Unraveling the Murdaugh Mystery with Valerie Bauerlein

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Speaker 9 Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird.

Speaker 9 It's your fae villain, Kale Lower.

Speaker 9 And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Speaker 9 Welcome back to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast. Today I have Valerie Bowerlane.
Am I pronouncing that correctly?

Speaker 8 It's borderline.

Speaker 9 Boreline. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 8 I didn't say that. No, no.
Okay. It's fine.
Okay.

Speaker 9 You wrote The Devil at His Elbow about the Murdoch murders, and I cannot believe how much publicity this has gotten or

Speaker 9 really

Speaker 9 how it wasn't well known before it even the murders happened because there's a lot going on here.

Speaker 8 There's an awful lot going on here.

Speaker 9 Yeah, this is your first book. Tell us about the process of writing it.

Speaker 8 So it's my first book, and I am a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. So I went down, and I covered the South, and I live in North Carolina, so I was familiar with what was happening.
Sure.

Speaker 8 So I went down just a month after the homicides, actually, and started reporting and did a story for the Wall Street Journal. And then the story went kind of nuts.

Speaker 8 Everyone was so interested in it, like you said. So I started working on this book three years ago.

Speaker 8 Wow.

Speaker 9 So it took a long time to actually get the book done.

Speaker 8 It took a long time. I talked to more than 200 people, a lot of people that hadn't talked to other journalists before.
I spent four months on the ground in South Carolina.

Speaker 8 So it really, I spent a long time reporting it and then writing it. It's 450 pages.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I saw,

Speaker 8 it was quite a a bit.

Speaker 9 So you knew about the case before it hit the headlines?

Speaker 8 I did, because

Speaker 8 I used to work in South Carolina. I'm a journalist, and I worked at the state newspaper in Columbia for four years.
And South Carolina is a place where the politics are just different.

Speaker 8 And so I had a lot of sources down there, a lot of friends there. So I was following the case just out of interest, even before, you know, since the boat wreck with Mallory Beach in 2019.

Speaker 9 So you knew about the boat wreck before it was a part of this case?

Speaker 8 Well, I knew about the boat wreck before the homicides, yeah. Did you?

Speaker 8 It was covered quite a bit in South Carolina.

Speaker 9 It was, but it wasn't national news.

Speaker 8 Yeah, not in the same, not at all in the same way, exactly.

Speaker 9 So what do you think causes a story or a case like this specifically to get national headlines compared to, you know, the boat accident where that didn't get national headlines?

Speaker 8 You know, this story really had everything when you think about it.

Speaker 8 It set in an interesting place, the South, which just is one of those places that evokes an image in your mind, even to say the word.

Speaker 8 It had just, it kept unraveling, right? So we knew that the homicides happened, and then we started finding out about Alex's various thefts from the most vulnerable people.

Speaker 8 I think there was an emotional violence that was hard to imagine that people were captivated by. And then the side of the road over Labor Day of 2021 when he tried to fake his own death.

Speaker 8 I think it just kept escalating. And there was just,

Speaker 8 it had all the seven deadly sins, really, but it had also this huge amount of money that was missing, other deaths that were tied to the family, whether it was Mallory Beach or Gloria Satterfield,

Speaker 8 the housekeeper who fell down the stairs. And in the end, I think it's just the fundamental question, you know, how could a man kill his wife and son?

Speaker 8 I think that was really at the core reason that people just were so captivated, I would imagine.

Speaker 9 I would agree with that. I also think

Speaker 9 we are all...

Speaker 9 as consumers of like true crime, very fascinated with murders that have to do with money.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. And money is, you know, and this was

Speaker 8 murders that had to do with a lot of money stolen from the most vulnerable people in his community.

Speaker 8 And I think, too, one of the main characters in the book, really, and in this story, is the place where it took place. This county, Hampton County, is a place his family had run for a long time.

Speaker 8 So I think there was a part of it where people were like, a family has this type of power in this day and age. It was hard to imagine.

Speaker 8 why he thought he could get away with it until you realized, oh, his family's been running the courts down there for 100 years.

Speaker 9 And then it makes sense.

Speaker 8 And then it does make sense.

Speaker 9 I've watched several documentaries or pretty much anything that's been on TV or streaming services about this case.

Speaker 9 And one of the burning questions that I have for you, which I also read in the book, was that

Speaker 9 maybe you noticed it in the documentaries. Nobody knows how to pronounce his name.
Is it Alec? Is it Alex? Is it Murdoch? Is it Murdock?

Speaker 9 And then in the book, you state that it said it, you know, he called himself Elec Murdock. Was that correct? That's correct.

Speaker 8 But you know what's really interesting is that he code switches. He pronounces his name multiple different ways.
And if you listen to the 911 call, he'll say, this is Alex Murdoch at 4147

Speaker 8 Moselle Road, which is not how he normally pronounces his name in town, where people call him Ellick, which is just a southern thing. A lot of Alexes are Ellick in South Carolina.

Speaker 8 But, and then on the stand, he introduced himself in yet another way. So I think there are multiple ways to pronounce his name.

Speaker 8 I think of him

Speaker 8 in my mind as Elek Murdoch. Elec Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 9 That is so interesting. So, my co-host and I, on another podcast of mine, we did a deep dive into this case.
I mean, as deep as we could go.

Speaker 9 Oh, we're not investigative journalists, but you finally covered this case. We covered it, and that was something that we brought up:

Speaker 9 how do we even pronounce this name on the podcast? And it didn't really even give us any insight on where all the different pronunciations come from.

Speaker 9 So, I thought that was interesting.

Speaker 8 Well, and you noticed

Speaker 8 during the trial, his own lawyer, Dick Harpulian, pronounces his name name Alex Murdaugh. So, you know, it's interesting.

Speaker 8 I did spend a lot of time in Hampton County, and that's a part of the world in kind of

Speaker 8 the southern corner of South Carolina where a lot of Scotch-Irish people immigrated, you know, 150 years ago, 200 years ago.

Speaker 8 And so the pronunciation there in town, people call him Ilec Murdick, which is sort of Scotch-Irish-inflected.

Speaker 9 Well, that's interesting. I wonder what the reasoning is behind the code switching.
Is it just because he has some character flaws, and

Speaker 8 what's going on there? You know, I think I don't really know the answer to that. He's sort of an unknowable person, even spending three years studying him, you know?

Speaker 8 Still can't figure out why he does the things he does. It's

Speaker 8 a mystery.

Speaker 9 I'm curious to know what the psychology is behind that. Just him as a person, truly.

Speaker 9 What compelled you to write about this case specifically compared to, you know, cases maybe like Lacey Peterson or other really big national headlines that we've seen?

Speaker 8 Well, this is a part of the world where I live and that I've spent my career covering, you know, politics and money in the South. And so that part of it, it felt familiar to me.

Speaker 8 I don't think I could do a story

Speaker 8 in Texas or California, a place that is not known. It's not home to me.
But I also think the story had the fundamental elements of a great American yarn, a great saga.

Speaker 8 And the money and power aspect of it, the amount of money that he took from people, the amount of money that he brought in in his cases, you know, money, business power is what we care about at the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 8 So that was the reason that the story was captivating to me in the beginning.

Speaker 9 Right. No, I mean, that definitely makes sense to me.
So, um, but what is it? What is it about it for you that that caught your you know what?

