Why Alex Murdaugh is Getting a Do-Over

Summary

Criminal – “Why Alex Murdaugh is Getting a Do-Over”
Release Date: July 14, 2026
Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Valerie Borlein (WSJ reporter and author of The Devil at His Elbow)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the high-profile case of Alex Murdaugh, a once-prominent South Carolina lawyer whose murder conviction was overturned due to “shocking jury interference.” Through an extensive conversation with reporter and author Valerie Borlein, the episode traces the Murdaugh family’s legacy, details of the trial, the misconduct that led to the conviction’s reversal, and the broader impact on justice and the local community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Jury Interference That Changed Everything

[00:58 – 03:17]

• Valerie Borlein introduces Becky Hill, the elected clerk of court in Colleton County who managed the jury during Murdaugh’s trial.
• Allegations (later confirmed by the South Carolina Supreme Court) state Hill became overly familiar with jurors and made inappropriate comments during the trial, including:
  • "Watch his body language. Don't listen to what he says, but watch how he acts." — Becky Hill, as relayed by jurors ([01:31])
• Previous judges thought such comments didn’t affect the outcome; the Supreme Court disagreed, declaring any interference irreparable, thus granting Murdaugh a new trial.

"Any interference with the jury, any way so whatsoever, is an error that can't be remedied. And he got a do over." — Valerie Borlein ([02:56])

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2. How Jury Interference Came to Light

[03:17 – 04:33]

• Remarkably, Becky Hill’s own memoir, Behind the Doors of Justice, hastened the revelation of her conduct.
• Alex Murdaugh's defense, spurred by rumors and Hill’s newfound celebrity, investigated jurors and uncovered the extent of her actions.
• Notably, a former chief justice said Hill was “lured by the siren call of celebrity” and became too invested in securing a guilty verdict.

"It's stunning to be having this conversation because of, you know, the actions really of one person. And it's not Alec Murdoch." — Valerie Borlein ([04:19])

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3. Justice for All — Even Alex Murdaugh

[04:33 – 06:18]

• Phoebe and Valerie reflect on the justice system’s core value: the rules must apply equally.
• Despite the mountain of evidence against Murdaugh and his notorious reputation, the Supreme Court granted a new trial—upholding fundamental legal protections.

"Even though we think he's a scourge on the legal profession and a deeply bad person, the rules have got to apply to everyone here." — Valerie Borlein ([05:50])

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4. The Murdoch Dynasty: Power and Decline

[06:18 – 13:15]

• The Murdaugh family’s storied legal dynasty influenced the Low Country for over a century, spearheaded by generations of solicitors wielding immense power.
• Valerie details foundational family scandals:
  • Randolph Murdoch Sr.’s suspicious 1940 death and subsequent lawsuit, implying the dynasty was “founded on fraud.” ([08:48])
  • "Old Buster" (Randolph Jr.), Alec’s grandfather, ran a bootlegging ring from the courthouse, escaped conviction by rigging the jury ([11:22]).
  • The family exercised control so notorious that Buster’s portrait had to be removed for Alec’s trial ([12:19]).

"It is no small thing to say that that family was founded on fraud. That dynasty was founded on fraud that goes back to 1940." — Valerie Borlein ([10:40])

"The feds were very clear that he had rigged the jury. Isn't it crazy? There's so many echoes in the Alec Murdoch story to every generation in the past." — Valerie Borlein ([12:13])

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5. Alec Murdoch's Descent: Fraud and Ruin

[13:15 – 16:58]

• Alec was destined to be a lawyer and used his name, stature, and sometimes bullying, to succeed in personal injury law.
• Around 2005, financial pressures and personal ambition led him to begin stealing from vulnerable clients, including children and a quadriplegic teen. Over a decade, he stole around $10 million.
• Valerie suggests this moral decay numbed him to human suffering, paving the way for graver crimes.

“He just started robbing his personal injury clients of lots of money … doing that over the course of a decade or more … I think it inured him to human feeling and made him capable of being the kind of person that could commit physical violence as well as moral violence.” — Valerie Borlein ([16:47])

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6. The Boat Crash and the Beginning of the End

[18:46 – 22:36]

• The 2019 boat crash involving Alec’s son, Paul, killed Mallory Beach and led to a wrongful death suit against Alec.
• This suit exposed Alec’s finances to scrutiny, intensifying his desperation as old family secrets and his ongoing financial crimes risked being revealed.

