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00:06A violent double-shooting.
00:09It's hard for us to even fathom as humans.
00:11A powerful family dynasty.
00:13You don't know who you're messing with.
00:15I have to live here.
00:16A southern gothic tale of greed and betrayal.
00:20He stole from the poorest of the poor.
00:21What else is he trying to cover up?
00:23Every violent crime leaves a trace.
00:26A forensic trail that can lead to the truth and justice for the wronged.
00:30He's been getting threats.
00:32I'm like, holy crap.
00:33Did he tell you to say that?
00:35Whoever did this has been thinking about it for a long time.
00:38The murders almost worked.
00:44Every crime scene tells a story.
00:48It begins in Hampton County, South Carolina with a 911 call.
01:10The caller is 53-year-old lawyer Alex Murdaugh.
01:14Alex stated that he had been up to the scene.
01:17That he had seen his wife and seen his son and it was bad.
01:20It was really, really bad.
01:21They weren't moving.
01:22He was asking, when are they coming?
01:24Please hurry.
01:26We're getting somebody out there to you.
01:29Being a rural community, it took almost 20 minutes or so for first responders to arrive on scene.
01:35You're in the middle of nowhere.
01:36It's so remote.
01:38You really can't see a neighbor even as you drive up to the property.
01:44They had a channel for dogs, family dogs, hunting dogs, and that's where their bodies were.
01:50Maggie and Paul were laying on the ground and they had injuries that were fatal.
01:57The scene is secure.
01:58Female victim, male victim, both gunshot wounds to the head.
02:01The victims are 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh and her 22-year-old son Paul,
02:06who had been checking in on the dogs at the family kennels, about 1,200 feet from the main house.
02:12Just beyond the kennels, we encountered Alec Murdaugh.
02:16They are dead, aren't they?
02:18Yes, sir. That's what it looks like.
02:19The deputies were shocked.
02:21They saw two bodies laying on the ground.
02:24It was a big deal.
02:26He's asked that if we don't have to disturb anything not to, we've got SLED on the way.
02:31SLED is an investigative group, kind of like a mini-FBI for the state of South Carolina.
02:36Senior Special Agent David Owen of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED, is called to the scene.
02:43Typically, in a case like this, SLED provides forensic services and investigative services to the local sheriff's office.
02:51Once I got close, I start seeing blue lights, the red lights flashing.
02:55You want to know as soon as possible what you're dealing with.
02:57Is it random? Is it isolated?
03:00What's the reason for somebody to come to this property and do this to this family?
03:04My strategy is I want to see the crime scene, because if I'm going to interview someone who called 911
03:10and say,
03:11Hey, this is what I found, I kind of want to know what they're talking about.
03:14I walked through the crime scene, trying very cautiously not to disrupt or disturb any evidence.
03:20As I approached, the hangar was on the right.
03:24The kennels were on your left.
03:25At the end of the kennels, at the feed room door, is where Paul was.
03:31He was covered up with a blanket rescue personnel placed over him.
03:36Paul was shot twice to his chest and in the head.
03:39There were two shotgun shells found behind the door in the feed room.
03:45I continued to walk through and I saw where Maggie was laying.
03:48She was also covered with a blanket.
03:51Maggie was shot multiple times, including to the back of the head.
03:55There's a whole bunch of 300 blackout shell casings there.
03:58Maggie had been killed by 300 blackout rounds.
04:02300 blackout rounds are used by semi-automatic rifles known as blackouts.
04:07Police suspect one was used to kill Maggie, but not Paul.
04:12His body is surrounded by pellets and shotgun shells.
04:16Meaning, Paul was shot with a shotgun.
04:18You had two different guns used.
04:20One was a blackout, one was a shotgun.
04:22Where are those guns?
04:23They weren't laying beside Maggie or Paul.
04:26Hey, watch your step.
04:27It's not a typical murder scene.
04:29There were tons of people everywhere.
04:32You've got coroners, you've got fire chiefs,
04:34not to mention some of the folks that were there to give the Murdoch family support.
04:39You've got everyone who is somebody.
04:42And I mean that with all due respect.
04:44During a violent crime, you know, it's a devastating event.
04:47So friends and family, they're gonna come out.
04:50Not necessarily to be nosy, but to be supportive of the surviving family members.
04:55You all familiar with this family?
04:57This family really was a preeminent legal family,
05:01like controlling the prosecutor's office for almost a hundred years.
05:04South Carolina is a small place, and each rural area has its own king.
05:09And in Hampton County, that was the Murdochs for a really long time.
05:13Alec was a member of a pretty prominent law firm with multiple attorneys.
05:17And all of the attorneys had responded to the scene.
05:20There was a guy who he was wanting to talk to.
05:22Alec?
05:23One of the first things David Owen did was interview Alec in his vehicle.
05:27He's the husband, he's the father, he called 911, so he's gonna have the most information.
05:32You're always concerned with people closest to the victims,
05:36the persons that find the victims, because you don't know what you have.