Speaker 9 At first, at first I wasn't interested because I was like, okay, like,

Speaker 9 he killed his family members, but I, we, I listen to morbid podcasts, I listen to crime junkies, so I hear them every day.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Once my co-host was like, no, we really need to do a deep dive, I was like, all right, I'll watch the stuff, right? And I started watching them, and it was just the lies and the manipulation.

Speaker 9 And I think the money was really what I've always wanted to go to law school. And so I was like, wait, a lawyer did this?

Speaker 8 A lawyer did this.

Speaker 9 And then it was generations of attorneys. Right.
And so I was like, wait a minute, how does this one family have such power? And how long was the corruption going on prior to him specifically?

Speaker 8 Well, that's, I mean, that's the core issue is that it was going on a really long time.

Speaker 8 As you were talking about that, you know, how can a lawyer do this? How can a lawyer steal from their clients?

Speaker 8 They're an agent of the court. There was a case involving his grandfather in the 1950s.
His grandfather was the biggest bootlegger in the South in the 1950s.

Speaker 8 And he was charged by the Justice Department. And they brought a big lawsuit and big felony charges against him and he was on trial.
And

Speaker 8 there was a witness on the witness stand, and she said, it's bad enough for my husband to be a bootlegger. But for a lawyer to do it, you know, I just,

Speaker 8 how could he do that? How could he break the law on a knowing basis every day?

Speaker 9 So I wonder how the legacy continued after that one, after that case in the 1950s.

Speaker 8 Well, I think, you know,

Speaker 8 the family started the law firm in 1910, and then Randolph Murdoch Sr., Alex's great-grandfather, became the prosecutor or the solicitor for five counties in 1920. And then his son took, when he died

Speaker 8 under mysterious circumstances, his son took over it in 1940. And if you think about it, he took over in 1940, and he was, his, Alec's grandfather was the prosecutor until 1986.

Speaker 8 That's Roosevelt to Reagan. That is generational power.
And once he was acquitted in that bootlegging scandal,

Speaker 8 almost all the other co-defendants, two dozen of them, were convicted, but he walked free. After that, nobody ever challenged the family, really to speak of, until 2019 with the boat wreck.

Speaker 9 Do you think because of that case was why nobody else ever questioned the family?

Speaker 8 A big one. There were three crises in those years that I write about in the book that were challenges to the family.
First,

Speaker 8 Buster Murdoch, Alec's great-grandfather or grandfather, was accused of stealing from his clients. And nobody, it was hard for them to even find a lawyer that would take their case.
Finally, they did.

Speaker 8 And the state bar held a closed-door investigation for weeks and weeks, interviewed 70 people. And eventually they couldn't, they didn't disbar him.
So that was one challenge.

Speaker 8 And a couple years later, the IRS came at his grandfather and said, you know,

Speaker 8 what taxes are you paying? And because he had no books at all, no bookkeeping to speak of, he had the envelopes with numbers written on the back. It took them five years to audit the grandfather.

Speaker 8 And by that time, guess what? Statute of limitations was off.

Speaker 8 And then the third challenge was the bootlegging.

Speaker 8 So after there were these three challenges to the family in succession in the 1940s and 50s, no one ever ran against them as prosecutors, and no one really ever challenged them.

Speaker 9 What is, do you think that was because they didn't think they stood a chance?

Speaker 8 Well, I think the Murdochs, I mean,

Speaker 8 law enforcement down there, it was known as the Murdoch Mafia. They controlled law enforcement, right?

Speaker 8 Because in that area for 100 years, if you wanted to be a sheriff's deputy, if you wanted to run for sheriff, you wanted to be a judge, you had to have the Murdoch's blessing because they were the political bosses

Speaker 8 that really had the say-so and the power in that part of the world. It's hard to imagine, but it's a very rural area, very poor area.
And

Speaker 8 there are multiple affidavits that are signed by Elek's father, Randolph Murdoch III, where he swears he knows every juror by name in his county, every single one. Can you imagine?

Speaker 9 No, I can't imagine.

Speaker 8 Yeah. There's 20,000 people.
So

Speaker 8 it's not that big of a pool, but the family has been

Speaker 8 doing a lot of favors for a lot of years

Speaker 8 for a lot of people.

Speaker 9 That is so interesting. This is our, when I told my book club that we were doing, that I was interviewing you

Speaker 9 about this book, they wanted this to be the book club pick of the month. So I just wanted to let you know that we're very excited.
Oh, terrific.

Speaker 8 I'll zoom in.

Speaker 9 Oh, my gosh, that would be amazing. They would love that.
We would all love that.

Speaker 8 How do you? I'm honored.

Speaker 8 I really am. I mean, it's a case that has,

Speaker 8 it's the story of a lifetime, I think. And we, and so many people were captivated by it that it's a real privilege to have some distance.

Speaker 8 It's been 18 months since the verdict to remind people, okay, this is the story from beginning, middle, to end. Right.

Speaker 8 So you were captivated for these reasons, but here is the setting where it took place. Here's the history.
And the reason that Elek thought he could get away with it is that, guess what?

Speaker 8 There's insurance fraud in his family. There were thefts from clients in his family.
There was violence with women in his family, you know, overtures of that. So,

Speaker 8 yeah.

Speaker 8 There was a lot to say.

Speaker 9 There was a lot to say. I'm actually glad to have it here in one place too, because there's so many documentaries and different shows or articles that can be written from different perspectives.

Speaker 9 And so it's nice to have all of it from start to finish in one book.

Speaker 8 And I tried to, thank you for saying that and I tried to put a map in there where so people could visualize how close everything is and then also along you know the major characters a list of that and then photos so you can get a sense for what these men look like.

Speaker 9 I didn't realize that

Speaker 9 are we calling him Elek? Elek I didn't realize he was six foot four. Six four.

Speaker 8 And at his at the night of June 7th 2021 the night of the homicides he was 265. He was an imposing tall man a big man and he used, you know,

Speaker 8 and a lot of aging athletes do this, but he used his physical size to kind of tower over people and intimidate people.

Speaker 9 Absolutely. And I would be intimidated.
I'm pretty tall for a woman, but I would be intimidated.

Speaker 8 But I think that,

Speaker 8 to your point, I kind of wrote the book for two people in mind. The person like you, who knew every beat of the case, who could tell you the names of the dogs.

Speaker 8 Okay, there was Tappy Toes, there was Rogan. I mean, there was Cash, there was blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 8 But then also the person that didn't know anything, the person that didn't follow at all and was aware of it in the background, maybe knew about the murders of Maggie and Paul.

Speaker 8 But I wanted to explain why the story matters. You know, what it tells us about, you know, the South ourselves.

Speaker 9 Well, the South, I think, and also just

Speaker 9 how maybe naive some of us are.

Speaker 9 I would never have, when I think of people that have money within their family or generations of wealth in their family, I don't immediately think that they're corrupt.

Speaker 8 And many times they're not. But you know what's funny? I did some studies.

Speaker 8 I looked into the nature of dynastic power, the nature of dynasties. And if you think about it, any dynasty you can imagine breaks down on the fourth or fifth generation.

Speaker 8 Oftentimes it can be, in China, it can be like an outside source, like famine or war. But many, many times, even in great American families like the Ford family or

Speaker 8 the DuPonts.

