Power, prestige and privilege: Inside the rise and fall of the Murdaugh dynasty in South Carolina

This story was originally published Jan. 26, 2022. USA Today Network is republishing Jan. 24, 2023, as Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial begins in South Carolina. Catch up on coverage of the investigation and follow the ongoing trial on Greenvilleonline.com. 

The Murdaugh family, clad in their Sunday best, ascended the Hampton County Courthouse steps on Sept. 20, 2018. The clan grinned for the journalist’s camera, the youngest perched in a parent’s arm. The patriarch anchored the frame, gripping his new Order of the Palmetto award.

Randolph Murdaugh III received South Carolina’s highest civilian honor that afternoon because of all the other times he walked those courthouse steps. This Randolph Murdaugh was the third Randolph Murdaugh elected solicitor of a five-county swath of the state’s rural Lowcountry.

For almost a century, a man named Murdaugh decided what misdeeds were crimes and what crimes were cases, argued who was guilty – and what they owed.

The Randolph Murdaughs maintained reputations as sensational and stubborn prosecutors who often played by their own rules. And they executed law and order with a certain down-home, southern style.

A Murdaugh ran for office, unopposed in all but a handful of elections, for 85 years. This tenure is considered the longest of its kind in the history of the United States. The string broke in 2005 when Randolph Murdaugh III retired.

Two of his lawyer sons, including Richard Alexander Murdaugh, or Alex, instead worked alongside their father at the family firm, a powerhouse built with high-dollar personal injury cases.

After his father’s award ceremony in 2018, Alex Murdaugh posed on the top courthouse step by his wife and two sons, smiling slightly into the September sunlight.

Nearly three years later to the day, Alex Murdaugh was on a back-country roadside, covered in blood.

A passerby in a car called 911, saying she didn’t stop because something seemed off with the scene.

With Alex Murdaugh, not everything was as it appeared.

In the last six months, his image unraveled.

An alleged botched suicide-for-hire plot and allegations of millions of dollars stolen – from the family law firm, from injured clients seeking justice, from friends close enough to be considered kin – orbit Alex Murdaugh now.

Money matters: Alex Murdaugh has millions in 'protected' assets, but who will be compensated?

Four death investigations loom over the Murdaugh family. Two of their own were killed.

And after Randolph Murdaugh III died this summer, the third Murdaugh to die in almost as many days, Alex, once in the background, emerged as the new center of gravity for his family’s legacy.

The ceremony on the courthouse steps would be the last moment of public glory before the family’s fall.

June 7, 2021, 10:07 p.m.

Alex: This is Alex Murdaugh at 4147 Moselle Road, I need the police and an ambulance immediately – my wife and child have been shot badly!...Dispatcher: OK, are they breathing? Alex: No, ma’am. Dispatcher: You said it’s your wife and your son? 

Alex: My wife and my son. Dispatcher: Are they in a vehicle? Alex: No ma’am, they’re on the ground out at my kennel. Dispatcher: OK, and did you see anyone? OK, is he breathing at all? Alex: No. 

The killing of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh

Though the Murdaughs’ troubles began, quietly, years ago, they burst into the national spotlight on a summer night in 2021 when Alex Murdaugh called 911.

Today, the public life of Alex and Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh lingers in the family photographs splashed across magazines and newscasts, tabloids and blogs.

There’s the couple huddled at the back of a boat, Maggie bundled in a beach towel, smiling as the sun glimmers behind them. There are the parents posing with their two sons on a basketball court, decked out in University of South Carolina apparel, and arms wrapped around each other.

Alex and Maggie met as undergraduates at the Columbia, South Carolina, campus some 30 years ago. They married in 1993 while Alex Murdaugh was a U of SC law student.

Alex Murdaugh was the fourth generation of Murdaughs to attend the school, and the fourth Murdaugh to play football for the Gamecocks. It’s said that Alex’s grandfather, Buster, earned his nickname on the gridiron because the short and stocky lineman “busted the opponent.”

Alex and Maggie’s first son, named after Alex, goes by Buster, too. Richard Alexander “Buster” Murdaugh Jr. was born in 1996. Paul came three years later.

The family made their way back to Alex Murdaugh’s hometown in Hampton County, and the young lawyer made his way into the family business. He became a partner at Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick (PMPED), the firm founded in 1910 by his great-grandfather, the first Randolph Murdaugh.

