Episode 648: Alex Murdaugh Part I - From Randy to Buster

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left Ep. 648: Alex Murdaugh Part I – From Randy to Buster

Release date: January 16, 2026
Podcast Network: The Last Podcast Network
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, Ben Kissel

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Overview

In this first installment of a multi-part series, the hosts dive into the infamous Murdaugh family of South Carolina—a dynasty of lawyers and solicitors whose unchecked power over generations allowed unchecked crime, corruption, and eventually murder. With their trademark irreverence and black humor, the hosts chart how the family’s century-long domination of the Low Country set the stage for the recent high-profile crimes of Alex Murdaugh. This episode focuses on the Murdaugh family history from the early 1900s up to the birth of Alex Murdaugh, dissecting how generational privilege, local corruption, and rampant criminality flourished in the shadows of rural South Carolina.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction: Framing the Case and the Murdaugh Legacy

[03:22] Ben Kissel: The hosts compare the Murdaugh saga with previous “true crime juggernauts” and instantly lay down their view: Alex Murdaugh is “completely, utterly guilty” and they won’t entertain alternative theories.

Notable Quotes

• [07:03] Henry: “We here at Last Podcast on the Left think Alec Murdoch is completely, utterly guilty.”
• [07:12] Marcus: “I already liked her Poolian speak on the subject and he did not convince me, you or anyone else.”

The Multi-Generational Murdaugh Machine

The hosts break down the family’s rise from the early 20th century with Randolph Murdaugh Sr., through Buster Murdaugh, to Randolph III and eventually Alex:

• The Murdaughs held the solicitor (district attorney) position for nearly a century.
• They operated the personal injury firm PMPED, notorious for securing huge settlements and controlling local juries.
• They were both prosecutors and civil litigators—a unique arrangement only allowed in South Carolina until the 1980s.
• Each generation grew more reckless, corrupt, and entitled.

Notable Quotes

• [10:35] Ben: “The Murdochs lived by the principle that if you wanted to live above the law, you had to become the law.”

Corruption and Control in the Low Country

The hosts paint a vivid picture of South Carolina’s low country—a poor, insular collection of counties governed by old southern mores, racism, and deliberate isolation (complete with a literal fence built around Hampton County in the 1890s).

• The Murdaughs used their control to select favorable juries, protect allies, and mete out violence when necessary.
• They “fixed” jury pools—a local child would draw names from a box already stuffed with their chosen men.
• The lore of white southern officials taking justice into their own hands is explored, including alleged lynchings and executions of Black defendants.

Notable Quotes

• [26:34] Henry: “All he did was corruption in a way, but because it was so localized and he knew everybody, it seemed to be like, fine at the time.”

Murdaugh Family Stories: The Stuff of Southern Gothic

The hosts delight in storytelling, describing:

• Buster “Big Daddy” Murdaugh: Both a prosecutor and bootlegging kingpin, known for trial theatrics and bribes.

• [47:20] Ben: “He drew an imaginary box with his finger on the floor in front of the jury—said that’s where the victim lay today…when they left, [the jury] all avoided stepping on the grave he’d drawn.”

• [56:13] Henry: “Nothing’s like beating the government on charges of bootlegging—truly one of the most wonderful things. Of course it’s going to give him a reputation that everybody’s going to love him.”

• Buster’s resignation over a giant moonshine operation (“the Culloden whiskey conspiracy”) and his swift return to power after beating federal charges.

• Corruption normalized: Local officials, juries, and even the IRS were routinely outmaneuvered, bribed, or threatened.

The Darker Side: Violence and Crime for "The Greater Good"

Through anecdotes, the hosts show how the Murdaughs justified lawlessness and murder to maintain their fiefdom.

• [32:06] Henry (sarcastically, on killing Black suspects): “Yeah, it’s a saving money thing.”
• [33:37] Ben: “The Murdaughs learned early on that murdering someone, if it was for the so-called greater good, this could not only be forgiven, but respected.”

Nepotism and the Secret Language of Power

The podcast explores the mechanics and mindset underpinning their control:

• Knowing “the number” to settle cases with corporations.
• Understanding the “secret languages” of local power, passed through nepotism, not taught in law school.
• “If you pick a really horrible place like Hampton County, no one’s really going to care to look.” [71:21] Marcus

Notable Quotes

• [45:22] Henry: “They knew the right things to ask for—the secret languages of how these things actually work…and once you get into that back room, lots of stuff opens up for you.”

The Decline and Fall: Each Generation, Less Ethical Than the Last

The hosts shift to the late 20th century:

• Randolph III: A criminal “just like his father,” but by the '80s and '90s the game shifted to drug smuggling, protection rackets, and personal excess.

• [76:41] Ben: “Randy III, this is Alex’s father, was also fond of sex workers…kept a separate condo…bordered on abandonment.”

• Marital dysfunction: At one point, Alex’s mother (Randy III’s wife) published her own fake obituary in the local newspaper to shame him.

• By the early 1990s, the locals began protesting: people were tired of the impunity, botched investigations, and arrogance of the Murdaugh family.

The Next Generation: Alex Murdaugh and the Spoiled Progeny

The episode ends by focusing on Alec Murdoch’s early years, setting up future crimes:

• Alec was spoiled, entitled, and malicious from a young age, protected by his mother (a school board member) and father.
• Known for frat-style drinking, bullying, and open lawlessness.
• “They wore their alcoholism like a badge of honor.” [84:36] Ben
• His wife Maggie, from a lower-middle-class background, was swept up in the family’s myth and moved with Alec to Hampton, which she hated.
• Both their sons, Buster and Paul, were born into this tradition of unaccountable privilege, with evidence of neglect and emotional dysfunction from the start.
• The episode closes by introducing Gloria Satterfield, the family’s housekeeper and nanny, foreshadowing her own suspicious death: “Gloria Satterfield would end up in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of a set of brick stairs with a cracked skull 19 years later.” [90:59]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (With Timestamps)

• [04:18] Henry (on Alec Murdaugh’s distinctive voice):
  “He’s like a flute with a bag of fat filled with oxy attached to it… somewhere between South Carolina heavy hitter Pee Wee Gaskins and Michael Jackson.”

• [10:35] Ben:
  “The Murdochs lived by the principle that if you wanted to live above the law, you had to become the law.”

• [26:34] Henry (on jury fixing):
  “All he did was corruption in a way, but because it was so localized and he knew everybody, it seemed to be like, fine at the time.”

• [47:20] Ben (trial theatrics):
  “[Buster] drew an imaginary box… said that’s where the victim lay today. When [the jury] left… all avoided stepping on the grave he’d drawn.”

• [52:23] Henry (doing his rural accent):
  “Well, I went back to her bedroom, picked her up and placed her in the grave, covering her with blankets and paper and dirt. At that time she was breathing a li’…”

• [56:13] Henry:
  “Nothing’s like beating the government on charges of bootlegging—truly one of the most wonderful things.”

• [84:36] Marcus:
  “They wore their alcoholism like a badge of honor.”

• [86:43] Henry (on Alec and Maggie):
  “What an amazing love story.”

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Important Historical Timestamps

• [19:10] — Discussion of the Low Country's geography and insularity, including town-by-town dominance by the Murdaughs.
• [22:37] — Randolph Murdaugh Sr. returns to Hampton County after law school, beginning the family legal dynasty.
• [38:13] — Randy Sr. dies by suicide (parking his car on train tracks), setting off an insurance scam for the next Murdaugh.
• [44:02] — Buster Murdoch sues the railroad for $2 million after his father's suicide, revealing the family’s genius for manipulating the system.

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Tone and Humor

True to LPOTL form, the episode is filled with:

• Dark, irreverent humor (“A ginger’s nipples need to be cut off.” – [17:58] Henry).
• Riffs on southern culture, class, corruption, and American institutions.
• Goofy, grotesque imagery and relentless roasting: from the family’s appearance to their “spittoon” habits.
• Absurd (often explicit) tangents about sex, bodies, and bodily functions, always used to puncture the pomposity and image of the Murdaughs.

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Conclusion and What’s Next

The episode concludes just as Alec Murdaugh, Maggie, and their two sons are returning to Hampton—the family dynasty about to reach its notorious, deadly peak. The hosts tease that the next episode will delve into the mysterious death of Gloria Satterfield, boating accidents, and the unraveling of the Murdaugh legacy.

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Episode Structure

[00:52–03:22] Opening banter and comedic riffing

[03:22–19:00] The Murdaugh empire: setting the scene for power, crime, and dysfunction

[19:00–31:25] Early family history, carving out Low Country dominance

[31:25–56:21] The Buster era: corruption, theatrics, moonshine, and impunity

[56:21–68:07] Randolph III, the family’s slow moral decline, and the changing criminal landscape

[68:07–91:43] Alec Murdaugh’s childhood, introduction to Maggie, the birth of Buster and Paul

[91:43–End] Preview of part II: Deaths, scandals, and the end of an American dynasty

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Final Takeaway

This episode presents the Murdaughs not merely as a family gone wrong, but as an archetype of southern, regional “B-Team Illuminati”—mythic in their small pond, unstoppable for a century, until arrogance, rot, and violence destroy the legacy from within. The hosts blend genuine research, gallows humor, and their own lived southern experiences to set the stage for the scandal and infamy that will come in later installments.

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[Listener tip: Use the timestamps to jump directly to the wildest, most damning, and most entertaining moments—especially if you want an unvarnished, deeply irreverent history lesson about the American South and the true crime family that defined it.]

Transcript

[Henry Zebrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines.

[Ben Kissel]

Qualifying credit required. There's no place to escape to. This is the last on the left.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's when the cannibalism stop started. What was that? In memory of today's episode. In celebration today.

[Marcus Parks]

Today's episode. Die as well.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh my God.

[Ben Kissel]

You haven't even made it yet. How is it dead already?

[Henry Zebrowski]

In the spirit of the ghost of this episode.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I actually made a really important fat man discovery.

[Ben Kissel]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That has changed my life in a significant way. And I want to show you, Eddie, because I don't know if you know what I've done.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, no. What'd you do?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I fall. I have solved my falling down pants problem.

[Ben Kissel]

What?

[Henry Zebrowski]

With no fretless belts.

[Marcus Parks]

This is a free one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is a free one.

[Marcus Parks]

No holes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No holes in the belt. Really Completely threaded. Make it as actually tight as you needed to be and not have to deal with the fucking garbage industry standards.

[Marcus Parks]

That's right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They put the. I think they call them frets.

[Marcus Parks]

Don't tell me where my fucking holes are.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, don't tell me how big my waist is. You're wrong. You're always wrong. It's always between the holes. Don't fret.