Speaker 8 It breaks down because there is, and in the case of Elec Murdoch, there was a moral rot at his core. And he had never been held accountable for anything his entire life.

Speaker 8 And that just, it kind of, the rot was coming from inside the house.

Speaker 9 So you didn't think he was born sinister?

Speaker 8 You know,

Speaker 8 there's a story that one of his former partners tells. He's like, you know, I think he was still in money in the lunch line as a kid.

Speaker 8 You know, he just was a person that was, there was always a duality there.

Speaker 8 There was the,

Speaker 8 you know, put six foot four, throws his arm around you, he's your friend. But he could turn on a a dime.
He was nice until he was not. I had so many people tell me that.

Speaker 9 And that's scary because you don't truly ever know that person.

Speaker 8 Well, I think, you know, I think that's true. And I think he was a mirage.
He was an unknowable person. And Judge Clifton Newman said that.

Speaker 8 He's like, I don't think, you know, I don't think you know yourself. I think

Speaker 8 you don't have any clue who you are. You're hollow inside.

Speaker 9 I would agree with that.

Speaker 9 How was it for you going from writing articles and publications in the Wall Street Journal to writing a full book? What was that like?

Speaker 8 What was the difference?

Speaker 8 You should ask my husband.

Speaker 8 There were many times when it was,

Speaker 8 I'm joking, but there were many times when I wanted to curl up underneath my desk. It's hard.

Speaker 8 And I read books. I love books, but I did not really know how to

Speaker 8 string a chapter together and then one and then the next. But

Speaker 8 it's the same basic skills. And you'll see in the endnotes, I think there's maybe 30 pages of endnotes.
It's reporting, right?

Speaker 8 The basis of the book is

Speaker 8 reported. I don't have any dialogue in there that's invented.

Speaker 8 So the reporting part of it was in my DNA after all these many years of doing this.

Speaker 8 And then in the end, you know, writing the story,

Speaker 8 it was hard, but I loved it. I'd love to do it again.
You would? Yeah.

Speaker 9 I loved it. About this case specifically or about another case?

Speaker 8 I think there's definitely more to say about this family. It's like Yellowstone, right? I think people were captivated with Yellowstone because we saw the underpinnings of how we got here.
Right.

Speaker 8 But I just,

Speaker 8 as a consumer of books, it was a thrill to write it. It was a privilege to write it and to get to tell so many stories of victims that had not been really fully known.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 So yeah, I'd love to do it again someday.

Speaker 9 That's it. That's incredible.

Speaker 8 Don't tell my husband I said that because he'll be like, I didn't see you. I told him it was funny.

Speaker 8 I worked on it for three years and

Speaker 8 I made a spreadsheet. I hired a fact checker to check all my facts.
And I made a list of every day I spent in South Carolina.

Speaker 8 And I went downstairs and I told him from my office, I was like, you know, I spent 131 days in South Carolina, so four months. He said, you know, I would have said six.

Speaker 8 So it was, but I have, I'm a, I'm a mom as well. And so my kids were very supportive, and he was very supportive.
So it was a family project, like anything.

Speaker 9 That's so nice to have, though, like knowing that you have your family support and you're doing this. It's, it's, that's incredible that you had a family support.

Speaker 8 And I now they just need to read it. My kids are 14 and 16 and my daughter's reading the book.
And it was recently reviewed by Booklist. And they said really nice things.

Speaker 8 And at the end, they said, this is great for YA readers. It would be a great introduction to the true crime genre.
And I printed it out and gave it to my son. I was like, Look, this is

Speaker 8 like, I'll listen to it on audio, mom. That's so funny.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I am trying to get my older son into reading, and so he's more audio. Yeah, you know, he's going into.

Speaker 8 And I think a lot of kids are.

Speaker 9 A lot of times, too. Well, he's going into high school.
He's like, Mom, I don't want to sit down and read a book, but I'll listen to it.

Speaker 8 Mine's starting ninth grade next week. Yeah, mine too.
Oh, that's so interesting.

Speaker 9 Yeah, so we were becoming, that's my oldest son. So that's so funny.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I'm... What case would you write next?

Speaker 8 I really don't know. I have no.

Speaker 9 Are you following the Lacey and Scott Peterson?

Speaker 8 Oh, always. I mean, I think, but I think one of the things about true crime, I was really fascinated to kind of understand

Speaker 8 why do we follow true crime? What is it about it? And I think...

Speaker 8 I actually did some research on this. Like, if you go back even to the Bible, the first murder story is Cain and Abel, right? I mean, that's the first one.

Speaker 8 And then we had these murder ballads that came over when there was immigration from Europe. People were singing songs about murder ballads.

Speaker 8 I think we've always been interested in, you know, Agatha Christie, who did it, all those things. There's a reason Law and Order is so popular.

Speaker 8 So I think that there's something in us that likes to know the depths of human depravity to be aware of it. But I think also, you know,

Speaker 8 there was an interview with the guy that is a showrunner for Law and Order SVU about this case right around the time of the verdict.

Speaker 8 And he said, you know, part of their magic is they explain the procedure, like what happens from the investigation to the law, you know, to the legal case, and in the end, he's like, so this was also a procedural we could follow, and in the end, because he was convicted, and there was a sense that this dynasty was put an end to, which was not a foregone conclusion.

Speaker 8 I thought he was not going to be convicted.

Speaker 8 There was a sense of a just world, like our faith in the system is restored. And so I think all those elements were at play with this.

Speaker 9 That's really interesting that you brought up like plays and ballads and songs, because when I was just talking to Jodi Pico, her book by any other name talks about

Speaker 9 playwrights. And even in the 1500s, they were writing about

Speaker 8 murders and things like that. Oh, for sure.
I mean, it is the most, it's the ultimate taboo.

Speaker 8 We are not meant to kill one another. And I think there's something about it that's inherently fascinating, particularly a child, your own child.

Speaker 9 Your own child.

Speaker 8 Your own child at close range.

Speaker 9 I was talking to the crew earlier, either yesterday or today, and I was saying how

Speaker 9 when you really think about our fascination with true crime, it's

Speaker 9 the true crime shows and podcasts and stuff that we listen to and the books that we read is entertainment to us, but it's a tragedy and a true devastation to the people that it affects.

Speaker 9 So that's so interesting that we,

Speaker 9 I don't think it'll ever end. We'll never not be fascinated by death and murder and truly what you said,

Speaker 9 how can someone

Speaker 9 do something like that to someone else? It's so...

Speaker 8 But you know,

Speaker 8 it is really, I went to CrimeCon as a part of the research for this book because, and I had never been, but Dick Harputlian, Alex lawyer, was going, Jim Griffin was going, and Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor.

Speaker 8 So I went to

Speaker 8 see them and then also to talk with people like, what is it to answer this question? What is it about true crime?

Speaker 8 And I was fascinated. Everyone I spoke to gave some version of, it makes me, because it was during the pandemic at this time, and it gives some sense of control.

Speaker 8 If I know what can happen, maybe I can protect myself or some control over your environment as well, I think, plays an element in it.

Speaker 8 And then also, many, many, many people that were there were there in support of victims. It was interesting.

Speaker 8 I went to hear Creighton Waters, and he had three times the number of people at his event as Dick Harputli and Jim Griffin did for theirs.