05:39So you suspect everybody until you can exclude them.
05:42So I introduced myself to Alec, and I said, hey, let's go talk.
05:45And his personal attorney says, well, I'm going with you.
05:49I can't really say no.
05:52Just take your full name for him, please.
05:55Richard Alexander Murdoch.
05:56I expected him to be emotional.
05:59I expected him to be kind of in a daze.
06:02But I still needed to get something from him, something to start looking for.
06:09Alec's day, as he described it, as he got up that Monday morning,
06:12did some work at the office in Hampton,
06:14came back home to Moselle, where he met up with Paul.
06:18He and I rode around looking at everything for a good little while.
06:23Maggie got there about 8 o'clock or so.
06:26They had dinner together.
06:27And after dinner, Alec stated that he sat on the couch, watched some TV.
06:32And Maggie and Paul left to presumably go down to the kennels without Alec.
06:38Took a nap on the couch probably 25, 30 minutes.
06:42I got up.
06:43I called Maggie.
06:44Didn't get an answer.
06:46He says that he called Maggie to let her know that he was going to go visit his mother at
06:53her residence at Almeda.
06:56My mom's a late-stage Alzheimer's patient.
06:59My dad's in the hospital.
07:00Maggie didn't answer.
07:01He called her a few times.
07:02And then he got in the vehicle and drove to Almeda.
07:06It's about a 15, 20-minute drive from Moselle.
07:10And he said he checked on his mother, sat there with her for a while, and then returned home.
07:15When I got back to the house, obviously nobody was in there.
07:19So I figured they're still up here fooling around.
07:21He still couldn't find Maggie and Paul, so he drives down to the kennels.
07:24I pulled up and I could see him.
07:27I knew something was bad.
07:29And I ran over to Maggie.
07:32Actually, I think I tried to turn Paul over first.
07:36His cell phone popped out of his pocket.
07:38But they can't find Maggie's phone.
07:40Why was Maggie's phone taken and not Paul's?
07:42Had Maggie and Paul been arguing over anything?
07:45No.
07:46What was their relationship like?
07:48Wonderful.
07:49They were just a regular, normal family.
07:53Paul had a lot of his mom in him.
07:56Maggie had heart and that laughter and the silliness.
08:00And Paul had a lot of that, too.
08:01She loved both of her boys.
08:03And she loved entertaining, you know, their friends and stuff.
08:07How about yours and Maggie's?
08:09Wonderful.
08:09Wonderful.
08:10I mean, I'm sure we had little things here and there, but we had a wonderful marriage,
08:15wonderful relationship.
08:16He adored her.
08:17I mean, whatever she needed, whatever she wanted.
08:22And yours and Paul's relationship?
08:24As good as it could be.
08:26Alec just delighted in Paul.
08:29His sense of humor, his impishness.
08:31They had the same gregariousness and the same weaknesses in many ways.
08:36So I'm getting all of this information.
08:38I'm like, well, what about Paul's friends?
08:39And he listed off some friends.
08:41I tried to call Rogan.
08:43He's a good friend.
08:43It's right around the corner from here, but I didn't get him.
08:46He said, I've called him, texted him, and he is not responding, and that's not normal.
08:51Rogan housed his puppy, Cash, at the Murdoch Kennels.
08:55So maybe Rogan's a victim and he was out here and now he's missing, or maybe he's involved.
09:01But I need to know.
09:03Do you happen to have a list of all your guns?
09:06I can make one.
09:07I don't have one, but I can make one.
09:08Okay.
09:09And I know living out here in the country, you probably have more than one or two.
09:12We do.
09:12We probably have 20, 25.
09:16Are any missing?
09:17Where could they be?
09:17And then I asked him, what's going on in your life?
09:21What's going on in Maggie's life?
09:22What's going on in Paul's life?
09:23Why would somebody want to do this?
09:25What comes to my mind is my son Paul was in a boat wreck a couple years ago.
09:32You know, he was arrested for being the driver.
09:35There's been a lot of negative publicity about that.
09:38When Paul's out and about, he's been punched and hit and just attacked a lot.
09:44But, I mean, nothing like this.
09:46Yeah.
09:47We need to track down the people involved in the boat case and get a statement.
09:50Find out their alibi if they have one.
09:52The interview is terminated at 1.30 in the morning when the other Murdoch's son arrives from out of town.
09:59I'm sure we're going to have much more questions.
10:01I'm available.
10:02You let me know.
10:03We finished up at the crime scene.
10:05I knew it was going to be a big case because it involved the Murdochs.
10:09Just knowing that the Murdoch family is prestigious, you just know what an absolute circus it's going to be.
10:16So now let's get the game plan.
10:17We had a lot to do.
10:21The morning after the murders, the investigation begins.
10:25The first thing you do is look at motive.
10:27The second thing you look at is means.
10:30And the next thing you look at is opportunity.
10:33Police start with the crime scene.
10:36In the immediate aftermath of the murders, sled did a search warrant at the Moselle property.
