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Today, dear listeners, the finale of the Murdoch family saga is finally upon us. Our story started over a century ago when Randolph Murdoch Sr. put down roots in Hampton County. If only he knew the seeds he would sow. They sprouted and flourished and, eventually, bore fruit, bringing about the birth of the family's now infamous law firm, PMPED.
Its tendrils spread throughout the Low Country, colonizing all corners of the Southern Swathe and enslaving its justice system.
113 years later, our story and the dynasty's generational sovereignty ends with one of its own: Alexander Richard Murdoch, the Shark of South Carolina. To recap this wild ride is to rewind to the beginning of the end. The death of Mallory Beach brought forth a wave of exposés that submerged Alec in scalding hot water. His private life became public property, and his fortune fell under scrutiny.
Just days before the patriarch was due to disclose his finances in court, his wife and youngest son were tragically and conveniently murdered. Naturally, speculation was rife and accusations abounding, but none were prepared for the scandals that ensued.
A hit and run became a homicide investigation. A shooting became a life insurance scam. A resignation became a rehab stint. And a once prominent lawyer was exiled from the firm his great-grandfather founded and was exposed for embezzling millions of dollars. Even then, the crescendo had yet to come. Alec's labyrinth of lies continued to crumble with each new break in the many cases against him, bringing more evidence to light with every crack.
On the day of Alec's arrest for the suicide-for-hire scheme he orchestrated with his oxycodone dealer, the disgraced lawyer came under suspicion for more missing millions and another suspicious death. Hell hath no fury like a housekeeper scorned, or more accurately, her sons.
the Satterfield brothers dragged Alec back into court, along with his accomplices, Corey Fleming and Chad Westendorf. What started as a civil dispute concerning the missing $4.3 million from Gloria Satterfield's wrongful death lawsuit quickly spiraled into a string of scandals.
An accidental death was labeled natural, an autopsy never performed, and a body bound for exhumation. As if exploiting the deceased wasn't bad enough, Alec's crimes extended to the living too. The Satterfield scam saw a legitimate business being impersonated to cover up a sweeping criminal enterprise that swindled countless plaintiffs out of their rightful compensation.
Some victims had been crippled in car accidents. Others lost everything after losing their loved ones. At the center of it all was Alec Murdoch. The patriarch used the millions he stole from his firm and clients to pay off his credit card bills, fund his family's palatial lifestyle, bankroll his drug habit, and charter private jets to baseball games. Alec had become intoxicated by the dynasty's legacy of carte blanche over the Lowcountry. He thought he was untouchable.
Not anymore. As of 2021, Alec's life of stolen luxury was over. He had grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. Now, he was getting what he deserved. From late 2021 through 2022, the patriarch was sued by PMPED. Moselle was put on the market and a federal judge ruled that his insurance company wasn't liable for any damages sought in Mallory Beach's wrongful death lawsuit.
Decades worth of financial crimes and insurance schemes caught up with Alec, and he was disbarred and detained indefinitely. State prosecutors laid charge after charge against him, adding up to 81 counts in total. Then, the fallen star of our story was slapped with the charges of the century. In 2023, the patriarch faced off with the same scales of justice that once tipped in his favor.
The state of South Carolina brought him before a judge for the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdock. And the world finally found out why. This is the story of the trial of Alexander Richard Murdock. This is the story of the end. Part 1: He's up to something.
On July 12th, 2022, Alec was indicted for the Moselle murders. The then 54-year-old was officially charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The authorities were tight-lipped about what prompted their decision, leaving the public in the dark and divided. Controversy erupted across the Lowcountry and the world as a whole. It was obvious that Alec was guilty of a litany of crimes, but was he guilty of murder?
since the Sea Hunt crash of 2019 exposed the Murdoch's seedy underbelly. Our infamous dynasty had no shortage of enemies. It was hard to ignore the possibility that one of them had taken justice into their own hands. Naturally, Alex's attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, seized this opportunity to profess their client's innocence in an interview with People magazine.
However, as it turns out, they weren't the only ones who had something to say on the matter.