Speaker 8 I think people really wanted to see justice prevail and justice for Maggie and Paul. Wow.
That is so interesting. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 You said that you thought that Alec.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 Dickar Putin said to me, and he's like, I asked him, I was like, does it bother you? Because he got catcalled at one point.

Speaker 8 And he yelled back. He's like, I think you should read the Constitution.
And, you know, Alec Murdoch has a right to a defense.

Speaker 8 Every defendant does. I said, does it bother you that people were not responsive or not particularly responsive to what you had to say? And he goes, I knew I was here to play the villain.

Speaker 8 That's why I was here.

Speaker 9 And I think once you realize that you are going to be the villain in some stories, you just,

Speaker 9 it flips a switch almost. But that's really interesting.

Speaker 8 But it is an article of faith for Dick. I've known him many years because he was in public life when I lived in South Carolina.
So I've known him for 24 years.

Speaker 8 And it's an article of faith with him that every defendant deserves the very best defense possible.

Speaker 9 And do you believe that for Alex as well?

Speaker 8 I think that's part of that. I mean, I think that's part of the reason that the justice system,

Speaker 8 even though it has many, many, many problems, which would be a whole other episode.

Speaker 8 I mean, but yeah, he deserved the defense. And we're going through the process now of appeals about whether he got a fair trial.
And he's saying he did not. And every defendant deserves a fair trial.

Speaker 9 You were in the courtroom every day.

Speaker 8 Every day.

Speaker 9 Do you feel like he got a fair trial?

Speaker 8 You know, I was in the courtroom every day.

Speaker 8 And when we were talking about stories, I was thinking in my mind when you mentioned playwrights, it was like watching a play with, you know, life and death stakes, right? right?

Speaker 8 You've got kind of your jury over here to the left, they're as close to me as

Speaker 8 Elliot Murdoch was. The jury was right next to him.
They could reach out and touch him from the jury box.

Speaker 8 And then you had the, you know, the lawyers arguing their case, all these witnesses. It was very theatrical to watch.
But

Speaker 8 I watched the jury every day. That was a privilege of being in the courtroom, is to see how things were landing on their faces or with their body language.

Speaker 8 I personally did not see evidence that he did not get a fair trial. I think Judge Newman went over, bent over backwards to try and make sure his rulings were ironclad, but

Speaker 8 it'll be up to the Supreme Court and the appellate courts to sort it out.

Speaker 9 When you were inside the courtroom and you were in

Speaker 9 Elec Burdau's presence, did you get an eerie feeling around him?

Speaker 8 You know, it's funny.

Speaker 8 I'm remembering this one moment.

Speaker 8 Everyone was aware that this was, that the eyes of the world were on this case. Even Alec himself said, you know, I want everyone within the sound of my voice to hear this.

Speaker 8 He knew he was being broadcast across the world. So at the breaks, there would be a lot of activity in the room.

Speaker 8 It's a small room, the 200 people, and 100 of them are there every day, the lawyers, the prosecutors, the jury, the press corps. And there was all this buzzing about.

Speaker 8 The audience was buzzing about going to get water, going to the bathroom. and there was all this activity where Creighton Waters and Dick Harpuli were hashing something out.

Speaker 8 And Elliot was sitting at the defense table, still, as you can imagine, like the eye of a hurricane, like the center of a maelstrom. And I was like, you know, there's a part of it,

Speaker 8 he set off all this chaos. So yeah, I definitely had,

Speaker 8 it was eerie to be in his presence, knowing that he was the source of all this insanity.

Speaker 9 Do you think he realized that sitting there? Like, do you think that he realized he was fully aware?

Speaker 9 Because I feel like he almost lived in a state of delusion from what I got on TV, like on the docuseries and things. Like, he really just didn't think it was as big of a deal as it was, as it is.

Speaker 8 Well, even on the jail calls, right? We heard him say to Buster, his son Buster, who was in Las Vegas with his uncle on a trip, and people were taking cell phone videos of him. Yeah.
And

Speaker 8 Alex's like, well,

Speaker 8 why would they take pictures of you? And he goes, well, I guess I'm a public figure now, Dad. He didn't really sink in early on that it was the center of the world.

Speaker 8 I think certainly by the time of the trial, he knew that he had

Speaker 8 the audience there.

Speaker 8 There was this wild moment. I went down in the summer of 2022 when he was finally charged.
June 7th, 2021 was homicide. And then July of 2022, he was charged.

Speaker 8 And he could have waived this procedural moment where you have the charges read against you.

Speaker 8 right he didn't waive it they he he he asked to be brought down to have creight and waters read the charges against him he dressed in street clothes it was the creation of a moment so people could hear him say to the world not guilty and that plea so i think he was very aware at least by 2022 how enormous this story had become That's so interesting.

Speaker 8 And you know, I was down there in August of 21, right after the homicides, and I didn't put it together until later, but,

Speaker 8 People Magazine has done multiple covers on this. And I bought a copy of the People Magazine at the Walgreens in Walterboro just so I could read it and see what they were reporting.

Speaker 8 And it was that same day that Ellic was into the third interview with David Owen, where he is confronted: Did you kill Maggie? Did you kill Paul?

Speaker 8 That same day, the Walgreens was a, you could throw a rock and hit the building where they were having that conversation. Oh, wow.
So even at that moment, you know,

Speaker 8 it was a major national story.

Speaker 9 So you found out about the case before it hit headlines, but how long was it before it actually hit headlines?

Speaker 8 It was

Speaker 8 fairly soon. I think within a week, Good Morning America was sitting down with Randy and John Marvin, Alex Brothers.
So I think fairly soon, all the elements of a major story were breaking out.

Speaker 8 It happened in a remote location. It was a wife and a son that were brutally murdered, and there were no suspects.
I think that was part of it, too. And it was this prominent family.

Speaker 8 So all of those elements were in play fairly early on.

Speaker 9 I just recently watched the Netflix special on Lacey Peterson and on I believe it was the episode three they were you know the narrator or whoever was speaking was saying that they really thought that you know Scott Peterson thought that he was gonna there was gonna be this

Speaker 9 news that his wife was missing and then it was gonna kind of go away and he would pick up and go about his life

Speaker 9 as if he was never married to Lacey Peterson in the first place. Do you feel like that's sort of what Alec Murdoch,

Speaker 8 how are we pronouncing his name?

Speaker 9 I don't know what feels natural. Nothing feels natural.
Alex, do you feel like Alex also felt that way that he was going to get away with this and go on about his life?

Speaker 8 And there's a part of me that has always wondered, you know, Mozell is enormous. I was there.

Speaker 8 I had the opportunity to go out with the jury as the print reporter. It's 1,700 acres.
So we're sitting here in New York. It's twice the size of Central Park.

Speaker 8 It's enormous.

Speaker 8 And a very small part of it is across the county line from Hampton and Colleton. That's where the kennels are.

Speaker 8 So all that is to say, the homicides took place in Colleton County, the Colleton side of the line. So you'll remember the 911 call went to Hampton and they transferred it.

Speaker 8 Elliot testified he's very, very close friends with the Hampton sheriff. There's always been a part of me that maybe wonders if he didn't realize where he was.

Speaker 8 I think there's whether he, I wonder whether he thought he was in Hampton County. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 I don't think I realized that there were two different counties.