"[Mark Tinsley] was going to advocate for his client at all costs, and he did. He just kept the pressure on Alec... And that was June 10th of 2021. And the homicides happened June 7th, 2021. And the prosecution argued successfully that was no accident." — Valerie Borlein ([22:18])

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7. The Homicides and Their Immediate Aftermath

[24:25 – 25:39]

• On June 7, 2021, Alec called 911, reporting his wife and son shot dead.
• He immediately blamed threats related to the boat crash, but investigators quickly cleared other boat crash survivors.
• The timing coincided with a looming hearing that would have exposed his financial crimes.
• The murders delayed both civil and internal firm inquiries and generated sympathy for Alec, postponing investigation and scrutiny.

"His problems disappear. Right. The June 10 hearing is postponed probably indefinitely..." — Valerie Borlein ([26:07])

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8. The Botched “Drive-By Shooting”

[28:03 – 31:01]

• In September 2021, Alec claimed to be shot in a roadside attack; this quickly unraveled as a hoax.
• Days earlier, the law firm discovered more of Alec’s theft, fired him, and the failed shooting was part of a drug-fueled attempt—possibly to frame his dealer, cousin Eddie, or create a new distraction.

“There is significant amount of dispute and there is evidence that Alec Murdoch… was trying to actually set Eddie up, maybe kill Eddie and blame him for the homicides at Moselle… But what did not happen is that it was not a drive by shooting like Alec said.” — Valerie Borlein ([30:16])

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9. The Evidence and the Trial

[31:01 – 33:17]

• The murder case was circumstantial, missing murder weapons, but the critical “kennel video” found on Paul’s phone placed Alec at the scene minutes before the murders, contradicting his alibi.
• This evidence, coupled with Alec’s testimony (where he admitted lying about his whereabouts), swayed the jury to a swift, unanimous guilty verdict.

“That video… was the piece of evidence that allowed the state to bring the case at all… That video and… his testimony were the most important.” — Valerie Borlein ([33:12])

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10. The Jury and South Carolina Reactions

[33:17 – 35:10]

• One juror excused before deliberation later stated she would have voted not guilty; she claims she was intentionally removed in part by Becky Hill—further fueling controversy.
• South Carolina residents are conflicted: some are sad or frustrated at the retrial expense and trauma; others see the retrial as justice system integrity.

"There's not that sense of outrage so much as I can't believe we're going to have to pay for this again..." — Valerie Borlein ([34:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “But the Supreme Court said, no, any interference with the jury any way so whatsoever is an error that can't be remedied. And he got a do over.” — Valerie Borlein ([02:56])
• “It is no small thing to say that that family was founded on fraud. That dynasty was founded on fraud that goes back to 1940.” — Valerie Borlein ([10:40])
• “He just started robbing his personal injury clients... to the tune of $10 million or so, I think it inured him to human feeling and made him capable of being the kind of person that could commit physical violence as well as moral violence.” — Valerie Borlein ([16:47])
• “That video and then also his testimony were the most important.” — Valerie Borlein ([33:12])
• “There's not that sense of outrage so much as I can't believe we're going to have to pay for this again, you know, tax dollars to prosecute him again. But we will.” — Valerie Borlein ([34:51])

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Key Timestamps

• [00:58] Introduction to Becky Hill and start of central controversy
• [03:17] How jury contact and misconduct surfaced
• [06:34] Murdoch family power and dynasty history
• [08:48] Foundation of the Murdoch dynasty on fraud
• [11:22] Buster Murdoch and family corruption echoes
• [14:23] Alec Murdaugh’s first client thefts and slippery slope
• [19:08] Paul Murdaugh’s boat crash and Mallory Beach’s death
• [22:48] Mark Tinsley presses Alec’s finances
• [24:25] Homicides of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh
• [28:25] Botched “drive-by shooting” and cousin Eddie incident
• [31:37] The kennel video, Alec’s perjury, and the conviction
• [33:23] Community and juror reactions to overturned verdict

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Conclusion

The episode skillfully unpacks the convergence of dynastic power, years of fraud, personal tragedy, and the sometimes-unexpected safeguards of the legal system. As Alec Murdaugh faces a new trial—not because he is innocent, but because justice must be seen as impartial—listeners are left grappling with the tension between a community’s need for closure and the demands of due process.

