Original subtitles

- Wooo!

[blowing raspberry]

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[gunshots]

- Wooo!

[alex] come on y'all ready to roll?

Do you see it, bus?

[gunshots]

- Knuckleheads, here goes your chance at redemption.

[martha] this is the murdaugh family.

[buster] same story, different day.

- Everyone thinks they know this story,

But do they?

- Love y'all.

Talk to you soon.

[martha] in each retelling of the turmoil

Surrounding the murdaughs,

There have always been voices missing.

[martha] and without them,

It is impossible to understand who these people really are.

[martha] they say they've been misrepresented,

But have they?

- I don't wanna be rude here,

[martha] the murdaugh family has been a prominent force

Practicing law in the lowcountry for the last 100 years.

- In this little part of the world,

They were bigger than the kennedys.

It was all privilege and power.

- It turned into a tragedy

That is going to haunt them forever.

[phone dialing]

- This was a brutal, violent crime scene.

- There was a tone that I was not familiar with

Coming from my dad.

He asked if I was sitting down

And then he told me that he had found

My mom and brother shot and killed.

- So he says this to you.

What do you say?

- I was in a serious state of shock.

Obviously, your first question is, you know, like,

I mean, what happened?

[reporter] why did you kill your wife?

- South carolina attorney, alex murdaugh,

Handcuffed and charged with the double murders

Of his wife and youngest son.

- This story couldn't be written in hollywood

'cause it's so unbelievable.

[screaming]

- It's a family that has been marked by tragic circumstance.

- That's still a lot of bodies for one family to pile up.

- So you think the police didn't do the job?

- I think there's an awful lot of pressure

To come up with a suspect.

- Whose voices did you recognize on that video?

- The minute they found that video existed

It was like bye-bye alibi in just a heartbeat.

- Paul murdaugh, maggie murdaugh, and alex murdaugh.

- How sure are you?

- 100%.

- This is not good, what the hell?

- It was all a lie.

[martha] and he lied to you?

- He did.

- So when you can't sleep at night,

Do you ever think maybe he lied because he killed them?

[suspenseful music]

- What would you wanna say to them?

[suspenseful music]

[dramatic music]

♪

[gentle music]

♪

[martha] hi buster.

[buster] hi. - How you doing?

- I'm good, how are you doing?

- I'm good.

Just two and a half months after alex murdaugh

Was found guilty of murdering his wife and youngest son,

His only surviving child, 27-year-old buster,

Sat down for an exclusive interview

For this three-part documentary series.

You know, I think a lot of people

Will wonder right off the bat,

What made you decide that you want to speak out

About what has happened?

- Sure.

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this is because

There's been an awful lot of, you know, negative publicity

Talking about, you know, my family and also about myself.

And I just want to be able to give a truer perspective

And let people understand that some of the things

That are out there might not be exactly the truth.

[ominous music]

[thunder cracks]

- You're gonna hear some of what was going on

In alex murdaugh's life leading up to that day,

Stuff that happened that very day.

Stuff that was leading up to the perfect storm

That was gathering,

Much like the storms that are coming outside today.

[thunder cracks] [rain falling]

[gentle music]

- The lowcountry is just a certain

Piece of heaven right here on earth.

- It runs from about georgetown, south carolina on our coast

To the savannah border.

And it's some of the most beautiful,

If not the most beautiful coastline

On the eastern seaboard of the united states.

[gentle music]

- Lowcountry is a lot of friends and family.

You got a lot of places where you do fishing and hunting.

[gentle music]

- It's a mixture of different classes,

And different races of people,

Different types of people,

And that's what makes it unique.

It's the quintessential south.

[gentle music]

- It's really hard to talk about the lowcountry

Of south carolina without talking about

The murdaugh family in some shape, fashion or form.

- No one in south carolina can minimize the importance

And the influence of the murdaugh family.

- The murdaugh law firm is over 100 years old.

From 1920 to 2006, for the better part of 86 years,

There had been a murdaugh as the chief prosecuting officer

Of this five county district in south carolina.

I don't know that it's ever happened before,

At least not to my knowledge.