For years, Alex Murdaugh’s salary appeared to provide a sun-soaked, sportsman's lifestyle that could only be set in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.

These parts are mostly farmland or former farmland. Fewer than 20,000 people live in Hampton County. Savannah, Georgia, is the closest big dot on the map, and that city is about an hour's drive from Hampton.

Pines grow thick here, and the oaks grow tall. Wild hogs trample paths through the woods, and rivers snake through the marshes. Recreation means hunting rifles, pickup trucks and boats.

The Murdaughs owned at least five watercrafts. They kept a beach house on nearby Edisto Island, and Alex Murdaugh co-owned three wooded tracts amid the waterways of Beaufort County, according to property records. They enjoyed a river house folks call “Murdaugh Island.”

The Murdaughs also had shares in an exclusive hunting club. They organized duck and deer hunts on their land, inviting friends and allies and anyone who might be either in the future. And Maggie Murdaugh was the always generous and energetic lady of the house.

Their 1,770-acre homestead is a white mansion tucked behind a brick gate and a tree-traced path. Trucks kicked up dirt on the drive. Tractors chugged in the field.

The Murdaughs kept a walk-in deer cooler, stocked with Natural Light beer, on the property, too. Anyone was welcome to grab one after a hunt. That included Paul, a student at the University of South Carolina, and his underage friends, according to allegations in a civil suit deposition.

Paul Murdaugh was an avid hunter. He kept licenses to hunt deer, turkey and waterfowl. He fished, and he boated. He liked to be out on the water.

In 2019, a late-night joyride would upend his idyllic life on the Murdaugh compound.

On Feb. 23, 2019, Paul Murdaugh borrowed his father’s boat to go to a house party and oyster roast on a nearby island. The 19-year-old bought booze at a gas station with his older brother's ID before meeting up with five friends that evening.

They partied through the last hours of the day. On the way to the Murdaugh river house, the teenagers stopped at a dock in Beaufort. Two of them, including Paul Murdaugh, popped into a local bar for shots.

Surveillance video near the dock captures the teenagers meandering back to the boat at 1:12 a.m. Some stagger and hold hands.

At 2:26 a.m., one of the teens dialed 911. Their boat had slammed into wooden pilings in front of Archers Creek bridge, near Parris Island.

The caller, Connor Cook, broke his jaw in the crash. A young woman, Mallory Beach, was missing in the dark waters.

Warning: Strong language

Her body would not be found for seven days.

Emergency personnel searched for Beach while her friends were transported to the hospital, and Alex Murdaugh arrived not long after. He did not stay in his son’s room. He talked to or attempted to talk to the boat crash victims, according to police interviews with hospital staff.

The Murdaugh Case Files: A boat crash heard around the world

A nurse overheard Alex Murdaugh tell Connor Cook “they were going to figure everything out.” Before Alex Murdaugh left the hospital room, he had one more thing to say to Connor Cook, according to an allegation in a civil suit.

Keep your mouth shut.

Two years later, Paul Murdaugh was awaiting a trial on three felony counts relating to the crash: one count of boating under the influence causing death, and two counts of boating under the influence causing great bodily injury.

Paul Murdaugh, the sixth generation of Hampton Murdaughs, would face a judge from the other side of the courtroom. He was not the first Murdaugh defendant. He would not be the last.

He pleaded not guilty.

The Beach family filed a wrongful death suit against Alex Murdaugh and other parties.

The court scheduled a related hearing for the second week of June. The hearing never happened.

Boat crash: Charges officially dropped against Paul Murdaugh

Paul Murdaugh was shot at the family estate days before the hearing date. He was 22. His mother, also shot, died with him.

Alex Murdaugh told a dispatcher he discovered his son and his wife, 52, near the family’s dog kennels. They weren’t breathing, he said. The hunting dogs’ barks punctuate his panicked 911 call.

Still unsolved: No arrests in SC double homicide of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh

Alex had just returned home, he said. No one else was supposed to be there.

The roots of the Murdaughs' power

On June 10, 2021, 81-year-old Randolph Murdaugh III died peacefully at home, according to his obituary.

He was buried two days after Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. His funeral procession drew at least one vehicle from every law enforcement agency in the circuit.

It was a reflection of the outsized role the Murdaugh men have played in Hampton County for nearly as long as it has been on the map.

