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Crime House has the perfect new show for spooky season Twisted Tales. Hosted by Heidi Wong, each episode of Twisted Tales is perfect for late night scares and daytime frights, revealing the disturbing real life events that inspired the world's most terrifying blockbusters and the ones too twisted to make it to screen. Twisted Tales is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts new episodes out every Monday.
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This is Crime House.
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I would never under any circumstances hurt my wife Maggie.
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And I would never under any circumstances hurt my son.
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Paw Paw Murdaugh is accused of killing his wife and son in June of 2021 in a family tragedy that's capture the world's attention.
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Convicted killer Alec Murdoch taking center stage once again now. Today, the state responding to an appeal filed by Murdoch's defense, Power, privilege and a family dynasty shattered by lies, drugs and murder. The Murdoch trial isn't just about one man on the stand. It's about unraveling the lies and exposing the darkness that thrived behind a name once untouchable in the South Carolina low country. Hi, I'm Katie Ring, a true crime analyst, self defense instructor and fierce advocate for victims. And this is Crime House Daily, your essential true crime companion. Every weekday morning and night here at Crime House Daily, we dig into the true crime stories making headlines right now where justice is unfolding, arrests are happening and new evidence is emerging. Every morning, First Watch gets you up to speed on the biggest cases. Every night, Night Watch takes you deeper. If you want to follow a case from the first 911 call to the final verdict, this is the place for you. Follow Crime House Daily wherever you get your podcasts, leave a review and for ad free listening, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. For video, check out our YouTube channel RimehouseDaily. This episode discusses active criminal cases and breaking news. The information we share is based on what's publicly available at the time of recording and may change as new evidence comes to light. We aim to inform, not to decide guilt or innocence. So everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Tonight we're diving into the Murdaugh murders, a case that shook South Carolina and the entire country. The Murdaughs were tied to a string of suspicious deaths over the years. And in 2023, the father, Alec Murdaugh, was convicted of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul. But he is now appealing that verdict on claims of jury tampering.
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For tonight's story, we're covering a series of gruesome deaths that gripped the entire nation. All of the twists and turns in this case have led to extensive coverage and Hulu is even coming out with a mini series in a few days called Murdoch Death in the Family. In Hampton, South Carolina, everyone knew the Murdoch family. They were filthy rich and highly influential in the town. The Murdaughs had been practicing law in the area for four generations. But in 2023, the dad, Alec Murdaugh, was found guilty for the murders of his wife and son. But it turns out the Murdaugh family had even more skeletons in their closet. The family's troubles first started on July 8, 2015. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't the family's only secret. But this is the first one exposed to the public. That morning, the body of Stephen Smith, a 19 year old nursing student, was discovered on the side of a country road in Hampton County. The cause of death was blunt force trauma and investigators eventually concluded that Steven died in a hit and run. But there were a lot of interesting details surrounding Stephen's death that raised eyebrows and led to suspicions about the Murdoch family's involvement. Steven was openly gay, something of a rarity in a conservative area. He was a high school classmate of Buster Murdoch, the family's oldest son. And some people claimed that the two were in a relationship. Steven's body was found only 15 miles from the Murdaugh's estate, known as Moselle, which raised even more suspicion. A few people in town were skeptical of how quickly the case was closed, especially with the Murdaugh's influence in the community. But there wasn't anything concrete that tied the family to the murder. Steven's family mourned him, never knowing exactly what happened. But on the night of his death, things continued on for the Murdaughs fairly normally after that, at least for a few years. Alex remained the most prominent lawyer in the community. Maggie, his wife, was a fixture in the town's social scene. Buster studied at Wofford College, then started law school at his father's alma mater, the University of South Carolina. He'd be joining his younger brother, Paul, who was studying there as an