10:42At Moselle, police interview Paul's friend Rogan, who has heard the news and has come to pick up his dog
10:49from the kennels.
10:50Rogan told us that he had spoken with Paul on Monday night.
10:54Paul called me.
10:56At what time?
10:57At 844.
10:59And said that there was something wrong with my dog.
11:02When Paul went to the kennels that night, he noticed the hot spot on the dog's tail.
11:06He did FaceTime me, and I seen the background was the dog kennels.
11:11OK.
11:12He said, I'll send you a picture or video of it.
11:15During the conversation with him, I heard Miss Maggie and believed to be what was Mr. Ellett in the background.
11:24He heard Ellett in the background.
11:25And I'm like, well, that's odd, because Ellett told me he never went down to the kennels.
11:29How well do you know Mr. Ellett?
11:30I'm like a third son of them.
11:32So you would recognize his voice pretty quickly?
11:34Yeah.
11:35I'm 99% sure that was Mr. Ellett talking to me, or talking to them while I was on the
11:41phone.
11:41OK.
11:43And after then, I'd waited for the picture, brought him back a couple times, never heard from him.
11:48And I'm guessing that's when it happened.
11:52If Rogan is right, the killings happened between 8.44 and 10.06 PM when Murdoch called 911.
12:00Whoever was at the kennels during that time had opportunity.
12:04Whoever was at the kennels could be the killer.
12:07Now I've got something to work with.
12:10After speaking with Rogan, police searched the property.
12:14Starting with the gun room in the main house.
12:17This was a hunting family.
12:18So in the gun room, they had multiple guns.
12:21We're looking for a 12-gauge shotguns and also 300 blackouts.
12:25We're going to want to take those with us to test at our lab.
12:28So Sled seized a number of shotguns and one blackout rifle that could have been the murder weapon.
12:34During that search, Agent Croft noticed 300 blackout cartridge casings on the ground just outside the door.
12:41There's two right there.
12:42They've been there a little while.
12:43Yeah, 300.
12:44Now we have 300 blackout casings from the murder scene by Maggie.
12:48And we have 300 blackout cartridge casings by the door.
12:51So Agent Croft decided to collect those casings to compare to the casings found by Maggie.
12:57The casings and guns are sent to SLED for testing as the search for evidence continues.
13:01We're not just looking for DNA, you know, fingerprint data, blood spatter and everything.
13:08We're also really looking at what digital evidence do we have to look at.
13:11Are there cell phones?
13:13They already have Paul's in custody and soon find Maggie's.
13:17Paul's older brother was able to activate, find my phone, and it showed that it was not far from the
13:23house.
13:25Investigators request a warrant for a full data extraction of Paul and Maggie's phones,
13:29which can only be done if police have the passcode.
13:33Luckily, Alex Murdaugh has Maggie's.
13:36Which was a big relief because we were able to then provide that passcode to our experts in Columbia.
13:42Unfortunately, we did not have the passcode for Paul's phone.
13:46So SLED's computer crimes unit attempts to crack it.
13:49They have computer softwares that can pretty much attack the phone with different passwords.
13:53It could take a day, two days, it could take four years.
13:56With no way to know if they'll ever get into Paul's phone, police also request search warrants for his social
14:03media accounts.
14:04We requested Snapchat records because some of Paul's friends had told us that Paul had posted a Snapchat video that
14:11night.
14:12Police then look into the threats against Paul.
14:15My son was in a boat wreck months back. He's been getting threats. I know that's what it is.
14:21Two years before the double homicide, 19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed in a boating accident.
14:28Paul was the driver.
14:30His blood alcohol level was three times the lethal limit.
14:33A police investigation found Paul responsible, an investigation that some say was tainted.
14:39From the beginning, the Murdochs were inextricable from the local investigation.
14:42Which worried the Beechs.
14:45The Beech family started raising alarms. They knew the Murdochs. They'd grown up with them.
14:49Alec was prom king, quarterback at the high school, and could make problems go away.
14:53He was considered to be the richest, most influential, powerful guy in town.
14:57And they feared from the beginning that the Murdochs would somehow obscure what happened to their daughter.
15:03There was always rumors in the community over years of there not being accountability for the Murdoch family when things
15:10would happen.
15:11Around the time that the homicides happened, the family was in crisis on multiple levels.
15:17Paul had a trial coming up where he could face significant prison time.
15:20In addition, the lawsuit was going forward. The Beechs were asking $10 million.
15:24They were going to sue Alec personally, which is a big deal.
15:28Suing for your money, not your insurance, but your personal money, your home.
15:32And Alec was mad about it. Very mad.
15:35You know, you can't touch me. I'm Alec Murdoch.
15:37SLED investigates everyone related to the boat case, and the results are conclusive.
15:42The homicides had nothing to do with the boat wreck.
15:45And that was confirmed by speaking with the people they worked with, their families or significant others, and also by
15:53tracking their movements by cell phone activity.