Their statement read: "One day later, the very same media outlet that published the attorney's proclamation made a stunning accusation against Alec."
effectively derailing their attempt at painting him as the victim. According to People, a law enforcement source close to the investigation claimed that Alec had lured Maggie DeMoselle on the very evening she was shot dead. Though the Murdochs had been living there since Paul's boating accident, Maggie had recently moved out. It seemed that Alec's house of cards wasn't the only thing falling apart. So was his marriage.
Perhaps his painkiller addiction had become too much to bear. Maybe his financial ruin had prompted her to flee. Whatever the catalyst, Maggie was staying at their Edisto Island beach house when Alec asked her to meet him at their isolated hunting property on June 7th, 2021.
According to People's Law Enforcement source, the patriarch told his then estranged wife that Randolph Murdoch III, his ailing 81-year-old father, was fading fast. It was time to say their goodbyes, but Alec insisted that he couldn't do it alone. He needed her support, and he needed it at Moselle. Apparently, Maggie refused to meet up with him at their family home, initially at least.
She took their separation seriously. Besides, Randolph had been admitted to the hospital, which is exactly where she planned to go. Until Alec convinced her otherwise, that is. In the end, Maggie took pity on her estranged husband and agreed to make the hour-long drive to Moselle to meet with him before following him to the hospital in her car. That's where things got interesting.
On her way to Moselle, Maggie allegedly confided in a friend about Alec's strange behavior over text. She explained that he was, in her own words, "acting fishy." "He's up to something," she wrote. Not long after she sent that text message, Maggie and Paul were mercilessly gunned down. The news promptly put any doubts about Alec's guilt to rest.
Of course, that didn't stop him from trying to prove his innocence. On July 20th, the patriarch pleaded not guilty at his bond hearing. According to his attorneys, he wanted to go to trial as soon as possible, but he no longer had the power to decide his fate. Alec would have to wait it out just like everybody else, in prison with the consequences of his actions as his only company.
That September, another lawsuit was filed against him. This time by Forge Consulting, the company Alec impersonated to create a fake bank account that he used to funnel millions of stolen dollars. The consulting firm sought to clear its name and teach him a lesson, along with Bank of America.
"Forge Consulting did nothing wrong, but their reputation is under attack, all because Alec Murdoch stole their name and Bank of America let him do it," said its attorney, Pete Strom. Of course, the firm wasn't alone in its pursuit of justice. On December 16th, the state's grand jury indicted Alec for nine counts of tax evasion after it was discovered that he failed to report over $6.9 million between 2011 and 2019.
That brought his tally up to 90 charges spanning 18 indictments. As the patriarch's rap sheet skyrocketed, so too did the true number of his stolen profits. Prosecutors with the State Attorney General's Office learned that Alex had defrauded his victims of more than $9.7 million. That money was meant to change lives. Instead, they were ruined, and state prosecutors were hell-bent on returning the favor.
While the Attorney General's office focused on Alec's white-collar crimes, the disgraced lawyer sat idly in a prison cell waiting for the inevitable. However, he was soon put out of his misery, for one court case at least. On January 23rd, 2023, the much-anticipated trial of the Moselle murders commenced at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
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The first matter at hand was selecting impartial jurors to listen to the facts of the case and decide upon Alec's fate. Of course, that task proved to be near impossible. The Murdochs had, for over a century, been both loathed and revered by generations of Colleton County residents.
Their prominence was unparalleled and the mass media coverage that followed the Moselle murders unmatched. Whilst one court tackled that unenviable task, another grappled with an entirely different matter. On January 24th, Judge Daniel Hall approved a settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit of Mallory Beach. An agreement had finally been reached, but it had nothing to do with Alec. Yet.
It was between Mallory's family, the three survivors of the sea hunt crash, and Maggie Murdock's estate, which was estimated to be worth several million dollars. As part of the agreement, the late matriarch's financial assets would be divvied up amongst the parties. Half a million dollars would go to Buster, the rest would be awarded to the surviving passengers and Mallory's relatives as compensation for their ordeal and to cover their legal fees.
However, the lawsuit was far from over. The remaining defendants had yet to pay their dues, namely the estate of Paul Murdock and Parker's Convenience, the store that sold the then 19-year-old grocery bags filled with booze back in 2019. Of course, the suit also named Alec as a defendant, but what the Beach family sought from him was worth far more to them than any sum of money. We'll get to that later.
