Episode 32: Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies, I'm your host Julie Mattson. On today's episode, we are taking a deep dive into the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, a South Carolina former attorney who has been convicted of murdering his wife and son and sentenced to life in prison after only three hours of deliberations. What do you think? Guilty or Innocent? Join me as we take an in-depth look at the Murdaugh family saga...
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Who's been following the Alex Murdock case?
0:35 I had not really known the entire story or what was going on until recently when I watched the documentaries on Hulu and Netflix and Dateline in 2020.
0:52 I know a lot of my friends have actually heard the name but haven't really watched the documentaries.
0:57 We've heard a lot about Paul the son and then all of a sudden the father's photos are appearing and there was a little bit of confusion about who was in trouble, what was going on if you haven't been watching, I encourage you to watch the documentaries that cover the story in full.
1:19 But Alex Murdock was actually a personal injury attorney in South Carolina and he recently got life in prison after only three hours of deliberations.
1:33 Now this all goes kind of way back to 2018.
1:38 But when it really got hairy was in June of 2021.
1:45 So we'll start with Alex.
1:47 He actually calls 911 and says that he found his wife Margaret who was 52 and his son, Paul dead near the dog kennels at their home in Colton County.
2:03 Now, his alibi was that he had been spending time with his mom who has Alzheimer's.
2:11 He apparently went to her house, visited with her and a caregiver for what he said was about 30 or 40 minutes.
2:19 In reality, when it all went to trial, the Caregiver said that he only spent about 20 minutes over there.
2:26 He be basically tried to offer her money to try to get her to lie about how long he spent at her house.
2:34 So that did come up in the trial and played a little part in this but three days from then his father Randolph Murdock the third actually died at his home in Hampton County.
2:50 The death investigator in me has to ask because it was never brought up in any of the documentaries whether or not there was a possibility that Alex had anything to do with his dad's death.
3:06 Now, we know he was sick, we know he was 81 but we have seen cases where people are sick and there are issues in the family that are later brought up that throw up red flags and require a little bit of additional investigation.
3:27 The dad actually graduated law school in 1964.
3:32 And the family had served as solicitor of the 14th circuit for 87 years and three generations.
3:39 But could Alex have caused his death?
3:42 What did he stand to gain?
3:45 And was it not investigated due to his father's age?
3:50 And the fact that he had diagnosed medical problems, if he had done something to his dad, would the caregiver know how often is she there?
4:01 He's obviously a manipulator and could have done a lot of things without the caregiver knowing the mother had Alzheimer's.
4:09 So chances are if she saw anything, she may not remember it.
4:14 So he had ample opportunity.
4:16 And it makes me wonder what he had to gain if his dad actually passed away and the time nothing is perfect.
4:25 And you'll hear from the timeline that the guy needed money.
4:29 He was in financial ruin.
4:32 The death of his father could possibly have bailed him out again.
4:37 I don't know the worth of his dad.
4:40 No idea if there was a will, what it said, who got what?
4:45 I'm just throwing it out there.
4:47 The timing is impeccable and it just makes me wonder if that was even investigated or if they just looked at it and said, you know what?
4:55 He's 81, he's been sick.
4:58 Let's just move on.
4:59 So it makes me wonder.
5:01 But on June 14, the coroner actually determined that Margaret and Paul's time of death was between nine and 9:30 at that time, no arrests were made.
5:15 Paul had been questioned.
5:17 He seemed very upset when the police questioned him.
5:22 As again, if you watch the documentaries, you'll see the video of him the night of the murders.
5:30 But we're gonna fast forward to September 4th When kind of a strange turn of events happened.
5:37 Murdoch was reportedly injured in a roadside shooting after his Mercedes SUV had a flat tire.
5:46 So he was on the side of the road and he called 911 and said that someone actually opened fire on him when he thought they were stopping to help him change his flat.
5:59 So he was actually flown to Savannah Georgia for treatment and his injuries are superficial, not anything like what you would expect after a gunshot wound to the head.
6:13 So he's obviously discharged, not her too bad because the very next day, he resigned from his family's law firm.
6:24 So he says he needs to enter rehab.
6:28 And at the same time, the law firm released a statement that Murdoch had been misappropriating company funds the law firm that his family spent decades building.
6:41 He was actually stealing from.
6:44 So how convenient that now all of a sudden he's gonna use an opioid addiction and check himself into rehab.
6:53 So on September eight, a couple of days after he resigned, the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended his law license indefinitely.
