South Carolina prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son to cause a distraction from his multi-million dollar financial fraud schemes. They say Murdaugh hoped to use the sympathy gained from the deaths to buy himself time to cover up the evidence.
The SCAG’s office said in a new filing Thursday that Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys’ request for a bill of particulars regarding motive is improper in modern legal procedure, but prosecutors nevertheless laid bare their damning theory of why investigators believe Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son.
Alex Murdaugh’s family had a prominent law firm in Hampton County, and provided a handsome income and an affluent lifestyle for many attorneys, including Alex.
Alex Murdaugh’s family’s prominence and respect in the community allowed him to avoid accountability throughout his life, but the Great Recession of the late 2000s changed that.
Alex Murdaugh’s monied persona became more of a put-on, the state says, and he stole, converted, swindled or concealed nearly $9 million in ill-gotten gains. The state says his law firm demanded an accounting of $792,000 in missing legal fees from a case Murdaugh had recently worked.
It was revealed recently that the chief financial officer of Murdaugh’s law firm confronted Murdaugh about his missing $792,000 in legal fees. But Murdaugh received a call mid-meeting informing him his aging and unwell father, Randolph III, would soon die. He left the meeting early, and his father passed only a few days later.
The day his father died was also the same day that his financial records were due so that they could be reviewed. However, if Alex Murdaugh were to turn them in he would be found guilty of massive financial fraud and be left with crippling debts.
Faced with a perfect storm, Alex Murdaugh murdered his 52-year-old wife Margaret and 22-year-old son Paul to change the narrative and gain sympathy.
Within 30 seconds of law enforcement descending on his estate, Murdaugh suggested to the responding officer that the killer’s motive stemmed from a boat wreck that had occurred more than two years earlier.
Despite his attempts to mislead investigators, evidence shows that Murdaugh had a true motive to kill his wife and son. He was allegedly trying to stage his own murder so his only son could inherit his $10 million life insurance policy.
Alex Murdaugh remains in jail on $7 million bond awaiting trial on 90 financial crimes, as well as murder murder. The state intends to seek life imprisonment.