[Marcus Parks]

Get a belt that works.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No frets. This is the Robert Frit. I am playing Crimson King every day when I get up and I go to work.

[Marcus Parks]

King Crimson. Amber.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dad.

[Marcus Parks]

It's an ambitious song.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Friendless belts.

[Ben Kissel]

Welcome to the last podcast in the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. Here to keep Henry Zabrowski from embarrassing himself further with his fretless belts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Fretless belts. I don't even need to know where it is, man. Again, Robert Fripp. I remember that.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, you do. How did you remember the Guitarist from King Crimson. But you don't remember the name of the fucking band.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I remember he had a fretless bass.

[Ben Kissel]

And we have the man who actually knows what he's talking about.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When it comes to music, I think it's Jack Up Astoria.

[Ben Kissel]

Robert Flipp is a guitarist. He played the solo Baby's on Fire for Brian Eno. Larson is also here.

[Marcus Parks]

I am very excited for Henry's pants to fall down because I know he can't put that belt back on while he's sitting down. So at the end of this episode, you'll inevitably forget that you took your belt off. Pants will fall down on camera, and then that'll be beautiful for the home audience, hopefully.

[Ben Kissel]

Today we're starting off the year with a modern true crime saga. Just like last year, we started off with Lori Valow and Chad Dabell.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I miss them.

[Ben Kissel]

I miss them. This year we're starting off. No, they're really not. This year we are starting off with, I think I would say, the second largest true crime story of this century so far. Alec Murdoch.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And Mr. Mr. Murdoch, you out there with the capital crime. How do you plead? I plead not guilty. This is like, I've been so excited for this. I would put this in the top. This is the 2000 and twenties. First, like big, big, big, big, big,. Big one. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

20, 21, right?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And could you. Before we get into the story, could you walk the audience a little bit through the voice that you were walking us through prior to this episode's recording for Alec Murdoch?

[Henry Zebrowski]

He is a. The only way to describe him, really, is that he's like a flute with a bunch of. A bag of fat filled with oxy attached to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I've met a couple of them growing up. Y.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's got a very distinctive voice. Part of what caused him to be guilty in the first place. Right. Is his extremely distinctive voice. But I'm trying to place it, and I know that it's somewhere between South Carolina, the classic heavy hitter, Pee Wee Gaskins.

[Ben Kissel]

Foul Truth. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And Michael Jackson. So he's a little bit of a.

[Ben Kissel]

The words you used were restrained Michael Jackson.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's grounded Michael Jackson. He's a grounded Michael Jackson. Because it'd been like, I do believe you're ignorant. You're being ignorant about the facts of the case, Mr. You're being ignorant about what I've done. And it's like the idea is that if Michael Jackson was in a stage play playing himself, and he had. And he was a lawyer and he'd go being like, ladies and gentlemen, in court, I found that you're being ignorant. The charges that are being brought across. There's a capital crime of murder.

[Marcus Parks]

It's interesting you chose the word grounded because that's what would happen to the kid that wouldn't spend the night at Jackson's house.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And actually that was the punishment because.

[Ben Kissel]

They couldn't leave on June 7, 2020.

[Marcus Parks]

Before you get started, I'm looking at Chad Daybell.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He looks so much like Alex. Murder.

[Marcus Parks]

It's so crazy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're the same dude. Their DNA definitely kisses.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

There's definitely. It's. It's the. The tubby white man in America. There's not a whole lot of variety there. It's just different colors of hair.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, unfortunately, we're all cut from the same cheesecloth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, we're not, Eddie. Not you and I, Eddie. We are saved by our Europeanness.

[Ben Kissel]

We are.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You and I are fully European in many ways. And these are unfortunate Americans.

[Ben Kissel]

On June 7, 2021, a prominent Southern lawyer named Alec Murdoch shot and killed his wife and son outside of the dog kennels near their hunting lodge in South Carolina. Now, family annihilations are unfortunately fairly common here in America, but the Murdoch murders became one of the biggest crime cases of this century. What people forget, though, is that it was not known that Alec Murdick had committed these murders when the bodies were found. Instead, the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdick captivated the nation in the beginning because of the multitude of suspicious deaths that had been surrounding this wealthy family for years beforehand.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And I'm just going to say right here at the top, we here at last podcast and left think Alec Murdoch is completely, utterly guilty.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And we're not going to remotely entertain any sort of argument that he's not.

[Marcus Parks]

I already liked her Poolian speak on the subject and he did not convince me, you or anyone else.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nope.

[Ben Kissel]

Nope. Now, the Murdochs were a family of multi generational South Carolina lawyers, often described as the Kennedys of South Carolina's so called low country. This family had represented power, justice and wealth for well over a hundred years in this part of America by the time Alec Murdoch brought it all crashing down. And yes, it is spelled Alex Murdaugh, but it's pronounced Alec Mur.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I love his name is Murder.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. The Murdoch legacy, however, came from both sides of the courtroom. The Murdoch personal injury firm pmped, which looks like pump. No one ever calls it pumped. Yeah. Oh, wow. I thought my first thought was pumped. Because I'm pumped. Yeah. They built a reputation for being able to almost guarantee huge settlements from America's largest corporations, companies like Walmart or Firestone Tires.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Cool.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. But at the Same time, between 1920 and 2006, a Murdoch acted as solicitor of the 14th Judicial Circuit in South Carolina, solicitor being the special South Carolina term that most states give to the position of District Attorney General. What that meant, though, is that the Murdochs also prosecuted every crime committed in this sprawling five county area of South Carolina for 86 years. They were feared and revered. They sent hundreds of people to prison and condemned well over a dozen men to the electric chair during their reign on the prosecutorial side of the courtroom.

[Marcus Parks]

And I think it should be understood that Dick Harpoulian, who we'll get to in probably the third episode.

[Ben Kissel]

Third episode, yeah. The guy that, that represented Alec Murdoch in the mur Crow, also was a.

[Marcus Parks]

Solicitor with the Murdoch.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And it just. In a different county. So they known each other for all of time. They're all, it's all so dirty and.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Weird and they're all on the same team. I also find it very interesting that when we cover what we call a lot of times B team, Illuminati, we've said these all the times, localized, regional Illuminati. The one thing those, those mistakes that those groups always make is when they want to go national, that's when they fall apart. That's always kind of when they can do it. The reason why the Murdochs managed to concentrate power so, so well is because it's a small area and they kept it small.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, the Murdochs live by the principle that if you wanted to live above the law, you had to become the law. And while their family did not start out as a bunch of crooks, they are a case study in absolute power corrupting absolutes. Now, it really can't be overstated that for all intents and purposes, the Murdochs acting as solicitors were the law in South Carolina's low country for over a century. But as civil litigators as well, they also amassed power and wealth that was passed down to each successive generation of Murdoch. By the time Alec Murdoch came of age, his patrilineal line had learned how to tamper with juries, lean on judges, and call in favors from governors to get whatever result they wanted in the courtroom. And if we're being honest, since it was all happening the boonies of South Carolina, nobody on the outside really gave a what was happening down there. When was the last time you thought about South Carolina, when I had to.

[Marcus Parks]

Go there for a funeral.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's a great place for a funeral. I'll always remember the time I ate it at TGI Fridays when I was driving from New York to Florida with Natalie, Jackie and her ex. And we were, we stopped at a TGI Fridays in South Carolina. And I always remember seeing a father with his family. They were praying at a TGI Fridays, which is like, I think cancels out. I don't think you're not allowed to. I think that that stops the prayer from getting to God.

[Ben Kissel]

Too much wackiness. Yeah. Too much on the walls.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It can't get there.

[Marcus Parks]

You're already thinking, God, it's Friday. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, yeah, God's in the title, which also scares me. Now I'm upset. So I go, I. So I went to go to the bathroom and I saw that man stand up to go to the bathroom, South Carolina into the bathroom. I stand up to the urinal to pee. That man, that father, I recognize him from the dining room. He comes up, does the weird thing, stands right next to me, the urinal right next to me, right in the room, empty bathroom. He then proceeds to take his pants down entirely to his ankles and his underwear and pee. Open up like a full on, like just hands on hips, pissing like the butters. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's South Carolina to me.

[Marcus Parks]

Absolutely. Yeah. Just people with their pants sitting in piss.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, the Murdoch family decided what was right and wrong in the low country. And they made sure to constantly remind both themselves and everyone else that this was the case. As a result, each generation of Murdoch was more reckless, entitled and violent than the one that came before. And as it often goes with these sorts of people in the south, people began dying as a result. Even before the shooting murders of Paul and Maggie Murdick at Alec Murdoch's hand, three suspicious deaths were credibly linked to the Murdoch family between just the years of 2015 and 2019. Specifically, those deaths were linked to murder victim Paul Murdoch. Because when it comes to Paul, this is one of those rare true crime stories where the victim did not, quote, light up a room wherever they went.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, you never see a 48 hours about the henchmen from Nightmare Before Christmas. And he's one of those.

[Marcus Parks]

He'S really the most disgusting type of fucking southerner dude.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, he's, he's every type of. If you grew up in the south or knew people from the south, he's the exact type of puffer vest wearing you. Do you know who my father is that you can possibly imagine that was also extremely violent. Misogynist and a murderer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's so weird that they're all so violent while wearing pastels.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's just a whole lot. It's a whole fucking story. All they do is baby wall colors.

[Marcus Parks]

That's all they're dressed in these weird soft yellows and salmon.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know it's nice and shit, but, like, call the. He had bought hunting grounds. That's a vacation spot that you go to relax by killing things in. I don't understand. I'll just never fully understand it.

[Marcus Parks]

And then he killed his family by the dogs, who probably enjoyed the show, I will say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Must have been fun to finally really let that. That automatic rifle go like, full bore for the first time.

[Ben Kissel]

Paul Murdick, the person that Alec Murdick killed, his son Paul, was definitely responsible for the death of a close friend in a drunken boating accident. He was probably responsible for the death of his family's housekeeper. And he was likely at least involved in the murder of a local gay teenager named Stephen Smith. All of this occurred before Paul was even 23 years old. And that's in addition to the drunken physical beatings Paul doled out to his girlfriends, who all suffered the wrath of this eternally chaotic train wreck of alcohol and entitlement. All three investigations into these deaths, however, either went nowhere due to the concerted efforts of Paul's family and their connections, or they ended when Paul Murdick was himself murdered by his own father.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Almost like that was the point.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, we're going to get into the theories on episode three because we have some different theories as to why Paul and Maggie were murdered. I have my own pet theories.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm pretty sure if Paul wasn't rich, he would have been murdered at such a young age.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, he would have gotten his ass. He definitely would gotten his ass handed to him a lot more because he definitely fancied himself a real tough little hombre.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Paul, however, was not the first bad apple to fall from the Murdoch tree. Each generation of Murdoch men had been worse than the one before. And Alec Murdoch was himself a crook of the highest order. Besides also being a murderer, before the murders, Alec had been skimming millions off settlements and insurance payouts from his client pool, which was made up mostly of poor locals. After stealing from the poor, Alec would use the money. Money to both fund his family's lavish lifestyle and his own incredible addiction to oxycodone, which, at its height, reached 60 pills a day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't even understand that, and we're gonna go into that too because there's a lot of confusion about what oxycodone does to you. And I think that that's a. One of those things that'll come up later in the.