- Here on the wall, we have mr. Buster murdaugh,

Who was the second family murdaugh solicitor

Here in our circuit.

I've heard that he ruled with an iron fist.

As much as he was revered,

I would not wanna cross him.

- The first murdaugh recognized the power of that position.

That was a time when he could practice law privately

As well as prosecute it.

They made certain they were gonna get reelected

So that they could pass on that power, prestige,

And to some extent, fear.

- The murdaughs could definitely set the laws,

Make the laws

And bend the laws.

You would not wanna be on the wrong side of them.

- You would hear stories about that influence

And about even stories and maybe influence some

Being used to an inappropriate level.

- I never was in that position

Because we were raised to where we didn't really get,

I didn't get into a lot of trouble, so, I mean,

That wasn't really a thing for me.

But, there's been an awful lot of things written

About an awful lot of my family members.

It is completely, completely inflamed in the media.

There's no escape from any of it.

- I went to school and grew up with alex,

And his name is pronounced alec,

Even though it's spelled alex.

The reputation of their family was always solid,

Always well-respected.

And it was just one of those things

Where if you're ever in trouble,

You would want them to be on your side.

- Obviously, when you have a high-profile family like that,

There are gonna be people who adore you

And then there are gonna be people who fear you.

♪

[martha] the family law firm, which they started in 1910,

Grew into peters, murdaugh, parker, eltzroth and detrick.

They specialized in personal injury

And alex was one of its star attorneys.

- The murdaugh law firm had become the go-to law firm

For people who had legal needs in that area.

While that is a very poor and rural area of south carolina,

It was a very, very influential

And very, very powerful law firm.

- There was kind of a joke

That industry would rarely locate there

Just because if one of your tractor trailers hits a car,

Then you're gonna get sued by the law firm.

- Alex was very successful in the courtroom.

He was from a legal, I hate to use the word dynasty,

But it was a legal dynasty.

- To be a good trial lawyer,

You gotta be able to communicate with people not like you,

But people from a different economic strata,

From a different racial background,

Religious background,

Different life experience than you,

And he's very effective at that.

- This is a man who was a master closer

When it came to talking to juries.

He could get inside a juror's mind

And he could convince that juror

To give huge payouts to his clients.

- Alex treated everybody like they was family,

Especially once he got to know you.

He never treated me like he was any better than me.

He was always real respectful.

- What I would say above all, he was a family man.

That really was his number one priority.

- My mom and dad met in college,

So my dad played football at usc.

He had gotten injured so he was no longer on the team

And he had asked her to go to the football game with him

And he called her that day, and like said,

"hey, I'll come pick you up."

She said, "no, no, like I'm not feeling good,"

Or something like that.

About four rows down with a, um, with another guy,

So I don't know what transpired after that,

But somehow from there they've been together and happy.

[gentle music]

- Margaret branstetter, who we all know as maggie murdaugh,

Came from a really different family background than alex.

She was born in

A small, small town in kentucky.

Her grandfather had been a barber

And her father did very well for himself.

He had a long career at dupont.

She went to the university of south carolina.

She was a sorority girl and that's where she met alex.

And from what I've heard,

She wasn't thrilled about moving to hampton county,

But she loved him and it was marrying up.

In her own little world, she was the belle of the ball

And they had a home in hampton at one point,

And they had this beach house in edisto.

[martha] in 1996, maggie gave birth to buster,

And just three years later in 1999, paul was born.

[gentle music]

[gunshots]

[alex] do you see it, bus?

- My childhood was great, I mean, it really was.

We had two very loving parents,

Two very devoted parents who wanted to give us everything

That we absolutely ever wanted.

- When I first went down to hampton county,

One of the first people I spoke to was a woman

Who knew maggie a little bit.

And the word I got from everybody

Was she spoiled those two boys.

She loved them almost to a fault.

- As a child watching their marriage, it was inspirational.

It was like this is what I am striving for.

- Never seen him argue with buster, or paul, miss maggie.

I never even seen alex to even raise his voice at 'em.

- Love y'all.