Transcript

[Valerie Borlein]

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[Phoebe Judge]

Today I'm joined by Wall Street Journal reporter Valerie Borlein. She's also the author of a book called the Devil at His Elbow, about Alec Murdoch and his family. Alec Murdoch was convicted of murdering his wife and son in 2023. But earlier this year, that conviction was overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court, who cited, quote, shocking jury interference. I started by asking Valerie about the person accused of interfering with the jury, Becky Hill.

[Valerie Borlein]

Becky Hill is the elected or was the elected clerk of court in Colleton County, South Carolina. That's a town of about, you know, it's a county of about 20,000 people. Waltsboro, the county seats about 5,000 people. So she was the clerk of court in this predominantly rural area where the trial was held those six weeks back in 2023. And Becky was the kind of mayor of the courthouse. She ran the jury. She ordered lunch for all the personnel. She told the bailiffs where to be and when. And she kind of also wrangled the media. So she's a person that anyone who was in the courtroom all six weeks, and there are many of us who were knew well. But the allegations and the Supreme Court of South Carolina found that they were true, was that Becky was just overly familiar with some members of the jury. And especially so you remember those bombshell days when Alec Murdoch took the stand and we were all just like Alec Murdoch is taking the stand. It was shocking to hear from a defendant in a high profile Murdoch murder case in that way. And a couple of the jury's jurors said that morning, Becky said things like watch his body language. Don't listen to what he says, but watch how he acts. Or today is a big day, you know, be prepared. Things that were just in the end, previous judges who'd looked at it Said, yeah, this isn't. This is. This was wrong. It's kind of foolhardy to say words to that effect. But it didn't affect the outcome of the trial. But the Supreme Court said, no, any interference with the jury any way so whatsoever is an error that can't be remedied. And he got a do over.

[Phoebe Judge]

How did her involvement come to light? I mean, was it after the fact that jurors. How did this all surface?

[Valerie Borlein]

Well, you know, it's a funny thing as a person who's written a book about this case to say this, but, you know, it's because Becky Hill wrote a book about the case. It was called behind the Doors of Justice. And so the trial ended in March of 23, and she wanted to put her book, she wanted to write a memoir about being, you know, the life of a clerk of court, particularly in that high profile proceeding. And she put it out pretty quickly in August of 2023. And the defense attorneys, Alex, defense attorneys, namely Dick R. Pootle and Jim Griffin, got wind of and drove back down to Walterboro and started going door to door to talk to jurors and sick because they were hearing these rumors that jurors weren't happy. And in the end, it really was her undoing. One of the former chief justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court said that Becky Hill was lured by the siren call of celebrity to write this book. And in the end, she was pushing too hard for a guilty verdict. So it's stunning to be having this conversation because of, you know, the actions really of one person. And it's not Alec Murdoch.

[Phoebe Judge]

I have a hard time believing that Alec Murdoch did not shoot his wife and son. I mean, it feels to me a little shocking that the justice system, I guess this is. We want it to work this way, but the actions of one person could completely throw out a conviction which seems in some ways very deserving.

[Valerie Borlein]

You know, it's stunning. And the Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, they said, look, it is the breathtaking and unprecedented actions of one person that require this do over. But I agree with you. I've spent the homicides of Maggie and Paul Murdoch were June 7th of 2021. So more than five years. So I've spent the better part of five years trying to learn everything I can about what happened that night and what led up to it. Why Alec Murdoch, in my view, got to the point where he was capable and did in fact kill his wife and son. So I agree with you. I think the state made a very strong case but in the end, what's so crazy is that Alec Murdoch was the son of this incredible privilege. Four generations of incredible privilege. And it used to be the case, people said it all the time, well, the rules don't apply to Alec Murdoch. He can do whatever he wants and did for the better part of 50 years. But in this instance, with a little bit of benefit of time, now that it's been three years since the verdict, I think it came down to the Supreme Court to do the rules not apply to Alec Murdoch, Meaning if anyone else in the state with this set of circumstances might have gotten a new trial, shouldn't Alec get one too? Even though we think he's a scourge on the legal profession and a deeply bad person, the rules have got to apply to everyone here.