And Hampton, the town, still clings to the railroad, much like it did when the Murdaughs first settled here. The train cuts through a rhythm of forests, paused by open fields. Some folks hold property today that’s been in their family for hundreds of years.

Randolph Murdaugh III: Former 14th Circuit Solicitor dies at home

Founded in 1878, the county was named after Wade Hampton, a Confederate general. The county split off from coastal Beaufort County, where Yankee merchants settled, and the formerly enslaved bought and cultivated land seized during the Civil War.

Josiah Putman Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh’s great-great-grandfather, retired to Hampton County in 1885. A member of the Confederate Army, he claimed to have stood guard during General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. According to his 1912 obituary, he rallied from a battle injury to attend. His wife, Annie, was a relative of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, her obituary reads.

J.P. Murdaugh made his money in mining, fertilizer, real estate and as a cotton broker in Charleston. His son, the first Randolph Murdaugh, opened the law firm in Hampton that would spawn the family’s legal dynasty.

In 1920, the position of solicitor, South Carolina’s name for a district attorney, became an elected office. Randolph Murdaugh, 10 years into private practice and already a close friend of the local sheriff, defeated two other candidates that year. During the next two decades, he assumed the role of a fearless prosecutor, targeting those in power, from bankers to preachers to a former governor.

The first Randolph Murdaugh also molded the prominent persona his descendants replicated. He joined the Masons. He founded a furniture company. He held seats on the county school board and the board of trustees for his alma mater, the University of South Carolina. He paid for clay to build a road into Hampton.

His trips to Florida and appearances at garden parties engaged the newspapers’ society pages across South Carolina. Eventually, Randolph Murdaugh founded his own newspaper.

In 1940, Randolph Murdaugh's car reportedly stalled on railroad tracks when he was driving home from a late-night poker game, the Associated Press wrote.

A train struck the car. He died instantly. The Murdaughs sued the railway company. (The company settled.)

Randolph’s son, Randolph Murdaugh Jr., or “Buster,” assisted his father with cases before his death. A special appointment named Buster Murdaugh his late father’s replacement in the solicitor’s office.

Election victories kept Alex Murdaugh’s grandfather in power for the next 46 years.

Legal lineage

Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh, Jr., was a legend during his lifetime – and it was a colorful one of his own making.

In Pat Conroy’s memoir, the writer recounts Buster introducing himself as “the cock of the walk in this part of South Carolina.” And then Buster blew cigar smoke in Conroy’s face.

The courtroom was his stage, and the first Buster Murdaugh always put on a show, stalking the halls of justice with a signature wad of tobacco pinched in his cheek.

He brought hound dogs into the courtroom, quipping he wouldn't question them if the defense promised not to call them as witnesses. He splayed out like a victim on the floor in front of the jury box. He interrogated a defendant on the stand with a garden hose, the alleged murder weapon, wrapped around his neck.

He warned a jury once that if they did not deliver a guilty verdict, they might as well put up a sign in blood on Interstate 95 that read, “Murderers Welcome in Colleton County.”

His style worked: Buster Murdaugh's conviction rate in his early years hovered at 95%.

His theatrics, however, sometimes overstepped the bounds of law and ethics, resulting in reprimands and conviction reversals. Still, Buster Murdaugh doggedly pursued the death penalty. He sent 14 people to the electric chair, but he never attended an execution.

His almost 50 years as a prosecutor was interrupted only once. He resigned briefly in 1956 to defend himself.

The U.S. attorney alleged Buster Murdaugh covered up a whiskey ring that relied on local law enforcement bribes. He was indicted for conspiring to violate federal liquor laws, along with the sheriff of Colleton County, a district magistrate and 24 others. Locals dubbed it The Great Colleton County Whiskey Conspiracy.

Buster was acquitted, but not without controversy. According to a Department of Justice memo, some of the defendants and their attorneys threatened or tried to bribe government witnesses to secure a not guilty verdict. And they attempted, at least once, to intimidate or influence the U.S. Attorney.

Buster Murdaugh’s first cousin was indicted for jury tampering during Buster’s trial. (A jury acquitted his cousin, too.)

Buster won re-election weeks after a jury found him not guilty.

Buster’s son, Randolph Murdaugh III, followed him into the courthouse as a boy. At the age of 8, Randolph III pulled the numbers for jury duty. By the time he took over as solicitor in 1987, he’d already assisted his father with cases for 22 years.