Speaker 8 That's why the trial was in Walterboro, which is a community that's

Speaker 8 30 minutes away from Hampton, because it occurred in Colleton County.

Speaker 9 I think I might have overlooked that because

Speaker 9 I wasn't familiar with the

Speaker 8 line, the counties. No,

Speaker 8 I remember looking at the plat, the maps, and I was like,

Speaker 8 a very small amount of Mozell is in Colleton County. And you can see how close

Speaker 8 Stephen Smith's, where the body of Stephen Smith, the young man who was in the road, everything's right there together.

Speaker 9 So where is

Speaker 9 the county that he...

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 Mozell is right here.

Speaker 8 And so that's Hampton. Most of it's on this side of Hampton County.
And then a tiny amount, the kennels are right on the other side of Colleton County. You can see how close together.

Speaker 8 I wanted to put the map in there so people could see how close everything is.

Speaker 8 Stephen Smith's body was found in a road not far from where Mozell is located, and actually a road that was paved in part because of Ellick's great-grandfather. He gave the money to pave it.

Speaker 8 And then,

Speaker 8 and similarly, you know,

Speaker 8 the place where Elli tried to commit suicide.

Speaker 8 tried to fake his own death is very close. So I put the map in there so people can see.
This is a very big area, but the area where so much of the action in the story took place is very compact.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 9 So the site of the death on the X

Speaker 9 where it says Gloria Satterfield, Paul Murdaugh, and Maggie Murdaugh is just over the line.

Speaker 9 And so.

Speaker 8 And Gloria actually, the house itself, if I'm remembering correctly, was in Hampton County. So it's the kennels and the big hanger shed that's in Colleton.

Speaker 9 I think that you're spot on with your theory that he forgot where he was at.

Speaker 9 I definitely think that he thought that it was going to go to the other county.

Speaker 8 And it did at first.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 9 So that's, I definitely think Book Club and other listeners of this podcast are going to are going to really

Speaker 9 think a little bit more about that. Because I definitely overlooked that for sure.
I wasn't even,

Speaker 9 you know what I mean? When you learn about the case, it just seems like

Speaker 8 I sat through jury selection. Jury selection was one of the things I wanted to watch most closely.

Speaker 8 just to get a sense. And almost, I mean, there's

Speaker 8 Colleton County where the trial took place is also very small. But people were standing up and saying, well, I'm Mallory Beach's first cousin.
That was not enough to get excused from jury duty.

Speaker 8 Oh, my brother was the third deputy on the scene that night and tested Alex hands for gunshot residue. That was not enough to get excused because everyone,

Speaker 8 it's no overstatement.

Speaker 8 I couldn't believe it myself. Everyone has some connection to the Murdoch family in that community, every single person.

Speaker 9 So what is the alternative there?

Speaker 9 Would they seek out jurors from other counties?

Speaker 8 I've asked Dick Carputli and that, and Jim Griffin,

Speaker 8 whether they would, if they get a retrial, whether they would try to get a different venue in another part of the state. And they said they would.
It's very difficult legally in South Carolina.

Speaker 8 The laws are pretty...

Speaker 8 restrictive about where a trial needs to take place.

Speaker 8 But they've said if they get a retrial, they definitely want to move the venue to somewhere where, you know, Elec Murdoch is a household name in most households in America these days.

Speaker 8 But he would want to get to a place where you didn't necessarily go to high school or to the prom with Elec Murdoch.

Speaker 9 Right. So you can know about the case, but not be affiliated with the case.
Right. So they're a little bit different.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

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Speaker 9 Do you feel like...

Speaker 8 And to be fair, I think the Murdoch also, you know, I can't tell you the number of people who've told me.

Speaker 8 Well, I I had a fender bender when I was in high school, and I ran into, you know, Alex's father, who was the prosecutor at the time, and also had this big civil law firm.

Speaker 8 And he said, I heard about your fender bender. Are you having a problem with the insurance? Can I write a letter for you? There won't be any charge.

Speaker 8 So many people have, they have the lowest DUI, for many years, had the lowest DUI conviction rate in the state by a lot, because DUIs would go away as a favor to people.

Speaker 9 But what were the favors for? Obviously, he would want something in return.

Speaker 8 Something in return.

Speaker 8 And if you think about the big personal injury law firm,

Speaker 8 you're going to be in a jury

Speaker 8 one day. Okay.
And there's a reason that, you know, Jim McCulloch, one of the attorney for Connor Cook, tries a lot of cases.

Speaker 8 And he says, you know, $100,000 case in Columbia is a million dollar case in Hampton because the jury awards and civil cases are very outsized. For that reason.

Speaker 9 I just never would have, I mean, he knew what he was doing by, I mean, all of the Murdochs or their legacy, their generational,

Speaker 9 just all of the people in the family, they knew what they were doing by doing those small favors because they would go a long way. And it was very calculated.

Speaker 8 Well, I think, and, you know, Buster Murdoch, who I mentioned, the bootlegger,

Speaker 8 he was the head of the prosecution office for 46 years. He went to, you know, he sent presents for every bride.
He sent cards to every graduate. He showed up at every funeral.

Speaker 8 And people used to tease him like he was there to put, you know, a card in the corpse's hand.

Speaker 9 That's exactly what he was doing. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 Do you feel like not Buster, the grandfather, but young Alex's son, yeah, young Buster, do you feel like he should be investigated further for his

Speaker 8 Buster Murdoch has been adamant and very clear that he had nothing to do with Stephen Smith's death.

Speaker 8 I discovered no evidence that he did or anyone in the family really had anything to do with his death. There's no evidence to support that.

Speaker 8 I think Stephen Smith is one of the open questions that we don't know the answer to. Who did kill that young man?

Speaker 8 Leave him in the middle of the road.

Speaker 8 But I've seen no evidence that Buster had anything to do with it. And to the contrary, he's actually suing some of the documentary makers for insinuating that he was.

Speaker 9 I personally never had feelings that he had anything to do with it. I think that it's possible that

Speaker 9 any insinuated relationship or friendship could have

Speaker 9 maybe provoked someone else to want to do it, but I don't necessarily think that he had any involvement. Do you think that he has more knowledge?

Speaker 9 Do you think that he had more awareness of what his dad was going to do to his mom and brother?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I do not know. I don't know.
I think it was very poignant to sit there because I sat behind the prosecution.

Speaker 8 There were two rows of media that were there that we had designated seats. I sat behind the prosecution.
And there was no one,

Speaker 8 you know, the murderocs were simultaneously the people that were closest to the defendant and to the victims.

Speaker 8 So there was no one sitting on Maggie and Paul's side behind the prosecution the whole time. You know,

Speaker 8 it was very poignant. So I think that Buster was in a very difficult position.
Everyone I've spoken to about Maggie says Maggie and Buster were very, very, very close.

Speaker 8 I think he endured something unimaginable.

Speaker 8 I can't imagine. I can't imagine it.

Speaker 8 He is living in Bluffton, which is close to Hampton and close to Colleton.

Speaker 8 He's staying in that part of the world and trying to move on with his life, but I think it's quite difficult.

Speaker 9 I could not imagine staying somewhere where all of this tragedy,

Speaker 9 I mean, that's pretty close to where it took place, right? Very close.