15:56Police quickly rule out the boat wreck theory and return to Alec Murdoch.
16:01Three days after the double murders, Special Agent Owen speaks with him again.
16:06The first time that I met Alec and interviewed him was two hours after he found his wife and son
16:10murdered.
16:11I wanted to make sure that I heard Alec right, or he heard my question right, because that was a
16:16traumatizing moment for anybody.
16:18Agent Owen also wants to confirm his alibi.
16:21I'd like to get a cell phone exam so we can just corroborate everything.
16:25He was the one who last saw them alive. He's the one that found the bodies.
16:29I need to really press him if I can.
16:31I needed to be able to verify why Rogan said what he said.
16:35I heard Miss Maggie and believed to be what was Mr. Alec in the background.
16:41And why Alec said what he said.
16:43I was at the house, and I actually fell asleep on the couch.
16:47Is this the last time that you saw Paul and Maggie's when y'all were eating supper?
16:52Yes, sir.
16:54And I've got Rogan telling me that he heard Alec in the background while he was on the phone with
16:58Paul.
16:59So I'm kind of at an impasse.
17:01Do I go back at Alec, or do I wait for this phone to be processed?
17:05Something's wrong here. Something's real wrong.
17:09Before Agent Owen can make his next move, Alex Murdoch's father, Randolph, dies just three days after the double murder
17:18of Maggie and Paul.
17:19There was just so much going on in the life of the family.
17:21They go into one funeral for Maggie and Paul with hundreds of mourners.
17:27And then you have Randolph Murdoch III's funeral, which is even more of almost like a state visit.
17:33As the powerful Murdoch family grieves, their influence starts to be felt.
17:38In my experience working homicides or violent crimes, community talks.
17:45Somebody on the street is going to say something.
17:48Got nothing. Got nothing.
17:51I think people were very scared to talk, very scared to say anything.
17:56They were afraid of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.
17:59If you said something critical or questioning about what happened, would it get back to the Murdochs?
18:03You have this family that is so powerful, so influential.
18:08Ultimately, I think in that area of the state, you needed to be on the good side of that power
18:13structure.
18:15But the Murdoch influence doesn't extend to the evidence.
18:18Six weeks after the funeral, the results of the forensic testing of the Mosell guns and casings come in.
18:25When the sled agents collected the weathered cartridge casings from the Murdoch property, they were compared to the newly fired
18:33cartridge cases from Maggie Murdoch's murder.
18:36The firing pin marks and extraction marks were very similar and appear to have been fired by the same rifle.
18:43During their initial canvas of Paul's friends, investigators had learned there's a reason for this.
18:48Paul's friend said that he and Paul had been sitting on that stoop just a couple of months prior to
18:55the murders shooting the blackout.
19:00SLED analysts also compare the casings found beside Maggie to one shot from the blackout taken from the gun room.
19:08And when the sled analyst compares the casings, they're not from the blackout, we took it from the Murdoch family.
19:15Meaning they don't have the gun that killed Maggie, but they do have a theory about the matching casings.
19:21It was a Murdoch gun that committed the murders, or it was a gun that had been fired on the
19:26Murdoch property previously.
19:29I don't think it's as strong as having the rifle, but it's about as close as you can get without
19:34it.
19:34So right then and there, we know we have a family weapon that can't be accounted for that was used
19:39to kill Maggie.
19:40Another gun that can't be accounted for is the weapon used to kill Paul.
19:44We've got these two shotgun rounds that can't match typically shotgun shells like you can bullet casings.
19:50But we do know that the shotgun shells are consistent with a Benelli shotgun.
19:57And we were able to recover a couple of Benelli shotguns at the Moselle property.
20:00But there was also one that was missing as well.
20:03One of the lucky breaks was Paul's touch DNA that was found on one of the fired shot shell casings
20:10that ended Paul's life.
20:13Now you know that Paul, at some time or another, loaded those shot shells into a shotgun.
20:20So that's linking both guns back to, if not the Murdochs directly,
20:26they at some time were loaded by Paul and the other one was fired on Murdoch property.
20:33Obviously, when you know now that two family weapons were used to kill the victims and can't be accounted for,
20:39that's very significant as these were weapons he would have had access to.
20:44Alec would have had the means to do this.
20:46Although it's nearly impossible to imagine what his motive could be.
20:50It is so cognitively hard to understand how a father could do this to their family,
20:57and particularly this individual who was from such a life of wealth and privilege.
21:02Confirming or breaking Alex Murdoch's alibi will be crucial.
21:06When we got Alex's phone extraction, you know, everything was matching up to his alibi.
21:11When he said he called Maggie before he went to his mother's and sent her text messages, it was matching
21:15up.
21:16When he called 911, it's showing he called 911.
21:19What it's not showing is where else he was and when.
21:22Being a rural area, the less populous the area, the less towers you have.
21:27So it's hidden in a general area, which is just the family property.
21:31It doesn't really pinpoint where they are.
