For almost 100 years Alex Murdaugh along with his father and grandfather ran a large and powerful private law firm in Hampton South Carolina and were also prosecutors for a five-county district in the area.
Alex and his family seemed to have it all including power and fortune. When they flew it was apparently always on private jets. They owned multiple properties and houses including this property which is a 1,770 acre hunting lodge known as “Moselle”.
However on June 7th 2021 the good life came to a sudden end.
Alex’s 52-year-old wife Maggie along with his 22-year-old son Paul had been murdered near the dog kennels. They had both been shot multiple times with two different guns.
As police were investigating the murders other crimes with potential links to the Murdaugh family began to be investigated again as well including the death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith who was found dead in the middle of the road in rural Hampton County. His case had been declared a hit and run, but has since been reopened. Alex’s son Paul has been mentioned as potentially being involved in that killing.
Also Murdaugh housekeeper Gloria Satterfield died after falling down the steps at the Murdaugh house here on the Moselle property. Alex claims she tripped over his hunting dogs and fell down the steps. Police are also looking into that death again. While investigating that death it was discovered Alex had stolen millions of dollars from the Satterfield family.
We take a closer look at both of those cases as well as others in videos we have already posted which we will link to below.
A friend of the family claims Maggie met with a divorce lawyer about a month before her death. She was also apparently looking into the family finances as well. Also lawyers for the Satterfield family were looking at the finances as well trying to find the missing money from the wrongful death lawsuit filed after Gloria’s death.
Then on September 4th, 2021 a 911 call came in from Alex Murdaugh.
Alex was eventually airlifted to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, Georgia. He was treated for what police described as a superficial gunshot wound to the head. Despite it being minor he did bleed a lot which doctors say is normal because there are so many blood vessels in a person’s head. Blood flows to the brain constantly. Somewhere around 20 percent of blood flow is traveling in and out of it at any given time.
A person’s scalp can bleed profusely even from something like a minor cut. There are lots of very small arteries and veins that serve the skin and individual muscles on our heads. Some are deep in our skulls while others are very close to the surface of our skin.
It was apparently because of the large amount of bleeding that he was airlifted to the hospital.
On Monday September 6th, just two days after the shooting, Alex released a statement saying he was resigning from his law firm and checking himself into rehab.
“The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. 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. I am immensely sorry to everyone I’ve hurt including my family, friends and colleagues. I ask for prayers as I rehabilitate myself and my relationships.”
Eight days later police said Alex had changed his story about what happened when he was shot. He said the truth was he had agreed to give former client and distant cousin 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith large sums of money to shoot and kill him on the side of the road so Alex’s son Buster could receive a 10 million dollar life insurance policy. Alex also said Smith had been his drug dealer for a long time.
Attorney’s for Gloria Satterfield’s family have since filed a lawsuit against Smith. The lawsuit claims Alex set up two secret Bank of America accounts where he secretly stashed the $4.3 million dollars he allegedly stole from Satterfield’s family after he had the Satterfield family sue him for the wrongful death of Gloria on his property. The lawsuit claims Smith received around 2.8 million dollars from the secret accounts over the span of at least two years.
The suit claims Murdaugh wrote 254 personal checks to Smith for a total of $1,825,560 along with 17 cashier checks totalling $164,748.76 as well as another amount of around a million dollars Satterfield family attorney’s Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter claim they found our about after filing the lawsuit.
Based on the dates the checks were written and cashed it seems Murdaugh was writing a check to Smith every few days, and most of the checks were for more than $9,000. The smallest check shown in the lawsuit was for $4,150. The first one was from May 28, 2018, and the last one was written just 10 days before Maggie and Paul were murdered for $22,109.
One of Murdaugh’s attorney's Dick Harpootlian, claims Smith was Alex’s long-time drug dealer who provided him with opiods and was part of the scheme to steal $6.2 million dollars from Murdaugh’s family members, friends, clients and others and that he also helped Alex with his money laundering scheme.
Police have not charged Murdaugh or Smith in regards to working together to launder money, however Smith has been charged with assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. He was eventually indicted on those charges by a Grand Jury in Hampton County.
Murdaugh was charged with three felonies in the staged murder case which were insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report. He has also been charged with a total of 48 other charges related to money laundering and other financial crimes. His bond was set at 7 million dollars. At this time no one has been charged for the murders of Maggie and Paul, and the Murdaugh family is offering a $100,000 reward for anyone with information leading to an arrest in the case.
Other Murdaugh stories we've done: Part One: The Dead Housekeeper - https://youtu.be/kLHy5XD5K28 Part Two: The Dead Teenager - https://youtu.be/46PosCA333s Part Three: The Dead Girl - https://youtu.be/WA6kQOXFH2o Part Four: The Dead Murdaughs - https://youtu.be/kZjlJghzAco Support our channel - https://paypal.me/mcandrewtravels?locale.x=en_US Buy some exclusive McAndrew Travels merchandise - https://mcandrew-travels.creator-spring.com For business inquiries or story ideas please contact christophermcandrew@gmail.com Find us on the web: https://www.facebook.com/mcandrewtravels https://www.mcandrewtravels.com https://twitter.com/McAndrewTravels https://www.instagram.com/mcandrew_travels
Comments