Talk to you soon.

[martha] the couple's comfortable lifestyle

Was facilitated by the steady loving presence

Of gloria satterfield,

The murdaugh's longtime housekeeper who assisted maggie

Keeping watch over the two growing and active boys.

- Gloria to us was-- a maid doesn't really encapsulate it

Because she was hired when we were very young,

Took us places if mom and dad were outta town,

Really, she helped raise paul and I

From when we were little kids.

She was a big player inside of our family.

- So, what was the family dynamic

In terms of you and your mom, paul and your dad?

Who do you think was closer or more alike?

- Growing up my parents held a very firm line

That they were not going to pick favorites.

[kids cheering and laughing]

- But there were times when,

You know, I considered myself closer to my mom.

I mean, everything that I ever needed, she was there for me.

She, you know, advised me,

She loved me.

I can't put enough emphasis on how important she was to me.

And I think that my brother

Probably was a little bit closer to my dad.

- Alex and paul's relationship,

You would say it was more like best friends

Than it was father and son.

They drank beer together,

They went hunting together.

[buster] I was extremely close with paul.

I mean, we did everything together.

Paul was an interesting little dude.

[bluegrassy music]

He did not like to sit inside,

He did not like tv,

He did not like video games,

Anything like that.

He wanted to be outside

And that's where really his true love

Kind of shined out through that.

[martha] in 2013, the family moved from hampton county

To a house on a large property on moselle road

In neighboring colleton county.

- Friends and family of the murdaughs

Just began calling the estate "moselle."

- Paul connected with the moselle property,

Managing the property, you know, planning the food plots,

Planting the dove fields.

- Paul,

Wanted to be a farmer.

He really wanted to make moselle a farm.

- My brother and I would love to be around our friends,

Jumping in the pool, hanging out at the sand-bar,

Having a dove hunt

And just have a good day together.

- To a country boy who loves to hunt and ride

And live outdoors, moselle was like disneyland.

It really was a place,

A mecca for people who love the outdoor life.

[alex] you see it bus?

[gunshots]

- They had all the toys and accoutrements

That go with enjoying your life,

And enjoying your activities, one of which was hunting.

[gunshot]

[alex] there, you hit it on the last one.

[martha] to an outsider,

It might look like a charmed life,

But looks can be deceiving.

- I've always compared the murdaughs here in hampton

To the kennedys,

And like the kennedys,

The murdaughs have experienced so many tragedies.

- It's a family that has been marked by tragic circumstance,

But that's still a lot of bodies for one family to pile up.

[dramatic music]

[911 operator] 9-1-1, where's your emergency?

[maggie] my housekeeper has fallen

And her head is bleeding.

I cannot get her up.

- The story of gloria satterfield is especially sad.

She'd worked for the murdaugh family for about 20 years

And she was considered

Really kind of a member of the family.

She was only 57 years old and left behind two sons.

- I just wanna ask you a little bit

About the gloria satterfield situation.

Who was in the house when her accident happened?

- I don't know who was in the house.

I know that my mom and brother were there together,

And to think that it was somebody who was so close to us

Is-is-is heartbreaking.

- There are apparently dogs barking

And alerted maggie and paul who were in the house.

They come outside and see gloria lying there

And they called 9-1-1.

- Gloria allegedly tripped over alex's dogs

And that's what alex tells us at the time.

And she stumbled,

Hit her head on the front steps of the porch.

[martha] a little over three weeks after her fall,

Gloria died due to complications of a traumatic brain injury

Leaving behind her two sons, tony and brian.

- Alex murdaugh approached her children and said,

"let me be the lawyer, I'll take care of things."

- Alex came up with this hare-brained scheme

Sort of suing himself using his own insurance policies

To get money for them.

[martha] but since he couldn't sue himself,

Alex had an attorney friend, cory fleming,

Sue him on behalf of the satterfields.

- Tony trusted mr. Alex so much.

I mean, this man was larger than life.

- Alex, and just like his father and his father before him,

Their word was their bond.

When they told us that they would take care of something,

We expected that that would be done.