On January 25th, one day after the settlement was reached in the Mallory Beach case, Alec finally went to court for what has been dubbed the most anticipated trial in the history of South Carolina. It was aired on live TV by several media outlets, including Court TV and certain regional news networks. Witnesses were expected to number in the hundreds, and it was assumed that Alec would put up a desperate fight.
Judge Clifton Newman, along with a miraculously impartial jury, buckled down for what many presumed would be a very long trial. Shortly after 3:00 PM that afternoon, opening statements were presented and the trial of Alec Murdoch officially began. For the first time in his now sullied career, the patriarch was on the wrong side of the courtroom. Directly behind him, on the furthest wall of the gallery, was a sun-faded spot where a painting had once been.
the portrait of Alec's grandfather, Randolph Murdoch Jr., had been removed to ensure a fair trial. I almost wish it hadn't. Now, the patriarch was free from his late father's namesake glaring down at him as he faced allegations of familicide. State prosecutor Creighton Waters was the first to present his case, in which he revealed previously undisclosed evidence against Alec. It was damning, to say the least.
The courtroom and the public as a whole heard that. Following the Moselle murders, SLED investigators discovered a blue raincoat dusted with gunshot residue. According to Waters, Alec had stashed it at his elderly mother's home just one week after the double homicide. The prosecutor went on to poke holes in the patriarch's alibi, teasing the court with evidence that he swore would bolster his accusations.
Walters told the jury that he planned to present a video that placed Alec at the dog kennels on the Murdock's hunting property shortly before Maggie and Paul were murdered, something the patriarch had previously denied. Alec had always maintained that the only time he was down there was when he happened upon their bodies. The prosecutor, however, disagreed. The evidence will show he was there. He was at the murder scene with the two victims, Walters proclaimed.
Dick Harpootlian, Alec's longtime lawyer and a Democratic state senator, could do little to counter what sounded like concrete evidence against his client. So he settled for shock value instead. A large portion of Harpootlian's argument relied on the victim's gruesome injuries, which he described in excruciating detail. The defense attorney painted Alec as a devoted husband and father, citing videos that he himself planned to present.
He explained that, just one hour before the murders, the patriarch would be seen laughing with Paul as he was filmed inspecting a badly planted tree on Moselle. Harputlian insisted that it was impossible for Alec to switch so quickly and have the stomach to inflict such atrocities upon his beloved family. The attorney accused SLED of having tunnel vision, claiming that they zeroed in on Alec from day one rather than searching for the true killer.
Harputlian's argument played into the jury's emotions. However, not in the way he had hoped. After the prosecution gave the court a taste of the evidence they had in their armory, all it did was make Alec look like a monster who ruthlessly gunned down his wife and child. The jury's perception of the patriarch only worsened as more and more evidence against him was revealed. Part Three: A Deadly Distraction
Throughout the trial, state prosecutors presented a compelling argument for the motive behind Alec's alleged madness. They demonstrated that the patriarch had been backed into a corner after Mallory Beach's wrongful death lawsuit threatened to expose his years of embezzlement. Once Mark Tinsley filed a motion to disclose his finances, they alleged that Alec panicked and, evidently, snapped.
Prosecutors argued that the drug-addled patriarch was overcome by desperation, prompting him to maliciously and premeditatively do the unthinkable: murder Maggie and Paul. Apparently, it was all a deadly distraction to draw attention away from his litany of financial crimes. The prosecution contended that Alec concocted the bizarre plan to delay the disclosure of his finances by stalling the suit against him.
It's not known what the patriarch planned to do after the fact. However, prosecutors believed he hoped that, as the victim of a violent and apparently targeted crime, he would garner sympathy and be spared by the civil courts. But why Maggie and Paul? Why not Buster? I believe that Alec's choice of victims was a cunning one. If he was the killer, that is.
You see, Maggie was a liability. She had caught on to his financial failings and initiated an investigation of her own. Worse, she was leaving him. Poor Paul, on the other hand, likely knew nothing of his father's schemes. However, it was his reckless behavior that spurred the scrutiny of their fortune. Behavior that earned him a host of enemies Alec could easily blame.