Like his father, Randolph III was a zealous, fiery prosecutor. Folks celebrated the third Randolph Murdaugh’s uncanny memory for the particulars of cases, and he had a lot to remember. He tried more than 200 murder cases in his career, once convicting two murderers in the same week.

Randolph Murdaugh III was re-elected, without opposition, five times before retiring in 2005.

Alex Murdaugh never ran to replace his father. But he did assist on some cases. He was authorized as a volunteer, and he was the lead attorney on only one case, according to the solicitor’s office. Randolph Murdaugh III remained a contract employee there after his retirement.

Hundreds attended his Hampton funeral on June 13, 2021. He was buried near his namesakes.

But nationally, attention remained focused on the double homicide of his grandson and his daughter-in-law. Journalists huddled outside the gates on Moselle Road. Cameras captured law enforcement officers launching the investigations.

Sixteen days after the shootings, officials would say this work led them to reexamine another death.

Police uncovered something they would not reveal, something that demanded they turn toward a different family’s tragedy that played out on a pitch-dark country road six years earlier.

June 23, 2021

“(South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) has opened an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh." - S.C. State Law Enforcement Division spokesperson Tommy Crosby  

The death of Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith’s grave marker is a name, two years and a hyphen in between.

Smith was 19 when he died in 2015.

He graduated the year before from Wade Hampton High School in Hampton County. In his senior yearbook, the straight-A student declared he was most likely to “become a medical physician or rule the world.” Buster Murdaugh, Alex’s eldest son, and Stephen Smith were classmates.

After high school, Smith enrolled in the nursing program at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. It appears Smith's car ran out of gas while he was driving home from night classes, and he decided to walk the rest of the way on the last day of his life, according to police reports.

He is buried some 50 yards from the country road where his body was discovered the morning of July 8, 2015. He died of blunt force trauma to the head, police records say.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol led the initial investigation into Stephen Smith’s death. They investigated the death as a hit-and-run but later determined there was no evidence to suggest he was struck by a vehicle. The circumstances surrounding Smith’s death remain undetermined.

All officials will say today is they found some detail in their investigation into Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s shooting deaths that prompted them to look at Smith’s death “with fresh eyes.”

New view: SLED opens its own investigation into death of Stephen Smith

The announcement prompted more questions than answers.

A few months after his death, Stephen Smith’s mother, Sandy, spoke to The Hampton County Guardian. She said she thought he might have been killed for being gay. "It doesn't matter what his sexual preferences were, he was still my son and he was not messing with anybody and was going to school to better himself,” she said.

According to police records, officers heard the names of several possible suspects during their initial investigation of Smith’s death six years ago. But they heard one name more than others.

#StandingForStephen: GoFundMe campaign raises over $25K for family of Stephen Smith

They heard this last name from Sandy Smith, the records say, although she was confused as to why people kept bringing it up. They heard it in a tip left by an anonymous caller. They heard it in police interviews.

“Murdaugh.”

No one, however, has been named a suspect.

Rumors amplify quickly in a quiet place like Hampton County, from the checkout at the hardware store to the chairs in the barbershop. It’s a small town that is getting smaller.

The population shrunk by 12% in the last decade.

Those locals who stay work alongside the people they sat next to in classrooms. They recognize the faces in the pews on Sunday. And it’s hard to find anyone anywhere around here who doesn’t know a Murdaugh.

They were so connected to police that when interviewing a woman about Stephen Smith’s death, an officer made a point to tell them he did not know the Murdaughs, according to an audio recording of a state trooper interview.

And when Alex Murdaugh’s boat crashed and Paul Murdaugh was thrown into Archers Creek, at least one officer who knew the Murdaughs responded to the 911 call.

July 7, 2021

Deposition of Michael Brock, a former South Carolina Department of Natural Resources officer who responded to the scene of the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach in 2019. Filed as part of the Beach family suit against Alex Murdaugh and other parties on July 7, 2021:

Question from Mitch Griffith, attorney: Were you actually pulled off the investigation?Answer from Michael Brock: I was – I was put into an assisting role....Q: Okay. So, you put them on notice that you knew – first of all, which families did you know? A: I knew the Murdaugh family. ...Mark Tinsley, attorney: You also been to the Murdaugh river house before this night, did you not? Brock: Yes, sir. Q: Okay. About how many times had you been there? A: Once or twice, three times.Q: For parties? A: We used to keep – well, I think I went there one time in high school or college, sometime back in those days. But I don’t remember who was there.