- But what we know is this is a guy

Who could look you in your face and lie to you

To get what he wanted

And you would think y'all were best friends.

[court clerk] state your name again for the record.

- They were just a couple of kids.

They were naive.

They had no idea what was going on.

And this was not just your everyday lawyer,

This was alex murdaugh, he was like king alex.

- So it was not much of a leap of faith at all

For these satterfield children to believe

That alex murdaugh would do everything in his power

To get them the best money that he could possibly get

And would protect their interest.

They just happened to be very wrong.

- Did he ever tell you that there had been a recovery

For $3.8 million against that?

- No.

- Did he ever pay you one penny of $3.8 million?

- No.

[martha] alex's betrayal of gloria's children,

The woman who meant so much to his own children

Might never have come to light if not for what comes next.

[ominous music]

♪

- On the night of February 23rd, 2019,

Almost to a year after gloria satterfield died,

Paul murdaugh took five of his friends on a boat ride,

And it's a foggy night with a drunk driver

And everybody else drinking as well.

- According to depositions, they purchased alcohol

And they all say that it was kinda bring your own.

[boat engine starts up and revs]

- All of these 19 year olds went out for what they thought

Was gonna be an evening cruise.

- Paul bought the liquor that night at a convenience store

Using buster's identification.

- It turned into a tragedy

That is going to haunt them forever.

- The kids drank and launched the boat,

And then they went to an oyster roast.

From there they went to a bar called luther's

Where paul had two shots.

- Paul got drunk

And started acting out

And then in the early morning hours,

Paul and his friends got on the boat.

- They were all participating and they all admit to drinking

On the evening of the boating accident.

Anthony, who was mallory beach's boyfriend,

States in his deposition that he did try to drive

And that paul was emphatic

That it was his boat and he was driving.

- They were traveling back

To the murdaugh family's river house

And clearly he was acting erratically,

And along the way as they were going through archers creek...

They hit a bridge.

[phone ringing]

[ominous music]

[sirens wail]

- I am not there, you know.

I'm in college and I received a phone call from my mom

That my brother and his friends had been in a boat accident

And that one of the girls that was on the boat

They had not found yet.

I was very scared for the kids.

I was very scared for the girl.

I didn't know all of the details about what happened.

I was just mostly fearful for what might come.

- There were six people on the boat.

There was one girl whose hand was pretty severely injured.

You had one boy who was thrown into the console

And had a broken jaw.

- Connor cook who was on the boat was knocked unconscious,

Breaking his jaw in multiple places,

Causing a terrible gash on his face.

- Mallory beach was thrown from the boat

And they couldn't locate her,

But most of the young people in the boat were injured

And so they went to the hospital.

[dramatic music]

- It was very odd that paul was

Never given a breathalyzer by the police,

But his blood alcohol limit was sky-high they found

Once he was in the hospital.

- And then you have alex murdaugh

With his father randy murdaugh walking into the hospital

With his badge flipped out of his pocket.

What is he doing?

He's managing the situation.

- Alex's father gave him a badge

Because he was a volunteer in the prosecutor's office.

Alex was not at that hospital as a law enforcement officer.

He was there as paul's father,

So he had no reason to be showing this badge to anybody.

It was clearly a symbol and a message.

- There appeared to be an effort afoot

To move the law enforcement's investigation

In the direction of charging connor cook

Rather than paul murdaugh.

I know from connor that alex essentially said,

"just be patient, we'll take care of things."

[martha] the same words he told tony satterfield,

I'll take care of things.

- Today the family of a 19-year-old lowcountry woman

Got the news they didn't wanna hear.

Mallory beach's body was found in the waters

Off of beaufort county yesterday.

The investigation continues into what led to her death.

- Once mallory beach's body was found,

The stakes got much higher about who was driving that boat,

Connor cook

Or paul murdaugh.

- The evidence was very weak that paul was driving the boat

And at one point in time,

When connor cook was being interviewed by law enforcement,

Connor said, "I don't know who was driving the boat."

I mean, he had the opportunity to say,

"it wasn't me,"

And he didn't do that.