Of course, the patriarch categorically denied the prosecution's accusations. Not that it mattered. Whether the double homicide was a delay tactic or not, evidence that he committed it continued to mount.
On January 26th, the court was shown police bodycam footage that captured the bullet-riddled bodies of Maggie and Paul. It was nothing short of nightmarish. The mother and son were sprawled out on the dirt, surrounded by pools of blood and brain matter. Paul, who had taken a shotgun blast to the head at close range, was unrecognizable. Horrified gasps erupted from the galleries. Alec wiped away tears.
It was a heartbreaking moment, regardless of the charges he faced. However, the very same responding officer whom the body cam belonged to wasn't moved by his emotional display.
He testified that Alec didn't seem upset at the crime scene and shed no tears at the sight of the corpses. That's not all. Several first responders testified that the patriarch had no visible blood on his clothing or hands, despite having claimed that he checked the bodies for pulses and physically rolled Paul over. Oddly, his white t-shirt and green cargo shorts were spotless. Remember that, dear listeners.
Six days later, on February 1st, Maggie's iPhone activity was analyzed. Britt Dove, an officer from SLED's computer crimes unit, testified about the usage of the Matriarch's phone before and after she died. Maggie's text messages to her friend about Alec's fishy behavior were presented, as well as her usual communications between friends and family.
However, after prosecutors believed she was already dead, her iPhone continued to record movement, orientation changes, and unsuccessful attempts at unlocking it. At 9:06 PM, its orientation shifted to portrait, indicating that the device had been picked up and raised upright. The front camera briefly turned on in the background, which Dove attributed to the device's facial recognition system automatically activating and analyzing the user's face.
No recognition was made and the iPhone remained locked. Two seconds later, it logged a missed call from Alec. The patriarch would try to call Maggie three more times after that before sending her one final text message at 9:47 PM. "Call me, babe," it read. The prosecution alleged that Alec had made those calls and sent that text message to bolster his alibi.
According to them, he hoped that they would serve as proof that he wasn't at Moselle at the time of the murders, nor was he even aware that they had occurred. Whilst it might have seemed plausible at the time, evidence introduced the following day obliterated any chances of the jury believing Alec's story. Part Four: Caught on Camera On February 2nd, prosecutor Creighton Waters' much-anticipated video was finally played for the court.
along with the very same video that Dick Harpootlian used to illustrate Alec and Paul's supposedly unbreakable bond. The former proved that the patriarch had lied about his alibi. The latter, however, exposed a particularly incriminating piece of information. The first video was recorded on Paul's iPhone camera at the dog kennels on Moselle at 8:45 p.m. on the night of June 7th, 2021.
The 22-year-old was filming a chocolate Labrador called Cash that he was looking after for his friend, Rogan Gibson. More specifically, he was trying to get a good shot of the lab's tail. Paul was worried that something was wrong with it. The boys had spoken about his concerns over the phone just minutes earlier, and he promised to send his friend a video of Cash's tail. But Rogan never got that recording because Paul was allegedly shot three minutes after filming it.
Of course, it wasn't the lab's tale that interested the prosecution. It wasn't even the video itself. It was the voices captured in the background. As Paul filmed Cash, a man and woman could be heard off camera bantering about a dog with a bird in its mouth. Prosecutors insisted that the voices belonged to Alec and Maggie, an assertion that was corroborated by two of Paul's close friends, including Rogan Gibson. There was no denying it.
The patriarch was at the dog kennels that night before finding the bodies of Maggie and Paul. Despite him telling sled investigators otherwise, Alec originally claimed that he spent the afternoon of June 7th riding around Moselle with Paul before the pair joined Maggie for dinner. According to him, that was the last time he saw them alive. Maggie then headed down to the dog kennels. Paul left without a word of where he was going and Alec settled down for a nap.
He woke up about 20 minutes later to an empty house. The patriarch couldn't get a hold of Maggie or Paul, so he texted them saying that he was going to visit his parents and left sometime before 9:00 PM. Alec maintained that he returned to Moselle just under an hour later and, upon discovering that the main house was still empty, he drove down to the kennels to look for Maggie. A little after 10:00 PM, he discovered the dead bodies of his wife and son.