undergrad. But on the afternoon of February 2, 2018, the Murdaughs found themselves in the center of another controversy. That day, the Murdaugh's longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, fell down the front stairs of the family's Moselle estate. She suffered severe head trauma and died three weeks later. Alec Murdoch told investigators that Gloria had tripped over one of the family's dogs, but they didn't do any sort of follow up. The coroner never even examined the body and the death certificate said her death was from natural causes. However, just like in the case of Stephen Smith, local investigators took the Murdaughs at their word and quickly closed the case. And again, like with Stephen Smith, people in the town thought it was pretty suspicious. Especially when Gloria's sons were never received a dime of their $4.3 million life insurance payout. Alec convinced them to hire one of his friends as their attorney, but could never give them a straight answer about what happened to the money. And things only got worse from there. A year later, on February 24, 2019, Alex youngest son, 19 year old Paul, was driving a group of friends aboard the family's boat while while under the influence of alcohol, he crashed the boat into a bridge, sending his friends into the pitch black water. One of the passengers was a girl named Mallory beach, also just 19 years old. She drowned that night and her body wasn't recovered until a week later. In the aftermath of the crash, the authorities heard from other kids on the boat that Paul was driving. But he was not given a sobriety test, nor was he even taken to jail. And Alec encouraged one of Paul's friends who'd been on the boat to hire another one of his friends as their attorney. This way they could better orchestrate their statements and protect Paul from blame. Mallory beach was the third death in five years involving the Murdaughs. It was clear they were flexing their local connections to keep people from looking at them too close closely. But Mallory's death was the last straw and served as the start of the Murdoch's downfall. On April 18, 2019, Paul Murdoch was charged with three felonies in relation to the crash, including boating under the influence causing death. But Mallory's mother sued the Murdaughs for wrongful death. In civil court, the suit alleged that Paul's older brother Buster was had given Paul his old ID so he could buy alcohol and that Paul's mother Maggie had allowed him to take the boat out even though he was drinking. The case moved forward quickly and it was clear that the Murdaughs would owe Mallory's family a large settlement for her death. But despite Alex's successful career, multiple houses and lavish lifestyle, he insisted in court that he couldn't pay. According to him, the family was broke. That didn't sit right with anyone, especially Alex's wife, Maggie. She couldn't believe that her husband had somehow lost the family's wealth, especially without even telling her. She moved full time to the family's beach house while Alec lived alone at Moselle, trying to figure out what to do next. A grand jury had compelled Alec to turn over his financial records. And Maggie had also hired a forensic accountant to see exactly how the money was lost. Alec knew one thing. He did not want anyone to find out what was really going on with his finances. Alec was willing to do anything to protect the life he'd built, even if that meant burning it all to the ground.
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And Doug, here we have the Limu Imu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
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Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty liberty savings ferry unwritten by liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no Ding Decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.
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Experian. On June 7, 2021, three days before Alec Murdoch was supposed to turn over his financial records to the court, he reached out to his son Paul and asked him to come home to the family's Moselle estate. Paul was in a tough spot as well, though despite his father's attempts at intervention, his felony charges had stuck. He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was likely headed to court. Even if he got off, his family was falling apart. His parents were likely headed for a divorce, and the Murdaughs were supposedly flat broke. Meanwhile, his mother was also on her way to Moselle. Alec had asked her to meet him there so they could go visit his terminally ill father. Maggie had a hard time trusting her husband, especially since he'd lied so much about their finances. She texted a friend and said Alex sounded fishy, like he was up to something. But she'd known her father in law for decades and wanted to see him one more time before he passed. So she decided to go meet Alec. At 10:06pm that night, Alec made a call to 91 1. He sounded frantic and said he'd discovered his wife and son shot dead by the dog kennels at Moselle. They had bullet wounds to the head, chest and