Hometown ties and politics

The Murdaughs lived in high cotton, as the saying goes, but they weren’t highfalutin.

They always seemed to have the time to catch up in the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly with anybody, from judges to janitors.

These men spent more time rubbing elbows with their backwoods brethren than on a golf course. Take the elder Buster Murdaugh. He'd knock on neighbors' doors on his way home from a long day at court. He often found a warm welcome and a warm slice of pound cake.

The family also opened the doors to the law firm, so well-known it doesn’t have a sign out front, during the Hampton County Watermelon Festival every year. They passed plates of barbecue and three-finger pours of whiskey during the annual celebration of Hampton’s most famous crop.

The Murdaughs’ dominion expanded beyond the law. The Randolph Murdaughs were longtime leaders in the state Democratic Party. In the 1960s, Buster Murdaugh’s office doubled as the local Democratic Party headquarters. Today, the website for the family law firm lists the Hampton County Democratic Party under community participation.

PMPED no more: As Alex Murdaugh saga continues, a new law firm is announced in Hampton County

Alex Murdaugh, for his part, supported both Democrats and Republicans – sometimes, in the same race. He donated multiple times to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, but also to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden’s presidential bids. In 2018, he gave $3,500 to both Democrat James Smith Jr. and Republican Henry McMaster as they ran against each other for governor.

Alex Murdaugh also donated to Dick Harpootlian, the Democratic state senator and lawyer hired to defend his son, Paul, in the deadly boat crash case.

And two years after the crash, it would be Harpootlian who defended Alex Murdaugh. Harpootlian would appear on national television to declare Murdaugh’s innocence in the shootings of his wife and son.

He would be the one attempting to explain what happened the next time a Murdaugh called 911 and said someone had been shot.

Sept. 4, 2021, 1:34 p.m.

Caller: I got a flat tire, and I stopped and somebody stopped to help me and when I turned my back they tried to shoot me. Dispatcher: Oh, OK, were you shot? Caller: Yes, but I mean I'm OK.Dispatcher: You — shot where? Where were you shot at?Caller: Huh?Dispatcher: Did they actually shoot you or try to shoot you?Caller: They shot me.Dispatcher: OK. You need EMS?Caller: Well, I mean, yes, I can’t drive.  … I am bleeding a lot....Dispatcher: What’s your name? Caller: Alex Murdaugh.

Alex Murdaugh's spiraling descent

He waved his hands at the passing vehicle.

They didn’t stop. They called 911. The caller told the dispatcher the man next to a black Mercedes SUV on the side of the road looked fine – other than the blood.

"It kind of looks like a setup,” the caller said.

“I don’t blame you,” the dispatcher said.

Something was off. The roadside scene was the first public display of Alex Murdaugh’s downfall.

Murdaugh told police on the afternoon of Sept. 4, he noticed a low-tire indicator light and pulled over on Old Salkehatchie Highway, a country road in Hampton County. A man driving a blue pickup pulled up behind him and asked him if he had car troubles. As soon as Murdaugh replied, he was shot in the head, his spokesperson said in a statement.

Murdaugh suffered a laceration to his scalp, a small subdural hemorrhage and a skull fracture, according to hospital records released by his lawyers.

Alex Murdaugh shooting: Medical records detail injuries from alleged suicide-for-hire plot

It had been about 90 days since Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s homicides. Speculation surged: Who would want Alex Murdaugh dead? Could this shooting have something to do with the other murders? Is the killer targeting Alex now?

It took 48 hours for another revelation to trigger even more questions, even more confusion.

On Sept. 6, Alex Murdaugh said he was entering drug rehab “after a long battle that has been exacerbated by these murders.”

“I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret,” he said in a statement.

Then, the next day, the family law firm, PMPED, revealed Alex Murdaugh resigned from his position the day before the shooting. They discovered Alex Murdaugh misappropriated funds and alerted law enforcement, according to a release from the firm.

Missing money: Police now investigating allegations that Alex Murdaugh took money from law firm.

The man bloodied on the side of the road lost his wife and son. He’d now been stripped of his livelihood. And he was on the edge of losing his social standing, the trust of his family and friends – all he had left.

Resignation: Alex Murdaugh resigns from law firm and enters rehab

He was a man who knew his world was caving in, he would later tell a judge.

