal families.

Speaker 40 I mean, we see it in the world.

Speaker 19 We see it on the news.

Speaker 19 But you don't think it's going to happen in your small community to your family?

Speaker 40 It's just hard to imagine somebody can be so sick as to

Speaker 40 do this.

Speaker 65 intentionally kill people

Speaker 65 like that.

Speaker 17 Law enforcement put out a statement that said, at this time there is no danger to the public. And that has raised questions from a lot of people, the public, the media.

Speaker 10 I was really scratching my head because generally when you say something like that you have a good idea of Hutana. They must believe that the Murdochs were targeted.

Speaker 26 Remember, Alec Murdoch told investigators the night of the murders he thought the killings had something to do with the boat crash.

Speaker 46 I don't know of any direct threats between any of the people on the boat specifically, but I do think there's been a small amount of yip-yap

Speaker 46 between a couple of them, but not recently.

Speaker 26 Authorities would eventually clear everyone on board the 17-foot boat of any involvement in the murder.

Speaker 51 We were thinking and praying for their families because we knew what it felt like.

Speaker 61 We've heard that statement that you finally got justice.

Speaker 61 This is not justice for us.

Speaker 9 These people were brutally murdered from what we were told, and he did not deserve it.

Speaker 61 Neither did his mama.

Speaker 26 But as the intensity of the media coverage grew, so did the questions swirling around Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 12 A lot of people said, Did you hear what happened to the housekeeper?

Speaker 52 She's cracked her head and has blood on the concrete.

Speaker 12 It's like, how much worse could it get? And how much deeper does this go? Just out of control.

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Speaker 69 We are following a developing story out of Colletton County Type State Police now investigating a double homicide.

Speaker 42 Two members of a prominent and powerful legal family found dead on a sprawling estate. State investigators say little about the murders, but insist there's no danger to the public.

Speaker 15 I don't think anyone could have ever predicted the amount of attention that this case was going to foster.

Speaker 10 When the boat crash happened in 2019, that was local news. But after Maggie and Paul were murdered, that's when the Murdoch name was catapulted into the national spotlight.

Speaker 26 The glare of the investigation into Maggie and Paul's double murders is raising more questions than ever about a different untimely death.

Speaker 12 A lot of people said, did you hear what happened to the housekeeper? And I thought, no way.

Speaker 12 And then I was looking through the public index at different documents associated with Elec Murdoch. And I find a wrongful death settlement for $500,000.

Speaker 26 Gloria Satterfield, who worked for the Murdochs for years, had died after a trip and fall accident. And Alec Murdoch's insurance company had agreed to pay $505,000 for her wrongful death.

Speaker 7 Gloria Satterfield was in the fabric of the Murdoch family.

Speaker 15 She had helped raise the children, Paul and Buster, for more than 20 years.

Speaker 62 She was a hard-working woman, a people person. You know, everywhere she went, she never met a stranger, always made a friend.

Speaker 26 When Gloria started working for them,

Speaker 26 she took pride in that and honoring that, and she treated them like her family.

Speaker 12 My sources have said Paul looks at her like a mother.

Speaker 26 He was barely walking whenever she started working for them, and he called her Go-Go and she called him Paul Paul.

Speaker 11 My housekeeper has fallen and her head is bleeding. I cannot get her up.

Speaker 10 In February of 2018, Maggie Murdoch calls 911 and says that Gloria had tripped and fallen on their stairs.

Speaker 52 She fell going up the steps, up the brick steps. She's cracked her head and there's blood on the concrete.

Speaker 47 So at one point, Paul gets on the call and you can hear him getting a little irritated with the 911 operator.

Speaker 11 Can you ask the patient what kind of pain she's having? Ma'am, she can't talk. Do you know she's ever had a stroke or anything before? Ma'am, can you stop asking her this question?

Speaker 11 They already have them all the way. Me asking questions does not slow them down in any way.

Speaker 70 She was rushed to the hospital and then Alec Murdoch told them exactly what happened to the best of his knowledge, that it was the hunting dogs.

Speaker 70 They must have tripped up, gone in between her legs, she fell down the stairs.

Speaker 42 She lives for three weeks.

Speaker 42 She never regains full consciousness.

Speaker 37 She laid in the bed, and I took her hand and asked her, Mom, what happened? And

Speaker 37 she couldn't tell me nothing.

Speaker 19 There were ups and downs, you know, you thought things were going to get better.

Speaker 19 And of course, they didn't.

Speaker 10 According to the family, at her funeral, Alex Murdoch says, it's my fault that she died at our house. She tripped over our dog.
And so I'm going to get you a lawyer.

Speaker 10 He can represent you and he can bring a lawsuit against me. I will agree to it and you will get money for it.

Speaker 41 We ain't had no reason not to trust him.

Speaker 6 We've known him all our lives.

Speaker 33 He always took care of Gloria, you know, and he knew how important her children were to her.

Speaker 15 Gloria Satterfield came from a very humble background, and she had two young men who needed support.

Speaker 12 The Satterfield boys would say Alec Murdoch looked him in the eye and said, trust me, I got you guys. You're going to get a lot of money and I'm going to handle everything.

Speaker 26 But that money for Gloria's boys never arrives.

Speaker 26 Fast forward to August of 2021, two months after Maggie and Paul are murdered, Alec is sitting down with sled investigators for the third time. He has questions for them.