[Phoebe Judge]

And I want to talk a little bit about what you were just talking about. The dynasty of the Murdoch family. How well known were they in Hampton county and what was their reputation? Even before this big trial, they were

[Valerie Borlein]

universally known in the low country, these five counties of southeastern South Carolina for the better part of 100 years. His great grandfather had founded this law firm in Hampton, this tiny little town, in 1910, and then immediately in 1920 was elected solicitor, which is the DA for five counties, so for 100 mile radius. His great grandfather was the prosecutor in small towns in South Carolina in those days, law enforcement was a sheriff and a part time deputy and maybe a jailer in Hampton. He lived below the jail, right? That was it. So the district attorney, the solicitor was the finder of fact. So he was the detective on homicide scenes. And who, who was right, who was wrong? Were you drunk when you crashed your car or not? That was the power of that person to make, I mean to make murders go away, quite frankly. And the family held that office from 1920 up until effectively the time of these homicides. So they just had this immense amount of power to decide right and wrong. And it doesn't matter if you're talking about the Ming dynasty, if you're talking about some family in the Old Testament, the Royal family, the Ford family, dynasties inevitably fail, and they fail on the fourth or the fifth generation because typically from, from inside, the moral rot just, it sustains itself. But there's no, there's no ethical weight there anymore. And outside forces, whether that's, you know, famine or other things, and in this case it was the moral rot from Alec Murdoch, the fourth generation, and may rest in peace. Paul MURAK V Generation and as well as outside forces, someone finally taking a hard look at what Alec was doing, which was, as it turns out, stealing from his clients and applying a lot of pressure on him.

[Phoebe Judge]

What's interesting is that each, you know, generation patriarch that passed on seems to have kind of an incredible story that comes along with him. So what did you, the first, what did you learn about how Randolph Murdoch Sr. Who started the law firm, how did he die?

[Valerie Borlein]

Each generation is fascinating in their own right and malevolent in their own right. But what I found out about Randolph Murdoch Sr. Who was very successful from the get go and then in 1920 was elected solicitor. He was a great athlete, a great scholar, but he, like so many people in that part of the world, lost everything when the banks collapsed. And I found lots of evidence that he started cutting corners ethically. Every, every single crime that Ellic is convicted of has an echo in every generation. And for him, the most stunning thing I found out was that he had died in kind of this incredible wreck where his, his old black Ford had pulled up on a railroad track in the middle of the night, two o' clock in the morning. The rumor was always that he was coming home from a poker game game, was crossing the railroad track, got stuck and was hit by train. That's true. But I found all these old documents where he'd signed IOUs. He owed people thousands of dollars that he could never pay back, which huge amount of money in those days. And he, the, the. He rode up on the railroad tracks and when the train is coming dead at him, blowing the whistle high speed, he leans out the window and waves. And the next morning the coroner's inquest is held. The coroner is a protege of his who he found, the sheriff is a protege of his. Remember, he'd been the solicitor at this point, this is 1940, so he'd been in power for 20 years. All these people convened and the coroner's jury was at that time five white men within a few miles of where it happened. So all people he knew, they heard evidence from the engineer, from the conductor, I don't know. He had plenty of time to move. We were blowing the whistle, it was hundreds of yards away. He waved at us. They heard all that evidence and, and they said it was an accident. And the next thing that happened was his son, Randolph Murdoch Jr. Who was also a lawyer, new lawyer, sued the railroad company for wrongful death and got an immense judgment, a record setting judgment at that time that re established the family fortune. And so it is no small thing to say that that family was founded on fraud. That dynasty was founded on fraud that goes back to 1940.

[Phoebe Judge]

And then, and then Alec's grandfather, Buster Murdoch, he was another solicitor, 14th Circuit solicitor. He had his own, his own game he was playing. He was a bootlegger in the 1950s. Was he ever caught.

[Valerie Borlein]

Old Buster is what Alec's grandfather is called. Randolph Murdoch Jr. And Old Buster ran the largest bootlegging ring in the south. And he ran it out of the Colleton County Courthouse where we had Alex trial. But yes, he was. Finally the feds, finally the Department of Justice came down from Washington and charged old buster and about 20 of his legion, including the sheriff, a bunch of deputies with running this bootlegging ring. And that was in 1955. And they held what they called the trial of the century in Charleston. And in the end, as they're reading the verdicts from the jury, almost every name, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You get to Buster Murdoch, not guilty. And he took over again as solicitor. Was never out of office after that. And what's extraordinary is that the feds were very clear that he had rigged the jury. Isn't it crazy? There's so many echoes in the Alec Murdoch story to every generation in the past.