Of course, we now know that Alec's alibi made little sense. Firstly, Maggie was living at their beach house on Edisto Island at the time. According to People Magazine's source, she only drove to Moselle later in the evening after her estranged husband begged her to.
Secondly, and most importantly, Paul's iPhone video proved, without a doubt, that Alec had lied. He had seen them after dinner, and he was with them at the dog kennels minutes before they died. The second video that was picked apart by the prosecution was just as damaging to the defense.
Just under an hour before the double homicide took place, at 7:56 p.m., Paul sent a Snapchat video to his friends. It captured the very same scene that Harpootlian had described to the jury in his opening statement. Alec was seen holding up a poorly planted tree while Paul filmed him in hysterics. It was nothing out of the ordinary, at first glance, that is.
The prosecution pointed out a small detail that would have otherwise gone unnoticed: Alec's clothing. In the Snapchat video, the patriarch was wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis. However, in the police body cam footage from the crime scene, he was wearing a white t-shirt and green cargo shorts. Alec had changed his clothes.
His outfit was unusually clean when the first responders arrived, meaning that he had to have changed after finding the bloodied bodies of his wife and son. As if that wasn't incriminating enough, the blue polo shirt and khakis Alec had been wearing just before the murders have never been found. That's not all that was missing. So was the murder weapon. Part 5. The Missing Murder Weapon
The prosecution told the court that the gun used to murder Maggie, a .300 Blackout Assault Style Rifle, was a family weapon. However, the Murdochs never handed it over to SLED, nor was it ever found during the homicide investigation. That's pretty convenient, considering the spent .300 caliber rounds found near Maggie's body were identical to older shell casings recovered from a gun room, field, and shooting range on Moselle.
Paul Greer, a weapons expert for SLED, testified that the 300 blackout shells discovered at the crime scene had been loaded into, extracted, and ejected from the same rifle that fired those found scattered around the Murdoch's hunting property.
In short, the tool markings on the shell casings matched, indicating that they were cycled through the same gun at different times. That made sense, considering Paul and Buster each owned a 300 Blackout Assault Style Rifle. The brothers had received the guns as Christmas presents in 2016, which were custom-built by John Bedingfield, Alec's second cousin and a State Department of Natural Resources agent.
Apparently, Paul's blackout rifle was stolen in 2017, prompting his father to commission another one from John. Buster's rifle was ruled out as the murder weapon. However, Paul's replacement rifle, the only other 300 blackout rifle known to have been fired at Moselle, was never found. This prompted the prosecution to believe that it had likely been disposed of after being used to murder Maggie. The defense, on the other hand, had other theories.
Defense attorney Jim Griffin ripped into the prosecution's expert testimony, arguing that it was impossible to draw such conclusions without first examining the missing rifle. He insisted that two different 300 Blackout rifles could leave identical markings on a shell casing, directly contradicting the testimony of Paul Greer, a state weapons specialist.
Griffin then grilled the expert, asking whether every single blackout rifle in the world had its own signature tool markings. "It's hard to say," said Greer, explaining that he couldn't give a concrete answer because he couldn't examine every single blackout rifle in the world. Griffin's attempt at instilling doubt within the jury was aided by Alec's cousin, John Bedingfield, when he revealed that he had sold several 300 blackout rifles to locals over the years.
In the end, whilst the alleged missing murder weapon certainly didn't help Alec's case, it wasn't enough to convict him either. Griffin pointed out undeniable shortcomings in the prosecution's argument. That said, they had far more compelling witnesses up their sleeves. On February 6th, the caregiver for Libby Murdock, Alec's elderly mother, took the stand as a witness.
Michelle Shelley Smith offered tearful testimony about the patriarch's behavior on the night of the murders, which, according to her, was blatantly suspicious. She told the court that Alec came over to check on his mother that evening. Apparently, when he arrived, he was acting fidgety and carrying what she described as a blue tarp under his arm. Or was it a blue raincoat?
We may never know. Shelley also testified that the visit was brief, lasting only 15 to 20 minutes, which aligned perfectly with the prosecution's argument. Waters alleged that Alec visited his mother for the sole purpose of creating an alibi, but that alibi wouldn't make sense if he only stayed there for a short time.