Speaker 42 Is this one person, two persons, three persons?

Speaker 26 And they have questions for him, especially on his whereabouts the night of the murders.

Speaker 10 He gives the same timeline that he'd given in previous interviews with law enforcement.

Speaker 42 So the three of us ate dinner together.

Speaker 5 And after dinner, Maggie and Paul went to the kennels or?

Speaker 67 I stayed on the couch

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 38 I dozed off.

Speaker 10 One thing Alec always maintained was that he never went down to the kennels that night.

Speaker 26 As the nearly 90-minute interview comes to a close, the sled agent has two more important questions.

Speaker 42 Did you kill Maggie?

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 38 Did I kill my wife? Yes, sir. No, David.

Speaker 9 Did you kill Paul?

Speaker 38 No, I did not kill Paul.

Speaker 66 So does that mean that I am a suspect?

Speaker 71 I don't have anything that points to anybody else at this time.

Speaker 26 But if investigators are zeroing in on Alec, what happens next has people asking, does someone have a hit list targeting even more of the Murdochs?

Speaker 64 Next to a murder mystery in South Carolina taking a bizarre turn, Alec Murdoch was shot in the head and wounded on a rural country road yesterday.

Speaker 25 Alec Murdoch shot?

Speaker 10 I mean, his wife and son have just been killed, and now he's been shot?

Speaker 12 It just took this story to a whole nother level.

Speaker 31 This news to the Murdochs.

Speaker 26 And now the Hulu scripted series that everyone's talking about. Murdoch, Death in the Family.

Speaker 35 The walls are just getting closer, Andy.

Speaker 37 They're getting closer and closer and closer, and I can't breathe it is a tragedy shakespearean tragedy

Speaker 10 we're in a boat crash the boat hits the piling nicara came home and found him no one out there

Speaker 17 yes sir that's what it looks like how how Two shots. If you had to sum up this entire saga with one sentence, it would be the fall of the house of Murdoch.

Speaker 2 My wife and Tom just got bad with me.

Speaker 26 The audience thinks they know the Murdoch case. What do you think might surprise audiences in this? Now, the real story behind the Hit Hulu series.

Speaker 10 What else is there that I don't know about?

Speaker 48 Gotta dip each other's backs.

Speaker 64 Family first. A murder mystery in South Carolina taking a bizarre turn.

Speaker 6 What?

Speaker 25 Alec Murdoch shot?

Speaker 15 Oh my gosh, is there somebody out there going after the entire Murdoch family?

Speaker 12 Everywhere you went, everyone was talking about it. It was something that you could not escape.

Speaker 14 South Carolina's trial of the century.

Speaker 8 Did you take this gun and blow your son's brains out?

Speaker 23 I did not.

Speaker 32 Y'all know me. I'm an honest man.

Speaker 10 Is Alec Murdoch going to get up and look those jurors in the eye and try to convince them I did not kill my wife and my son?

Speaker 25 This is a long story.

Speaker 73 Two members of a well-known Mo Country family were discovered overnight. No arrests have been made, no suspects named.

Speaker 72 The FBI is now involved in the Murdoch investigation.

Speaker 26 This is a story that gripped not just the state of South Carolina, but the entire country.

Speaker 13 You never know what the next twist and turn is going to be. Every time something happens, your jaw drops and you gasp.

Speaker 31 I feel like I'm in a three-ring circus.

Speaker 68 There's no bottom to this case.

Speaker 70 I'm shocked every single day.

Speaker 42 There are more new details.

Speaker 4 Alex Murdoch calling 911 for hell for a gunshot wound to the head.

Speaker 17 This got all the elements of a great story.

Speaker 12 I have been following the story since 2019 and I've always thought that it would make for a really good podcast.

Speaker 12 Ever since I heard the news of the Bow crash on February 24th, 2019, I just couldn't stop.

Speaker 12 Over the years, I have spoken to over 100 people about the Murdoch family, about the power they held over others, and the story just got crazier and crazier.

Speaker 12 My name is Mandy Mattney, and this is the Murdoch Murders Podcast.

Speaker 26 And the new Hulu series, Murdoch, Death in the Family, while partially fictionalized for dramatic purposes, is inspired by Mandy's podcast.

Speaker 26 Mandy, in real life, and now played by actress Brittany Snow, begins digging into who the Murdochs are.

Speaker 20 Who are you, Dev?

Speaker 12 Mandy Matney, breaking news editor at the Island Packet.

Speaker 30 Mandy Matney saw something going on and said, I want to do a story on this. People didn't want her to do it.
She fought so many men to go out there and do that.

Speaker 26 Eventually, the Hulu show creators, Aaron Lee Carr and Michael Fuller, also dive into the power and influence that this family held.

Speaker 12 Did the Murdoch tell you not to talk to me?

Speaker 30 I'm a researcher by heart.

Speaker 30 I want to know every single detail and that is what makes this story is that you can think about it for years but there's just still some things that will never fit together in the puzzle.

Speaker 65 This real story obviously is so incredibly documented.

Speaker 65 There's actual footage of the arrival of authorities that Alec called and we have the 911 tape and it's, you know I think for us and it was something we worked with Jason and Patricia so much on and especially you know Jason as Alec.