[Marcus Parks]

I've lost three friends to oxy when I was younger in high school and just in the beginning of college. And they all probably took 60 total.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, that's the craziest shit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's great stuff.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

See, the thing is my boys were classless and smoking it.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's probably popping them five at a time and you know, because the, the tolerance just keeps going up and up and up and up and he's a big fat man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, Big fat man.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Well, even after Alec murdered his wife and one of his two sons, he continued to try to live a life above the law by attempting to pin the double homicide on a local teenager, using a convoluted plan involving his cousin, a guy name Fast Eddie. Fast Eddie was also giving him all the oxycodone. Where else is gonna get the oxy. Oxy Frog?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know. I mean, if he was the one selling the oxycodone, you'd think you'd call him Slow Eddie.

[Marcus Parks]

I was gonna say that. I was gonna. Actually, I was waiting for you to shut up so I could say that joke. Congratulations. Great job.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I won.

[Ben Kissel]

But after the murders, when the rest of the country finally got a peek at how South Carolina's low country had been run by this bizarre collection of tubby, beady eyed redheads for decade, the world that the Murdochs built for themselves over a century came crashing down within just a few short months on the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

15 years that we've been doing the show. And in my life before this, I've seen a lot of horrible, horrible things I've seen. I've poured over crime scenes over the years. Pictures of the Holocaust, things going on, you know, Auschwitz, the, you know, the unit 731, Jonestown. I've seen all of the footage. And one of the Schwitz. Yes. But truly one of the worst single things I've ever seen is a picture of the Murdoch family on vacation. Them in bathing suits, just happy. Are one of the worst single sites I've ever seen. Their bodies legally should have been covered. Like there should have been a Sharia law for Hampton county for their family. Disgusting. A ginger's nipples need to be cut off.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they look like albino manatees.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He looks like it's just A white belly with two piercing red eyes, like a skull with flaming coals in it.

[Marcus Parks]

And then they had faces.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes, you got the faces. We'll get to those later. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Forefather face.

[Ben Kissel]

The first sources on this modern true crime saga, we use two books. The Devil at His Elbow by Valeria Bauerlein and Tangled Vines by John Glatt, both of which are quite solid and provide a lot of historical context. But because this story needs historical context to be told properly, the first episode of the series is going to be a short but fascinating history on the Murdoch family in South Carolina. See, if you really want to understand how Alec Murdoch came to believe that he could get away with murdering his wife and son. If you want to know how he could make that overly performative 911 call saying that they were both shot badly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

My wife and child was shot badly.

[Ben Kissel]

Shot badly.

[Marcus Parks]

Who's ever been shot?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, my wife. They was lightly peppered. My wife.

[Ben Kissel]

You gotta understand. The Murdochs in South Carolina's Low Country. Now, the low country, spelled in one word, smushed together for some stupid fucking reason, is a coastal region in the southeastern stretch of South Carolina running from the Savannah river to just north of the state's most populous city, Charleston. This story, however, does not take place in Charleston. Mostly, the Murdoch saga takes place in three counties in the Low Country. First you got Beaufort County. Beaufort is home to an affluent seaside resort town called Hilton Head island, which could be considered South Carolina's version of, say, Martha's Vineyard.

[Marcus Parks]

Good description.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Near Hilton Head was Murdoch island, where the Murdochs threw parties and amassed social power amongst the South Carolina elite for decades.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And, you know, nothing ever happens badly when a bunch of rich people own.

[Ben Kissel]

An island, especially when it's named after the rich people that own it. It never, never bad. Yeah, well, as far as where else the Murdochs played in the Low country, the Murdochs had their hunting lodge in nearby Culloden County. This is where the Murdoch reign would end, where Alec would murder his wife and son, and where their housekeeper would suffer a suspicious fatal injury. But when it came to where the Murdochs were truly king, the center of the Murdaughs world was Hampton County. Rural, inland, and incredibly poor. Hampton county had been founded after the Civil War as a place where people could pretend like the south never lost.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Aw, nice.

[Ben Kissel]

The whites of Hampton could keep living the way they'd always lived, where the poor whites were kept under the boot heel of the rich, and the black citizens lived secular second class at best.

[Marcus Parks]

I love how their Hamptons Suck.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And all this could happen away from the scrutiny of the outside world. That's very important. This is very isolated. And to ensure this lifestyle was maintained, the local government built a literal fence around the entire county in the 1890s, as if, according to one historian, they were trying to literally fence out the oncoming 20th century. Because of this deliberate isolation, no one ever left Hampton County. But no one moved to Hampton county either.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's cause I was reading in a grimoire I found that African wizards are afraid of gates.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The African wizard can be kept at bay with several planks of wood.

[Marcus Parks]

Glad they put the fence up personally. Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're like, yeah, you stay over there.

[Ben Kissel]

Take it. Now, one of the families who I'm sure approved of that fence around the county was the Murdaugh family, who had moved to Hampton county in the 1870s to join the ruling class of the Confederate Old Guard about a decade after the Civil War ended. But while the Murdaughs were indeed an influential family in the early days of Hampton county, the. Their outsized influence on the Low country did not truly begin until 1910, when the first Murdoch graduated from law school that year. Randolph Murdaugh, Alec Murdoch's great grandfather, he earned a degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The Cox.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. The game cocks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, after moving back to Hampton County, Randolph set up across the street from the county courthouse, where he soon established himself as one of South Carolina's most gifted young lawyers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know it was like. I know it was harder to live then, but it is kind of amazing how, like, you could have just been, like, a Supreme Court judge if you just, like, built a house in the right place by the right building.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know what I mean? It's like one of those things where, like, when the country was beginning, you just had to be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean. I mean, this is 1910. We'd been around for a while at.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That time, but I'm just saying, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

I don't know what you're saying.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know.

[Marcus Parks]

All I know is I'm looking at this family vacation picture. Not one lip out of the four or five. Me, I. I bet her vagina lips are even spoiled.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All of their shins. I look, we were looking at the Murdoch standing on a boat. Their shins should be illegal. Those legs should have been removed. The worst diabetes should have been applied to this family to cause them to lose that extra parts of them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Money can't buy class, can't buy a chin either.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, as opposed to the total greed obsessed, sociopathic slime balls that the Murdochs eventually became. Randy Murdaugh Sr. The first one to become a lawyer in the Murdoch family, he was still highly unethical, yes, but he also represented anyone and everyone who sought justice. He soon built a reputation and a fortune as a man who defended the working class. He established his firm by taking on personal injury cases against extremely powerful railroad companies at a time when one in 37 railroad workers were guaranteed to be killed on the job.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's great for a depressed dude. Yeah, that's where I'll go.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, where is that? On the chimney sweep scale?

[Ben Kissel]

Chimney sweep still high above railroad workers, but, you know, I'd say podcasters still below. Randy also represented the families of people who were hit and killed by trains, of which there were many. Because in the early 20th century, very few railroads had even clear crossings, much less cross arms or warning lights. But that's all to say that suing railroads on behalf of the working man, that made the Murdaughs. And they were able to ride that reputation for defending those less fortunate than themselves for decades after. Now, it was still legal for lawyers to both practice civil cases and act as government prosecutors in South Carolina until the 1980s. So Randy Murdoch Senior was able to run for 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor, aka district attorney, without giving up his lucrative personal injury firm. Once elected in 1920, Randy Sr. Became the chief lawman for 100 miles, standing in rank above sheriffs, deputies, jailers, and constables across five counties. He was also chief detective detective across the low country, personally charged with investigating murders. An elected official investigating murder.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, it was just one guy.

[Ben Kissel]

It's America.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

But since this is the era before forensics, most of Randy's job as chief detective was vetting alibis and quote unquote, assessing credibility. Meaning that if Randy Sr. Had a feeling that someone was guilty, he could make a conviction happen. And if he had a good enough line of bullshit, it also helped if he got the right jury, which he usually did. In Hampton county, jurors were chosen by a child who pulled names from a box filled with paper slips. But Randy Sr. Made sure that the box was filled only with the names of men who could be relied upon to give him the verdict he wanted.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like more that you kind of unpack it. It's more like, like, oh, it's like all he did was corruption in a way, but. But because it was so localized and he knew everybody, it seemed to be like, fine at the time.

[Ben Kissel]

I think what, what's important with. With the Murdochs to remember is that over time, like, they were always unethical. Like, like there was. But that's the thing. It also doesn't make them that much different than prosecutors across America.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Being a lawyer means you got to. This is what you do. You work.

[Ben Kissel]

He's being a lawyer. But this like, veneer of ethics that Randy Senior kind of puts it, like, he. He tries to at least pretend there's a pretense of ethics, but with each generation, that pretense just falls a little bit more and a little bit more.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, we keep talking about how much we miss Dick Cheney and somebody who actually cared about this goddamn country.

[Marcus Parks]

You look like him now. You're slowly turning into him. Why did they use a child to pick the names out of the box? It's cuz their hands were smaller.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Innocent.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, they're innocent. They just liked it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They can't be grown. Corrupted.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. But while all of this is certainly a recipe for rampant corruption.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wait a second.

[Ben Kissel]

Randy Sr. Had a reputation for being a man who gave everyone a clean deal. A man who stood above influence or intimidation. Randy Sr. Indicted police officers, bankers, preachers, politicians, back when such things were seen by the public as noble pursuits. Randy Sr. Even once prosecuted the governor of South Carolina himself. Himself. And made the man who was technically his boss stand in the prisoner's block while Randy read out the indictments. This, of course, while, you know, it was good press, it was really in service to the Murdochs, establishing that they were the law in the low country. Not the cops, not the preachers, and definitely not the governor.

[Marcus Parks]

Man, there's so many names I don't trust out of this family. Randy, Buster.

[Ben Kissel]

It's like every.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like every name that's just like a red flag.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Speaking of which, so is their face.

[Henry Zebrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

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[Ben Kissel]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

Been been way better.