SLED release, Sept. 14, 2021

Colleton County man charged with assisted suicide, drugs and other crimesAgents of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Tuesday arrested a Colleton County man in connection with the shooting incident involving Alex Murdaugh on Sept. 4 in Hampton County.

Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was charged with assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Additional charges in the case are expected and will be announced at the appropriate time.

Alex Murdaugh and the shooting

About a week after the shooting, Alex Murdaugh started talking. He was in treatment for opioid addiction at a rehabilitation facility.

On Sept. 13, Murdaugh told his attorneys he’d been lying. And now, he wanted to tell the truth. Murdaugh said he arranged his own shooting so Buster, his surviving son, could collect his $10 million life insurance policy.

He asked Curtis Smith to be the triggerman, Smith's arrest warrants say. Smith is a former logger who lives a county over from Hampton. He got hurt. He became a handyman and did odd jobs for the Murdaugh family, according to Smith's lawyer.

Plot: Alex Murdaugh had man shoot him in $10M life insurance scheme, police say

Smith denies he was a willing participant in Murdaugh’s plot. In a Today show interview, Smith claims he did meet him on Old Salkehatchie Highway, but only because Murdaugh, someone he thought was a friend, called and asked him to. He arrived to discover a man on the brink of suicide. He tried to wrestle the gun away from Murdaugh. That’s how it went off, Smith said.

"I didn't shoot him," Smith said on Today. "I'm innocent. If I'd have shot him, he'd be dead. He's alive."

Dick Harpootlian, Murdaugh’s attorney, appeared on The Today show the day after Smith’s arrest. He said Murdaugh did not kill Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

He affirmed the accusations that Murdaugh “converted some client and law firm money for his own use,” and he “spent most of that on opioids.”

The Saturday morning that he was shot, Murdaugh stopped taking opioids and “realized that things were going to get very, very, very bad, and he decided to end his life,” Harpootlian said.

He said he expected his client to be arrested at any moment. Alex Murdaugh would be charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report.

Murdaugh was no longer just a victim.

Criminal charges: Alex Murdaugh, Curtis Smith indicted in alleged murder-for-hire insurance scheme

And another case, entangled in a different conspiracy, was already gathering.

Another death from Alex Murdaugh's past was coming into focus. The investigation would reach the front steps of the Murdaugh home.

It would be announced the day before Alex Murdaugh's first arrest.

SLED release, Sept. 15, 2021

SLED opens criminal investigation into death of Gloria SatterfieldBased upon a request from the Hampton County Coroner earlier today, as well as information gathered during the course of our other ongoing investigations involving Alex Murdaugh, SLED is opening a criminal investigation into the death of Gloria Satterfield and the handling of her estate.

Alex Murdaugh and the housekeeper

Gloria Satterfield was Hampton born and bred. She loved kids and tennis. She never tired of laughter or the color purple. She was a people person, the never-met-a-stranger kind.

For 20 years, she was also the housekeeper for Alex Murdaugh. She raised his sons. Her obituary listed the Murdaughs among those who survived Satterfield, “those who she loved as her family.”

She died on Feb. 26, 2018, after falling at the Murdaughs’ home. Alex Murdaugh told her sons that the 57-year-old tripped over the dogs and tumbled down the steps, the Attorney General’s Office says. She died weeks later from complications from a traumatic brain injury. Her death certificate listed the cause as “natural,” so the county coroner did not perform an autopsy.

Alex Murdaugh approached her family after Gloria Satterfield’s funeral and offered to make sure her family was taken care of, according to court documents. Murdaugh said he would help the Satterfields bring a wrongful death suit against himself, and his insurance would pay them a settlement.

Gloria Satterfield was proud of her association with Alex Murdaugh. He was the scion of a legal dynasty, after all. Portraits of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather hang in her hometown courthouse.

Alex Murdaugh was a respected lawyer in his own right. He worked on civil suits, slip-and-fall accidents, complaints about faulty medical devices and car crashes.

Satterfield trusted Alex Murdaugh. Her sons decided they would, too. They agreed to pursue the wrongful death suit.

Alex Murdaugh introduced Satterfield’s son to Cory Fleming, says a civil suit. Fleming, a lawyer, could help the sons bring a lawsuit against him, Murdaugh said. Fleming is Murdaugh’s college roommate, friend and Paul Murdaugh’s godfather.