- There's evidence that paul was

Up in the front of the boat

With his girlfriend at the time of the crash.

- But there was no lack of clarity to anthony cook

About who was driving the boat

Because he is seen being quite demonstrative about

Paul's being the operator of the boat,

Angrily so.

- You never want to get ahead of yourself,

But obviously we would not have proceeded

If we didn't feel that we had

A strong likelihood of conviction

And we planned to proceed forward with that case

Against paul murdaugh.

[martha] in April of 2019,

Paul murdaugh was charged with three felony counts

Of boating under the influence

Including causing mallory beach's death,

And seriously injuring two other passengers.

- When I started as a prosecutor in 1975,

I got to know buster murdaugh,

That would be alex's grandfather.

He was a legend and thought to be the best there was.

Over the years, I became friends with the murdaughs,

And so alex called me

And asked me if I would represent paul.

- I was asked along with dick harpootlian to represent

Alex and maggie's son, paul.

In our view, it was not paul who was the driver of the boat.

Right before they hit the bridge,

Connor cook's girlfriend screamed out,

"watch out, connor."

- The case had a lot of weaknesses in it

And we were getting ready for trial.

[ominous music]

- Our family stayed very supportive of paul

Through the whole process

To get through it together.

- After the boat crash,

I think people's view of the murdaughs shifted a little bit.

They were still a very prominent family,

But were they getting away with things because of it?

- To your knowledge, was paul being threatened,

Or bullied on social media, or anything like that?

- Yeah, he was definitely being bullied

And I know a lot of times he'd be walking down the sidewalk,

And, you know, a car comes by

And they would yell some stuff at him.

I knew he would go out in a bar

And there's somebody that wants to talk about it,

And make a scoff about it.

- What was your mother's reaction to all the negativity

Surrounding the boating accident?

- It, um, you know, it kinda consumed her.

- When the boat crash happened, my mom, especially,

Had a tough time distancing herself from all the articles.

I think it had a severe toll on her

And I think even just doing a certain task

Like running an errand into hampton

To go to the grocery store,

I think she might've felt like

She was getting unnecessary looks.

I think it was a very, very emotionally disabling thing

That also led to her maybe wanting to spend more time

Out of that area more so in a place like edisto

Where she found a little bit more comfort.

- It was at the beach, it was about an hour away,

Very different environment,

And maggie preferred to go to edisto

'cause it was like her sanctuary.

[martha] as the state moved ahead

With the felony case against paul,

More suits were being filed against the murdaughs.

- It wasn't just paul that was gonna be in trouble,

But alex was gonna face a civil suit.

The family of mallory beach, they wanted $10 million,

Which meant that all of his finances would be revealed

And he did not want this.

[martha] while their troubles escalated,

The one place where alex and paul

Always found refuge was moselle.

- Alex had a lot on his mind,

Certainly in his life,

And he had a lot going on with paul,

And so moselle, it's a perfect place

If you want peace and quiet.

- If you ever go out that way,

You're gonna enjoy it because it is quiet out there.

Well, it was quiet until the murders happened.

[eerie music]

- So tell me about where you were living,

What were you doing

In the weeks leading up to June 7th, 2021?

- Um.

June 7th, I was up in charlotte.

I was about to start this new job.

I was running around.

I was supposed to hold this hiring event

For one of the restaurants right outside of charlotte.

Got conversated on the phone with my family that day,

You know, both my dad and my mom,

And maybe even my brother.

I would just describe it as normal.

- That morning,

It was very hot.

It was probably in the 90s that day.

[dogs barking]

My job at moselle

Feed the chickens,

Wash the pens out.

Then I installed the fans for the dogs

To help keep the flies and give the dogs air

Where they wouldn't be so hot.

I done my regular routine and I left

And went back to the house.

[ominous music]

- On the afternoon of the murders, jeanne seckinger,

Who is the cfo of alex murdaugh's law firm,

Found financial irregularity involving alex.

[creighton] so if a lawyer earns fees,

Is it appropriate at all

For those fees to go directly to the lawyer

As opposed to going through the law firm?