[Phoebe Judge]

To me, before Alec Murdoch's murder trial began, they had to remove portraits of his grandfather from the walls of the

[Valerie Borlein]

courthouse from the jury box. If you look out to the back of the room, on the big back wall was a portrait of old Buster Murdoch. And he's holding a lit cigar in his hand because he was never without one. And the judge had it taken down from the wall so as not to put his thumb on the scale. Either way, whether the jurors might love the Murdoch dynasty or resent it, Alec

[Phoebe Judge]

did not become the 14th Circuit solicitor like the rest of his family had. But it was clear that he was going to be a lawyer. I mean, they were all gonna go in the direction of going to the University of South Carolina law school, becoming lawyers with the firm. What kind of lawyer was Alec?

[Valerie Borlein]

Well, you know, and there he was always gonna be a lawyer. It was never in question. There's a front page story in the Hampton County Guardian from, I think when he was five or six. Fourth of is touring the courthouse today with his father. It was ordained. But he was the type of lawyer who practiced personal injury law, was the bread and butter of that practice. He did a lot of bad truck wrecks. He brought a lot of coolers of stakes out to the highway patrol offices. If something comes up, here's my car, that kind of stuff. And he was very successful. Partly because he was a bit of a bully. And he was known for getting good results out of insurance companies, partly by wielding his name and his physical size. He was 6 foot 4. He's about 260 at his height, at the height of his weight. So he was an imposing person in many regards.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is around 2005 that he starts. It all starts to crumble. He starts to steal money, as you say, from the client. How was he doing it? What did he do?

[Valerie Borlein]

And it does start around 2005. So he was kind of, you know, on the cusp of 40. He was. He had a beautiful wife, Maggie, and young sons. He was kind of. He was established in his law firm. He also got way out over his skis in the real estate market during the bubble. His grandfather, his father all owned a lot of land and he wanted to be bigger and grander than all of them. And he had his sights on doing that. And he got. He was way over. Invested in millions of dollars in real estate loans with no money down. And guess what? The market crashed. So around 2005, 2006, he's starting. Things are starting to get a little bit lean. And there was also a change in South Carolina law which affected his law practice. It made it a lot harder to get big verdicts. He was the money machine that he had been able to kind of perpetuate pretty easily for a long time, was starting to trip up just when he needed more money. And a young woman, Eleni Applyler, a girl who had lost her mother and her brother in a terrible Ford Explorer role over wreck. You remember those on 95 in the summer, that was one of the big. The bread and butter of the Murdoch firm were handling those types of cases. They were very good at it. She and her sister survived and came to Ellick and I mean, quite frankly, and there's been federal lawsuits around this, and he has pleaded guilty to it. He saw an easy mark and he robbed those girls who were 12 and 10. He robbed them over the course of years, millions of dollars. And when it came time to try to pay back them, he had another sadly, terribly easy mark. A young man named Hakeem Pinkney, who was a quadriplegic, a deaf quadriplegic teenager who'd been also injured in a terrible Rollover rack on 95, robbed him, his mother. And then when Hakeem died in a nursing home, he filed a wrongful death suit and took even more money from that family. So he just started robbing his personal injury clients of lots of money. Over the course of a decade, he built up such he was so inured to suffering, he was so willing to do these things that are just so depraved. Sitting next to someone's hospital bed, patting their hair, holding their hand. I'm going to go back to my office and I'm going to get you a lot of money. Getting back to his office and stealing their money, robbing them blind, doing that over the course of a decade or more to the tune of $10 million or so, I think it inured him to human feeling and made him capable of being the kind of person that could commit physical violence as well as moral violence.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Valerie Borlein]

Priceline Negotiator it's me, the Priceline negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time?

[Phoebe Judge]

Stop it.

[Valerie Borlein]

This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Seems like they decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to be the timeline.

[Phoebe Judge]

Fine.

[Valerie Borlein]

No one deals more deals than. Please stop. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.

[Phoebe Judge]

Alec Murdoch was able to keep this stealing this fraud pretty well a secret until right after 2019 when his son Paul Murdoch crashed a boat which had terrible consequences. Let's just talk a little bit about Paul Murdaugh and what happened with the crash.

[Valerie Borlein]

Paul was 19 years old. He was a new student at USC in Columbia. But he often came home to Moselle. His happy place was outdoors with his friends from high school, hunting, riding around on a four wheeler, drinking a beer, that kind of thing.

[Phoebe Judge]

So he was home Moselle is the estate that, the big estate that Alec Murdoch had purchased.