Fleming secured a settlement in 2018. The sons didn't see a dime.

They didn’t even know their case was resolved: They read about the settlement in one of the thousands of stories written about the Murdaugh family in 2021, according to a civil suit.

They needed a new lawyer.

Fresh look: 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield sparks investigation, lawsuit

They found someone who worked out of Columbia, South Carolina, a hundred miles from Hampton.

SLED release, Oct. 14, 2021

Alex Murdaugh charged with obtaining property by false pretensesThis morning, agents with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement took Alex Murdaugh into custody for two felony counts of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses upon his release from a drug rehabilitation facility in Orlando. 

These charges stem from a SLED investigation into misappropriated settlement funds in the death of Gloria Satterfield. Alex Murdaugh has been taken to Orange County Corrections where he will be held until he receives an extradition hearing. Upon extradition being granted or waived, he will be brought back to South Carolina to receive a bond hearing.

The fall from power

Thick cables, light kits and tripods lined the sidewalk outside of the Richland County Courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina, the morning of Oct. 19, 2021.

Reporters packed the rows inside. They came from Atlanta and New York and London. After a couple of hours of buzzing, camera clicks suddenly replaced the chatter.

Alex Murdaugh walked through the door in the back of the courtroom. Murdaugh’s ankle restraints shortened his strides. He shuffled. A slouch further twisted his stance.

Murdaugh kept his head lowered during the proceedings.

Investigators laid out his charges: They believe Murdaugh is responsible for diverting more than $3.5 million of settlement money from his longtime housekeeper’s heirs to his own bank accounts.

Arrest: Alex Murdaugh facing charges in housekeeper death settlement funds case

“He had been carrying a $100,000 credit card balance for months, that gets paid off,” said Creighton Waters, Chief Attorney of the State Grand Jury Division of the Attorney General’s Office. “He writes 300-and-some-odd-grand to his father. He writes a check for 610-grand to himself. He writes a check for 125-grand to himself. And not a dime goes to this family back here.”

A State Law Enforcement Division agent told the court SLED is also now investigating Satterfield's death, as well as other financial crimes.

Additional charges are anticipated, he said. In the next three months, the Attorney General’s Office filed indictments on dozens of additional charges alleging Murdaugh engaged in a pattern of theft and fraud from the law firm and multiple clients beyond the Satterfield family.

Satterfield settlement: Palmetto State Bank, PMPED settle with Gloria Ann Satterfield heirs

At the October hearing, Murdaugh’s lawyers said their client’s severe opioid addiction is the root cause of his turmoil. "The Alex Murdaugh who is not hooked on drugs has lived a good, fruitful life and a law-abiding life," said Jim Griffin, one of his lawyers. "Only when he got hooked on opioids did things turn south, and he truly regrets his conduct."

Alex Murdaugh did not speak, other than to respond to the judge’s questions.

Sheriff deputies escorted Murdaugh back to the detention center. Cameras clicked until the door shut behind him. Those photographs documented the last public appearance of Alex Murdaugh.

Murdaugh attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin later stood at a podium, brimming with microphones, near the sidewalk at the courthouse. They took questions from dozens of reporters. Some of the questions – and their answers – were the same ones that had been repeated for months.

Harpootlian denied Alex Murdaugh had anything to do with his son’s and wife’s murders.

He wouldn’t comment on whether Murdaugh admitted to them that he stole the Satterfield money.

He said Murdaugh was not involved in the deaths of Satterfield and Stephen Smith. SLED opening cases into their deaths in recent months was merely a matter of the agency buckling to “public pressure,” Harpootlian said.

As Harpootlian and Griffin walked away, the operators kept the cameras rolling; they didn’t want to miss a thing. This story could change in an instant.

Just three years before, Alex Murdaugh posed on the courthouse steps with his family as they celebrated their legacy in a portrait.

They stood on a hundred years of power and pride and popularity. In that moment, they seemed unified, untouchable.

But in this saga, a single picture could not possibly tell the whole story.

As of Jan. 25, Alex Murdaugh faces 74 charges, and these charges carry a total combined sentence of more than 730 years.

The charges are related to the alleged botched suicide-for-hire plot, the Gloria Satterfield case, as well as an alleged pattern of theft and fraud. Alex Murdaugh stands accused of defrauding victims of more than $8 million. He has not entered a plea on any of the charges. 