Speaker 8 Very close to where Mallory Beach was killed in Beaufort.

Speaker 8 But, you know, Dick Harbutlian said this at Elliot's first bond hearing. He was asking for,

Speaker 8 it's just a personal recognizance bond. He's like, where is he going to go? He's lived in Hampton his whole life.

Speaker 8 His family's there. His history's there.
And I think there's an element of that with Buster as well. He's from South Carolina.
He went to school in South Carolina.

Speaker 8 His fiancé is a lawyer in South Carolina. Where would he go?

Speaker 9 That's got to be, I mean, he's between a rock and a hard place. I can't imagine what that would be like.

Speaker 8 Yeah,

Speaker 8 I have sympathy for Buster quite a bit.

Speaker 9 Do you think that it's possible that Buster could rebuild the family legacy in a new way?

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 8 Buster was in law school, and then he was expelled from law school after one semester for plagiarism. So

Speaker 8 that was a major blow because he was the person that would have carried on the legacy as a lawyer.

Speaker 8 And he tried to get back into law school. Actually, his dad paid a fixer $60,000 to get him re-enrolled.
Oh, this was before the murders. Before the murders.

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 8 he was supposed to go back to

Speaker 8 law school in the months after the murders, but there was too much scrutiny. He didn't go.

Speaker 9 So, what can he do now? Do you know?

Speaker 8 I don't know. No.

Speaker 9 No. I mean,

Speaker 8 it's hard. I mean,

Speaker 8 it's hard with that name and that hair. I mean, he's 6'2 ⁇ .
He's almost as tall as his dad.

Speaker 8 He's a physically

Speaker 8 recognizable person. He can't go to Costco without, he was buying hot dogs and hamburgers for a holiday at Costco, and people were taking his picture.
So I think it's quite... Difficult.

Speaker 8 Quite difficult. And

Speaker 9 I just can't, going back to what you were saying about in the courtroom, that nobody was on Paul and Maggie's side.

Speaker 9 What about Maggie's family?

Speaker 8 They were not a presence in the courtroom except for the day that her sister, Marian Proctor, testified. Marion and her husband, Bart, came into the courtroom one day when she took the stand.

Speaker 8 Why do you think that is?

Speaker 8 You know, I think the family, they're in a really,

Speaker 8 they're in a really difficult position. Her parents are also

Speaker 8 not in the greatest of health. And I think just can you imagine being at the center of that much attention? No.

Speaker 8 There were, you know, in the mornings when when Buster and his and his fiancée would get out of the car, there was a camera trailing them every step of the way as they went into the courtroom.

Speaker 8 I think it was just just so much scrutiny. And then also it's very, from my understanding, it's very hard for them to accept, you know, maybe it's

Speaker 8 the evidence is there and Elliot has pled guilty to all of the financials that the state charged him with, all of the predator kick crimes to the murders.

Speaker 8 I think that it's one thing for Maggie's family to acknowledge that, but to think the next step that he might have actually killed his wife and son to cover those up is unimaginable to them.

Speaker 9 Do you think that it was also calculated for him to plead guilty to all of the financial crimes and also stay not guilty with the murders?

Speaker 8 You know, I think

Speaker 8 the guilty plea and the financial crimes, the state wanted that because it was an insurance policy. Say there is an appeal, appeal, a successful appeal of the homicides.

Speaker 8 That plea

Speaker 8 makes all of the,

Speaker 8 Ellick will never get out of jail. He's going to be in, he pled guilty to all of these crimes.
He's going to do 27 years, the majority of 27 years in state prison.

Speaker 8 So the state wanted it for that reason. I think for Ellick,

Speaker 8 there were many reasons to avoid going through all those different trials as well, or reasons he pled guilty to it. The not guilty plea,

Speaker 8 I think Judge Newman is right. I think when he said, you know, it may not have been you that killed them.
It may have been the monster you become. And

Speaker 8 there is a world in which he doesn't acknowledge even to himself that he killed his wife and son. But I think, you know, a jury certainly found enough evidence that he did.
Definitely.

Speaker 9 Has any of this case or writing this book specifically made you want to pursue law?

Speaker 8 It's funny that you asked that because you were saying that you wanted to be a lawyer at one point.

Speaker 8 You know, I did a legal internship when I was in college, and I thought, oh, maybe I'll do that. And

Speaker 8 I didn't have the,

Speaker 8 I love telling stories. Yeah.
And so, and I love talking to people. I love your line of work.
So

Speaker 8 this was the right job for me. I've been doing it 29 years.

Speaker 9 Yeah, no. I mean, you do a great job.
Fantastic. The book is fantastic.
I cannot wait for us to just...

Speaker 9 dive into it on book club and have we would love to have you on um well thank you for reading it it's a real it's a real honor to me because um it's an an important story.

Speaker 8 I think

Speaker 8 it's a thrilling, I mean, it's a crazy story. It's interesting, but it's also important.
I mean, it tells us a lot about the way the world still works in certain places.

Speaker 9 Well, it needs to stop working like that in certain places. It's something that I don't think will end, but I mean, this should definitely open people's eyes to what's going on, I think.

Speaker 8 And the advantage that people can take of

Speaker 8 the least of these, I mean, motherless girls, a paraplegic teenager. I mean, he,

Speaker 8 it's unthinkable the moral and emotional violence that he committed against these people.

Speaker 9 For people who have not read this yet or haven't even watched maybe any of the docuseries on this case, can we talk about the girl? It was the girl that was quadriplegic, right?

Speaker 8 It was the boy, Hakeem Pinckney.

Speaker 9 Yes, can we talk about that? Sure. So what was it that Alex Murdoch did?

Speaker 8 with that case? Well, Hakeem Pinckney was a young man who was 19 years old and he was in a terrible car crash. His mother was driving.
And

Speaker 8 in that part of the world, I-95 is a real thoroughfare through Hampton County. And they were running errands on I-95 in the summer when the asphalt gets very hot.

Speaker 8 And I think you'll remember, and your readers will remember, the Explorer, Ford Explorer rollovers.

Speaker 8 They were in an SUV and the tire exploded. And he was thrown from the vehicle.
He landed on his head and was rendered paraplegic.

Speaker 8 And he was already, he was deaf from a little boy, but he was then a paraplegic. And because he was a young man in relatively good health, he was a star football player at the School for the Deaf,

Speaker 8 his life was worth quite a bit in terms of personal injury law,

Speaker 8 which really is the only way, they call it blood money, but it's really the only way to approximate making people whole.

Speaker 8 So, as a 19-year-old, otherwise healthy person, the likelihood is he was going to live a long time in a nursing home. And so, the settlement in his case was

Speaker 8 $10 million, roughly. And Elliot took 40% of that as his fee, $4 million straight.
But because Hakeem died,

Speaker 8 he tragically died, he suffocated in a nursing home. Before the settlement was signed,

Speaker 8 his life would be worth a lot less. The insurance company would be on

Speaker 8 the hook for less money. Elek backdated the paperwork.

Speaker 8 He arranged for the paperwork to be backdated. And then

Speaker 8 he took his money.

Speaker 8 and I interviewed his mother many times. We spent a lot of time together.
You know, she trusted him so much because

Speaker 8 he was the man in their community. She hired him to

Speaker 8 sue the nursing home where her son died.

