Alex Murdaugh initially tried to throw a bait to the investigators by falsely linking the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul to a 2019 fatal boat crash.
He told law enforcement that he knew why his wife and son were slaughtered and informed the first officers on the scene that the grisly murders were tied to the 2019 boat crash in which 19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed.
Murdaugh, 54, made a distress call to 911 shortly after 10pm on the night of June 7, 2021 in which he claimed to have found Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, ‘badly shot,’ near dog kennels at the family’s rural hunting estate of Moselle, in Islandton, South Carolinan.
Now, prosecutors have alleged, the first thing Murdaugh did was try to throw investigators off the scent by falsely linking the murders with the fatal boat crash for which Paul, drunk at the helm, was facing criminal charges, while his father and older brother Buster were facing a wrongful death lawsuit.
But, according to the state, the murders of Maggie and Paul were not revenge killings.
Instead, they now allege, the ‘only person with a true motive to kill his wife and son,’ was Murdaugh himself.
In the document filed in Colleton County Court prosecutors write that the ‘clouds of Murdaugh’s past misdeeds’ were gathering into ‘a perfect storm that was going to expose the real Alex Murdaugh’, who is, they say, ‘an allegedly crooked lawyer and drug user who borrowed and stole wherever he could to stay afloat and one step ahead of detection.
‘They claim that he was facing imminent ‘legal, financial and personal ruin.’
That storm, they state, was due to break on June 7, 2021 – the very day that they allege Murdaugh gunned down his wife and son in a bid to, ‘shift focus’ away from himself and ‘buy some additional time to try and prevent his financial crimes from being uncovered.’
For the first time in his life, prosecutors contend, Murdaugh was facing ‘accountability’ and the exposure of years of misdeeds and a mountain of debt running into millions.
According to the State: ‘This case is unique in South Carolina history for many reasons. One of those is that exposing what happened to Maggie and Paul necessarily has its roots in a corruption that began years go and festered until June 7 was the result.’
Murdaugh is currently being held in the Alvin S Glenn Detention Center in Columbia where he is awaiting trial on multiple charges.
Alex Murdaugh pleads ‘not guilty’ at murder charge bond hearing.
His trial for the murders of Maggie and Paul is due to begin in Colleton County Court on January 23, 2023. He faces life in prison if convicted.