Speaker 6 This is Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 6 I need police and an ambulance immediately.

Speaker 20 We're making all these choices about the patterns of certain people. We do our research and we do the best work we can but this is our approximation, our version into this world.

Speaker 26 Tell me about the mama bear instinct that Maggie sort of infuses into everything she does.

Speaker 20 I think it was a very primal thing that when her son, he had made this terrible decision. The loss of his friend, I mean, her death, was such a serious thing.

Speaker 37 How do you ever recover from that?

Speaker 30 He could go to prison.

Speaker 3 That he could.

Speaker 70 Try not to fret now.

Speaker 32 We're doing what we can.

Speaker 20 I think she was like, yes, use whatever access you have to make this this go away. He can't go to prison.

Speaker 31 I always saw Alex as like a great white shark.

Speaker 40 The minute he stops, he will die. You know, if he doesn't stop, he'll just keep going.

Speaker 40 And I think by dramatizing and bringing, you know, actors to it, you get some understanding of the destruction he wrought.

Speaker 30 He is a narcissist and those people can be cunning, powerful, nice, friendly, can do good, but they are always looking for their angle.

Speaker 26 And three months after the murders of his wife and son, both shot to death on the family's property, it seems Alec Murdoch is looking for a new angle.

Speaker 26 The mystery surrounding the double murder of a prominent South Carolina family intensifies.

Speaker 10 On September 4th, 2021,

Speaker 10 a 911 call comes in from Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 59 I got a flat tire, and I stopped, and somebody stopped to help me.

Speaker 59 And when I turned my back, they tried to shoot me.

Speaker 64 Alec Murdoch was shot in the head and wounded on a rural country road.

Speaker 6 It's like, what?

Speaker 25 Alec Murdoch shot?

Speaker 15 I was shocked. Oh my gosh, is there somebody out there going after the entire Murdoch family?

Speaker 45 They got targeted. Like, that was the immediate reaction.

Speaker 17 But there's confusion every step of the way.

Speaker 15 There were so many details right off the bat that just didn't add up.

Speaker 12 Police are saying one thing, his attorney's saying something else.

Speaker 45 When SLED sends out their first press release about what happened, they make it abundantly clear that this is a superficial headwound to the head. Immediately, doubt is cast on what happened.

Speaker 45 Who's lying here?

Speaker 12 Two days later, on Labor Day, Alex PR team released a statement.

Speaker 10 He says that he's resigning from his law firm and that he's checking into rehab.

Speaker 26 Alec Murdoch saying, I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret. I'm resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated by these murders.

Speaker 26 Alec Murdoch is, he says, addicted to opioids.

Speaker 12 That just sent everybody into chaos. Like, what is going on here and why are they telling us this?

Speaker 45 If that's not someone saying, I've committed crimes, I don't know what it is.

Speaker 6 It's wild.

Speaker 13 As everybody's trying to process what that means, another statement comes out from Alec Murdoch's law firm.

Speaker 12 The law firm is saying, well, actually, he was forced to resign because he's been misappropriating millions of dollars from our firm.

Speaker 13 They alleged he'd been doing that on an ongoing basis for years.

Speaker 45 And it kind of just keeps snowballing from there.

Speaker 10 He loses his law license. He loses his privileges to be an assistant solicitor.
I mean, his life is falling apart.

Speaker 12 A picture is starting to come into focus and it does not look good for Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 26 Just as speculation is boiling over whether Alec Murdoch was ever even shot on the side of the road, an arrest is made.

Speaker 42 At Breaking Overnight, a suspect is now in custody in connection with the mysterious shooting of Alex Murdoch.

Speaker 26 But just who that suspect is only raises more questions about what really happened here. And Alec Murdoch seemingly confesses to an attempted murder, his own.

Speaker 71 She sounded easy to kill me.

Speaker 26 After that supposed roadside shooting, Alec Murdoch is released from the hospital and then immediately checks into rehab.

Speaker 26 He says taking painkillers for an old football knee injury ballooned into a decades-long opioid addiction.

Speaker 10 Then Alex's story about what he first said happened at that roadside shooting completely falls apart.

Speaker 12 I was one of the first journalists, and I'm proud of this, to really question was he even shot, what's actually going on here?

Speaker 12 And I got a lot of flack for that.

Speaker 47 So while Alec Murdoch is in a detox center, he decides he's going to confess to what he says really happened that day on the side of the road.

Speaker 47 So he's in a room with his attorneys present and they decide to call Sled.

Speaker 74 I called Curtis Eddie Smith on the telephone and asked him to meet me. I told him that things were getting ready to get really bad and that I would be better off not here.

Speaker 74 And I asked him to shoot me.

Speaker 10 Alex said he asked his friend Curtis Eddie Smith to kill him so his son Buster could collect $10 million in life insurance.

Speaker 74 So what happened next?

Speaker 74 He shot me. He missed and hit me in the back of the head.

Speaker 38 What was your intent for him to kill me?

Speaker 42 Breaking overnight, a suspect is now in custody in connection with the mysterious shooting of Alex Murdaugh. And authorities say Murdaugh arranged for the man to do it.

Speaker 26 Curtis Eddie Smith is arrested on a slew of charges, including aggravated assault and battery, pointing a weapon, insurance fraud, criminal conspiracy, and assisted suicide.