[jeanne] no.

[creighton] what is that?

- That would be stealing it.

[creighton] stealing.

- And the law partners, they're all very concerned

Because they think alex may be trying to divert fees

Because of the boat case to essentially hide that income.

And so jeanne seckinger goes up to alex's office

To find where those fees are.

- I went upstairs, his office is on the second floor,

And he was leaning on a file cabinet outside his office,

And he turned and looked at me when I came up and said,

"what do you need now?"

And gave me a very dirty look,

Which made me go,

"oh, you wanna know, let's go in your office."

- During this conversation,

Which was a little awkward to begin with, it was interrupted

Because alex got a call from barbara mixson

Who was his mother's caretaker for 40 years

And she told him that his father was in the hospital.

- I said, alex, your mom is very agitated.

She is crying because mr. Randolph

Has done gone to the hospital.

I give her medicine and I want you to come check on her

Later on during the day.

And he said, "okay, I will."

- The call from barbara was a little bit lucky for alex.

It came at a good time.

All of a sudden the conversation between jeanne and alex,

Of course, turned to his father.

- When you learned on the seventh

That his father was going back in the hospital,

You didn't continue your inquiry any more that day?

- No, in our firm we're very family-oriented,

And any time there's an emergency,

Or something we need to do,

We grant the person the time off,

And I made the assumption

He was going to go take care of that.

- Randolph is dying,

And the financial charges was yet another, I would imagine,

Bit of pressure placed on him.

- Maggie called me

That day and said she was at edisto

And mr. Randolph was not doing well at all,

And alex really wanted her to come home that night.

She hadn't planned on it.

And I said, well, maggie, I said, you know,

Alex and his dad are super close

And that's probably what you should do.

- You encouraged her to go to moselle?

- I did.

- Was that the last time you talked to her?

- Yes.

- So, was it hard for you to watch your aunt marian up there?

- Yes it was.

[martha] why?

- Well, for one,

Because I know that she was absolutely terrified.

I know that she did not want to be up there,

And I love my aunt marian no matter whatever happens.

[dramatic music]

- That afternoon, I come back,

All I had to do was feed the dogs in the afternoon

And give 'em fresh water and wash the pens out.

I stretched the hose out and, you know, roll it back up.

I didn't see nobody there that day.

I know I left there around 4:30,

I do remember that.

- Then at six, alex returned to moselle,

And he and paul rode the property.

[dramatic music]

- On June 7th, 2021,

Did you ever have any conversation with paul,

Or communication with him?

- Yes, I talked to him around dinnertime,

And then he sent me a snapchat a little bit after that,

And that was the last time I heard from him.

- What was the snapchat of?

- It was of him and his dad

Looking at the trees and stuff that they had planted.

They had one swooped down

That obviously wasn't doing too good.

- Laughing about a tree

That alex has planted and it's leaning over,

Sort of laughing about

Alex's ineffective horticultural experience with that.

That's an hour and 20 minutes before he allegedly kills paul.

[dramatic music]

- They returned to the house

Just shortly after eight o'clock.

Maggie arrives there,

And then around 8:33,

We see paul head towards the kennels,

And we see some activity on maggie's phone as well.

So clearly they're going to the kennels.

- On June 7th, 2021, did you have a dog at that time?

[rogan] I did.

[creighton] what's the dog's name?

- Cash. - Cash?

What arrangements did you make for cash?

I would leave him at the kennel's at moselle.

- That evening, did you talk to paul?

- I did.

- And when was that roughly?

[rogan] around 8:40 he called

And asked if something was wrong with the dog's tail.

He was gonna try to facetime me.

He said, "you know how the service is out here."

He said, "if I can't get the facetime to go through,

I'll send you a video."

- Did you ever get that video?

- I did not.

- So paul takes that video,

But he never sends it.

His phone goes silent around 8:49.

Maggie's phone goes silent around that same time.

They never ever make any contact from that point on.

- In the immediate time period after dinner

With maggie and paul at moselle,

Alex said he'd laid down and took a nap,

Woke up and then went to see his mother.