He is named in seven ongoing civil lawsuits, as well. Alex Murdaugh has denied civil liability in response to the Beach family wrongful death suit and two other personal injury suits related to the boat crash. 

Murdaugh remained behind bars in Columbia, South Carolina, at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. He is being held on a $7 million bond. 

The family law firm announced it dropped Murdaugh from its name in early January. 

A SLED spokesperson would not provide details on the status of the ongoing investigations into the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield.

Dick Harpootlian, attorney for Alex Murdaugh, declined to comment because it is a pending matter. 

Alex Murdaugh spoke for the first time in a courtroom during a virtual hearing in December. "I want to repair as much of the damage as I can, and repair as many of the relationships as I can," he told the judge.  

According to Satterfield attorney Eric Bland, Alex Murdaugh has agreed to pay the family $4.3 million, pending court approval. 

Cory Fleming settled his suit with the Satterfield family, agreeing to pay back the fees he received as part of the wrongful death settlement. His license to practice law in South Carolina has also been temporarily suspended. 

An online grassroots campaign raised $25,000 to pay for a graveside memorial headstone for Stephen Smith, a scholarship in Smith's name and any family expenses. Sandy Smith, Stephen's mother, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Reporters made multiple attempts to interview members of the Murdaugh family, including through spokespeople for the family law firm and a public relations firm that has released statements on behalf of the family. They also made multiple attempts to contact Cory Fleming, who never responded to inquiries. Reporters spoke to multiple people who knew the family, personally or professionally, all of whom declined to be interviewed for this story. 

Reporters contacted Curtis Smith, who directed us to his legal counsel, Jarrett Bouchette. Reporters also spoke to lawyers for several of the families suing Alex Murdaugh. 

Nov. 18 indictments: Alex Murdaugh stole millions, new charges allege

Dec. 9 indictments: 7 new indictments, 21 new financial charges against Alex Murdaugh

Jan. 20 indictments: Third round of indictments levied against  Alex Murdaugh

Lawsuits: Alex Murdaugh sued by his brother and a former partner over unpaid loans

More trouble on the horizon: Alex Murdaugh facing eight additional potential lawsuits over allegations of stolen money

No bond reduction: Reconsideration of Alex Murdaugh's $7 million bond denied

HOW WE DID THIS STORY

USA Today Network reviewed hundreds of articles through the Newspapers.com digital archive relating to the Murdaugh family. Historic information comes from the Hampton County Guardian, The Greenville News, The Columbia Record, historic copies of The State, The Watchman and Southron, The Abbeville Press and Banner, The Sumter Daily Item, The Laurens Advertiser, The Gaffney Ledger, The Index-Journal, The Times and Democrat, The Charlotte Observer, The Evening Herald, The Miami Herald and York Daily Record.

The historical information in this story is also based in part on an interview with Lawrence Rowland, distinguished professor emeritus of history for the University of South Carolina Beaufort and author of a three-volume history of Beaufort County, as well as interviews with Hampton historian Sam Crews III and Hampton County Guardian editor and historian Michael M. DeWitt Jr. 

Network reporters attended Murdaugh's bond hearings in September and October, and virtual bond hearings from the Richland County jail in November and December. 

Reporters transcribed hours of audio interviews from law enforcement in the 2015 Stephen Smith homicide investigation and the fatal boat crash investigation involving Paul Murdaugh in 2019. Reporters also reviewed hours of surveillance footage, law enforcement dashcam footage and 911 calls captured by law enforcement from various cases surrounding the Murdaughs. 

Network reporters also reviewed dozens of property records, tax documents, deeds, state court records, federal court records and civil lawsuit filings from multiple cases tied to Alex Murdaugh. 

The team behind this story

REPORTING: Abraham Kenmore, Michael DeWitt, Daniel Gross, Carol Motsinger

VISUAL JOURNALISM: Richard Burkhart, Alex Hicks Jr., AP

ILLUSTRATION: Andrea Brunty

EDITORS: Steve Bruss, John Gogick

STORYTELLING: Carol Motsinger

DIGITAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: Kim Luciani

PROOFING: Jose Franco

SOCIAL MEDIA, ENGAGEMENT AND PROMOTION: Kara Edgerson, Kim Luciani

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Murdaugh family: The rise and fall of a powerful dynasty in Hampton SC