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[Ben Kissel]

Now, like all the Murdochs who came after, Randy Sr. Was a showman in the court courtroom. The janitors at the courthouse, who regularly watched his performances, called him Fire and Brimstone because Randy projected like a preacher. But once the Great Depression came around, Randy Sr. Started cutting corners, and he did so in a classically Southern racist way. There were rumors, for example, that Randy Sr. Had collaborated with a local sheriff to extrajudiciously kill A black man accused of murder. Instead of arresting said man and taking him to traffic trial, Randy Sr's reason was that he wanted to spare Hampton county the cost of jailing and trying the accused. Because we got this depression on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's a saving money thing. It's a saving money thing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. By the way, you know, what else am I supposed to do with this cross? Not burn it?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know. It's made out of wood.

[Ben Kissel]

So it said that Randy and this sheriff took the accused on a fishing trip on the Savannah river themselves, themselves, and shoved the man into alligator infested waters. Now, there's no proof that this happened, but the people of Hampton county believed that it was true. And trust me, I know from growing up in rural Texas that damn near every southern county has some version of this story. It's often told by the black population with a great amount of understandable fear, but it's simultaneously told by the whites, the ones that are rich and the ones who are poor with no small amount of pride and even a little bit of awe.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, don't give gators a bad name like that. Just admit to killing the man yourself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, but they're like, the gators did it.

[Marcus Parks]

No, you shot him in the back of the head. They smelled blood and ate a corpse.

[Henry Zebrowski]

My favorite gator, Willie looked skinny and I wanted him to have some genuine Low country buffet.

[Ben Kissel]

Won the sack. South whites often look up to law enforcement officials who take the law into their own hands. Men like Randy Murdaugh senior. And so the Murdaughs learned early on that murdering someone, if it was for the so called greater good, this could not only be forgiven, but respected.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But it's supposed to be outside the family, Marcus.

[Ben Kissel]

Ah, yes, of course. Now, along with making sure that the poor of the Low country knew that they could be killed without trial if he deemed it necessary, Randy Sr. Also made sure to let the other high ranking members of low country society know that they could do whatever they wanted without consequence. For example, when the richest man in Hampton county shot and killed a construction foreman after the foreman told this unnamed rich man that he couldn't drive down a road that was being paved, the murderer donated a large sum of money to Randy Sr. S reelection campaign for solicitor. Now, the rich man did stand trial for the murder, but he was acquitted after just five hours of deliberation. After he walked free, nine out of the 12 jurors just happened to all build new houses. And this sort of corruption established by the Murdoch family, this became the norm In South Carolina's low country.

[Marcus Parks]

Why is he unnamed?

[Ben Kissel]

You know, we just didn't get his name.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, okay.

[Ben Kissel]

I, I wish we got his name, but we didn't get it. It's a court case.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know. We get to take a look for it.

[Ben Kissel]

I, I, you know, there's a weekly grind on this and there's only, and there's only, there's only so much time that we have to look into things.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I want to take all these.

[Ben Kissel]

He's been dead. God, he's probably been dead for so, so long.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like 100 years.

[Marcus Parks]

Grandson that we can kick.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can I actually ask a question about, like, this mentality? Like, the idea of going into this scenario, like in some way they have to validate it to themselves. Right? Like, yes, we talk about you're doing it for the quote, unquote, greater good. And that's one side of it. But they really did feel in many ways at this time period that they were helping everyone. Right. This idea that if you, if you let one guy off, we'll give you guys, it evens out. It's just like this weird idea of like a fake version of like we're going to create our own morality.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure. Well, I think part of what it comes from is that they, they almost think of themselves as kings, you know, the divine right of kings, you know, where, you know, whatever the king does must be good because, because the king is a part of God's will. You know, the king is an extension of God's will. I think these people think much the same way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like, I gotta be right, me.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah. Because you gotta, I mean, all these people are descended from Brits and Scots and, you know, so on and so forth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, the dregs.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The fucking runoff.

[Ben Kissel]

As far as his personal life went, Randy Sr. Was married three times. Times. But not because he was a philanderer. Instead, Randy was one of those early 20th century men whose wives just kept dying for one reason or another.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Murder, murder, murder.

[Ben Kissel]

His first wife died of sepsis.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, she was full of.

[Ben Kissel]

After a bout with the flu. His second wife died during pregnancy from preeclampsia. But Randy had already met his third wife on a cruise to Cuba by the time wife number two died.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, that's nice.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Number three was the daughter of a state senator and she met, married Randy just four days after number two's death.

[Marcus Parks]

A couple duse de leches. They really get the ball rolling.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know what I also think too, is that back in the day, marriage is different. It's very practical. No one kissed.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, well, he probably just wanted someone to take care of his kids.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Well, death wife number two, however, was apparently a distressing event for Randy Senior. And it only exacerbated what was quickly becoming the Murdoch family curse. Murdoch's escape, see, were extreme alcoholics. And after Randy's second wife died, his drinking only got worse. By the age of 53, Randy had poisoned his kidneys completely and was diagnosed with late stage renal failure. Since this was prior to dialysis or organ transplants, the only thing Randy Senior could do was wait for the slow buildup of waste in his blood to deliver an agonizing death.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Call me old son. I. Call me a son. I want to show you something, son. Now, as you can see, waste is building up inside of me, right?

[Ben Kissel]

Large amounts of waste.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Now, I think it's important to address the cord of my veins and say I accuse my veins of the capital crime of giving up on me. And I do. I will put together dim appeals in order to bring my veins and to the problem.

[Ben Kissel]

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Danny. But quick, get his wallet. As many stubborn and powerful men often do, Randy Senior decided on June 19, 1940 to leave this world on his own terms, choosing appropriately and deliberately to die by train. At 1am that night, Randy left a friend's poker party heavily intoxicated and parked his car in the railroad tracks.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And you know he did that the thing. See you fellas, I gotta catch a train.

[Marcus Parks]

He only kissed one on the mouth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Talked about it.

[Ben Kissel]

According to the engineer driving the westbound of Charleston Randolph, Murdoch Senior waved to the train as if saying hello to an old friend. And the ensuing crash sent Randy Sr's body flying from the car.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yay.

[Ben Kissel]

Where it landed broken and mangled 50 yards away.

[Marcus Parks]

That's a hell of a punt.

[Ben Kissel]

That's a huge punt.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly, it's just also. What a stupid we can say in way to kill yourself.

[Ben Kissel]

Death by tr. Many people die by train.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I feel bad because you made the dude kill you.

[Ben Kissel]

I know it's no, it's an awful way to do it.

[Marcus Parks]

Of course not. He made so much money off of trains, it was only right to give it back.

[Ben Kissel]

Wait, wait, wait. Yes, yes. Now, even though this crash saw the end of the first Murdoch to establish himself as a lawyer in the low country, Randy Sr. Had already set his legacy in motion years before. See, by the time Randy's drinking had gotten out of control, Randy's son was already taking over his father's duties in court. When Randy Sr. Was Too drunk or too sick to practice. And so, just a month after Randy died by train, his son, buster Murdoch the first. First, Buster was officially elected as the 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor, making him the second Murdoch to take that spot after his father had held it for 20 years.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Is this what's going to happen after Jesus Pratt is born? And when Jesus Pratt is then like the new Han Solo and he's president?

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, that will happen. Yeah. We're just going to have to deal with that forever.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When he's the Lord of us all. When. When Chris Pratt's son runs. Runs our world and theocracy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Because we thought that maybe it was going to be the Hanks line that was going to take it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But no, Colin's weak.

[Marcus Parks]

Collins week.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Collins weak. And Chet's too free.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He can't be governed. He's on island time.

[Ben Kissel]

He's the Billy Carter of actor sons. Born in 1915, Buster Murdoch would not just serve as both the 14th Circuit solicitor and as a senior partner in the Murdoch personal injury law firm. In addition, Buster would also run the biggest moonshine bootlegging ring in all of South Carolina.

[Marcus Parks]

That's big ass bootlegger.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. No, the biggest in South Carolina. You got to be good to get that. See, Buster, so named by his football coach because he always, quote, busted the opponent.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I bet he did. Jerking them off. He's never at the game, though. Yeah, it was always at the after party.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, if you jerk him off before the game, it slows them down. Gets them too relaxed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's the thing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Some say that busting made him feel good.

[Marcus Parks]

I like that voice.

[Ben Kissel]

He began the long Murdoch tradition of playing both sides of the law for his personal benefit. While Randy Sr. Was willing to bend, break and manipulate the law to get the verdicts or the results he wanted, Buster was a straight up gangster. Like his grandson, Alec Murdoch would later do, Buster was more than willing to break the law to get the life he wanted. And his personality loomed over the county so largely that he had a second nickname fit for a criminal. Locally, Buster was known as Big Daddy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, Big Daddy. Oh, he better check with Big Daddy.

[Marcus Parks]

Big Daddy is always something. You name someone who you know can kill anyone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah. It's never a. No, it's a criminal's name. It's a criminal.

[Marcus Parks]

Even if it's like a judge, He's a criminal.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's never big that. Big Daddy's never positive. He's never happy.

[Ben Kissel]

Blanche's father in Golden Girls was named Big Daddy. But There was always something going on with him anyway.

[Henry Zebrowski]

God knows what else he did before that. But now I open again. There's a, there's a pattern here because in like doing bootlegging there is sort of like a. A man of the people. Hoy Pollock to it. There is like a, there's like a thing where no one really likes. Prohibition.

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, like, so it is again, not a victimless crime because they're going to do a lot of other things to support that criminal industry. Oh yeah. But still, like, it helps that it's, it's fun. It's a fun industry.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, it's, it's the American folk hero type thing, you know, where you could be a bootlegger and you know, you're fighting against the revenuers. I mean, hell, isn't that what Dukes of Hat Hazards is?

[Marcus Parks]

I ran smoking the Bandit, all that.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Me and my, my older sister's first husband ran. I once went with him where I did not know he was bringing alcohol into a dry county.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

In Georgia. And that was a lot of fun, I bet. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

God forbid it'd be weed though. They'd all flip out if it was weed.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, we'll get to that here in a second. Now it's believed that Randy Sr. Suicide was actually a part of a fraudulent scheme laid out for Buster to pick up. And since Buster knew how his father thought, he knew exactly what his job was after his father's death. A few months after Randy Sr's death by train, Buster sued the railway company for the wrongful death of his father for the modern equivalent of $2 million.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Damn.

[Marcus Parks]

It's really not that much.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean it's not that much for.

[Marcus Parks]

A high powered lawyer to die. Dude.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's free ass money though.

[Marcus Parks]

It is free ass money.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's free ass money.