wrist and were laid close to one another. The police were immediately suspicious of Alex story, especially because of Maggie's text to her friend. But he maintained that he wasn't home at the time of the murders because he was visiting his mother, who had dementia. Alec theorized that Maggie and Paul had been murdered as payback for Mallory Beach's death in the boat crash and said he thought he might be the next target. By this time, the police didn't turn their attention away from Alec. Instead, they started looking at him more closely. And they weren't the only ones. On September 3, 2021, a little under three months after Paul and Maggie's murders, Alex, partner at his law firms, called him in for a meeting. They'd realized his clients weren't getting their settlement money and they suspected he was embezzling it. But Alec didn't have much to say in his defense because there was just too much evidence against him. He resigned from the firm in disgrace and the story made national news. Now the whole country had its eyes on him. Alec could feel the walls closing in. The police were already treating him as the primary suspect in his wife's and son's murders. Soon enough, they'd get the evidence about his financial crimes too. Coupled with a severe opioid addiction he'd been hiding for years, Alec was in a dark place. And things were only getting darker. The day after he resigned, Alec was changing a tire on the side of the road when a driver stopped his truck, pulled out a gun and fired at him before driving away. The bullet grazed Alex head and he called 911. Alec managed to survive with only a superficial wound, and he appeared to take it as a sign he needed to change. Two days later, Alec checked himself into a drug rehab facility in Orlando. But there was no way to stop what was coming. And a week and a half later, on September 14, 2021, one of Alex's former clients, Curtis Edward Smith, was arrested at his home in Walterboro, South Carolina. Curtis was Alex's cousin as well as his drug dealer. And according to the police, Curtis was also Alex's accomplice in his latest crime. The authorities claimed that Curtis was the one who'd shot Alec in the head, and the two men had planned the attempted hit together. Alex was ready to die, but he didn't want to leave his son Buster with no money. He believed, wrongly, that if he committed suicide, Busser wouldn't get any of Alex's $10 million life insurance policy. So he hatched the plan with Curtis to kill him anonymously. But Curtis missed his shot, and the police were able to track him down through his close ties with Alex. So now Alex had allegedly committed insurance fraud along with his other legal issues. And while all of this was going on, the police were getting closer to finding out what happened to Maggie and Paul. Even though Alex said he'd been at his mother's house when his wife and son were killed, his phone location data placed him at Moselle Estate, the scene of the crime. And as investigators gathered their evidence in Maggie's and Paul's murders, they also started digging into Alex's past. Specifically two deaths that occurred just a few years earlier. Gloria Satterfield and Stephen Smith. Investigators exhumed Stephen's body and found that the supposed hit and run death was actually a murder. They also looked into the circumstances of Gloria's death, which looked especially suspicious after evidence of Alex's scheme to defraud her sons came to light. At this point, the entire country was focused on Alex as the prime suspect in all of these deaths. Through it all, there was really only one person who believed he was innocent. His son, Buster. Buster Murdoch had been through a lot in the last few years. He was Alec and Maggie's eldest son, meant to carry on the family legacy and take over their law firm. But after his first year at the University of South Carolina Law School in the spring of 2019, he wasn't allowed to come back because of alleged plagiarism and a low gpa. As he often did before his criminal activities were uncovered, Alec stepped in to try and make his son's problems disappear. He paid a lawyer $60,000 to convince the school to let him back in. And it worked. But after the drama swirling around Mallory Beach's death, the school and the Murdaughs mutually agreed in 2021 that it would be best if Buster stepped away from school. A few months later, Buster got a call from his father that his mother and brother had been brutally murdered. When the police interviewed Buster, they insinuated that his father might have had something to do with their murders. But Buster didn't believe it. There was no way Alex could have done something so horrible. Then more evidence started to come out, especially about Alex financial crimes. But Buster still remained loyal to his dad. After Alex failed life insurance scheme, which would have given Buster a $10 million payout, the family needed to make money to pay for lawyers and potential settlements. With Alec busy in rehab, he signed power of attorney over to his little brother so he could sell off the family's assets. That included the Murdaughs Moselle estate