[Valerie Borlein]

Yeah, it's enormous. So it was like 1776 acres. So it's twice the size of Central park, just a massive expanse of land. But no, Paul was, was 19 and he was, he had been. I talked to family, friends, family babysitters. He was sneaking beers out of the fridge when he was low single digits.

[Phoebe Judge]

Right?

[Valerie Borlein]

He was, he was a troublemaker and his parents would laugh at it. He was a, he was a very lovable, funny, hyper kid. So he was the life of the party, I guess you could say. But he also was very troubled and he was drinking copious amounts of alcohol and driving boats, trucks and had multiple wrecks leading up to February 2019. And that's when he and his friends, his two guy best friends and their girlfriends, three couples, went out on a boat to go to an oyster roast in Beaufort. The family has a, has a, has a kind of a, I guess a lake property down there. And they were going to stay at the cabin and then go up on a boat and go to this oyster roast and come back. And there were a lot of DUI checkpoints out that night and they were all underage at that time and knew they were going to be drinking. I mean there's. Paul was doing, you know, beer bongs before he ever got in the boat. They're coming back on this boat and it's shivering and he keeps driving in circles or messing around rather than driving back to the house and then stops in downtown Beaufort to get a couple shots and get drinks even more. And so then everybody's really mad and fussing at each other. Give me the keys. I'm not. Nobody else is driving my effing boat. That kind of stuff. It's really harrowing to read the affidavits and hear the other people in the boat talk about it. It's wrenching. But he got really, really angry and he had stripped down to his boxers and kind of transformed into what his friends called his alter ego of Timmy, this angry Paul and that slams the throttle and the boat kind of planes off at 28, 29 miles an hour and careens into a bridge. And three of the young people on the boat were thrown off and three weren't and one of them didn't surface. And that was Mallory Beach. 19 year old Mallory Beach. They couldn't find her. And that was that wreck. And then ultimately when they found her body a week later, the family was devastated and filed a wrongful death suit against Alec personally Because he owned the boat. And then against, you know, Maggie Murdoch, Paul was using her credit card to buy a bunch of alcohol that night, illegally. And a wrongful death suit. And Alec knew it better than anybody as a personal injury lawyer that risk opening up his assets to examination like, well, this is money. There will be money damages here. How much money do you have? Show me your accounts. And he knew that the world would come to an end if that happened, and he needed to stave that off. So that, to me, the prosecution argued, and I accept their argument, that that was the beginning of the end of Alec Murdoch.

[Phoebe Judge]

Mallory's family hires a lawyer, and his name's Mark Tinsley. So what does Mark Tinsley find out once he starts kind of going into the Murdoch finances?

[Valerie Borlein]

Mark was a lawyer in the firm in the neighboring county of Allendale, but he was very close to the Murdoch law firm. He had a key card to badge in, out. He worked with them so much he could badge in and out of their building. He knew Alec really well. He had a beach house down the beach for a while from the Murdaughs and went out on the boat with him. He knew him really well. So when the beach family hired him, Mark had suspicions that Alec was. Something was fishy with his finances. Something was going on. They'd had somewhat of a falling out over a case, and he took the case. And he is, is tenacious and, and it cost him his friendships, it cost him a lot of relationships down there. But he was going to advocate for his client at all costs, and he did. He just kept the pressure on Alec. He kept subpoenaing things over the course of years, trying to make life difficult with Alec so he would settle this case. And in the end, there was a. He was pushing so hard, and his, his, his partners, his friends were saying, hey, this, we're among friends here. You know this. He's going to pay out, but don't be so rough on him. And he goes, no, something's really wrong here. And so he was, he was, he was applying so much pressure to turn over the financial information. There was a big hearing coming up on it, two years after Mallory's death, June 10th of 2021. Alec was going to have to turn over some of his bank data that day after having resisted it for the better part of two years. And that was June 10th of 2021. And the homicides happened June 7th, 2021. And the prosecution argued successfully that was no accident.

[Phoebe Judge]

On, on June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh called 911 and says that his wife and son have been shot. What happened next?