Speaker 9 So not only did he take the money, but she also hired him to do other things.

Speaker 8 Hired him again. Yeah.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 he sold from another young woman who was in the car, the cousin, Huckington's cousin. He just.

Speaker 8 It's hard to imagine the toll it must take on your morality over a decade to commit that type of crime.

Speaker 9 And he must have learned it from somewhere, right? Like, you don't just

Speaker 9 that had to have been going on in his family for a while.

Speaker 8 Well, you know,

Speaker 8 I talked to a lawyer who represented him on an open container charge, you know, because if you look at Alex's record, he gets pulled over many, many, many times. He's got a lead foot.

Speaker 8 He drives like a, like, he drives fast. He talks about that.

Speaker 8 He got pulled over many, many times and never ticketed or convicted of any, even speeding. It would always be like, oh, a seatbelt violation.

Speaker 8 But one of them was an open container where a Highway Patrol trooper dared to ticket him for having an open container of alcohol in the car.

Speaker 8 The ticket, of course, went away, and the trooper was transferred. Nobody challenged a Murdoch in that part of the world.
And Elliot knew that he'd grown up with that. Right.

Speaker 9 What other cases, for anyone who, like I said, hasn't read or hasn't followed the case closely, what other examples are there for

Speaker 9 what type of person and behaviors Elliot was exhibiting? So he essentially

Speaker 9 robbed, you know, Hakeem.

Speaker 8 If you think about, I think the Satterfield case is a terrific example. Gloria Satterfield was the housekeeper in their home for 20 years.
Paul considered her a second mother, Paul Murdoch.

Speaker 8 And when she died, she fell down the steps. Elek follows the ambulance to the hospital.
He's so trusted by her and by the family, he takes her purse home because she's airlifted to another hospital.

Speaker 8 That's how tight those families were. And almost immediately he goes to work arranging the wheels start turning.
His housekeeper falls down the steps. It's desperately injured.

Speaker 8 The wheels start turning away so he can take advantage of it that fast. So I think that tells you

Speaker 8 the type of thought process we're dealing with here.

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Speaker 9 So, there was on one of the documentaries or docu series that I watched

Speaker 9 the theory that he actually killed her.

Speaker 8 There certainly was

Speaker 8 a long-running suspicion and question about what happened to her. Was she pushed down the steps? Did she trip over the dogs, like

Speaker 8 Alex said?

Speaker 8 There was a long investigation by the insurance agency who found no evidence that anybody pushed her, but they also found, you know, they also settled the case because they knew they wouldn't go up against Elek Murdoch.

Speaker 8 I've talked with her family. I think, you know, she had, she was 57 and she had a number of pretty serious health issues.

Speaker 8 A lot of, very common in the South to have diabetes and other health challenges.

Speaker 8 And she had had some sort of fainting or seizure earlier in the week. So I think that the family feels

Speaker 8 somewhat confident that she had some sort of health-related issue. Okay.

Speaker 8 But there certainly was a theory for a long time that she was pushed by a Murdoch. But I've seen no evidence to support that.

Speaker 9 Okay. Do you believe that Alec Murdoch is capable of remorse for any of these crimes, whether it be

Speaker 9 the Mallory

Speaker 9 the voting incident? I don't want to call it an incident. That doesn't feel like it is.

Speaker 8 It's the first traffic wreck, yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it was a tragedy, really. Yeah.
Devastation. Do you think that he had any remorse from that, the Stephen Smith one,

Speaker 9 or even the murder of his wife and his son?

Speaker 8 Well, you know,

Speaker 8 you watched him on the stand. Did you see him exhibit

Speaker 8 remorse? No.

Speaker 8 And I think Creighton Waters really tried to get him, say, tell me about Natasha Thomas, who was the cousin of Hakeem Pinckney. Tell me about Hakeem Pinckney.

Speaker 8 Tell me about the Plyler girls, these people that you robbed. Just to elicit some sense of real feeling.

Speaker 8 I think he did that for a reason, just to show what Elek

Speaker 8 is capable of saying.

Speaker 8 But he did never, you know, it was interesting. I listened to him closely and I went back through the transcript and I was like, did he say, you know, I'm sorry?

Speaker 8 He said, I regret my actions. I've hurt a lot of people.
You know, I've hurt a lot of people. But I never heard him say, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for what I did. Right.

Speaker 9 Sometimes I think the media or social media, the news can portray a certain image of people, right? But maybe when you're in the same room as them, they don't exhibit those same behaviors

Speaker 9 in person. Do you feel like it was an accurate portrayal of him in the media, like being in the courtroom with him?

Speaker 8 You know, I can remember it was... I tried, I was in the courtroom for every major moment in the case, and I went down in November of 23 for his sentencing in the financials.

Speaker 8 And that's when he stood up.

Speaker 8 It was after the conviction. He had the chance to stand up and say anything he wanted to to the world because it was being broadcast live.

Speaker 8 He stood up and talked for 45 minutes, 45 minutes extemporaneously.

Speaker 8 And I was sitting in the jury box, which is where the media was that day. And it was maybe 30 feet away from me.
And he starts talking about his

Speaker 8 father and the grandfather. And he's like, and the media has made them, they were honorable men.
They lived their life in public service. And the media has them seem like something they're not.

Speaker 8 And I was deep in the book at this point. I knew that was not true.
And I put my pen down, I put my notebook down, I just put my hands on my knees, and I just stared at him.

Speaker 8 I was like, you're saying the media is somehow responsible for smirching your family name?

Speaker 8 It was unreal, you know? So,

Speaker 8 to answer your question, I don't know if he got a fair shake in the media or not. He certainly didn't think he did, but

Speaker 8 it was surreal to be listening to him say something that was so

Speaker 8 wild.

Speaker 9 I mean, to me, it sounds like he got

Speaker 9 a fair depiction portrayal in the media compared to what you're saying. I mean, I certainly didn't look at him and say, wow, like he really is remorseful for anything.

Speaker 9 I mean, not even sorry, really, for the people that he hurt. He's saying he acknowledged it, but he doesn't necessarily care.

Speaker 8 He acknowledged that he hurt a lot of people. Yeah.

Speaker 9 What about, what was, I cannot remember his name now,

Speaker 9 when he

Speaker 9 was going to fake his own death.

Speaker 8 Oh, Curtis Eddie.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 9 Curtis Eddie Smith.

Speaker 9 I'm still a little confused on the relationship there and where the trust between them was built because Eddie

Speaker 9 seemed like a just, you know,

Speaker 9 regular everyday Samaritan.

Speaker 9 Why did he trust Alec the way he did?

Speaker 8 Well, you know, and this is one of

Speaker 8 my favorite parts of researching the book: the things that I found out. I discovered, I remember the day I discovered that they actually were cousins very distantly.
Oh, they were?

Speaker 8 They really were distant cousins. So if you go way back, so Randolph Murdoch Sr.
started the law firm. His father was Josiah Putnam, who was an officer in the Civil War, in the Confederate Army.

Speaker 8 And Curtis Eddie Smith's great-great-grandfather was his his brother, Lazarus Murdoch.

Speaker 8 And Lazarus was killed in the Civil War. I think it was at the Battle of Petersburg.
But anyway,

Speaker 8 the families do go way, way, way back. But there was a lot of trust there.
They'd known each other their whole lives.