7:05 And a few days later on the 14th, it is found that myrtle actually arranged for a client of his and this guy's 61 year old Curtis Edward Smith was asked to kill him so that the oldest son buster could collect a $10 million dollar life insurance policy.
7:27 Smith is later arrested on assisted suicide battery pointing and presenting a firearm insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.
7:42 On September 15 of 2021 Murdaugh's attorney, Richard Harpootlian says, you know what, my client is depressed.
7:52 He's addicted to opioids.
7:55 They consumed his life after his wife and son were murdered.
8:00 All of a sudden an investigation came back into the picture from Gloria sat Field who was their longtime housekeeper in 2018.
8:14 So Gloria Satterfield back in 2018 reportedly fell backwards on the stairs leading up to the family's home which were brick after being tripped up by some of their hunting dogs which were larger dogs.
8:30 She fell backwards and sustained a head injury and never regained consciousness.
8:37 Now, the following day, Murdoch surrenders and is charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a police report after he said that he was shot by this unknown person on the side of the road after his flat.
8:57 He is asked to surrender his passport and return to drug rehab.
9:03 But October 14, after he's released from Rehab, he's arrested in Florida and he's charged with two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses after millions of dollars were missing from the settlement received in Gloria Satterfield's death.
9:26 So he had actually filed life insurance policy and received $4.3 million dollars that none of her family received.
9:39 At the same time, Smith who was asked to shoot Murdoch when he had a flat on the side of the road said that Murdoch had a gun, it looked like he was gonna shoot himself.
9:51 And when the gun fired, Smith drove off when he realized that Murdoch was okay.
9:57 And so on October 19, just five days later, Murdoch was denied bond in order to undergo a psych evaluation.
10:05 Now, go figure we went from June to October without a psych evaluation and all of a sudden everyone realizes that it needs to be done.
10:14 Now on November 19 and again, this is still 2021.
10:20 Murdoch was indicted on 27 counts of money, laundering computer crimes and forgery And he defrauded victims of nearly $4.9 million.
10:35 Fast forward to December night, there were a total of 48 separate charges which included family, friends and an accident victim who was a client of his.
10:50 So it was found by the law firm That he had actually defrauded, not only his family, but his clients who trusted him of large amounts of money.
11:03 Now in December 13, his bond was set at $7 million dollars and he doesn't make bail.
11:10 He tells the court that his opioid withdrawal is the reason why he tried to have himself killed and he just was not in his right mind, which we know we know is true.
11:24 But the grand jury indicted him on January 21st of 2022 on 23 new charges.
11:34 71 charges total that involved theft of $8.5 million over an 11 year period.
11:43 Now, we haven't even mentioned previously that his son Paul, who was murdered when Margaret was murdered Actually was involved in a boat crash.
11:57 Back in 2019, the boat was owned by Alex Murdock.
12:02 It was being driven by Paul.
12:04 He was drinking, he had six underage people on board.
12:09 Paul slammed into a piling below a bridge and the passengers were ejected.
12:15 Now at that time, 19 year old Mallory Beach was killed.
12:21 Mallory had head injuries that resulted in her drowning.
12:26 They found her, I believe 5-7 days after the accident in January of 2022, her mother filed a legal claim.
12:39 Now in March of 2022, the grand jury actually indicted him on four new charges to defraud insurance companies.
12:50 So this just keeps going on.
12:53 I mean, we find over and over and over that.
12:55 He's misappropriated funds.
12:58 He's been stealing money from not only his own family but also his clients and now in June, Gloria Satterfield's family gives permission to have her body exhumed because guess what?
13:13 This is so strange.
13:14 Her death is listed as a natural death stating that the injuries were not consistent with injuries caused by a trip and fall accident.
13:25 Now, that's hard to believe when the 911 call made by Margaret States that she's bleeding from the head and injured Gloria Satterfield's death is rolled unnatural On June 28, the grand jury indicted him on conspiring to purchase and distribute oxycodone.
13:51 So not only is he taking it but he's buying it and selling it.
13:57 And so this is something that comes out later.
14:00 And then in July, almost a month later, he is Disbarred formally and he is facing at this 0.11 different lawsuits and 80 for criminal charges.
14:15 And he is indicted on double murder charges in the deaths of Margaret and Paul on July 14.
14:25 Now there is cell phone video that puts him at the scene of the murder shortly before they took place and that contradicted the previous timeline of events.
14:38 So that evening, Murdoch said that he was lying on the couch on his phone and Paul and Margaret went to the dog kennel.