- Alex left the house at 9:06

Because that's when the onstar records him

Cranking up the car at 9:06.

- He arrives back at the scene around the 10 o'clock hour

And then goes to the house first,

And then, we can track the car, he goes to the kennels.

[ominous music]

[somber music]

[martha] tell me about the phone call.

- The phone call was, there was a tone

That I was not familiar with coming out of his voice.

He requested or asked if I was sitting down

And then he told me that he had returned to moselle

And that he rode down to the kennels

And that he had found my mom and brother shot and killed.

- My whole body went into a sense of shock.

I can remember basically sitting on the foot of the bed.

I had lost all feeling in my arms.

Obviously your first question is, you know,

Like, I mean, what happened?

And then you just I don't know,

My body almost kinda quit working,

Just,

But finally kinda got some composure together.

You know, my girlfriend, brooklynn,

Packed my bag up for me.

We got in the car and we started driving down.

[ominous music]

[indistinct police radio chatter]

- Someone contacted me and told me

That our sheriff's department had been dispatched down there

And that there had been some murders.

Of course, at that point you know, everybody wondered,

Well, does this have anything to do with the boat crash?

You know, early on, it was just who might have done this?

- When I first started looking into this

And went down there,

I talked to so many locals in the weeks following the murder

And no one said they thought he really did it.

And then, of course, in September of 2021

We get an alert that alex murdaugh has been shot

In the craziest scenario that anybody could imagine,

In which he says he was fixing a tire on his car

And that someone came along and just popped it.

[suspenseful music]

[phone dialing]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[officer] what happened?

[alex] I got shot.

- Jim called me and said,

"somebody tried to kill alex, drive-by shooting."

And we were shocked

And I said,

"oh, my god, they killed maggie and paul,

And now they're trying to kill him."

And that's when jim indicated it wasn't a drive-by,

So we called sled.

[martha] sled is the state police of south carolina

And when alex speaks with them,

There's a new twist in his story.

He now says he's addicted to opioids,

Stemming back to his college days and a football injury,

But that's not all he reveals.

- Alex murdaugh now admitting to investigators

That he hired a man to kill him.

[martha] alex says he hired his alleged drug dealer

To shoot him in the head,

But that the shot only wounded him.

- Soon after this event, he is whisked off to rehab.

So, in my mind it was kind of a little bit of a shifting.

At first, there's people after him,

The same people who killed maggie and paul,

And then when that didn't seem like it was going so well,

Then he's gonna say, well, I'm addicted to drugs.

- I was upset, I was angry, I was disappointed.

I mean, it's very, very, very difficult

To try to wrap my head around all these--

All these circumstances.

- That was probably the first time

That I really said what's he up to?

It just was one of those things that just struck me

As just really, really odd.

- It's been a little more than a year

Since maggie and paul murdaugh were found dead

At the family's home in colleton county.

- No arrests were made at that point and the state remained

Tight-lipped on alex murdaugh's involvement

Up until this morning

When those murder indictments came down.

- Paul and maggie were murdered on June 7th, 2021.

While we were pursuing every lead that we got,

All the questions kept coming back to alex.

It was in early July of 2022 that we actually indicted him.

- I wanted to make sure that we got this case right.

- Alex murdaugh has been charged with murder.

[news reporter] the high-profile attorney

At the center of a case involving murder,

Money, and mystery, is arrested in orange county.

[martha] while the attorney general gathers evidence,

The national and international press catch wind

Of alex murdaugh and his family.

- Growing crowd gathering in a normally quiet community.

- This was a prominent family

Within the legal professionals.

- There are so many very interesting details

About the family, three generations.

- In this little part of the world,

They were bigger than the kennedys.

They were bigger than any mafia family in new york,

But we never heard of them, and you know what?

They liked it that way.

[martha] during his trial

For the murder of his wife and son in January of 2023,

Alex murdaugh says he kept a journal.

He recorded excerpts from it for this documentary.

[dramatic music]

[court clerk] the court is now in session.

Judge newman presiding.

- We'll now proceed to opening statements by the state.