21:34Without the exact location data, police can't know how long Murdoch was at his mother's,
21:40or if he went to the kennels, as Rogan said.
21:43They can't determine if he had opportunity, but everything points to him as a suspect.
21:48You had a Maggie being killed by a family gun.
21:52You had the information from Rogan that he heard Alex at the kennel.
21:55So there was still a lot of work to do.
21:58Investigators approached the lack of location data from a different angle,
22:02using Murdoch's car as GPS.
22:04Alex Murdoch had a brand new Chevy Suburban.
22:08There was OnStar in there, and there was also the infotainment center.
22:12They took this infotainment center, which is like the brains of a car.
22:15It tracks everything. It's almost kind of like a fishing expedition
22:18to see what can we get from this vehicle.
22:21SLED sent two search warrants to GM for the OnStar data,
22:25and we had been told that there was none, which we didn't understand,
22:29which is why we did it twice, but that's what they said.
22:31This vehicle was so new at the time,
22:34and no company supported extracting anything from it.
22:39So investigators send the OnStar system to the FBI
22:42to see if they can break Murdoch's alibi.
22:45It could take months.
22:47But police finally get something concrete to work with
22:51when Paul's social media content is released.
22:54As Alec had said, he and Paul had been together in the 7 o'clock hour,
22:58and the Snapchat video showed Alec trying to sort of hold up a sapling
23:02that they had planted.
23:03The biggest problem is that we did not know when the video was actually taken.
23:08You could see that it was sent only a few hours before the murders.
23:12It was interesting because Alec was wearing a blue shirt and long pants.
23:15And on the video on scene, he was wearing a white T-shirt and green shorts.
23:20Alec had never mentioned a change of clothes.
23:23Investigators asked the Murdoch's housekeeper about the clothing in the Snapchat video.
23:27I know very vividly what he wore that day.
23:30It was the shirt he was wearing in front of that tree in that Snapchat video.
23:35I never saw that shirt again.
23:38The shirt is missing, just like the family guns.
23:41It's time for another chat with Murdoch.
23:44I learned a long time ago that you don't interview a suspect until you're ready.
23:51Alec has given me the same story twice.
23:54I've got this much evidence, so I need to sit down and go for it.
23:59You know, you don't hit home runs if you're afraid to strike out.
24:01But we were going to run for a couple of hours.
24:03He gives me the same information that he's given me the first two times.
24:07There is a video of you and him on the farm that night.
24:12And you were in khaki pants and a dress shirt.
24:14Was that that night?
24:17Because the friends that we talked to said it was posted that night.
24:25I'm not sure.
24:28I've got information that Paul was on the phone and Maggie was hurt in the background.
24:38And you were hurt in the background.
24:40I heard Rogan Gibson ask me if I was up there.
24:44He said he thought it was me.
24:48Was it you?
24:51At 9 o'clock?
24:52Yes, sir.
24:54No, sir.
24:55Without missing a beat, he says that information came from Rogan Gibson and he's wrong.
24:59And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking he got to Rogan.
25:03It would not have been out of Alex's character, knowing the history of the family and the accusations or the
25:10rumors that the Murdochs intimidate witnesses.
25:13Those were some of the similar accusations about the investigation into Alec around the boat case.
25:20A few more questions.
25:22Okay.
25:23Did you kill Maggie?
25:24No.
25:25Did I kill my wife?
25:26Yes, sir.
25:27No, David.
25:29Do you know who did?
25:30No, I do not know who did.
25:32Did you kill Paul?
25:34No, I did not kill Paul.
25:36Do you know who did?
25:37No, sir.
25:38I do not know who did.
25:41And I'm thinking to myself, he's pretty cool.
25:44You might expect somebody to be like, what are you talking about?
25:47Why are you accusing me of this?
25:49Why are we sitting here?
25:50Why don't you go catch the people that did this?
25:52You know, and just be really incensed.
25:54And again, people respond differently.
25:55But the reaction to me was fairly telling.
25:58Do you think I killed Maggie?
26:02I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me.
26:05I understand that.
26:05But does that mean that I am a suspect?
26:09You were still in this.
26:15After speaking with Murdaugh, Special Agent Owen checks back in with his only witness.
26:21I'm like, yeah, I've got to go talk to Rogan.
26:23But this time, he said, I'm not so sure now.
26:25I think I was mistaken.
26:26And pretty much shut down the interview and said, I need an attorney.
26:29I don't want to say Alec threatened him, but I think Alec got to him.
26:33Or Rogan realized, holy crap, this man killed his family.
26:38And I'm the only one that can prove it, which is an extreme burden to carry.
26:43By the end of the summer, the case is at a standstill.
26:47Alex Murdaugh's alibi still can't be broken.
26:50I am getting scared because the case is going cold.
26:52No information's coming in.
26:54There's no fingerprints to chase down.
26:56There's no other DNA to chase down.
26:58They haven't even gotten into Paul's phone.
