Murdaugh family
A fourth-generation son, affluent lawyer Richard Alexander "Alex" Murdaugh, secretly led a life of crime that included acts of fraud, corruption, embezzlement, theft and drug offenses spanning decades and involving dozens of victims, many of whom were disadvantaged.
[5] According to columnist Kathleen Parker, the justice system of the 14th district was regarded as rigged and local attorneys would make a motion to settle a case rather than go to trial there.
[8] Following several criminal incidents involving Murdaugh family members in the late 2010s and early 2020s, their influence on the local judicial system was scrutinized.
"[10] In Hampton County, trial judges generally avoided transferring cases, and plaintiffs' attorneys had a reputation for abusing subpoena power.
This legal climate led to the 14th circuit district being named the third worst "judicial hellhole for defendants" by the American Tort Reform Association.
After the convictions of Alex Murdaugh for the murders of his wife and son, which took place on the estate, the 1,770 acre property was rebranded Cross Swamp Farm and listed for sale.
He held the position until 1940, when he was killed in a collision between his car and a Charleston and Western Carolina (C&WC) freight train at a grade crossing outside Varnville.
[5] A few months after the train collision, Buster sued the C&WC, claiming that poor maintenance of the grade crossing had contributed to his father's death.
[33][34] In the Mallory Beach death case, Buster was implicated because he had loaned his ID to his younger brother Paul, who was similar in appearance but underaged so that he could illegally buy alcohol.
[38][22][28] He was a student at the University of South Carolina and had a summer job working at his uncle John Marvin Murdaugh's Kubota tractor dealership.
[39] As of February 2025, Alex Murdaugh faced a total of 102 grand jury criminal charges and 19 indictments relating to fraud and drug offenses.
On July 8, 2015, Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old nursing student at Orangeburg–Calhoun Technical College, was found dead from blunt force trauma on a rural road in Hampton County approximately 15 miles from the Murdaugh family's Moselle estate.
[42][45] According to The Greenville News, "rumors hinting at a cover-up and the possible involvement of one or more members of the Murdaugh family ... began circulating around the Hampton County area" soon after Smith's death.
[57][58] In August 2023, Cory Fleming pleaded guilty to 23 charges including breach of trust with fraudulent intent and money laundering and was subsequently sentenced to 13 years, 10 months in prison and disbarred.
[60] In February 2019, Alex's younger son, Paul Murdaugh, was charged with three felonies following the death of his teenage friend, Mallory Beach, in a boating accident.
[6] The family of Connor Cook, one of the teens aboard the boat during the accident, filed a lawsuit claiming Alex had encouraged them to retain attorney Cory Fleming in order to orchestrate the protection of Paul.
[56] The Beach case began the unraveling of Alex's criminal enterprise by exposing information that led to an inquiry into his alleged financial wrongdoing.
"[25] From this point forward, "Alex Murdaugh's house of cards began to collapse", and the case became a national sensation making regular mainstream headlines.
[69] Attorney Justin Bamberg represents eight people, including the sons of Gloria Satterfield, from whom he says Alex stole money while serving as their lawyer.
In June 2022, Alex Murdaugh was indicted on two counts by the State Grand Jury related to conspiring with accomplice Curtis Edward Smith (a distant cousin) to purchase and distribute narcotics using a money-laundering scheme involving $2.4 million in stolen money.
[78] On October 7, 2022, a lawsuit named Murdaugh, Crosby, Barnes, the PMPED firm, Laffitte, and Palmetto State Bank as part of a conspiracy to defraud plaintiff Manuel Santis-Cristiani of Chiapas, Mexico, of accident settlement money he was awarded but never received.
The Moselle property that was the scene of the murders of Maggie and Paul was rebranded as "Cross Swamp Farm" and listed for sale with an asking price of $3.9 million, and the Edisto beach house was placed on the market for $920,000.00[82] On November 1, a judge ordered the Murdaugh assets to be frozen.
[86] On October 14, 2021, concurrent with his release from the drug rehabilitation facility in Orlando, Murdaugh was taken into custody by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) on two felony counts of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses, related to the Satterfield case.
[95] On June 7, 2021, Alex called police from his cell phone at 10:06 p.m., saying he had discovered the bodies of 22-year-old son Paul and 52-year-old wife Maggie near the dog kennels at the family's hunting lodge located on a 1,772-acre estate in Islandton, South Carolina.
[97] It has been revealed that Maggie was considering ending her marriage to Alex and had consulted a divorce lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina several weeks prior to the murders.
[98] In October 2021, it was revealed that South Carolina Law Enforcement Division had regarded Alex as a person of interest in the homicides since the start of the investigation.
[106][107] On January 21, 2022, the State Grand Jury issued a further 23 criminal charges, which included 19 breaches of trust with fraudulent intent, and four counts of computer crimes.
The indictments allege that he stole more than $2.6 million from clients Natarsha Thomas, Arthur Badger, Deon Martin, and the family of Hakeem Pinckney.
[111] A further round of superseding indictments against Murdaugh were issued in April 2022 involving four charges of conspiring with former banker Russell Lucius Laffitte, and former attorney Cory Howerton Fleming.
Days before his sentencing, DOJ prosecutors posted a new court filing saying that Alex had failed a polygraph test (lied), and an additional $1.3m in stolen money and a further 11 victims were discovered since the plea deal was made.