14:49 He left the house, did not go to the kennel first went to see his mom spent 30 to 40 minutes at his mom's house and then came home and noticed that Margaret and Paul were not home and then went to the kennels and found them both dead.
15:05 Now there was cell phone video that puts Murdock at the scene of the murder shortly before they took place.
15:15 So there's a video that Paul had taken that he sent to a friend of his and you could hear Alex voice in the background and that kind of changed a lot of things.
15:28 That number one proved that he was at the kennel close to the time of the murders because they happened approximately, I think they said three or four minutes after that video was recorded, he later got on the stand and said that he lied to the police about being there because he knew if he told them he was there that he would be suspect.
15:54 Well, duh, you're gonna be a suspect anyway.
15:58 But because of who he was, I think he was overlooked, which is kind of what he was counting on because when Paul was involved in the boating accident, That family did everything they could to cover up the fact that Paul was at Fault.
16:17 Paul was never arrested that evening and Alex Murdoch tried to make it look like Paul's friend Connor was driving the boat which he was not.
16:27 So in July of 2022, Murdoch, please not guilty.
16:33 He stands up and says I didn't do this.
16:36 I don't know who did it After the boating accident.
16:39 Paul had a lot of threats and this is somebody who premeditated and planned this and knew that they would be at the Kennels late at night and planned their murder.
16:53 So in August of 2022, Murdoch was indicted on nine more criminal accounts.
17:02 The firm accountant from the law firm had actually sent him $121,000 that should have gone to his brother Randy, but he never told anybody.
17:12 He just took it just like he took the money that belonged to Gloria Satterfield's family, the money from his own family and the money from his own clients who were actually accident victims.
17:27 His trial date was set for January 23 of 2023.
17:33 So this is not that long ago.
17:36 They were told that this trial could actually last up to three weeks.
17:41 So December night, the prosecutors in the courtroom kind of claimed, well, these murders were planned and were used so that he could get some sympathy from the public and that would kind of help him escape the financial crimes that he had committed.
18:01 But a few days later, he was indicted on nine counts of tax evasion Because guess what?
18:09 He failed to pay $487,000 in state income taxes in December.
18:18 The prosecutors said if he's convicted, we're going to allow him to avoid the death penalty.
18:26 The prosecutors said in January when this went to trial that his wife and son were both killed at close range with a shotgun and an AR style rifle.
18:38 Now, what's funny, not funny.
18:41 But what's strange to me is that in all the documentaries we saw, there wasn't a lot of information given on the guns.
18:50 I know at one time I heard that Alex Murdoch owned guns similar or like the ones that were used to kill Paul and Margaret.
19:00 But not once, did they talk about the guns?
19:04 Were they his, had they been used, did they go into his house and inspect his guns?
19:11 Did they take them at that point?
19:14 Had his guns been fired?
19:16 Was their ammunition in the house like the ammunition used on Paul and Margaret, if the guns were found where they printed, like none of this was covered in any of the documentary.
19:30 So that's kind of a question I have.
19:32 But the prosecutors actually play the previously unseen video in which Alex murder cause voices heard in the background shortly before the murders.
19:45 And this is in February And he actually took the stand, his own defense on 23 February.
19:54 He actually said, you know what I lied to officers about my location because I was paranoid and I'm addicted to pain pills.
20:04 So let's use our addiction again to throw everybody off, make everybody feel a little bit sorry for us and make it look like things aren't quite as bad as they seem Now on March two.
20:16 And again, this is just not very long ago, a few days ago, he was found guilty of murder and also on two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.
20:29 And he received the maximum two consecutive life sentences, although he continues to claim his innocence.
20:38 Now he says that his defense attorneys plan to appeal this.
20:42 So if you haven't watched any of the documentaries, I highly encourage it.
20:48 It's really interesting story.
20:51 They haven't had anything like this happen in South Carolina.
20:55 It really put the state in an uproar the family again, very well known, very prominent, been around for a long time.
21:04 It just goes to show again.
21:06 You never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
21:10 You don't really know what's going on.
21:13 Some families that appear to have a lot of money may have been stealing their entire life just to keep up with the Joneses are just to make it look like they're successful when they really aren't.
21:25 And then when bad things start happening, they have to start covering up the things that they've been doing wrong and that's when it all comes to light.
21:34 So watch these documentaries on Alex Murdoch and there again on Hulu, you can see Dateline 2020 and there's a new one on Netflix as well.
21:46 So I'm interested to see what you think.
21:49 I'm interested to see if you feel like he's guilty and let me know what you think.
21:56 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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