[Valerie Borlein]

Yeah. So he. As soon as the investigators arrive, Alec's like, this is horrible. My wife and son, are they alive? Somebody shot them. My son was involved in a boat wreck some years back. I know that's what it is. From the immediate. From his first interactions with the officer and then consistently in later interactions with officials, he blames the boat wreck, somebody. He's been getting a lot of threats online. People are mad at him. I know it has something to do with Mallory's death. And in truth, people were very angry at Paul in Hampton and at Alec, and they felt like the beaches who Also in a small town, everybody knows everybody. They felt like they'd been wronged. So there was some truth to the fact that Paul was getting some bullying, but there was no truth to the fact that had anything to do with the boat wreck in the way that Alex said. And pretty quickly, within a matter of days, if not hours, all the young people on the boat and their parents took DNA swabs and had their alibis confirmed just to prove that they weren't involved.

[Phoebe Judge]

And the fact that his wife and son had been killed on June 7 and he was expected to turn over documents on June 10, would that have delayed that process?

[Valerie Borlein]

Yes. And a couple of things happened on June 7th. He's at the office preparing those documents. Right. But he's also simultaneously confronted by the CFO of his law firm, who he'd known since high school. She's pretty tough now. Pretty tough, pretty smart woman confronts him that afternoon about a different missing amount of money, a $792,000 fee that he says is at another law firm but is not there. She's got strong suspicions and some evidence that he's taken this money. She confronts him that afternoon, and within minutes of that, he gets a call, ostensibly from his brother, saying that their father, Randolph Murdoch iii, his protector, who is still a partner at the law firm, was dying. He had been ill for some time, and this was the end. And what happened was within minutes of the confrontation and the phone call, he's texting and calling Maggie and Paul and asking them to come home that night. They were both planning to spend the night out of town. Paul was living with his uncle about an hour away. Maggie was spending most of her time at their beach house down at Edisto, also an hour away. He asked them both to come home when they weren't expecting to, and Maggie kind of reluctantly agrees. We have the benefit of her text messages and Some. Some testimony from her sister. She didn't want to go, but she went because she felt bad for Alec losing his dad. So they go, they're killed, and what happens? His problems disappear. Right. The June 10 hearing is postponed probably indefinitely. Mark Tinsley calls the beach family and says, so, sorry to tell you this, the case against Alec is over. No one is going to find a verdict, a financial verdict against him when he's just gone through this loss of his wife and son. And then the CFO stopped asking about that missing money and didn't ask for it for a matter of months. And in that summer of 2021, guess what? He was able to raise that money and create an subterfuge to call off the dogs for a little while. So the prosecution argued successfully that what he tried to do, as hard as it is to wrap your mind around it, he killed Maggie and Paul to create a distraction and Bas and Tom to fix his fraying world.

[Phoebe Judge]

Investigators, you know, while he might be fixing his financial mess, investigators are still trying to figure out what happened to Maggie and Paul over that summer. And then on Labor Day weekend, ALEC Murdoch calls 911 again. What does he say happened?

[Valerie Borlein]

So Alec Murdoch, over that Saturday of Labor Day weekend, calls 911 and says, he's on the side of the road. He had a flat tire. He was trying to change a flat tire, and somebody came along and shot him in a drive by shooting. And he was badly injured. And that's shocking, right? I mean, a drive by shooting. Alec Murdock. The family goes into a panic. They're like, see, someone tried to kill Maggie. Somebody killed Maggie and Paul. Now they're trying to kill Alec. There's something's. Help us. Something's really scary happening. So he says that he was shot in a drive by shooting. But that story very quickly unraveled what actually happened. There is some dispute about what actually happened on the side of the road. And we may hear from cousin Eddie, the person involved in that altercation, during the next trial. But what happened was that day before the Friday before Labor Day, the CFO of the law firm, her name is Jeannie Seckinger, had found pretty significant proof that Alec had not only stolen that first tranche of money, but multiple other amounts of money were missing. So that Friday, his law partners call him in and confront him, including his brother, his older brother. You can't practice law with us anymore. We know what you've been doing. And he says, I knew you'd find out eventually. I can't believe it. Took you so long. And he asked to keep his health insurance so he can go to rehab. And they say, no, you're out, you're gone. And then he meets up with cousin Eddie, who's Curtis, Eddie Smith, who was a cousin back through the Murdoch line of family. And that's his drug dealer. That's the person who was selling him pills and doing odd jobs for him. He was a former client of his, a disability client. He meets up with cousin Eddie. Cousin Eddie says, and has said this multiple times, that he followed Alec out to the side of the old Sackahatchee Road because he had something he needed to do for him. Alec gets out of the truck, out of his Mercedes, Maggie's Mercedes, with a gun. They struggle over the gun and it goes off and Kirste Smith takes the gun and leaves. And Alec, that's when he calls 911 and says he's been shot. In a drive by shooting. There is significant amount of dispute and there is evidence that Alec Murdoch, who is a big guy, strong guy, Eddie, who's a slight person who's on disability, that's how he knew Alec, that Alec was trying to actually set Eddie up, maybe kill Eddie and blame him for the homicides at Moselle. And the reason I say that is because in court filings, Alex, lawyers said that Eddie was the real killer, he was the one that killed him. So there's real dispute about what happened on the side of the road. But what did not happen is that it was not a drive by shooting like Alec said.