[Ben Kissel]

And they knew like the, the Murdoch knew what that magical number was. They knew how much to ask for. Buster claimed that the train had been going too fast, it hadn't signaled its approach with a whistle, and the company hadn't properly maintained the crossing.

[Marcus Parks]

It's almost like they knew how to sue train company.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's the thing, dude he made. That's how smart he was. That's how smart Big, not Big Daddy older Big Daddy was. Was the fact that he knew we could make all this money back.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Yeah. Randy. Yeah. Randy Senior knew that at the very like he could add like an extra INS policy if he committed suicide in the right way. Yeah. And even though the engineer stated that Randy Sr. Had casually Waved at the train as it was coming. The railway company knew better than to tangle with the Murdaughs. It was a given that a Hampton county jury would come down on the Murdaugh side, just like a Hampton county jury would come down in almost any civil case that the Murdaughs brought to court.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Court.

[Ben Kissel]

The railway company therefore settled for an unknown sum, and the Murdochs once again learned that they could simply force the system to give them whatever they wanted, even in death.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Marcus said something really interesting here that I think is important for our audience to, like, kind of key on. Like, they knew the right things to say. Yeah, right. They knew the right things to ask for. These are the things that nepotism and these types of industries teach, the secret languages of how these things actually work. And once you get into that back room. Right. Like, honestly, lots of stuff opens up for you because you figure out how the world really works.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like, what's the number that this railroad would give us? You know, not going to college.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. And not go to. Do not go all the way. Like, what's too much? And that's a secret knowledge, which is why, honestly, we talk about, like, nepotism and all these things, because it's the. That is the true. That's the true secret things that are handed down.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, on the solicitor side of things, Buster was just as if not more than willing to cut legal corners to win cases. As a prosecutor. By the mid-1940s, Buster had a suspiciously high conviction rate of 95%.

[Marcus Parks]

It shouldn't be that high. It's not something you should be proud of either.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, it's not. No. This whole thing.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So you're telling me only 5% of the people who got caught were guilty?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. No. 5% innocent.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

95%. Yeah. Convict. That's an insane conviction rate.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, if that is true, you live amongst a horrible community.

[Ben Kissel]

And also your prosecutor is Batman. Buster Murdoch also developed a legendary legal Persona by using his booming voice to act out murders in front of the jury. And while this might sound ridiculous, Buster had an insane talent for captivating a jury. In one murder case, he drew an imaginary box with his finger on the floor in front of the jury. Said that's where the victim lay today.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You can even hear the rustling of the little rats scribbling around. And you can hear the vines slowly but surely coming into the casket. And the bones, they crumbled down, down over time.

[Ben Kissel]

That's the kudzu that's slowly squeezing the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Lock and you never rise again.

[Marcus Parks]

I declare.

[Ben Kissel]

I declare. This image stayed in the jury's mind so strongly that when they came back with the guilty verdict, following the closing arguments and deliberations, all of them avoided stepping on the imaginary grave that Buster had drawn. When they left the jury box, they saw it there and they actually. They revered it as if someone was truly buried there. That's how much Buster knew. That's how well Buster could hold on to an audience.

[Marcus Parks]

Imagine if they would have just put these Murdoch people through theater school.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It would have been so much better.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, they become president. No, that's the problem. No, no, no. They had enough encouragement. You know, there's a thing also the idea of all of these giant corporations that we're witnessing right now, what they are really trying to do across all these apps, all these various things, is gain information about us.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Right. So it's interesting. This is an extremely micro, Small microcosm of that of. He knows the data set all the way back and forth. He knows the analytics of his county.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So well that he knows exactly how to do it. This is literally kind of a. In a very small way. Why information is one of the most important things to political control.

[Ben Kissel]

He knows the audience and he knows how to tailor his message specifically to his audience.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because all you got to do is convince them that jury, then that's. Then reality is written.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And he's also manipulating the ch. The choosing of the jury at the same time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Parks]

Also just paying them off apparently as well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's easy. It's fun to do.

[Ben Kissel]

No. Yeah. Buster was known to jo quote, unquote, joke around and say, like, boy, that case, just. That one cost me about $10,000. Just. But they're like, oh, Buster, you're so funny. Like, nope. Probably was paying off from. Whenever you need, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Being funny is great. I get away with so much shit.

[Ben Kissel]

Buster had a reputation for being brash and folksy, the type of man who'd chew a big wad of red man tobacco during trials while also smoking a cigar at the same time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Very chappelle coated. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Judge did once reprimand Buster for constantly spitting out his tobacco juice during a trial. But instead of spitting out his chew, Buster just took his paper papers and left. And since Buster was the only solicitor in the low country, the trial came to a halt and the judge was forced to let Buster continue his disgusting habit. If that judge wanted to get a.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Verdict, that's a proper asshole.

[Ben Kissel]

After that, Buster made sure that every courtroom in the 14th Circuit had a brass spittoon by the solicitor's table. And each spittoon was surrounded by an eternally brown spit stained carpet. Nauseous is again. The Murdochs had learned that they could bend the world to their will. And while the spittoon thing didn't seem like a big deal, these types of stories were told over and over again to all of the Murdochs who came after with the message that Murdochs did what they liked.

[Marcus Parks]

Chewing is meant to be outside.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, take it outside.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't care if there's no fucking smoke. It's more disgusting. You fill it up your Pepsi bottle or your spittoon in front of everybody, take it outside like the pig you are.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, dude, believe me, I watched the both police car interrogations, the both, the convenient little police interrogations they did to Alec Murdoch. And he also loves to chew. And he's also doing the thing, we're in the middle of it where he's spitting in between his legs. It's so disgusting.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he used to put his oxy in there and just jam it all in his mouth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Disgusting.

[Ben Kissel]

That fucking. It's awful. Awful. Now part of the reason why people let the Murdochs get away with as much as they did was because the Murdochs were well liked. They were funny, and above all they were entertaining, which goes a long way in a place like the low country of South Carolina. Buster Murdoch's trials were spectacles shows almost complete with performances. For example, Buster indicted a farmer named Wyman Hyatt in April of 1949. Wyman had apparently poisoned his elderly sister with rat poison before burying her in a pig pen while she was still alive. Buster had gotten the confession from the farmer himself. Farmer admitted to killing his invalid sister because she, quote, missed the bed so many times. But since Buster had gotten the confession, he actually acted it out during the subsequent trial by adopting the rural farmers hick accents and mannerism. According to court reporting, Murdaugh said to the jury in the farmer's voice, well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I went back to her bedroom, picked her up and placed her in the grave, covering her with blankets and paper and dirt. At that time she was breathing a li. Gosh, what to do about it? I don't know. So inappropriate. Not you, Henry.

[Marcus Parks]

You're actually oddly appropriate right now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oddly a brother.

[Ben Kissel]

But no, but imagine it's we're talking about a murder trial here and there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Way back there a little bit. That's my farmer's call. And I backed her up.

[Ben Kissel]

In another case, buster prosecuted a 43 year old storekeeper with a long history of severe mental illness. Man named John Bowers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They probably called him, like, Kooky John or like, you know, like ding Dong John.

[Ben Kissel]

Y. Bowers had beaten his wife and two young children to death with a baseball bat in December of 1948.

[Marcus Parks]

This cookie.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah, it is wacky.

[Ben Kissel]

After Bowers confessed to Buster, the press gave the killer the awkward nickname of the Estelle Baseball Bat Slayer. Playing off this, Murdoch repeatedly brandished the baseball bat used in the murder.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, I'd like to bring this baseball bat into evidence now. You watching that bitch? You watch a bitch now? What he would have said if he was going to strike you with the baseball bat. He's going to hit you right in the d with your baseball bat. But he doesn't because he's a lawyer. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

He used it during the trial to dramatize the killing, waving it in front of the jury.

[Marcus Parks]

It's the untouchables.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, that's a great scene, dude.

[Ben Kissel]

They would vow that Bowers would no doubt kill again if he were ever released. Of course, he got the death penalty for. Bowers got the death penalty again and again and again. There was another case where he took a rubber hose that had been used to strangle a woman to death before she'd been stabbed. And he had one of the people who was present at the murder wrapped the hose around his neck, and then he left the hose on his neck during his arguments. Be like, we're gonna come back to this hose a time or two. So I'm just gonna leave it on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm gonna leave it on. Cause, yeah, honestly, honestly. Also looks kind of cool. I'm looking kind of funky.

[Marcus Parks]

He's got different hoes for different area codes.

[Ben Kissel]

That he does.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's if you're killing prostitutes over the state. Normally, if I. I would draw, I would drive them across state lines.

[Marcus Parks]

All right.

[Ben Kissel]

But while Buster's theatrics did wonders for his popularity, locally, the state supreme court frowned upon his shenanigans and eventually reversed several of his convictions on the grounds that his theatrical brutality had swayed the jury.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, good. So he actually ended up letting murderers free.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, eventually.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, Buster had come under fire with the state supreme court for his egregious jury arguments, which had raised eyebrows after he'd sent no less than 14 men to death row with his theatrics.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He killed 14 men.

[Ben Kissel]

14 men to the electric chair. By 1956, Buster had gained the attention of the new governor, who had been elected on a vow to root out corruption across the the state. Now, Buster was indeed corrupt. As far back as 1949, clients were accusing him of defrauding them out of large sums of money. And even the IRS couldn't get a handle on Buster's finances. But out of all of Buster's dodges, no victory was greater than when he beat the federal government on dozens of criminal charges related to bootlegging.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And again, I'm not fan of anybody in this family, but nothing's like beating the guy. Government on charges of bootlegging.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Truly one of the most wonderful things. Of course it's going to give him a reputation that everybody's going to love him.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's his most likable.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Aspect.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Well, after the new governor took power in 1956, he passed a set of laws saying that any government officials under criminal investigation had to resign. And with the laws passed, the governor set his sights on Buster Murdoch. It was alleged that Buster had masterminded the so called Culloden whiskey conspiracy, which involved 32 moonshine stills pumping out 45,000 gallons of illegal liquor per year. And so when Buster was charged with bootlegging in federal court, where the Murdoch name held no sway, he was forced to resign as solicitor. But while Buster said in his resignation letter that he was the victim of a conspiracy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Mine. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

The only conspiracy was the one that he was running.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But that's not fair. That was mine. It was mine.

[Ben Kissel]

He operated several moonshine operations going back to Prohibition. He'd been doing it for three decades. By the time he was busted in the 50s, he'd built what amounted to a gang comprised mostly of local cops.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what makes you look like a guilty bootlegger? Always having a spittoon at your feet.

[Ben Kissel]

Mandating that every room you have, you go. Has to have a spittoon that makes you look like a bootleg.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're an asshole.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, Buster may have escaped even prosecution if it hadn't been for the bravery, the vengeance and the stubbornness of a woman named Edith Thigpen Freeman in an out of the way location called Jackass Pond.