27:00I've gotten Maggie's back, but that didn't really tell me anything.
27:03Like, grasping at straws.
27:06But that all changes Labor Day weekend,
27:08when Alex Murdaugh is caught up in another violent crime.
27:12Labor Day weekend, I'm at home Saturday.
27:16And I get a phone call.
27:18David, Alex has been shot.
27:21Alec was changing a tire.
27:24Someone pulled up behind him and offered to help.
27:29And then shot him in the back of the head.
27:32Immediately, police are there, 911 is there, his law partners are there.
27:36And what does everybody think?
27:37Oh, the real killers are back.
27:39They came back to finish the job.
27:41Agent Owen rushes to the scene.
27:43He arrives sometime after Murdaugh's taken to hospital.
27:47When I got here, Alec's car was in this general area, parked on the side of the road.
27:52Alec had stated that he ran over something that punctured his tire.
27:56And then I walk up and I see the puncture on the sidewall of the tire.
27:59It clearly looks like somebody jabbed it with a knife.
28:03Immediately, it's clear that he's lying.
28:05They actually find the knife across the street.
28:08And that whole story falls apart quickly.
28:11What's going on here?
28:12What's going on here?
28:14Almost immediately, another SLED agent drops a bombshell.
28:19He says, David, you got to get in my truck and listen to this.
28:21He said that the previous day, Alec Murdoch was fired from the law firm for stealing from clients.
28:28How much money?
28:30As best we can tell right now, $2 million.
28:32And I'm like, what?
28:34Wait a minute.
28:35Alec just got fired from the firm.
28:36There's this huge shock to the system as everybody's trying to absorb that it was completely inconsistent with what we
28:42knew about Alec.
28:43Alec Murdoch is not who he seems in more ways than one.
28:46This is something that we're going to have to explore in detail.
28:50Not only could it potentially be related to the murders, but if we can expose a powerful lawyer who was
28:58using his influence to steal from his clients,
29:01that's something that we needed to shine a light on.
29:04Two days later, still in hospital, Murdoch issues a surprising public statement.
29:11Alec admitted that he was taking oxycodone.
29:14He was addicted to opiates.
29:16He had a pretty voracious habit.
29:18He was getting older.
29:19He was a former college football quarterback.
29:20And he had multiple knee surgeries.
29:22And he started taking opioids for the pain in the early mid-2000s.
29:26I was stunned.
29:27I didn't really know what to think.
29:29The confessions from Murdoch don't stop there.
29:32Alec said the shooter was his drug dealer and that he had asked him to shoot him in the back
29:38of the head
29:40in order for his son to get the insurance money.
29:44Twelve days after the shooting, Murdoch is charged with insurance fraud but is released on bond and immediately enters drug
29:52rehab.
29:53While he's there, investigators take a closer look at his financial crimes.
29:58We think it's roughly about $10 million that he stole from his clients and the law firm.
30:03We are starting to piece together the motive.
30:07As we did a deep dive into his finances, not only was he making six, seven figures from fees,
30:14but on top of that he was stealing millions of dollars from his clients as well.
30:19He had multiple six-figure credit cards that were maxed out.
30:22He had a million-dollar revolving line of credit that was maxed out.
30:26He's addicted to pills. He needs to feed all that addiction.
30:30Clients were starting to ask questions about money having no idea that he had stolen millions from them.
30:35It was starting to really paint a picture of a guy who was staying one step ahead of the game
30:39financially.
30:40But all of these things came to a head on June the 7th, 2021.
30:45That afternoon, the chief financial officer of the law firm comes in and confronts him,
30:49which is very hard to do. Nobody confronts Alec Murdoch.
30:52She's asking about some money she can't find, and it was not a small amount of money.
30:55It was $792,000.
30:57And his phone rings, and it's his brother calling to tell him that their father is at the very end
31:02of his life.
31:03And that's big, too, because whenever Alec had his back against the wall,
31:08he could always go to his father, who would write him a six-figure check to tide him over.
31:12On top of that, the Beach family attorneys filed a motion to require Alec to open his books.
31:18And that's the one thing Alec can't do, because the second somebody looks inside his finances,
31:23they're going to uncover thefts that have been going on for years.
31:27And when the murders happened, all those things went away.
31:34But that doesn't answer one fundamental question.
31:38How could a man kill his wife and son?
31:41He loved Paul more than any other person on earth except for himself.
31:46And Paul was facing many years in prison.
31:49So I think he saw a chance to save the family name and save his son,
31:53and then also to save himself.
31:56Why Maggie?
31:57I think what Alec wanted people to think was that Paul was the target,
32:01and Maggie was collateral damage.
32:03I believe that she was lured there.
32:05Alec had put the Moselle property, and they had a beach house at Edisto Beach in Maggie's name.
32:11And so he couldn't sell those properties without Maggie being a part of that.
32:18And Maggie had no idea of the true situation of their finances.
32:23Once she's gone, though, those possibilities exist.
32:28We realized that this was not a white-collar case and a murder case.