If Shelley's testimony was true and Alec had only been at his mother's house for 15 to 20 minutes, then he would have had more than enough time to murder Maggie and Paul. As it turned out, that notion wasn't lost on him. Part 6. Bribes, Bombshells, and the Cowboys.
According to Shelley, Alec had insisted that he stayed there longer. In fact, she claimed that he actually instructed her to tell anyone who asked that he was there for 30 to 40 minutes. It gets worse. Shelley told the court that, during that very same conversation, the patriarch randomly offered to put money towards her upcoming wedding. Smells like a bribe if you ask me. However, I wasn't there, nor do I know for sure.
What I do know is that Alec was finally being forced to drink from the same cup of justice as those he had once held dominion over. No longer would his reputation and family name protect him. In fact, it seemed to do the exact opposite. In the early afternoon of February 8th, Judge Newman suddenly and unexpectedly cleared out his Colleton County courtroom. - We have to evacuate the building at this time. We'll be in recess until we discover what's going on. - He announced.
Alec was whisked away and escorted out of the courtroom using an exit he had never been taken through before. The rest of his family was ushered outside and into a string of SUVs waiting in the streets. As if the Murdoch saga couldn't get any more sensational, officials later confirmed that the building had been evacuated because of a bomb threat. Yes, a bomb threat.
"This is very serious. Until we know what's going on, everyone needs to stay a safe distance away," said a Colleton County police officer to People magazine. In the end, it came out that the incident was a hoax, and the trial resumed later that afternoon, complete with a deluge of evidence about Alec's drug addiction.
The court heard that the patriarch spent a staggering $50,000 a week on opioids. Opioids he got from his distant cousin, drug dealer, and alleged hired hitman, Curtis Edward Smith. Interestingly, it was defense attorney Jim Griffin who broached the subject during his cross-examination of David Owen, the lead investigator in the Moselle murders.
Griffin revealed that, despite Alec's weekly payments, Curtis owed money to the Cowboys, a local gang. The attorney then probed Officer Owen about why the gangsters were never treated as persons of interest.
Though cunning, it was an obvious attempt to plant the potential for other suspects in the jurors' minds, and it backfired spectacularly. Officer Owen countered that, by August of 2021, Alec was the sole suspect in the double homicide for several reasons.
Not only was he a desperate drug addict due to losing his stolen fortune, but he was also the husband and father of the victims and the only person at the crime scene that fateful night. More so, Alec never once named Curtis Smith, nor did he mention the Cowboys when asked if he knew anyone who sought to hurt him or his family. The SLED investigator's rebuttal completely derailed Griffin's already weak argument.
the attorney's suggestion that a local gang might have executed Maggie and Paul because Alec's drug dealer owed them money was feeble at best. The Cowboys had never been implicated in the murders by anyone close to the case. Alec, however, was implicated over and over and over again, even by his own family. On February 15th, the prosecution brought a new witness to the stand, Marion Proctor, Maggie's sister.
She testified that she had a close relationship with her brother-in-law, but as time went on, she started to doubt his innocence. Marian explained that Alec never spoke about finding and punishing the person who ruthlessly murdered his wife and son.
Instead, she claimed that he seemed more preoccupied with their family's reputation. - He said that his number one goal was clearing Paul's name. And I thought that was so strange because my number one goal was to find out who killed my sister and Paul. - She told the court. The fact that Alec's own sister-in-law suspected him of being involved in the double homicide was a big blow. Big enough, it seems, to prompt Alec to come to his own defense.
On February 23rd, the patriarch made the extraordinary decision to take the stand and address the allegations of familicide himself. Part 7: Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave For the first time in two weeks, the Colleton County Courthouse fell into absolute silence. No murmur nor mutter was heard. All in attendance stared straight ahead, their eyes fixated on the man gingerly approaching the stand.
"I'm Alec Murdoch. Good morning," he said. The patriarch was agitated, and one can understand why. At the time, Alec was facing a colossal 106 grand jury criminal charges. Now, he was expected to answer for the most atrocious of his accusations. He shifted in his seat, seeking comfort that would never come, and flicked his tongue back and forth across dry lips in nervous anticipation.