Speaker 26 But in an interview from jail in 2023, he says that he never agreed to Alec Murdoch's plan.

Speaker 27 I ain't know nothing about no life insurance, no nothing.

Speaker 5 He said I needed you to kill me. I said, yeah, that ain't happening.
And I figured I was going to try to scare some tense into him.

Speaker 5 And I shot him drunk up in the air because he felt like I had to cut his legs out for me with a checking saw or something. I know he didn't get shot because I didn't shoot him.

Speaker 39 There was a wound. In my opinion, it's not a gunshot wound.

Speaker 50 It's very easily a wound that can be explained when someone falls to the ground on a gravel road and hits their head.

Speaker 71 That's totally untrue, according to Alec.

Speaker 71 He met with Smith on the side of the road, gave him the gun, said, I'm going to look like I broke down, drive by and shoot me, which is exactly what Smith did.

Speaker 12 You see, the roadside shooting happened right after yet again.

Speaker 12 people were asking questions about his finances. None of his messes were going away.
They were just getting worse. So what do you do?

Speaker 12 You pretend like a random guy tried to shoot you on the side of the road and that somebody's after your family. That's how you get people to feel sorry for you.

Speaker 17 Now we begin to see that these are the actions of a desperate man.

Speaker 17 Curtis Smith is arrested. Then a few days later, Alex Murdoch is arrested.

Speaker 47 Alec Murdoch was charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and filing a false police report.

Speaker 6 Oh, right.

Speaker 17 He's handcuffed. He's wearing shackles.
He's wearing a Hampbeck County jumpsuit.

Speaker 27 Your Honor, he has fallen from Grace.

Speaker 55 If anyone wants to see the face of what opioid addiction does, you're looking at it.

Speaker 13 It was certainly a bombshell to drop that in court, that all of this was brought on from opioid addiction.

Speaker 26 At that that hearing, Alec Murdoch is released on a personal recognizance bond, and he's allowed to return to rehab.

Speaker 26 Murdoch and Curtis Eddie Smith both pleaded not guilty to the charges related to that alleged roadside shooting, and they remain pending.

Speaker 45 The scrutiny on Alec Murdoch now is at an all-time high.

Speaker 10 Investigations are popping up, civil, criminal.

Speaker 12 In the midst of all this craziness, a lawsuit drops from Gloria Satterfield's sons.

Speaker 15 There was already reports that there was something fishy with the whole Satterfield case.

Speaker 33 Murdoch settled a $500,000 wrongful death claim brought by Satterfield's family, but the family says they haven't seen a dime.

Speaker 68 They just want answers. They want answers to know what happened to their money.

Speaker 12 We knew she died at the Murdoch's house in 2018. She was in their household for 25 years.
This isn't just some random person that cleaned their house every once in a while.

Speaker 12 This is somebody day in and day out who became a part of their family.

Speaker 75 It wasn't just $505,000.

Speaker 76 It was millions.

Speaker 12 Not only did those boys not get a dime of the $500,000, but there's a whole nother settlement that was for a lot more money that they didn't even know about and nobody knew about.

Speaker 12 And that was for $4.3 million.

Speaker 30 Gloria's sons, Brian and Tony Souterfield, they were waiting for any amount of money, $5,000, anything.

Speaker 30 Elec had the money for the settlement, for the death of their mother, and he let them be evicted out of their mobile home after losing their mother.

Speaker 76 There was no way that this was the first time that Alec had stolen client money.

Speaker 75 Your kid doesn't come in and just take the whole cookie jar. They come in and they take one cookie.
Ooh, she doesn't notice. Now they're taking two or three cookies.

Speaker 77 And the next thing you know, the jar is almost empty.

Speaker 47 Sled is now looking at allegations that Murdoch had been stealing from his law firm and his clients for years.

Speaker 47 And then one month later, he's arrested again.

Speaker 10 Murdoch is charged with crimes related to stealing that wrongful death settlement money from the Satterfield family. But this time, he's denied bond and goes to jail.

Speaker 26 Even though nobody has been charged in Paul and Maggie's murders, Alec Murdoch is now facing an avalanche of charges related to financial crimes.

Speaker 14 Now there have been separate state grand jury charges that allege every financial crime you can think of.

Speaker 14 Insurance fraud, money laundering, computer crimes, embezzlement.

Speaker 39 This is an ongoing investigation, Your Honor. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 12 This is a house of cards.

Speaker 26 By the time the anniversary of Paul and Maggie's murders hits the one-year mark, Alec had been sitting in jail for almost eight months on a slew of charges related to financial crimes.

Speaker 26 But some wondered if we'd ever see someone charged for the murders.

Speaker 12 Everyone

Speaker 12 who really knew the system doubted the fact that a Murdoch would ever be charged with murder in the low country of South Carolina. They said, never going to happen.

Speaker 14 Very little was known about the murder investigation at all.

Speaker 14 Sled

Speaker 14 never confirmed any suspects or persons of interest.

Speaker 14 In fact, the only reason we knew that Elek was a person of interest and maybe the person of interest in the investigation was because one of his defense attorneys admitted it in a TV interview.

Speaker 26 You were constantly checking in with sources.

Speaker 12 I, with one of my sources, probably my best source in law enforcement, I use code language. I would say we honor Hurricane Watch this week.
And that meant that

Speaker 12 that would be the point when they were taking the

Speaker 12 indictment to the grand jury. And so that would be go time.