- Thank you your honor and may it please the court.

Listen for that evidence.

Listen to that gathering storm

That all came to a head on June 7th, 2021,

The day the evidence will show he killed maggie and paul.

He was the storm

And the storm arrived on June 7th, 2021,

Just like the storms that are heading here right now,

That they died as a result

Beyond any reasonable doubt.

Thank y'all.

- When creighton waters

Was talking about this storm building,

The mysterious death of gloria satterfield,

The fatal boat crash,

The opioid addiction,

I mean, the walls were really closing in.

Even his father, randolph,

Who had been such a strong presence in his life was dying.

- I wanted the jury to really understand

That this was all coming to a head and it was falling apart.

- When you listened to the prosecution,

They built the argument that killing paul and maggie

Would buy him even more time.

It would turn sympathy on him

At a moment when a lot was about to come down.

What do you think about that?

- I was thinking that I don't know what,

Or how bad everything was going to get,

Or how bad everything had gotten for him,

But I do know that I do not think that his justification

And his out of whatever storm he concocted

Was to kill my mother and brother.

[thunder rolling]

- I submit to you what you have heard

From the attorney general as facts are not,

Are not.

They're his theories,

His conjecture.

Alex, stand up.

This is alex murdaugh,

And alex was the loving father of paul,

And the loving husband of maggie.

- Dick harpootlian and jim griffin

Were alex's defense attorneys.

Dick harpootlian has the higher profile,

And jim griffin is more the down-to-earth good ole boy.

Dick harpootlian is known for his courtroom prowess.

Dick is also a sitting state senator,

And he is so embedded in south carolina,

He's such a southern lawyer and he's just known

For his sort of theatrics in the courtroom.

- He is presumed innocent.

That's the foundation of our constitution.

That's the law.

That's your oath.

Thank you.

He's got his theatrical side, too,

Which comes out in the courtroom,

And creighton waters had a large team of attorneys

Working with him,

And he even had the state attorney general,

Alan wilson there.

- When I told creighton that I was gonna be at the trial,

I wanted him to know that I wasn't going down there

To second-guess the leadership role I'd placed him in.

I said, "creighton,

Consider yourself like eisenhower and I'm fdr."

Where was maggie's head pointing when she hit the ground?

"I'm still your boss,

But you're in charge of the invasion."

[martha] with the opening statements complete,

The state calls its first witness.

- We're ready to proceed by the state.

- Your honor, the state would call sergeant daniel greene.

Let me take you to the evening of June 7th, 2021.

Were you working that particular evening?

[daniel] I was.

Or first responder on the scene?

- I was.

- Did you ultimately have a conversation

With mr. Murdaugh when you were out there?

[daniel] I did.

- Did mr. Murdaugh tell you that he had any sort of firearm?

- First, he pointed to where,

Or pointed out where the gun was.

It was just based off of how nervous he was acting

And anxious and upset,

I decided it was in everyone's best interest

To get that shotgun and secure it in my vehicle

So that no one else had access to it,

But once sled arrived on scene

To do their further investigation,

It was then turned over to sled.

[martha] in the early morning, sled agent, david owen,

Questions alex in the first of three interviews.

[alex sobbing]

[alex sobbing]

- I received a call from john marvin, alex's brother,

Telling me that sled wished to come out

And do follow-up interviews with alex

On I believe it was June the 10th.

So alex was broken, I mean, he was a broken man.

The interview was not accusatory.

It was very conversationalist.

[martha] during alex's second interview,

Lawyer, jim griffin, is sitting in the back seat,

And what alex does or does not say that morning

Becomes a key sparring point during his trial.

- When you asked the defendant about the traumatic picture

That he saw of paul and maggie, what did he say?

- It is just so bad, I did him so bad.

[creighton] I did him so bad.

- Yes sir.

- Did he really just confess?

- It's not uncommon for people

To make those sort of freudian or subliminal slips.

- Everyone in the court was like, what?

Did he just admit to killing his son?

- I feel like, well, why wouldn't it be case closed?

Why are we sitting here?

[dramatic music]

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