Alex stared ahead, his expression unreadable, and that same sun-faded spot that had once honored his family name glared back at him. His suit hung loose and his face far angular than before. Months of stewing in a prison cell had whittled down his previously plump physique and obliterated his self-assured swagger. Even so, he stubbornly clung to his story.
I didn't shoot my wife or my son anytime, ever." Alex snapped. He continued to profess his innocence from the stand, but was eventually forced to acknowledge that, for 20 months, he had lied to the world. The patriarch admitted to lying about being nowhere near the dog kennels before the double homicide took place. However, he conveniently blamed his deceit on his drug abuse.
As my addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations or circumstances where I would get paranoid. On June the 7th, I wasn't thinking clearly.
"I don't think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I'm so sorry that I did," Alec told the court. He sniveled about his distrust of SLED investigators and the paranoia he felt as they swabbed his hands for gunshot residue and probed him about his relationships with his family. The patriarch flicked his tongue and smacked his lips throughout his testimony, swallowing almost compulsively and, apparently, trying not to cry.
He reiterated that he would never intentionally do anything to hurt Maggie and Paul. Tears and snot now streaming down his freckled face. Jim Griffin then asked Alec why he continued to lie, even after the night of the murders. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, but once I told a lie, I had to keep lying," the patriarch replied.
Griffin was attempting to highlight that Alec's allegedly debilitating drug addiction was the source of his deceit, not guilt. It didn't work. In fact, it only made the latter seem more plausible.
On February 24th, during Alec's second day of testimony, it came out that Paul had confronted him about his rampant drug abuse just one month before the Moselle murders. Apparently, Maggie had found a bag of pills in the patriarch's laptop bag and Paul wanted him to get clean once and for all. That wasn't the first time either. The then 22-year-old had been parenting his own father for years, monitoring Alec's oxycodone habit and trying to curb his addiction.
Maggie actually called Paul her little detective before the mother and son were shot dead, that is. I wonder whether this might have pushed Alec over the edge he was already teetering on.
Pressure was mounting on all sides at the time. Mark Tinsley wanted to audit his finances, PMPED was growing suspicious, the media was circling, and his estranged wife had hired a forensic accountant. Perhaps Paul's insistence on Alec giving up his only escape had caused him to pull the trigger.
According to his testimony, the patriarch simply couldn't face life without his vice. Alec told the court that he was taking up to 2,000 milligrams of painkillers a day in the months before the murders. Some days, he took 60 pills. Other days, he took more. In fact, he admitted that he had a pocketful of pills while being questioned by SLED investigators on the night of June 7th.
Alex sought to justify why he lied about his whereabouts, but to the jury, he had simply revealed an addiction worth killing for.
The patriarch's pitiful testimony lasted only two days. He had tried his damnedest to elicit sympathy from the court, portraying himself as the victim of a devastating disease. However, Palik's admissions only cemented what the jurors were already thinking: that he was a compulsive liar who could outwit the sharpest of minds and turn his tears on and off at will. Of course, that only made their decision easier. Part 8:
The end. After six weeks of hearing testimony from more than 75 witnesses, one of whom was the patriarch himself, the 12-person jury finally handed down their verdict. Not one single question was brought before the judge, nor was any form of clarification needed.
Their deliberations took less than three hours. On March 2nd, 2022, 54-year-old Alexander Richard Murdoch was found guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The patriarch rocked slightly as the verdicts were read out, betraying no emotion until he turned to his surviving son and mouthed, "I'm sorry. I love you."
However, his silent apology went unheard. Buster's head was in his hands, unable to watch as sheriff's deputies slapped a pair of handcuffs on his father's shaking wrists. One can understand why. Alec was all he had left. "He may be taken away," said Judge Newman. Seconds after being let out of the courtroom, the patriarch's attorneys immediately motioned for a mistrial. Their Hail Mary was justice swiftly denied by the judge,
"The evidence of guilt is overwhelming," he countered. The following day, Alec was sentenced, but not before Judge Newman gave the patriarch a piece of his mind after hearing him profess his innocence for the umpteenth time.