Speaker 28 We are following breaking news from South Carolina, where a disgraced attorney has just been indicted for the murders of his wife and son.

Speaker 55 Tonight, the dramatic new turn in this case.

Speaker 28 Alex Murdaugh is now charged with two counts of murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

Speaker 14 The indictments were very, very brief, like maybe one paragraph each.

Speaker 14 And they just said, you know, on this date, Elec Murdoch killed his son Paul with a shotgun, and he killed his wife, Maggie, with a rifle.

Speaker 14 And then he was also charged with possessing each of those guns during the commission of a violent crime. And that was all we got.

Speaker 15 When Alec Murdoch comes for his arraignment, he looks like a different person. He's shackled, which we were expecting, but what we weren't expecting was him to be completely bald.

Speaker 14 He looked very thin, very gaunt when he walked into that courtroom.

Speaker 22 Are you guilty or not guilty of the felonies for any who stand indicted?

Speaker 23 Not guilty.

Speaker 24 How shall you be tried by God and my country?

Speaker 26 What went through your mind when you heard that Alex Murdoch had been charged with the murder of his wife and son?

Speaker 12 Relief, overwhelming relief, and feeling like a lot of people who were brave enough to attempt to hold a man like Elek Murdoch accountable, that they did it. It was a David and Goliath type of story.

Speaker 14 Shortly after Elek was indicted, his defense attorneys pushed for a speedy trial.

Speaker 22 We believe that the killer or killers are still at large and it's been a lot of swept. Put this behind us and go look for the real builders.

Speaker 41 You had two groups of thought, right?

Speaker 76 You had one group that was like,

Speaker 76 oh, he absolutely did that.

Speaker 75 And then you had a second group that was like, eh, if it was only the wife,

Speaker 16 I could see him doing it.

Speaker 75 But his son, too?

Speaker 75 How could a man do his son like that?

Speaker 47 This highly anticipated trial is about to begin, and everyone is wondering what kind of evidence the state is going to present to try and prove that Alec Murdoch murdered his wife and son.

Speaker 12 Everywhere you went, everyone was talking about it. It was something that you could not escape.

Speaker 26 On January 25th, 2023, the long-awaited trial of Alec Murdoch finally gets underway, with Judge Clifton Newman addressing the jury.

Speaker 7 The defendant is charged with two counts of murder. Only the 12 of you who will deliberate can decide the facts of this case.

Speaker 26 With all eyes on that South Carolina courtroom, the prosecution and the defense, both with starkly different stories, square off before the jury.

Speaker 43 Paul Murdoch is standing in a small feed room.

Speaker 33 The defendant over there, Alec Murdoch, took a 12-shade shotgun and shot him in the chest and shoulder.

Speaker 29 Just moments later, he picked up an AR-style rifle and opened fire on his wife, Maggie.

Speaker 43 How, pow.

Speaker 29 Two shots, Abderman in the lead, and took her down.

Speaker 48 There's no eyewitness.

Speaker 61 There's no camera. There's no fingerprints.

Speaker 8 None.

Speaker 9 None.

Speaker 14 He didn't do it.

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Speaker 26 the murdoch murder trial has been called south carolina's trial of the century alec murdoch is still charged with all those financial crimes but the murder trial comes first

Speaker 15 We've moved straight into a 19th century Colleton County courthouse to try one of the most notorious murders that we've ever had in South Carolina.

Speaker 14 It was very much like the circus is coming to town.

Speaker 76 It's bananas.

Speaker 14 Until the trial, Elliot Murdoch's family's thoughts about all this were unknown. We weren't sure, are they going to show up? But then once the jury was seated, you saw them file in.

Speaker 14 And there was his sister Lynn. And there was his brothers, John Marvin and Randy, and of course his son, Buster.

Speaker 7 Now proceed to opening statements.

Speaker 14 Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters got up and

Speaker 14 he was very dramatic.

Speaker 61 Two shots Adaman in the leg.

Speaker 14 Captivated the jury's attention.

Speaker 29 The evidence is going to be such that you're going to reach the inescapable conclusion that Alec murdered Maggie and Paul, that he was the storm, that the storm was was coming for them, and the storm arrived on June 7th, 2021, that they died as a result.

Speaker 10 Once the testimony begins and the state's presenting its evidence, a really full picture of the day of the murders is emerging.

Speaker 10 One thing Alec always maintained was that he never went down to the kennels that night.

Speaker 46 I laid down, took a nap on the couch, probably,

Speaker 46 I don't know, 25, 30 minutes.

Speaker 26 That's when prosecutors present what they say is a smoking gun that obliterates Alec Murdoch's alibi.

Speaker 26 They call Paul Murdoch's friend Rogan Gibson to the stand, who spoke to Paul by cell phone that night.

Speaker 47 On June 7th, Paul was taking care of Rogan's puppy Cash, and there was some concern that there was something wrong with the puppy's tail.

Speaker 6 Get in.

Speaker 40 Get now.

Speaker 41 Where was Paul when he called you?

Speaker 49 He was at the dog camp.

Speaker 29 And how do you know that?

Speaker 55 I could hear the dogs barking.

Speaker 26 Paul promised to send Rogan a video of his dog, Cash, so he could see the dog's tail.