32:32This was a white-collar case that culminated in two brutal murders.
32:38Investigators don't have enough evidence to charge Alex Murdaugh, their prime suspect,
32:43in the deaths of Maggie and Paul.
32:46But they do have enough to arrest him for financial fraud,
32:49which they do in October 2021.
32:52With Murdaugh behind bars, investigators continue to meticulously build the murder case against him.
32:58It was so important that we got this right,
33:01because, you know, you're talking about bringing down one of the most powerful people in Hampton County.
33:06Police go back to everyone with knowledge of the case,
33:10including Murdaugh's mother's caregiver, who is no longer afraid to talk.
33:15She saw a couple of things that proved to be very significant.
33:17Alec Murdaugh came over to Almeda the night of the homicides to check on his mom.
33:23How long would you say you were at your mom's at night?
33:2545 minutes an hour.
33:27She remembered that it was a lot shorter than that, maybe 15 minutes.
33:31Alec, after the murders, had tried to talk to her at one point
33:35and tried to get her to say it was longer than it really was.
33:37And she tells SLED that just a few days after Maggie and Paul were murdered,
33:44that Alec shows up early in the morning.
33:46And brought in a blue tarp-looking thing.
33:48And we're still missing guns.
33:49And when she motions to me, he says he came in like this.
33:54We get a search warrant, go back out there,
33:56and hidden in one of the closets upstairs at his mother's house.
33:59And we found a blue raincoat.
34:01And when they test it for gunshot residue,
34:04they find that there's GSR present off the charts on the inside of the raincoat.
34:09GSR of that quantity would be supportive,
34:13that there was a firearm that had recently been fired and wrapped in that garment.
34:17It leads us to believe that Alec brought the guns over there,
34:21wrapped in that blue raincoat, to discard the guns.
34:26Despite SLED's best efforts, the guns are never found.
34:30With the evidence against Murdoch mounting,
34:33investigators then do a deep analysis of the data collected from his and Maggie's phones.
34:39Very uncharacteristically, Alec's cell phone from 8.09 p.m. to 9.02 p.m.
34:44was completely dead and completely silent.
34:46And then we see that at 8.49 and 31 seconds,
34:50Maggie's phone goes silent forever and ever.
34:54Another big part of what the cell phone showed is that from 9.02 to 9.06,
34:59all of a sudden, Alec's cell phone shows 283 steps,
35:03which I think was four to five times, you know,
35:06any other period that we were able to gauge.
35:08So he was obviously very, very busy during that four-minute period.
35:12But even with the deep analysis,
35:14police still can't completely break Murdoch's alibi.
35:18Their last hope is the data from Pol's phone.
35:21We didn't have the code for his phone for the longest time.
35:24Paul's cell phone was found outside of his back pocket,
35:27and it was not until April of 2022 when a Secret Service agent said,
35:32hmm, why don't I try his birthday?
35:34Plugged in his birthday and it popped right open.
35:37The computer crimes lieutenant calls me and he says,
35:40we got into Paul's phone and there's a video that you need to see.
35:44What we found was a video taken at the kennels at 8.44.
35:49Get back.
35:50So I look at the video and I am freaking ecstatic.
35:54That video showed Paul trying to take a video of his friend's dog
35:59to show him an injury to the dog's tail.
36:02And you hear Maggie in the background,
36:03and she said, oh, you know, Bubba's out there, her dog.
36:06Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth.
36:08It's a guinea.
36:10This is a chicken.
36:11And then you can hear clear as day.
36:14Come here, Bubba.
36:15Come here, Bubba.
36:16Come here, Bubba.
36:17You can hear Alec.
36:19Oh, .
36:20I now know that son of a bitch was lying to me.
36:23Alec was at the crime scene with the victims just moments before they died.
36:28There's only one reason Alec lied to me.
36:31He killed his wife and son.
36:34On July 14th, 2022, Alec Murdaugh is charged with the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.
36:42I got you.
36:44Six months later, the trial begins.
36:47There's a lot of factors to this case, but all of a sudden the picture emerges.
36:52The most important part of our strategy was showing to the jury who Alec was
36:59and how could any father, but particularly this father, do what he's accused of doing.
37:04And then the other strategy was, from the very beginning,
37:07making sure the jury understood the digital evidence.
37:10We had the FBI data, Alex's phone, Maggie's phone, Paul's phone.
37:15I mean, it was just mountains of data.
37:17And so we created what I call a forensic timeline.
37:22About 8.30, the family's starting to migrate down to the kennels,
37:26and then you have the video at 8.44.55,
37:29where you can hear Alec's voice clearly in the background.
37:33This would have been the period of time where Alec would have said he was napping.
37:38And then by 8.48, we believe that that's when the killings started.
37:44Paul was in the feed room of the kennels, having that ongoing conversation with his buddy about the dog.
37:52Alec shoots him with the buckshot at close range, which should have been a fatal wound.
37:59He started bleeding, and you could see all of these droplets are round.