and their beach house. And they needed every penny from those sales because on October 14, 2021, Alec walked out of the drug rehab facility in Orlando and was promptly arrested for the theft of his housekeeper Gloria Satterfield's life insurance money. He was charged with two felony counts and was offered bail for $7 million, but couldn't pay. So he stayed in custody while the prosecution built their case. And about 10 months later, in July 2022, Alex legal troubles worsened when he was finally charged with the murders of his wife and son. He pleaded not guilty and hired Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator who he'd known for years, to lead his legal team. With all the evidence mounting against him, the Supreme Court of South Carolina disbarred him and also charged him with tax evasion. And then Alec and Curtis Edward Smith, the man who'd failed to shoot Alec in the head, were charged with narcotics distribution. The two had allegedly used millions of dollars Alec had embezzled from his clients to fund a large drug ring going back almost a decade. Through it all, Alex's son Buster, insisted his father was innocent, at least as far as the murders were concerned. He told Fox Nation, quote, I do not think that he could be affiliated with endangering my mother and brother. In fact, Buster said he believed the killer was still on the loose. But that theory would soon be put to the test. On January 25, 2023, Alex's trial in the murders of his wife and son began. The media frenzy surrounding the case had reached a fever pitch, and the news outlets crowded into the courtroom to document the proceedings. The prosecution asserted that Alex had killed Paul and Maggie to serve as a distraction from his financial crimes and to hopefully get some sympathetic coverage from the media. They focused on proving Alex's proximity to the murders. His voice could be heard in a Snapchat video Paul posted just minutes before he was killed in. And cell phone data placed him close to the crime scene. They also pointed to an interview conducted with Alec in which he claimed, I did Paul so bad. After the prosecution rested, the defense brought their witnesses to the stand. Buster testified in support of his father, as did a crime scene engineer who said the crime scene was poorly handled. Then Alex took the stand in his own defense. He claimed that he had lied several times to investigators, including about his whereabouts on the night of the murders, because his opioid addiction had made him paranoid. He admitted to his vast financial crimes and to the assisted suicide scheme, but all the while, he maintained that he did not kill his wife and son. On March 2, 2023, after just three hours of jury deliberation, Alex was found guilty for murdering Paul and Maggie. He was sentenced to two life sentences without possibility of parole. Alec was found guilty for both state and federal fraud charges, resulting in an additional 40 year sentence and an order to pay restitution of $8.7 million to the victims of his financial crimes. Meanwhile, the other deaths swirling around the Murdaugh family and have not been resolved. Ten years on, Stephen Smith's murder remains unsolved. But the South Carolina authorities did open a criminal investigation into Gloria Satterfield's death, which is still ongoing. Although Alec Murdoch has admitted that he lied about the circumstances of Gloria's death, saying he made up the story of her tripping over the dog to ensure an insurance settlement. For years, the Murdaughs were able to wield their wealth and influence to make any of their problems go away. But Alec didn't know when to stop. And eventually, he took things beyond the point of no return. Ultimately, the families of the people he harmed are the ones left to pick up the pieces. Family and friends who testified described Paul as a loyal friend who loved the outdoors, and Maggie as a girl's girl who loved the beach, shopping and remodeling her home. But as the mother of boys, she came to love the things they loved. While Gloria Satterfield is remembered as a loving mother as well, not just to her own family, but to the Murdaugh children who she raised like her own. Mallory beach was a beloved friend and daughter whose love of animals inspired her loved ones to start a rescue charity in her name. And Stephen Smith is remembered as a devoted warrior for LGBTQ rights, being unapologetically himself and encouraging everyone to feel safe enough to do so. Alec Murdoch has appealed his double murder conviction, claiming jury tampering. The case is now under review by the state Supreme Court. The state filed its reply this summer, with oral arguments expected to happen later this year or early 2026. We'll be watching this case closely and we'll bring you all of the major updates as they come in. What did you think of today's case? Drop your thoughts and theories in the comments and follow us rimehouse247 on TikTok and Instagram and subscribe on YouTube @CrimeDaily for ad free listening. Join Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You stay curious and I'll stay on the case. See you next time.