[Marcus Parks]

Why isn't that in town?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Edith and her husband Doc Freeman ran an illegal moonshine still that paid protection money to Buster's operation. Edith, however, discovered that Buster's men were charging her husband Doc double the protection money by taking advantage of Doc's illiteracy. To add insult to injury, the feds raided Jackass Pond looking for Buster's men, but instead shot Doc in the stomach. The final indignity Came when one of Buster's men snuck into Doc's hospital room after he'd been shot in the stomach and stole his lifesafe savings that have been sewn into the pocket of his coat.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Never do that, you know. No. Spread it out. Two coats.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Maybe some shorts.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Shoe, Put some in the hat.

[Marcus Parks]

No one's looking in shorts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nobody.

[Ben Kissel]

No. Never.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's actually really good. Really good tip. Hide it in gym shorts.

[Ben Kissel]

Edith, however, had documented every deal she'd made with Buster Murdoch. And she'd written down the names of every one of his goons and everything that they'd done just in case case. So using Edith's notes on the criminal conspiracy, Federal prosecutors charged 30 individuals, including Buster Murdoch, on 80 criminal counts. And it seemed like a Murdoch was finally going to face a consequence. One of the local deputy sheriffs even testified in Murdoch's trial, saying that he had personally witnessed Buster split a payoff with the sheriff that arranged for a lighter sentence for a bootlegger. The deputy also testified that Murdoch himself stood staged fake raids where Murdoch would pay the fines of the busted bootleggers. So smart, he said, I don't care what you gotta do, just tell him I'm coming. Just, I'll pay, I'll pay for it. I don't give a shit. Just make it happen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's a great businessman.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it really is. But even though it was a federal case, Buster Murdoch found a way to bulldoze justice. Like every Murdoch before and after, he intimidated and threatened witnesses. And ironically, he beat the bribery charges by making more bribes. As a result, the former solicitor was acquitted on all charges, making him the only one of the 30 defendants to go free without consequence. After just a six month hiatus, Buster Murdoch was former solicitor no more. And he was re elected to the 14th Judicial Circuit where he continued abusing his power in any way he saw fit. He was known that if Buster liked you or if you did something for him, he'd help in any way he could in the most intense way possible. For example, he once told a fellow lawyer who'd help Buster's son beat drunk driving charges that quote, if you ever.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Need anybody killed, you send them on down to Hampton County. Yeah, yeah, that's a joke. Now you remember that's a joke except for a fact. I'm in it. All right, we'll do it. Wink, wink, wink. Saying it out loud for the radio.

[Ben Kissel]

Was author Valerie Bowerline put it, Buster proved that if your name was Murdoch, you could fix juries, corrupt sheriffs, and judges steal from clients, play both sides of the law and define justice however you chose. And you especially proved it to everyone else whose last name was Murdoch.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But you could never make a woman orgasm. The only thing they couldn't figure out.

[Marcus Parks]

I kept using his wife is a spittang.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can you imagine hearing that hitting the cervix? Now buster, you really make a brown. Yeah, you're wel. Now that's genuine Carolina toet.

[Marcus Parks]

You see, the thing is, while he's paying off all these people, I think it's important. Important to remember how big and scary he is.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So it's like if you don't take the bribe, you're also just scared of the man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's a scary guy and he's covered. He's got all these goons that are police officers.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, the Murdochs are all huge.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. So I think it's important to remember that everyone who took a bribe wasn't necessarily a bad person. They could have just been very terrified.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sling is changing the way live TV works by putting viewers in charge of their interaction entertainment. Pay only for the months when TV is actually needed and skip the ones when it's not. For short term needs. Sling passes provide live TV access without commitment. A day pass for 4.99 offers 24 access. A week pass, blah blah blah. Who cares. Unsling is the only place that you can watch your pretty faces going to hell on an app. It's the only place you where you can do it. And so therefore it has become my favorite app. So you go to wherever the Sling is. Find Sling and you can go to see your pretty face is going to hell. Hell on it. And that's all that matters. We're show people your pretty faces going to hell. Okay, so go get Sling. Great app. How I've organized my channel lineup is I put your pretty faces going to hell five times on it. So go check it out. Choose and customize your channel lineup or pause and watch for free. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the.

[Marcus Parks]

Cost of optional benefits.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits credit stop if you cancel any lines.

[Ben Kissel]

Qualifying credit Required Special Agent Will Trent.

[Henry Zebrowski]

ABC Tuesdays, you run from the dark.

[Marcus Parks]

That's why it chases you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Get out of my.

[Ben Kissel]

The hit series Will Tread is back. Well, this is a manhunt, not a murder that needs to be solved.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the truth, this man killed my mother and left me to die. He's out. I think if we don't catch this guy, then he's gonna go off the.

[Ben Kissel]

Deep end of control. They won't even see you coming. I have to end this will tread.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Tuesdays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, Buster strengthened his grip on the low country by hosting lavish parties on Murdoch on island where South Carolina's rich and powerful came to play. And I'm sure nothing bad ever happened.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Not once. I can't even imagine. They tie up a bunch of black people, make them dance with guns. I can't even imagine they would do a bunch of group sex with children while eating cornbread. I can't even. I wouldn't even say those words. A latent homosexual, homicidal homosexual. Buster murder.

[Marcus Parks]

You would never say that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm never say that. Never say that.

[Ben Kissel]

Ever. There, Buster. Murdoch consolidated power and established himself as an influential political figure as well. Because the Murdochs, they were all old school Democrats. They were Democrats from back in the days when, you know, Democrats were pro slavery, but they really held on to the Democrat power long afterwards. They even gave to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, they always do, man. Yeah, it makes them look, you know who else gave? Epstein.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, it's a reason. Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein. It's like bad people hired in plain sight.

[Ben Kissel]

It's weird.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Or they become very public.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. And so by the 1970s, the Murdochs were well established as a part of the good old boy network that ran throughout South Carolina. Buster had begun his reign as 14th Judicial Circuit Solicitor in 1940, and it stubbornly held on to power through ill health and old age. By the mid-1980s, he'd gone from being known as Buster to being known as Big Daddy to simply being known as old Buster.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, not old Buster. God, I can't even wait till I have to put my old Buster inside my old wife when we're in our 80s. Anyhow, that's gonna have to be like, here comes old Buster. It's gonna be every time I pull my penis out and I have to, like, get the pump and. And do all like, come on, Old Buster.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, Old Buster sounds like a nickname for a guy who does tricks with his penis.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, Yeah, I Call it old bus work anymore, but as you can see, Abraham Lincoln. As you can see, here's a couple of sparrows.

[Marcus Parks]

You ever seen a 90 year old man come in a spittoon?

[Ben Kissel]

Buster only left office when state legislators passed a law seemingly pointed directly at Buster Murdoch, which said that solicitors had to step down by the age of 72 or forfeit their retirement benefits. Benefits. Buster Murdoch begrudgingly stepped down. But just like his father before him, he'd already set up his legacy. When old Buster left office, his son, Randolph Murdoch iii, stepped up to complete the term.

[Marcus Parks]

Just from Randy to Buster, to Randy to Buster.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Basketball. Yeah, it just sounds like. From Randy to Buster, Randy to Buster. It just sounds like we're at a snowball party and everybody's just mother birding come into each other's mouths. God, I love South Carolina for Randy to Buster.

[Ben Kissel]

Sounds like a collection of yola tango B sides.

[Marcus Parks]

Why does it work? I don't know.

[Ben Kissel]

It just does. Yeah. Yeah. By the time of Randy III's birth, it had already been established that if your last name was Murdoch, it was your fate to become a lawyer. As such, Randy III had been exposed to the family business of prosecuting grisly murders at far too young of an age. During the investigation to the aforementioned murder, in which the pig farmer poisoned his sister and buried her alive, Randy III had accompanied his father to the farm to look for the body at the age of nine. And Lil Randy had been the one who'd found the obviously disturbed patch of ground where the old woman had been buried alive.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Daddy, Daddy, I think the body's over. Here's your candy. That is just. What a lucky kid that is. A lucky. That's fun as hell.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I wasn't finding bodies till I was like, 12. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well.

[Ben Kissel]

His father's insistence, Randy III was even present when the pig farmer confessed to killing his sister with rat poison. He was in the room. And since Randy had discovered the patch where the body was buried, he was forced to take the day off. Fourth grade to testify.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

I'll do anything to get out of school.

[Ben Kissel]

Consequently, Randy III's childhood testimony helped send that to the electric chair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And I hope that that man fries in a chair until his eyes pop out. There ain't nothing that delights me more than imagine his bones dancing to the current. I love watching. Oh, I hope his last words are miserable. And I hope the families get to watch him do it. I hope he gets to dance with the devil. I'm gonna be a lawyer.

[Ben Kissel]

Randy III had just as much theatrical flair as his father and his grandfather in the courtroom. Adopting the same fire and brimstone voice, he would also, however, weep in front of juries on cue. This was a new trick for the Murdoch family. And this, in my opinion, betrayed a hollowness that was starting to show in the Murdoch men as the generations passed. So while Randy Sr. Had ostensibly started his career as an idealist dedicated to defending the working man and Buster Murdoch had spent his career bend the law or breaking the law to fit his own personal will. All Randy III seemed to be concerned with was being a Murdoch. Being powerful, being rich, being able to do whatever the fuck he wanted. Every generation was less concerned with the pretense of ethics than the one before, and more concerned with doing whatever they wanted. They could justify their behavior, however, through the work they did with their personal injury firm, pmped. He pooped. See, while Randy III and his father Buster had jointly prosecuted dozens of criminal cases going back to the mid-1960s, they had also made millions filing and arguing personal injury suits targeted at large corporations on behalf of poor low country locals.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's another connecting to the people. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, there was a. There's this South Carolina loophole that says that if a business does. A business can be sued in any county where it does business. Which is why they really jumped on the railroads. Because all around. Because if a railroad goes through Hampton county, that means that anything that happens in South Carolina can be sick, can be litigated in Hampton County. Yeah. And small corporations.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they were so good at being corrupt.

[Ben Kissel]

They were incredibly good at being corrupt.

[Marcus Parks]

Because they had 100 years practice.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Good work on them. I, at some level we have have to like say congrats.

[Ben Kissel]

Right. Well, I mean they def, they worked out how to, you know, up America, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Alec really it all up.