38:04Some of them are what we call blood in blood, which means you have a drop there, and another drop
38:09drops in that.
38:11That shows that your source is moving very slow.
38:15Alec is putting the shotgun down to pick up the blackout, thinking that he's killed Paul, who appears in the
38:21doorway, startling Alec.
38:22Alec fires a second round that dislodges his brain.
38:26At 8.49, we have Paul Murdoch's phone being locked.
38:30On the other side of the sheds, Maggie is running to her baby.
38:34Alec picks up the blackout, hits her twice.
38:40Another shot.
38:42Lacerates her breasts, and it beds into her head.
38:4530 seconds after Paul's phone locks, Maggie's phone locks, during the whole time when he killed Paul and Maggie, his
38:52phone is up at the house.
38:55He goes and returns back to the house.
38:58He gets his phone and a change of clothes.
39:01That's where we see his phone in four minutes fire up with 283 steps, and he's making calls to Maggie's
39:07phone to tell her he's going to visit his mom, trying to manufacture that alibi.
39:11We had a lot of the crucial data in the timeline that we needed for the case, but the one
39:17thing we were missing was location data.
39:18Without it, prosecutors still can't concretely prove that Murdoch had time to both commit the murders and establish his alibi
39:26of going to Almeida.
39:28But that changes two weeks into the trial, when prosecutors get a surprise call.
39:34GM called and said, yeah, you know about that on-star data? Actually, we have a lot of it.
39:38As a prosecutor in the middle of trial getting significant new evidence, you know, that about gives you a heart
39:44attack, right?
39:44They gave us speeds. They gave us individual GPS locations.
39:50At about 9.06, the telemetry and the on-star shows the suburban fire up.
39:55He goes out on the roadway.
39:57He slows down to 25 miles an hour, and we believe that's where he tossed the phone and then sped
40:03up afterwards to continue his route to Almeida.
40:06We were able to plot 4,820 data points from his house and then where his mother lives in Almeida.
40:13And the biggest thing we found out is that he really only parked for 15 minutes, which did not match
40:18up to the amount of time he said that he went to Almeida to visit his mother.
40:21The 15 minutes matches what his mother's caretaker had said.
40:25The on-star data also showed that when Alec arrived at the murder scene within 19 seconds, he calls 9
40:33-1-1.
40:3419 seconds isn't long enough for someone to come across the scene, process what they are seeing, check two bodies
40:43in two different locations, and then call 9-1-1.
40:52So I argued to the jury that that reflected somebody who arrived on the scene and knew exactly what they
40:57were going to find.
40:59We ultimately showed the kennel video, and that to me was the catalyst.
41:05I had one witness after another come in, and when I played that kennel video, testify, yeah, that's Alec.
41:11What voices did you hear? Pauls, Ms. Maggie, Ms. Taylor.
41:18One month into the trial...
41:19I'm Alec Murdoch, M-U-R-D-A-U-G-H.
41:24Murdoch takes the stand.
41:26I was confident he was going to testify.
41:28I mean, he's a trial lawyer, you know, and I think he realized that he was going to have to
41:32explain why he was on that kennel video when he had told everybody different.
41:35Mr. Murdoch, is that you on the kennel video at 8.44 p.m. on June 7th, the night Maggie
41:42and Paul were murdered?
41:44It is.
41:45He gave a lot of reasons and kept adding reasons as to why he didn't tell the truth.
41:49He had some pills in his pocket, and he didn't trust SLED.
41:53Other than lying to them about going to the kennel, I was cooperative in every aspect of this investigation.
42:02Very cooperative, except for maybe the most important fact of all, that you were at the murder scene with the
42:09victims just minutes before they died.
42:12Within a few hours of cross-examination, his eyes were all black. His demeanor was rigid. His chin was rigid.
42:19He was mad.
42:20And I remember watching him talk, and I was like, we are looking at a spider that's been removed from
42:24his web.
42:25After six weeks, the trial wraps up.
42:29The state of South Carolina versus Richard Alexander Murdoch. Indictment for murder. Guilty.
42:37Thank God. They saw what we saw.
42:41On March 3rd, 2023, Alex Murdoch is given two consecutive life sentences.
42:48Whatever happens going forward, he will never leave state custody, and he's not the man he was.
42:55I haven't seen the damage done to Maggie and Paul.
42:59And knowing how many people loved him.
43:02I just don't understand it.
43:04How can a man kill his wife and son?
43:07How can a man kill his wife and son?
43:19I mean, we only have to care.
43:20But still, I'll never be known as he's favorite.
43:21So do you know shall be good.
43:21He's also funny.
43:22Paola Wall has explained in that event to Maggie and Paul,
43:22We know the Dee of the way.
43:22In fact, there might be some things.
43:25We know the truth is there, no matter who on Monday evening.
43:25Two hundred and three years and three years.
43:26We know a woman.
43:34But for them, after all, he has beenausea loved have threatened at all.
43:37You
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