Who Is Alex Murdaugh? Why He Killed His Own Family?

Disbarred lawyer Alex Murdaugh is standing trial for the murders of his wife and son in June 2021.

Court documents were released that provided additional clues concerning the timing of events and what occurred the night Murdaugh’s family was killed.

Who Is Alex Murdaugh?

Alex Murdaugh is married to Maggie Murdaugh, who is 52 years old, and to their son Paul, who is 22 years old. Both Maggie and Paul were found dead in their home on June 7, 2021.

Murdaugh was the eighth prosecutor in a long line that started with the first elected official more than 100 years ago. However, everything changed when he called 911 at 10:07 p.m. to say that his wife and son had been shot and killed.

Shell casings were found at the scene, and the police said Maggie and Paul had been shot several times. At first, they did not find a gun.

A timeline of events shows that Murdaugh called the police dispatcher and said that when he got home, he found his son and wife dead. Murdaugh told a dispatcher, “I’ve been gone, and I just came back.”

A coroner said that Maggie and Paul probably died between 9 p.m. and 9.30 p.m., but Murdaugh said he had spent the day with his dementia-stricken mother and her caretaker.

But three months after the murders, when Murdaugh was driving and his tyre went flat, the murder case began to fall apart. He stopped to change the tyre, but a passing driver turned around and shot him.

He got a small gunshot wound to the head, and later it was found out that Murtaugh had paid someone to kill him so that his oldest son, Butler, could get the $10 million in insurance money.

Curtis Edward Smith, who was 61 years old, was arrested on charges of helping someone commit suicide, assault and battery, pointing and displaying a gun, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Investigators looked into Murdaugh’s past and found that he had made fraudulent business deals. On November 19, 2021, he was arrested.

He was charged with 27 counts of indictment, which included breach of trust with fraudulent intent, obtaining a signature or property by false pretences, money laundering, computer crimes, and forgery.

The State Attorney General’s Office said, “Murdaugh is charged with nearly $4.9 million in schemes to scam people and then launder the money.”

In January, he was charged with another 23 crimes, such as breaking trust with the goal of committing fraud and computer crimes. Over 11 years, there have been 71 charges of fraud and theft, adding up to about $8.5 million.

Why He Killed His Own Family?

After months of rumours, prosecutors in South Carolina are showing how they plan to prove that Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and one of his sons last June. They say he did this on purpose to draw attention away from the fact that he was broke.

Part of a motion filed by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office on Thursday reaffirmed what was already known: the former attorney is accused of running a 15-year scheme to steal up to $8.7 million from his clients and law firm in order to keep up his “fantasy persona of wealth, respectability, and prominence.”

But the document went on to connect the dots for the first time in a long-running family and community murder case.

Prosecutors said, “In the end, the murders were Murdaugh’s way to get the attention off of himself and buy himself more time to try to keep his financial crimes from being discovered, which, if found out, would ruin him personally, legally, and financially.”

In connection with the double murder, Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of having a gun while committing a violent crime. His trial is set for January. Murdaugh’s lawyers have always said that he is innocent. They say that prosecutors don’t have enough proof that the former lawyer, who was with his sick father at the time, killed his family.

Authorities say Murdaugh called the police at 10:07 p.m. on the night of the murders because he found his wife and son near the dog kennels on their 1,770-acre Colleton County estate. In the seven-minute 911 call, Murdaugh tells the dispatcher that his “wife and child have been shot and are not breathing.”

But prosecutors say that within 30 seconds of police arriving at Murdaugh’s home, he “suggested to police that the killer was motivated by the boat accident in February 2019 that led to Mallory Beach’s tragic death.” At the time of the murders, his son Paul Murdaugh was on trial for allegedly driving a boat while drunk, which killed 19-year-old Beach.

Even though Murdaugh is said to have tried to trick investigators, the evidence they found shows that “Murdaugh is the only person with a real reason to kill his wife and son.”

“As to why he did it, the evidence will show that Murdaugh ran up big debts over a long period of time, and to pay them off, he started stealing money from his clients and his own law firm and spending it on other things.”

In fact, Murdaugh is facing more than 80 financial crime charges in addition to the murder charges. He is also accused of trying to fake his own death so that his only living son, Buster, could get his $10 million life insurance policy.

“The evidence will show that these financial crimes were about to come to light at the time of the killings,” the motion says.

Murdaugh had been successful and came from a prominent legal family in the South Carolina Lowcountry. But prosecutors say “a series of bad land deals exacerbated by the recession permanently changed his finances.” Prosecutors say that Murdaugh started stealing money in four main ways to keep up appearances: billing personal expenses to clients through his law firm accounts; stealing from his own family and firm; having associates convert checks; and using a secret bank account to steal money.

Prosecutors said that even though Murdaugh had millions of dollars coming in from legal income, stolen client funds, large loans, and credit cards, it wasn’t enough to stop the constant financial roller coaster he put himself on.

“If that motion had been granted as expected, Murdaugh’s financial records would have been made public, which would have made his wrongdoings known to others,” the motion says.

Murdaugh is said to have killed his family that night, which made people feel sorry for him right away “as the victim of an unthinkable tragedy.”

“Everyone backed off their inquiries and rallied around him,” prosecutors say. “The Day of Reconciliation Has Passed.”

That wasn’t around for long. Just a few months later, as questions about the missing money grew, it was said that Murdaugh tried to fake his own death.

Shortly after a strange shooting that involved a distant cousin, things started to fall apart again because there were questions about how badly Murdaugh was hurt and different stories about what happened.

“At first, people came to his aid again,” said prosecutors. “But this time, the truth came out much faster.”

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