Speaker 10 Rogan never received that video, but the day after the murders, he told investigators that he heard more than just Paul on that call.

Speaker 50 And who else did you hear? And I thought it, Mr. Alex.

Speaker 47 Rogan said that he was 99%

Speaker 2 sure he heard Alex's voice.

Speaker 47 But when investigators asked Alec, he denied being at the kennels.

Speaker 43 Was it you?

Speaker 23 At nine o'clock? Yes, sir.

Speaker 66 No, sir.

Speaker 66 Not if my times are right.

Speaker 5 Who do you think it could have been?

Speaker 38 I have no idea.

Speaker 26 More than a year later, after investigators were finally able to get Paul's cell phone unlocked, they brought Rogan in and played him the video Paul had taken that night of Rogan's puppy.

Speaker 19 Get it. That just...

Speaker 12 Kind of broke the case wide open. Quick guess.

Speaker 22 The skeleton key for it all was the cell phone video that was unearthed on Paul's phone. Here, dogs barking.

Speaker 10 Paul is pointing the phone at the dog during the entire video, but you can hear Maggie talking about the family dog, Bubba, having something in his mouth. Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth!

Speaker 6 Bubba!

Speaker 29 What voices did you hear?

Speaker 10 Paul's, Miss Maggie, Miss Dellin.

Speaker 29 And how sure are you now?

Speaker 41 Positive.

Speaker 26 How did the video upend Alex's alibi?

Speaker 12 It placed him where he said that he wasn't, and that's at the murder scene, that's right before a murder occurred.

Speaker 24 And

Speaker 12 I think the very interesting part of that video is how distinct his voice is.

Speaker 12 It was absolutely him.

Speaker 14 According to prosecutors, Paul's video lasted about a minute and it ended at 8.45 p.m.

Speaker 14 And then less than four minutes later, both Maggie and Paul's phones lock forever, never never to answer another text or call.

Speaker 33 That's when prosecutors say Alec shot Paul first and then Maggie.

Speaker 76 If you're the jury, you sit back.

Speaker 75 So he was out there.

Speaker 26 Even as prosecutors lay out evidence that places Alec Murdoch at the scene, they know they need to explain to jurors why a seemingly loving father and husband would commit such a heinous crime.

Speaker 10 The prosecution argued that Alec Murdoch murdered Maggie and Paul to prevent the exposure of what they said was more than a decade of financial crimes.

Speaker 47 The state called several witnesses who testified how Alec had stolen from them, starting with the CFO of his law firm, Jeannie Seckinger.

Speaker 26 She testified that some at the firm suspected Alec had diverted money owed to the law firm and that she confronted him about this on June 7th, just hours before the murders.

Speaker 26 But they backed off after Maggie and Paul were killed.

Speaker 55 Was anybody at all concerned about getting the proof for those missing fees after those murders happened?

Speaker 58 We weren't going to go in there and harass him about money

Speaker 58 when his family had been killed.

Speaker 12 He was dealing with extreme pressure unlike anything that he had dealt with before and I believe that he got the crazy idea that public distraction was the answer to his problems and sympathy.

Speaker 2 When the murders happened, everything else stopped.

Speaker 75 The law firm quit asking Alec about missing money.

Speaker 47 Even Mark Tinsley, the civil lawyer for Mallory Beach's family, who had been suing Alec, testified that he planned to remove Alec from the boat crash lawsuit after the murders.

Speaker 16 If Alec is the victim of a vigilante, nobody's going to hold him accountable.

Speaker 75 Alec was in a much better position with regards to protecting himself

Speaker 76 after Maggie and Paul were murdered.

Speaker 47 After 17 days of testimony, the state rested and all eyes turned to the defense.

Speaker 7 Have you made a decision as to whether you're going to testify?

Speaker 10 Everyone's wondering: is Alec Murdoch going to get up and look those jurors in the eye and try to convince them I did not kill my wife and my son?

Speaker 7 And what is your decision?

Speaker 26 By week four of the trial, it's a full-on frenzy.

Speaker 41 It has been described by everyone as the non-fiction fiction that even John Grisham couldn't write.

Speaker 10 There are lines outside the courthouse. People have been arriving since 4:30 in the morning.

Speaker 56 Sit out here about two and a half hours.

Speaker 10 I've been following this for as long as it's been going on.

Speaker 56 Very interested in the outcome. It's pretty wild.

Speaker 33 This is the kind of trial that people travel to go see live and in person.

Speaker 15 The defense has a lot of cards to play. They just have to have reasonable doubt, and it's just one juror.

Speaker 26 Family and friends are called to the stand to try to show a different side of Alec than what the prosecution has portrayed.

Speaker 72 The defense has called its first witness of the day, Murdoch's only surviving son, Buster.

Speaker 47 We have heard so much about Buster Murdoch, but we really haven't heard from him.

Speaker 10 Buster talked about the night of the murders and how he finally got to Mozell and how emotional his father was.

Speaker 55 Yeah, his demeanor was, I mean, he was destroyed.

Speaker 27 He was heartbroken. I walked in the door and saw him and

Speaker 16 gave him a hug hug and just

Speaker 27 broken down.

Speaker 31 Could he speak?

Speaker 6 Not really. Was he crying?

Speaker 2 Yes, sir.