[Ben Kissel]

He really did. Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

It just shows. If you show a. If you pick a really horrible place like Hampton county, no one's really going to care to look.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, you just got to reign in hell. That's what I learned.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, small corporations, especially local corporations run by other rich white men, they didn't really come into the Murdoch's crosshairs. But if you were a national corporation operation, you were open season for pmped. The Murdoch firm had a reputation for getting massively inflated settlements because even corporations knew that they could not beat a Hampton county jury. And because of the South Carolina loophole, anything that happened in South Carolina could be brought back to Hampton county because of the Murdaugh's overly litigious nature. Large corporations and even smaller businesses learned that it was best to, to keep every inch of your business far away from Hampton County. The Murdaughs even fought and beat Walmart. You know how hard it is to beat Walmart in the South. They forced Walmart to not only abandon plans to build a store in the low country, but they also Walmart donated the land they purchased back to the town. You might say this is a good thing. You might say Murdoch's kept corporations from taking taken over. But really this was just about the Murdochs maintaining control. And the people of the low country, they did not benefit in any way whatsoever.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When Walmart arrives, the rest of the country will start paying attention to Hampton County. When that corporations start coming in, it becomes logged on to the national attention sphere because the corporations are paying attention to Hampton county. And that is the reason why they don't like them in there. It's because they wanted, they don't want any, anybody looking at any single thing that they are doing.

[Marcus Parks]

Walmart wouldn't have worked there because the entire population is just greeters.

[Ben Kissel]

You got to be a little, you got to be a little older to really get that one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Also.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Remember, remember a time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can you just imagine the Rascal parking in that. What that Walmart would be like the Rascal Purch also like the God.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. You know, shoe sales will be down.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Got a lot of those sliding shoes, like no hand shoes.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, the Murdochs could force the illusion that they were fighting for those in their neighborhood who had nothing, those in the county who had nothing. But in reality, the legal chokehold deprived people of jobs. It kept doctors from opening practices in the low country out of malpractice fears and it raised property taxes. The Murdochs thrived while most everyone around them stayed in poverty. I think was something like 27% of Hampton county was below the poverty line. Which is insane.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's what they like because those are the, that's their, what they view as like, they're like chattel.

[Ben Kissel]

That's their little, their fiefdom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

People.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. They're their own little, their own little kingdom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And those little people pay enough taxes to help them. Right. And then they can just. They administer the little people. But they have to say super little.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, they do.

[Marcus Parks]

I can't believe that Walmart doesn't have graders anymore.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, they stopped doing it because you'd be surprised how aggressive some of greeters would get. And they.

[Ben Kissel]

Hi.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They get a lot of. I want to shake your hand, I want to Shake your hand. Come here. Ever been bear gripped by a Down syndrome man? When you want eggs?

[Ben Kissel]

The Randy III was a criminal just like his father. But by the time he came into power in the 1980s, bootlegging had been replaced by drug smuggling. Because the hundreds of remote islands off the South Carolina coast were perfect for harboring small planes full of weed or shrimp boats carrying cocain.

[Marcus Parks]

God, weed and shrimp. Oh yeah. But also like these guys.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But I don't like coke and shrimp.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, Cocaine and shrimp.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Cocaine and shrimp is weird.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can you imagine doing lines of coke and eating shrimp?

[Ben Kissel]

But I didn't. When I. When I did cocaine, I didn't eat a lot. Yeah, cocaine's not an eating drug.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no.

[Marcus Parks]

But you, you will buy a bunch of shrimp and have it in front of you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know shrimp. There's some great shrimp.

[Ben Kissel]

Great.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I might want that later.

[Marcus Parks]

Also I will say the Murdochs are the color of shrimp.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow.

[Ben Kissel]

They really are.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They got a flamingos diet.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He does have a flamingo like aspect.

[Marcus Parks]

That's why they like that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I mean I like shrimp too, but I ain't getting that. I guess you're pink. Maybe I'm. That is why I'm getting so pink.

[Marcus Parks]

It is.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Or III prosecuted drug smugglers. But his inside track enabled him to also warn drug traffickers when raids were imminent or to where to place bribes to prevent the raids from ever happening in the first place.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Rob, get the family off the monitor. I can't look at the Murdoch like this. I can't. They're all just staring at me. I just keep looking up and I see the eight beady eyes of the Murdoch staring at me like watch a haunted doll.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm just sad Brian Dennehy isn't alive to play him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah. Wow, dude. Cuz the guy who's playing him in the show is kind of.

[Marcus Parks]

I like him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I like him, but he's. He's bad for the. It doesn't add any.

[Marcus Parks]

He did a great job. He was also Ted Kennedy, which I find hilarious.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow. He's playing every broad faced that kills.

[Marcus Parks]

Someone in the water right next to the water.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, Randy iii, this is Alex father. He was also fond of sex workers, which was a world he was introduced to when a strip club opened up locally.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I gotta check out this new establishment just to make sure that all the legality is occ. Covered. Oh my great googly moogly. A spittoon inside.

[Ben Kissel]

You ready? The 30. He did actually tell his constituents like don't worry, I'MMA keep a close eye on this clothes. Don't worry, I'm okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'mma watch out.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna make sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, until I happen, don't wait. I'll make sure from the inside of the establishment that no such crime can be occurred. I will not allow the solicitation of a prostitute in Hampton County.

[Ben Kissel]

Well, Randy became so fond of the ladies that he began spending quite a bit of time away from his family in a condo that he regularly filled with strippers and sex workers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is my constituents. And what's super important about this scenario is that I cannot be convicted of soliciting the prostitute if my time with the prostitute does not end because I am now in a sort of roommate like situation with these prostitutes. We are now in a business arrangement that goes beyond the erotic arts.

[Marcus Parks]

No condoms, though.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no. That's gross. Coming to lamb. Coming a lamb.

[Ben Kissel]

Like, he had his own little sex condo and the amount of time that he spent there bordered on abandonment. And his wife got so tired of his antics that she published her own obituary in the local newspaper to try to flush him out with guilt.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I can tell you something. I think my wife died or something. You're making eggs?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I'm just so happy I didn't have to write this myself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, honestly, they were going to have to edit it.

[Ben Kissel]

But eventually, Randy III's own mother went to his sex condo herself and dragged him back to his family. He's a grown man, a middle aged man, and his mother's showing up and dragging him out of his sex condo.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And do you think all the strippers. Rippers are just like, oh, please, Randy.

[Marcus Parks]

What are we gonna do for money?

[Ben Kissel]

Randy III's mother made it clear to both Randy III and his wife that the two of them had to stay together no matter what because, and this is important, Murdochs don't divorce because they're religious. This is something. Yeah, yeah. Because God wouldn't like it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's just never, I mean, again. Divorce is one of the worst things you can do.

[Ben Kissel]

Divorce is really awful. Yeah, like, it's really bad now. By the early 90s, certain low country citizens were getting tired of the Murdoch reign. In August of 1991, a group of angry protesters picketed the Beaufort county courthouse protesting Randy III's deliberate refusal to prosecute certain crimes and even certain homicides for political and or personal reasons. Randy III's youngest son, for example, he'd been throwing a party on Murdoch island one night when some of the partygoers got into a Drunken boat accident. Because apparen that was quite common amongst the Murdochs and pretty common actually in this area of the world. There's a lot of rivers, you know, there's a lot of boat accidents, a lot of drinking. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But it's also just this idea that people really do believe that once you get on a boat that all laws go away. You could be drunk, you could be a child, you could be anything and just drive a boat. You just have a boat, do whatever you want.

[Ben Kissel]

No, no, it's not true.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, it's not.

[Marcus Parks]

But feels like it.

[Ben Kissel]

It does feel like it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Cuz you're on a boat.

[Ben Kissel]

It's about the floatiness.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You don't see things surrounding. Ain't no law in the water.

[Marcus Parks]

Now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There is. It's just again, much like Randy discovered, it's when you leave the water. So again, stay on the water. No crime.

[Ben Kissel]

There's no courts on the water.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No. That's right difficult to get a judge out there. They don't like water.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Because the robes, they weigh them down to the bottom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The wigs.

[Ben Kissel]

One passenger in this drunken boat accident was severely injured, but every partygoer testified that the passenger had been hurt because of hazardous weather despite calm and clear skies. No mention whatsoever, of course, about the drinking. The Murdaughs had sabotaged the investigation as they had done many times before and would do many times after. The people of Hampton county were sick of it. But there really wasn't much that they could. Could do about it. No Murdoch would sabotage the entire Murdoch legacy further than Randy's third son, Richard Alec Murdoch.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like they had a playbook for what would happen later.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like they. Which is interesting because they did have a playbook.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he didn't follow the playbook.

[Ben Kissel]

He didn't. Now it's said that even as a little boy there was something. Something missing behind Alec Murdoch's beady black eyes. That something sinister lay in that disgusting mouth. A mouth that always looks like it's full of rusted metal.

[Marcus Parks]

Good adjectives.

[Henry Zebrowski]

His thin lips always look like. He looks like his mouth is filled with blood and that blood is just peeking out of the lips.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's like even his lips are so thin that his like gums are receding.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's just too Scottish to be here.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. He looks. He makes Charlie Kirk look voluptuous in the mouth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I want him to go back. We should send him back to Scotland.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Let them deal with it. Oh yeah. From accounts Alec Murdoch was a textbook sociopath. Extremely charming, able to win over anyone in a conversation and totally lacking in empathy. While he did eventually become a bloated corpse of a man in middle age, Alec was a strikingly handsome redhead when he was younger. Well over 6ft tall, had a shock of red hair that earned him the nickname Big Red in college.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Gingers scare me. I don't like them.

[Marcus Parks]

That's why you married one, right?

[Henry Zebrowski]

She's not a ginger.

[Marcus Parks]

She's got red hair.

[Ben Kissel]

You've got red hair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I've got str. Blonde hair.

[Marcus Parks]

Do you scare yourself?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm not a ginger.

[Marcus Parks]

You're not?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No. No.

[Marcus Parks]

Sounds like a self hating ginger to me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, I'm distinctly. This is how you can tell I'm not a ginger is my body hair. Oh, because the body hair gets red and gross. Oh, you look like Clifford. I like with a penis.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, gingers have a bad reputation. But there are some good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which one? Name one.

[Marcus Parks]

The that don't have sixes behind their ears.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Name one. I have never seen it. All right. My wife, is she ginger?

[Marcus Parks]

I guess so.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, I don't think she's a jerk.

[Marcus Parks]

I'll talk to her about it.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, let her know. Well, in high school, Alec Murdoch had been little more than a bully. He had attended public school like his father and his grandfather before. This had always been a way for the Murdochs to establish themselves as so called men of the people. They go to public school, not family fancy private school. But really all it meant for Alec was that he had easy access to poor kids that he could abuse. As one classmate put it, Alex overall attitude was quote, I could do what.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I want to because my dad is a solicitor and my granddaddy was too.