"It might not have been you. It might have been the monster you became," he said. The judge castigated him for his duplicitous conduct and sentenced him to two concurrent life sentences for the murders of his wife and youngest son. Newman then looked Alec directly in the eyes and said that, should he continue to deny his guilt publicly, he would be haunted by what he had done.
"I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you're attempting to go to sleep. I'm sure they come and visit you," he said. Clearly, the patriarch was unmoved by Newman's warning because one week after his conviction, his attorneys announced that they were appealing it. It seems that Alec simply won't go down without a fight. That said, he will likely be fighting many court cases for many, many years because he is facing far more charges than murder.
On March 10th, a trial date was set for the wrongful death lawsuit of Mallory Beach. Whilst Buster and the estate of Maggie Murdock have already reached a settlement with the Beach family, Alec has yet to pay his dues. "There's still accountability to be had," said Mark Tinsley in an interview with the press. As it turns out, the Beach family isn't interested in money. They want to hold Alec accountable for his role in the sea hunt crash and for the trauma he caused following Mallory's death.
Remarkably, the Beaches aren't only going after the Patriarch. They're going after the investigators who aided him in his attempted cover-up too. You see, Alec is just a symptom of a far deeper problem. His story has proven that low country law enforcement is too easily swayed by power and influence. The Beaches experienced it firsthand four years ago.
Now, they're bringing it to an end by taking the law to trial on August 14th. They're not the only family chasing down justice either. The very same month that the trial date was announced, a GoFundMe was launched for another alleged victim of the Murdock family, Stephen Smith, the 19-year-old queer teenager whose suspicious death was mysteriously labeled as a hit and run in 2015.
His family was desperate for the truth, and they felt that it could only be found six feet under. The Smiths sought to raise $15,000 to exhume Stephen's body and have it independently autopsied.
Donations poured in and, within a matter of days, their goal was exceeded by a staggering $85,000. Sandy Smith was moved by the overwhelming support she got from complete strangers. Still, even with their help, she had a long way to go. The grieving mother's attorneys announced that they would be petitioning a judge to allow the exhumation, with SLED officials present, of course.
SLED has confirmed that it doesn't need an autopsy to know that Stephen fell victim to foul play. However, since the conclusion of Alec's trial, its officials have devoted more resources to the teen's case and are eager to gather forensic evidence.
While one family fought to have the body of their loved one exhumed, another one waited patiently for their own exhumation. The Satterfield family had bravely gone up against the Goliath that was Alec Murdoch, thrusting his shameless theft into the public eye. They were satisfied that they had done their part in bringing him to justice. More so, the family announced that, though the patriarch certainly exploited Gloria's death, they don't believe he caused it. Sled,
on the other hand, isn't convinced. Their plans to exhume the Murdoch's late housekeeper are still underway. Rather than waiting idly, the Satterfields have found another way to cope with their loss. That same year, the family founded Gloria's Gift Foundation in honor of Gloria's love for Christmas and giving. The charity, which has been funded by the money won in their civil lawsuit against Alec, gives Christmas gifts and meals to struggling Hampton County families.
"After having fought the good fight for justice, we choose to make sure that Gloria's lasting legacy will not be that of a victim, but will be as a champion for love and charity," said Ginger Hadwin, Gloria's sister. "I find some comfort in knowing that at least one family member has managed to get not only a settlement, but solace after being caught up in Alec's web of lies."
That said, the patriarch is still facing over 100 charges for his sprawling list of financial crimes, each of which represents another victim of his criminal enterprise. Though it was his tireless work that finally put Alec behind bars, Prosecutor Creighton Waters has publicly announced that his job isn't done yet.
He is determined to bring the patriarch before a judge for defrauding his victims of $8.8 million and the state of almost $500,000. Not to mention for the failed suicide-for-hire scheme he orchestrated with Curtis Edward Smith. It's safe to say that, despite his life sentences, Alec Murdoch's days in court are far from over.
As he sits in prison awaiting the appeal for his double homicide conviction, Alec, or inmate number 00390394, as he is now known, must also sit with the shame of the lives he ruined and so ruthlessly took. Now, he is to face the litany of looming court cases against him disgraced, disbarred, dethroned, and alone. That, dear listeners, marks the end of the Murdoch family saga for now.