Speaker 8 But Eddie

Speaker 8 has been charged with being Elliot's drug dealer. He was his drug dealer for many years,

Speaker 8 selling him pills. And then Ellick, he also did odd jobs for Elliot, and he cashed a lot of checks.
And that summer, didn't he cash like $250,000 worth of checks? It's such a funny funny business.

Speaker 8 I mean, it's a way that you

Speaker 8 get cash. He brought him cash.
So there was trust there. Elliot has called him, as I understand it, a tombstone friend.
Like, they know things about each other that they would take to their graves.

Speaker 8 And Eddie said it, if you remember in the Netflix documentary, he's like, you know,

Speaker 8 don't push me. You know, or words to that effect, I know a lot.
You know, he knows a lot.

Speaker 9 A lot still that he has not come forward about.

Speaker 8 I still don't know that we know exactly what happened on the side of the road.

Speaker 8 We know they struggled for the gun. Was Ellic trying to frame Eddie? Say we struggled for the gun and it went off and Eddie was killed.
Eddie certainly has said he was trying to set me up.

Speaker 8 I think that's a likely possibility that he was trying to frame Eddie and then also say, and you know, he also was involved at Moselle and killed Maggie and Paul.

Speaker 8 It was tied everything up very, very neatly.

Speaker 9 I can't imagine my own flesh and like blaming my own flesh and blood or trying to set them up. I just want, and what was the whole purpose, I guess? Like, what, what is,

Speaker 9 I mean, he pleads not guilty.

Speaker 8 It was changing the subject. He's given us a pattern, right?

Speaker 8 On June 7th of 2021, the walls were closing in.

Speaker 8 Jeannie Sekinger confronted him about the $792,000. His dad was dying at the very end.
And he had the boat wreck hearing coming up on June 10th that was going to unravel his finances.

Speaker 8 So the world was closing in. He calls Maggie and Paul, neither of them planning to come to Moselle.
It's a Monday night in the middle of summer.

Speaker 8 He lures them there and kills them. And it changes the subject.
Mark Tinsley calls the Beach family the next morning and says, I'm sorry to tell you this has happened.

Speaker 8 And that effectively ends our case against Alec Murdoch.

Speaker 9 It changes the subject.

Speaker 8 So he gets confronted the day before by the law firm and he says, you know, just surprise it took you this long, right? And so the next day, what happens?

Speaker 8 He arranges his death on the side of the road to change the subject. It was not

Speaker 8 it he to become you know not just a grieving father and and and husband But somebody's trying to kill him right he's a victim. Right

Speaker 8 there was there's no evidence that he had any insurance at all that that he was trying he said he was trying to commit insurance fraud to get money for Buster so Buster would have money to live on.

Speaker 8 There's no evidence he had any insurance. So why would you why would you try to set up your own death unless you're going to try to change the subject?

Speaker 9 But even before that, what was the purpose of what was the motive to kill his wife and his son?

Speaker 8 To run out the clock.

Speaker 8 So if you look at what happened, that was June 7th, and the hearing was supposed to happen on June 10th in the boat wreck. It gets indefinitely postponed.
It never happens.

Speaker 8 He becomes the center of this massive sympathy.

Speaker 8 They close the law firm for a week. Everyone surrounds him.
He is a grieving father and son. Nobody asks,

Speaker 8 Jeannie Sectinger, the law firm administrator, lets the matter drop of the $792,000 that he had stolen, that she had confronted him about, let it drop all summer. Nobody brought it up.

Speaker 8 And you know what he does? He goes, he borrows more money to pay that money back and make it. And it goes away.
Go away. Yeah.
Goes away.

Speaker 8 So, yeah, so

Speaker 8 he almost got away with it. That summer.

Speaker 8 He pretty effectively did it, but for

Speaker 8 his paralegal, Annette Griswold isn't rifling for something in his office. She knows she's not supposed to be in there.
He doesn't like her in there. She's looking for something.

Speaker 8 And she opens a folder and this check for the missing money floats. She says it, you know, floats to the ground like a feather.
But for that, we might not be having this conversation.

Speaker 9 And he priced

Speaker 9 his wife and sons' lives at the cost of whatever money he had to pay back.

Speaker 8 I think John Metters, the prosecutor, deputy prosecutor, said this beautifully in his closing. He said, you know, I think he loved Maggie, and I think he loved Paul, but he loved one person more.

Speaker 8 And he leans over to him and he whispers, Alec.

Speaker 8 And I think that's right. I think Elec Murdoch has shown us one thing, which is that he values his preservation and his name above all else.

Speaker 8 And when you understand the family and the weight of that name,

Speaker 8 I won't say it makes sense, but it's easier to make sense of why he would do all the things he did. He had to protect a hundred years, not just his name, but 100 years of his name.

Speaker 9 And then it backfired. And so he protected nothing.

Speaker 8 And he became the

Speaker 8 synonymous, instead of the Murdoch name being a mighty name, a feared name, a beloved name, even in that part of the world, he became the most famous Murdoch by ruining it, tearing the family down.

Speaker 9 Because even all of the corruption before that or anything that came before it, we sort of overlooked, right? He really.

Speaker 8 Yeah, no one was ever.

Speaker 8 There were many. I write about numerous

Speaker 8 instances of corruption and the times that people tried to charge them with crimes, insurance fraud in the past. But they were never, no one has ever been convicted of anything until Elliot Murdoch.

Speaker 9 Where did the name of this book come from?

Speaker 8 Oh, I'm so glad you asked that.

Speaker 8 You know, I really, I wanted a name that, I wanted a title that really was

Speaker 8 was gripping that got at the nature of evil. I mean, this is what we're talking about.

Speaker 8 And Cormac McCarthy wrote a book, he had recently died, and so he's on my mind, and he wrote Blood Meridian. And there's a line in there that says, there's meanness in the least of creatures.

Speaker 8 But when God made man, the devil was at his elbow, a creature that can do anything. And that's, I think, because what we were talking about, though, this idea, how could he do it? How could he do it?

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 8 humans are capable of monstrous evil. And Elliot Murdoch has certainly demonstrated that he's capable of it.

Speaker 9 Absolutely. And the quote is right here in the beginning of the book.
I didn't realize that he recently passed away, actually.

Speaker 9 So.

Speaker 9 Where can people find this book? Where can people find you?

Speaker 8 Please find me on Instagram at valerie.borline and on Twitter at VBorline. And you can find that book at your favorite bookstore.
I would be honored if you read it.

Speaker 8 It was a privilege to get to tell these stories.

Speaker 9 Thank you so much for coming on Barely Famous. Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 Thank you so much for having me. You're really good at this.

Speaker 9 I'm severely nervous. so I've never in I've never interviewed someone like you.

Speaker 8 So, oh gosh,

Speaker 9 like

Speaker 9 literally sweating. So, um, I so appreciate you coming on this.

Speaker 8 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 9 Yeah, no, and I'm so glad that this is gonna be our book club pick. And I'll have um Kristen reach out to your team and see if we could schedule a zoom in.

Speaker 8 Oh, I'd love to.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I would love that.

Speaker 9 The Devil at His Elbow is available at all bookstores, anywhere you can get your book, Amazon, check your local independent bookshops, and go follow Valerie on all social media.

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