Before Alex Murdaugh shot his wife and son at the family's South Carolina hunting estate, he spent decades building a lie so elaborate that almost no one saw it coming. In Part 1 of this two-part series, we go back to the beginning — not just to June 7, 2021, but to 1920, when the Murdaugh family first seized control of the criminal justice system in the South Carolina Lowcountry and didn't let go for 86 years.

This episode covers the full family dynasty, the mechanics of Alex's $12 million fraud operation, his opioid addiction, the death of housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, Paul Murdaugh's abuse of his girlfriend Morgan Doughty, the 2019 boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach, and the civil lawsuit that put a ticking clock on everything. We end on the night of June 7, 2021 — when Maggie texted a friend that Alex sounded "fishy," drove to meet him anyway, and never came home.

Part 2 drops next week and covers the investigation, the trial, the verdict, and the bombshell Supreme Court ruling from May 2026 that overturned everything.

IN THIS EPISODE

The Murdaugh family's 86-year grip on the 14th Judicial Circuit of South Carolina — three generations of circuit solicitors, from 1920 to 2006
The law firm PMPED and how it made its money ("the house that CSX built")
Who Alex Murdaugh was — his background, his family, his charisma, and what was running underneath all of it
Alex's opioid addiction: 30-60 pills a day, sourced from a drug-dealing distant cousin, costing an estimated $40,000-$60,000 per week at black market prices
The fraud in detail: the fake "Forge" account, the Laffitte bank scheme, 16+ years of stolen client settlements totaling at least $12 million across an estimated 30-50 victims
Gloria Satterfield — the Murdaugh family housekeeper who died after a fall at the Moselle estate in 2018, whose $4.3 million wrongful death settlement Alex stole entirely from her grieving sons
Morgan Doughty's account of Paul's abuse — the hotel incident, the 2017 Christmas truck crash, and how the Murdaugh family cleaned up after their son every single time
The February 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach, 19 — the night Paul drove drunk with a BAC of 0.24, refused to let anyone else take the wheel, and walked away from the scene while Mallory's body was somewhere in the dark water
The civil lawsuit, Mark Tinsley's push for full financial disclosure, and the hearing that was scheduled for June 10, 2021 — three days after the murders
June 7, 2021: what Maggie's last text said, what Paul was doing at the kennels at 8:44 p.m., and what the phone data shows about the last minutes of their lives