Speaker 14 The defense seemed to want to humanize Ellick with Buster's testimony to try to illustrate that there was no major tension in the family.

Speaker 45 Rumors were flying everywhere of whether Elek was going to testify.

Speaker 45 Will he actually do it was on everyone's mind.

Speaker 47 And it kept changing by the hour.

Speaker 7 Have you made a decision as to whether you're going to testify?

Speaker 13 Yes, sir.

Speaker 7 All right, and what is your decision?

Speaker 25 I am going to testify. I want to testify.

Speaker 72 We have breaking news. Alex Murdoch, the disgraced South Carolina attorney accused of killing his wife and son, is taking the witness stand in his own defense.

Speaker 47 It's really really tricky for a defendant to take the stand. But if that person can explain away the things that don't make sense to the jury, you can get an acquittal.

Speaker 23 I'm Alec Murdick, M-U-R-D-A-U-G-H.

Speaker 43 Good morning.

Speaker 43 Mr.

Speaker 8 Murdick, did you take this gun or any gun like it?

Speaker 8 and blow your son's brains out on June 7th or any day or any time

Speaker 23 No, I did not. Mr.
Griven, I didn't shoot my wife or my son anytime.

Speaker 2 Ever.

Speaker 26 And then he's asked about that kennel video, the one piece of evidence that's the linchpin to the prosecution's case.

Speaker 8 Mr. Murdick, is that you?

Speaker 8 On the kennel video at 8.44 p.m. on June 7th, the night Maggie and Paul were murdered.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 8 Did you lie to them by by telling them that you were not down at the kennels on that night?

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 47 Alec said that he lied about being at the kennels because it would have made police suspicious of him.

Speaker 16 You continued lying after that night, did you not?

Speaker 25 Well, once I lied, I continued to lie, yes, sir.

Speaker 27 Why?

Speaker 23 You know, oh, what a tangled web we weave. But once I told a lie,

Speaker 23 I mean, I told my family,

Speaker 23 I had to keep learning.

Speaker 26 On the stand, Alec tries to explain the lie, pointing to his opioid addiction and how it gave him paranoid thoughts.

Speaker 25 Normally,

Speaker 23 when these paranoid thoughts would hit me, I could take a deep breath real quick.

Speaker 23 Just think about it, reason my way through it. On June the 7th,

Speaker 2 I wasn't thinking clearly.

Speaker 14 Elec gives a version of the events that we've never heard before.

Speaker 26 Now he says, after having dinner with Maggie and Paul, he admits he did ride down to the kennels in a golf cart, staying there briefly before heading back to the house alone, and then leaving to check on his mother.

Speaker 26 He describes in gory detail on the stand the moment he says he came home and found the bodies.

Speaker 25 Paul was so

Speaker 29 bad.

Speaker 16 Me and my boy's laying face down.

Speaker 24 I could see his

Speaker 29 brain laying on the sidewalk.

Speaker 8 I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 2 I was trying to tend to Paw Paul.

Speaker 23 I was trying to tend to Maggie.

Speaker 45 On the stand, he introduces some nicknames for Paul and Maggie. Maggie is Mags.

Speaker 23 I saw Mags talk to Mags.

Speaker 6 Paul is Paw Paw.

Speaker 25 He couldn't be any closer

Speaker 6 than Paw Paul.

Speaker 10 These are nicknames he uses over and over while on the stand. But when you listen to his interviews with law enforcement, he doesn't use them.

Speaker 46 I think I tried to turn Paul over.

Speaker 10 You had to wonder whether he was doing this as a way to ingratiate himself with the jurors.

Speaker 26 When it's time for Prosecutor Creighton Waters to cross-examine Alec, he questions him for hours about his alleged financial crimes, going case by case.

Speaker 29 And you would agree with with me

Speaker 41 that

Speaker 29 for years

Speaker 29 you were stealing money from clients?

Speaker 13 Yes, sir, I agree with that.

Speaker 14 He's portraying Murdoch as this manipulator, this con man, that's telling the jury, you can't believe a word this guy says.

Speaker 26 And then after hours of testimony, the prosecutor puts Alec's new timeline under the microscope.

Speaker 14 He wanted more of a down-to-the-minute, down-to-the-second breakdown of what Alec was actually doing. It was a battery of questions designed to stress test

Speaker 14 this story by Ellick.

Speaker 26 Prosecutors want to know what he was doing back at the house from 9.02 to 9.06 when his phone becomes active for the first time in about an hour and tracks 283 steps faster than he'd been moving all day.

Speaker 55 So what were you so busy doing?

Speaker 29 Going to the bathroom?

Speaker 24 No,

Speaker 23 I don't think that I'm going to back there. No, I didn't get on a treadmill.
Doing what?

Speaker 29 You've been so clear in your new story about everything. What were you doing during these four minutes?

Speaker 23 I was going to check on my mom.

Speaker 67 But specifically what I was doing,

Speaker 23 I don't know.

Speaker 14 These are points where Waters is

Speaker 14 looking at Murdoch's story, looking over to the jury and saying, does that sound believable to you?

Speaker 23 And as I sit here today, that I believe that boat wreck is the reason why Paul, Paul and Maggie were killed.

Speaker 29 So what you're telling this jury is that it's it's a random vigilante that just happened to know that Paul and Maggie were both to be at the Kennels alone on June the 7th and knew that you would not be there, but only between the times of 8.49 and 9.02.