[Ben Kissel]

Another classmate said Alec had always gotten out of things because of his father and grandfather's reputations. And every decision that Alec made was informed by that. That reality. Further removing responsibility was his own mother. The same woman who had published her own obituary to shame her philandering husband. Alex mother sat on the school board which ensured that Alec was never punished or even reprimanded by his teachers. Additionally, Alec Murdoch was a teenage booze hound who started drinking at parties thrown by his father at an early age. Randy III encouraged Alex drinking because owing to their past as bootleggers, the Murdochs wore their alcoholism like a bat badge of honor.

[Marcus Parks]

I knew so many dudes like this growing up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, this is a. It is so hacky, right? It's such a template for an.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is so recurring like this, this thing of, yeah, we party like we're, we're a drinking family. And this idea that you identify as a bunch of drinkers and you identify as this thing because guess what, it does, it creates a really unhealthy. The environment. Yeah. You know, because it's to up everybody's life.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's because you never remember to apologize for the things you don't remember doing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's also just a distinct difference because like we're learning as adults. There's a d difference to just like drinking and hanging out and what these guys were doing.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because what these guys were doing, including Alec until the end was these, this frat boy horseshit.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah. Well, generational alcohol, alcoholism up families horribly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And this type of just, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

It'S being proud of it.

[Marcus Parks]

They're morning drinkers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's the southern elite, eliteness of it that makes me angry.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And by the time Alec got to college at the University of South Carolina, like his daddy and his daddy before him, he was blatantly telling his fellow frat boys that they could all do whatever they wanted because they would not get into trouble. And in this, he was absolutely correct. Just a few months into his freshman year, Alec led police on a drunken high speed car car chase through campus that only ended when Alec abandoned his jeep in front of a dormitory and fled into the night. He was called to the police station for questioning the next day. But as soon as police realized that this was Randy Murdick's son, they just let him go. And this is, even, this is at college, like he's at, like in Columbia. But still, that's how far, that's how far the Murdoch name reached.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, it's all of South Carolina. It's like a big small town, that place.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, Alex started at the USC School of Law in 1991 in preparation for joining his family's law firm. And there he met a sorority girl named Margaret, whose lower middle class background made Alec Murdoch's social standing seem far more impressive than it really was.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What an amazing love story.

[Ben Kissel]

They were soon married and she would come to be known as Maggie Murdoch. By 1994, Maggie and Alec had moved to Beaufort where Alec became an assistant solicitor under Randy iii, prosecut simple drug possession cases while he was also still doing quite a few drugs himself, although the oxy had not yet come into play. That's more of a mid-2000s thing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Alec and his wife were actually happy in Beaufort. And it was thought that Alec was going to take over as 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor one day he was gregarious and charismatic. And his sociopathy meant that he could easily fool people into thinking he cared. In other words, natural federal politician.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And he's talking, he's in Beaufort county. So everybody he talks to is somebody he likes and respects because they're all the rich and they're all the fancies and so they're all the people that he would be nice to.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And if he wasn't in prison right now, he'd probably be running as a Democrat for Congress.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, Yeah, I actually know. I. Well I. I guess he was a Democrat to the end. I don't know.

[Ben Kissel]

He was.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

No, he was, he was, he was chair of the local Democratic party.

[Marcus Parks]

Ah, good for him.

[Ben Kissel]

But when Buster Murdoch finally died at the age of 84, Alec decided to move from the cushy environs of Beaufort to the far poorer county of Hampton, where the Murdoch name held more power. I think this is around 1996, 97.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Part of me also believes that they did this move because he was in his mind doing this back to rural. Like I'm a, I'm a real country man.

[Ben Kissel]

Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he cuz Paul fancied himself as a little like cuz Buster was the yuppie. Paul was the, the thing that he kind of took a shine to him. Alec took a shine to because he saw himself and Paul, Paul was the same where he would pretend to be low country but be very rich.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And you know, like the cosplay.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. And let's not get people too confused on the names here because I know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It'S all over the place.

[Ben Kissel]

It's all. It's a lot of Busters. Alec had a son also named Buster and named after his grandfather Buster.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's the one who's still a lawyer.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Homosexual, homicidal man.

[Ben Kissel]

You would never say that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, I wouldn't say it. I don't, I don't say that.

[Marcus Parks]

But maybe he wanted to move back like more because like Big Buster's finally dead.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And you get Murdoch island back like and you get to start your family. There you go.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well you already. Yeah, you get it now. Now you got all the stuff.

[Ben Kissel]

Well there's a power vacuum now. The Buster's dead. Especially in the firm. And the firm is where Alec Murdoch sees his future. He does not see his future is not in solicitor. His for his future is in private practice.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He wants to make money.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, he wants to make money and he wants to make a lot of it. And he is willing to do whatever it takes to make that money. But once they move back to Hampton, things began falling apart for Maggie and Alec in every way possible. But Maggie Murdick fucking hated Hampton. And she was quite vocal about telling anyone who would listen that she was too good to live there. Things got even more difficult for Alec and Maggie after the birth of their second child. See, the birth of their first son, Richard Alexander Murdoch Jr. Had been in Beaufort and had seemingly gone. Well, that's Buster. That's the Buster that everyone knows. When you say Buster Murdoch, this is the Buster you're talking about.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Evil, homicidal homosexual.

[Ben Kissel]

You would never see say that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he did.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That would be. That would be. That would be slander.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he busted right out of his mother.

[Ben Kissel]

He did. But In April of 1999, Maggie gave birth to their second son, Paul. The birth was difficult. Maggie suffered from postpartum depression, and she therefore had very few maternal instincts towards either of her sons. Or so it was said. A person close to the family further claimed that Paul was basically ignored after his birth and that negligence in his first few months on this earth is why Paul came to be the way he was. Which, you know, the way Paul was was a total psychopath.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is true. He's the redheaded bully from the Christmas story.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

And so, since Maggie was checked out, Alec hired the sister of one of his high school friends, a woman named Gloria Satterfield, to be their housekeeper and the boy's nanny. Soon after Paul was born, even though Gloria had two sons of her own, she dedicated her life six days a week to raising Buster and Paul Murdock for her service, though, Gloria Satterfield would end up in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of a set of brick stairs with a cracked skull 19 years later. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for alec Murdoch Part 2, where we'll cover the two mysterious deaths surrounding the family and the drunken boating accident that brought the entire Murd legacy to ruins.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yay.

[Marcus Parks]

These.

[Ben Kissel]

Honestly, each and every one of these.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Godamns, I am so happy to finally been doing this. I've watched the entire court case. I w. I went back, I'm watching all the interviews and God, it feels good to hate this.

[Ben Kissel]

God.

[Henry Zebrowski]

God, I hate him. I hate his face.

[Ben Kissel]

The picture we're looking at right now like we're. They're all wearing bow ties. They're human bow ties.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just want to strangle them to death with it. I just want to grab both ends of the bow tie and just want to pull it to his idle tiny little be eyes pop out of his big fat pink skull. But it's fine because he's in jail. And he is also obviously what's very interesting is while our series is running, his appeal may begin anytime soon. We know that they're, they're working on that. I don't know how. He lost quite a bit of weight.

[Ben Kissel]

Shaved his head.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Looks like Lex Luther.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he looks gross. He looks bad.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, he should not have shaved his head. He looks really terrible with a shape.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's trying to look weak. He's trying to look like I'm a. I'm sick.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what they all do, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sick. Remember Harvey Weinstein came out with the, the walker and all the. Oh yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And for the way he was acting, he should be dead already.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, well, we'll get him one day. Somebody will get him. Patreon.com lastpodcast on the left. Thank you for giving us money when you can. And if you do, you get to see see many things. We got ad free episodes. We also have our exclusive live last stream on the left. You can go and see that Every Tuesday at 6pm PST only on the Patreon. But you can then join and yell at us before we put it on YouTube.

[Ben Kissel]

Yep. And don't forget to go check out all of our socials at last Podcast on the left LP on the left LP on the left. Tik Tok and Instagram don't get to come see us out on tour. We're going to be going doing all kinds of dates this next year.

[Marcus Parks]

20 it is 2026 and we are coming in hard to Philadelphia. Yeah, I am. I'm gonna be hard at The Met on January 31 and then February 28. We're going to be in Austin, Texas at The Paramount Theater. March 13, Indianapolis, Indiana. The Egyptian Room at the Old National Center. Saturday, April 25th, Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft Theater. Friday, May 12th, 29th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Music Hall. Saturday, June 27th, Grand Rapids, Michigan Live at 20 Monroe. July 17th, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kane's Ballroom. July 18th, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at the Tower Theater. And next week on Wednesday, Henry and I got a bunch of side stories dates coming out for sale. Keep your eyeballs glued for that.

[Ben Kissel]

I remember the last time we did the Egyptian Indianapolis. We were sharing the bill with a musical, the Grinch who Stole Christmas. And then the Grinch got the bigger room.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It did. And then I the Grinch had it. And then that was when the follow up night. I believe that was when Stacy Abrams was in the. The performing the night after us.

[Ben Kissel]

That was in Norfolk.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm sorry. It's really funny. She's hilarious. Her shit's sick. Have you ever seen Stacy Abrams Locke live? Dude, you'll throw up. Bring the poncho. You ever see Stacy Abrams live? Dude, those first couple rows, she squirts, she gets down, she fully sticks it in.

[Ben Kissel]

She.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She squirts nine feet into the front row in the orchestra.

[Ben Kissel]

What? She's squirting blood. Yeah, like a. Like, Like a horn toad.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You can tell by the taste.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Stacy up top. Gallagher on the bottom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, hail sitting, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the show again.

[Ben Kissel]

Thank you so much.

[Marcus Parks]

Hail Renee. Nicole, good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, very nice.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes. Hell, Renee, good. And yeah, Best, best. Everything. To all of our people out in Minnesota right now, we love you very much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And not to be too antifa about it, but ice can go itself.

[Marcus Parks]

I can go yourself. Every one of you. I heard a lot of them are committing suicide, so they should all try that.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Enjoy. Enjoy. It's a good way to not get into heaven. Gas, snacks, tolls.

[Ben Kissel]

This trip is draining my wallet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

[Ben Kissel]

You're in a good mood.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What's your deal? What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month.

[Marcus Parks]

Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top.

[Ben Kissel]

Tuxed data detour to Metro.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Get that more for your money feeling.

[Ben Kissel]

Only at Metro by T Mobile.

[Marcus Parks]

Just bring your number. $30 first month and $25 after with autopay not available. If with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hi neighbor.

[Ben Kissel]

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