[Phoebe Judge]

Alec is eventually indicted for fraud and then later on for two counts of homicide for Maggie and Paul's murders. Yeah, we've talked about the prosecution's case against him, which was he did this because he was hoping everything would go away if Maggie and Paul were gone. Were you, you were there for the trial and we talked about how Alec took the stand. Were you surprised that the jury did decide that he was guilty? What was the feeling when the jury went out in the courtroom?

[Valerie Borlein]

Yeah, I mean, yes, I was surprised. It is really, it is a circumstantial case and there's missing the guns, the murder weapon is missing, which was a sticking point with the jury. The reason that the prosecution, and they will tell you this, the reason they were able to bring the case at all, was the kennel video. Right. That video. Ellick had said he was never down at the kennels. He wasn't down there. They went down by themselves.

[Phoebe Judge]

And at that, which is where Maggie and Paul were found, was at the dog kennel.

[Valerie Borlein]

Correct. They were down at the dog kennels, which is, you know, 300 yards from the main house at Moselle. And Alex said he stayed up at the house and then went over to visit his mother, who was sick. That's what he said. And that was his alibi for a long, long time, until in March of 22. So nine months or so after the homicides, police were finally able to open Paul Murdoch's phone. It had been locked. He doesn't back it up to the cloud. Nobody knew his passcode, so they didn't want to blow the opportunity to open the phone. So they didn't try his birth date for nine months. But when they did, the phone opened immediately. And one of the first things in, the first thing they see in the camera roll is a video that Paul Murdock took at the kennels moments before he was killed. And you can hear Alec's voice clearly in the background. He's clearly down there. So that was the piece of evidence that allowed the state to bring the case at all. That piece of evidence is the reason that Ellic testified, because he felt like he had to confront the reason he was the only person that could explain why he lied about being down there. Those two things were the best, and the jury will tell you, were the two most important pieces of information. That video and then also his testimony were the most important.

[Phoebe Judge]

What are people in South Carolina saying about Alex conviction being overturned?

[Valerie Borlein]

Well, and, you know, I should mention that it was unanimous guilty, but for the fact, and I should say this, there was one juror who was excused on that last day, the day of closing arguments between Creighton Waters, the prosecution's closing argument, and the defenses. She was kicked off the jury on the last day. Judge Newman found evidence based on an email he'd received and some interviews with tenants of a property she owned that she'd been talking out of school about the case. And I mentioned that because she wrote it in her book, which is called Enough Is Enough, she said that she was not convinced that he did it. And she says now that she would have been a not guilty vote. So I think that the defense saw her as their best chance for strong voice back in the room. And she was the one who was kicked off. She alleges in court filings and in her book that she was intentionally kicked off in part by Becky Hill, and that is being litigated and will be litigated in the coming months and year.

[Phoebe Judge]

So people are really split about this.

[Valerie Borlein]

They're split. And they're also there's this little bit of sadness because Becky Hill is I like her personally. I think many of us do who know her and knew her in that context. There is a sense of kind of sadness that it's come to this and that there's gonna be this do over this big trial. If you'd said in the spring of 23 we're gonna have a new trial, I think it would have been an uproar. But I think enough time has passed and there's been so much just, you know, kind of a daily drumbeat almost of the drama in this case related to the court proceeding. There's not that sense of outrage so much as I can't believe we're going to have to pay for this again, you know, tax dollars to prosecute him again. But we will.

[Phoebe Judge]

Well, thank you for doing this.

[Valerie Borlein]

Thank you for having me.

[Phoebe Judge]

Valerie Borlein's book is called the Devil at His Elbow. You can find a link to it in our show notes. If you'd like to watch the video of this interview and all our other video interviews, follow [e-mail] criminalpodcast or just click the link in our show notes. I'm Phoebe Judge. Thanks for listening.

[Valerie Borlein]

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