Speaker 29 That's what you're trying to tell this jury?

Speaker 23 You got a lot of factors in there, Mr. Waters, all of which I do not agree with, but some of which I do.

Speaker 26 In total, Alex spent more than eight hours on the stand. And over the course of six days, the defense called 14 witnesses before arresting.

Speaker 26 Now, the case heads to the jury

Speaker 26 and behind the scenes of that new scripted series, bringing the explosive story to streaming.

Speaker 31 Tears to the Murdochs.

Speaker 20 It was just so

Speaker 20 outrageous. It was so diabolical.
It was so hard to imagine.

Speaker 7 You have heard the testimony. It is your duty as jurors to deliberate in an effort to reach an agreement.

Speaker 7 So, if all of you will now go to the jury room,

Speaker 56 good evening. We're coming back on the air because the jury has reached a verdict in the high-profile Alec Burdock murder trial in South Carolina.

Speaker 21 The defendant will rise.

Speaker 7 Madam Clerk, you may publish the verdict.

Speaker 10 The state versus Richard Alexander Murdoch, defendant, indictment for murder, verdict guilty.

Speaker 26 Judge Newman sentences Alec Murdoch to spend the rest of his life in prison. Alec is now appealing that conviction.

Speaker 26 He also pleaded guilty to 22 state charges and 22 federal charges related to his financial crimes.

Speaker 7 This has been perhaps one of the most troubling cases, not just for

Speaker 7 me as a judge, but for all of the citizens in this community.

Speaker 77 A family was destroyed and so many people questioned whether or not justice would prevail because they do believe that there are some people who are above the law.

Speaker 77 In South Carolina, no one is above the law.

Speaker 26 And now, almost three years after the trial captivated the country, that Hulu scripted series, Murdoch, Death in the Family, is taking a fresh look at the epic case and the troubled family at the center of it.

Speaker 26 Jason Clark and Patricia Arquette disappear into the roles of Maggie and Alec Murdoch. The physicality of your transformation is remarkable, down to the accent.

Speaker 36 What we're after, what I'm after.

Speaker 37 To be blunt, is money.

Speaker 26 How did you get the accent? How did you nail the physicality?

Speaker 31 I mean, you know, the physicality is like you've got to be in in the ballpark. You get up and work.

Speaker 31 You eat, you read, you listen, you listen, you work with a dialect coach, you listen to books, you read about the South.

Speaker 26 It's not a magic trick. You put the miles in.

Speaker 34 It's been a crazy week.

Speaker 20 Oh, it's so crazy that you can't pick up the phone when your son needs you? When I need you?

Speaker 26 You've studied women. who are with narcissists.

Speaker 50 What did you learn about that formulation?

Speaker 20 Well, yeah, there's a whole pattern. There's a lot of things to kind of reverse engineer from what we know of the facts of this relationship, right? There are patterns narcissists have.

Speaker 20 There's things that they do. They're pathological liars.
They're habitual cheaters. They have incapacity to really take accountability.

Speaker 26 We survived.

Speaker 34 And we are stronger for it.

Speaker 26 Maggie is a stand-in for so many partners who are trapped in toxic marriages.

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 20 But I decided that she

Speaker 20 never

Speaker 20 would ever have thought that he would kill her son or her.

Speaker 20 Like there's a reason they were together all those years. She believed at the end of the day like we're family.

Speaker 48 You would protect us.

Speaker 20 Sometimes in acting, you know, you have that moment where you get killed because it's a very strange thing. Actors go through that all the time.
And you feel something, but in this, it was like,

Speaker 20 this doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 20 Why is Paul on the ground? Why are you there? Why are you holding a gun?

Speaker 26 She runs around the corner and says, what is happening?

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 20 It's like,

Speaker 20 there's no way he could ever do that.

Speaker 20 But the truth is, in these kinds of relationships, when they are being discovered and when everything is starting to come out, That is when they are very dangerous.

Speaker 48 We've got to have each other's backs.

Speaker 3 Family first.

Speaker 65 I think one of the the things we work to dramatize is, you know, the sphere of protection. And it starts with the Bow crash where we must protect the family unit and we must protect Paul.

Speaker 65 And then as things unravel, as that chaos just unfolds, that sphere of protection just gets smaller and smaller until it just encapsulates Alec. Eventually it's just, I have to protect me.

Speaker 40 One of the beauties of this whole show is we do not dictate, you know, why did he do it.

Speaker 22 There is no solving that in that quiet moment, you know.

Speaker 19 But it was a choice, without a doubt.

Speaker 31 It is a tragedy, a Shakespearean tragedy.

Speaker 44 I love you.

Speaker 31 And I think we really do give respect to the story we're telling and the people that we're telling it about it that remain in the aftermath of this mess.

Speaker 48 We should point out tonight that those civil suits with the Satterfield family for the stolen settlement money and the Beach family for that boat crash have been resolved.

Speaker 26 As for Buster Murdoch, David, he remains in South Carolina where the family's property, Mozell, has been sold. You can stream Murdoch Death in the Family now on Hulu and Disney Plus.

Speaker 26 That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 21 I'm Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 48 And I'm David Muir from All of Us Here at 2020 in ABC News.

Speaker 6 Good night.

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