265: High Profile: The Murdaugh Family, Part 1

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey everyone, it's ten and this is Lindsay and we're back.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
The last episode, or I should say, the last series
of episodes in the high profile series. This is the
one that I started researching weeks and months ago. However,
I think we had you had yours that you wanted
to switch to, and so this one just kept getting pushed,

(00:49):
so I'll o, we're finally doing it.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Then after we did Scott Peterson on Patreon, they were like,
do Drew Peterson? So here we are finally. Jen literally
has been working on this one forever. Here's kind of
the game plan that we think at this point. So
this one, we're estimating is going to be three episodes,
unless we just really I don't know, get going on

(01:12):
a tangent or something. Then we have one more high
profile case. It is only a one parter, it's a
single standalone, and that last one is going to take
us into our next series, which we won't say yet
will let it be a surprise. But we are reviving
an old series. It is not one that has been

(01:33):
revived before. It's not Dark Water Part three but all shucks,
but we are reviving an old one and it falls
into two categories. So it will be the last in
the High Profile and then we already have another one
in that series ready as well. We have like five
episodes ready. We've been researching this whole time, but we

(01:55):
have just had a really hard time sitting down to record.
So our goal is to get all those out in.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well that and I'm already researching the next one after that.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so so almost six And just to I apologize
because we had said we were going to be back
around a certain date and then right about that time,
Jen's last exam. You know, she's been doing that three
part exam for certification at work, and her last one
got scheduled and so she ended up having to study

(02:24):
for that. Jen, how did it go?

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I am an official CIA, not the Funds, not the
fun CIA. No, I do not carry a gun, but
I do carry a calculator.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It is super cool, man, super.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
All right, Let's get into the meat of this because
this one I have been sitting on. It is the
most crazy family dynamic that I think we've covered in
a very long time. So we're doing a deep dive
into Alex Murdall. Now we're going to get into the
nodded the Murders of his wife and his son. But
that's not going to be this episode because there's just

(03:02):
too much to cover. Because this story actually begins years
and years before Maggie and Paul lose their lives. We're
gonna take this all the way back to where it
started in this family. The history alone begins in nineteen twenty.
This is when the Murdos begin their power building in

(03:23):
low country, South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
So, and just to set the stage here, there are
so many documentaries, so many podcasts about Alex slash Alex
depending on he says Alex, but it's spelled Alex, so
you may hear us say both. But there's so much
out there. We're not reinvestigating this. We're not you know.
There is a big podcast out there that took you know,

(03:48):
that was very involved in like investigating. That's not us.
This is just one that Jenna and I have wanted
to talk about since last year. So just setting the
stage there, we're not you know, and we talked about
people we've talked.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
About a lot because I watched every day of that trial.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yes, we so nineteen ten, just ten years before Jen
had just mentioned when they began their power building. Randolph
Murdall Senior founded his law firm. This is a civil firm.
It focused on personal injury cases and three generations of
his family. So his great grandfather, grandfather, and father served

(04:26):
over eighty seven years as solicitors for the fourteenth Judicial Circuit. Now,
this is an elected position. It oversees prosecutions throughout the area.
And so you can see here already that this is
in a certain sense of family business. You know, the
father kind of raises the son up in this life.

(04:46):
So not only did these murdawmen cover five counties as prosecutors,
it is alleged, alleged that there were a lot of
shady happenings going on and that they were really good
with some of the judges. There is a history of
local attorneys filing motions to have their cases moved to

(05:09):
a different district if one of the Murdaws was going
to be trying the case, because they didn't want to
have any part of it. Now, this fourteenth district was
called Murdaw Country, So if that tells you the power
that they held over the court system, it is just
called Murdaw Country. So soon money is pouring into this family.

(05:31):
They're well off They're well known, well respected, aside from
some of these rumors that are going around. And in
nineteen eighty nine, the Carolina Lawyer magazine writes this full
cover story on them. So they're the big name.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
So how did the money come pouring in? They were
good at what they did. There was a lot of
cases that they tried that were legit, but because of
their hold on the fourteenth District, it became known as
a forum shop. And what this means is that judges

(06:07):
were plaintiff friendly. So under this legal environment, the law
stated that a person living in South Carolina could follow
a suit on an out of state company regardless of
where the incident or personal injury took place. So what
that means if I'm working in a factory and a
We'll just use Boeing because they've been in the yeah

(06:30):
news lately. A piece of factory equipment from Boeing fell
on me and I got hurt. I consue Boeing and
Boeing is stationed in what California I think was one
of the one of their headquarters before they moved to
the north. But that being said, before I couldn't do that,

(06:54):
but now in that state because it passed I could
do that. So they just started using and abusing all
of this subpoena power. The judges were too, They were
kind of in on it, to the point that the
fourteenth District was named the third worst judicial hellhold for defendants,
and that was by the American Tort Reform Association. But

(07:18):
essentially the nation was taking notice that this is not
a good mix of power. Now, the Murdoch firm sued
CSX Transportation. That's a railroad company, and they won, and
they won big. It is a major railroad company. So
people who were hurt on the job working at that

(07:38):
company started to go to the Murdofs to win their suits.
It started like word of mouth, Hey go to this family.
They got me a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So in two thousand and five, the State Supreme Court
stepped in and they ended this forum shop by changing
the corporate venue law. So when this happened, the law
firm changed its name to the Parker Law Group. So
going back to the family tree here, now let's go
to Randolph Buster Murdaw Junior. When we say Buster, this

(08:10):
is not Alex's son Buster. This was the first Buster.
He served as the Circuit solicitor from nineteen forty to
nineteen eighty six. He followed in his dad's footsteps, who
had been doing the same thing for twenty years before him.
So second generation. Now okay, So Buster's dad, Randolph Senior,
the one who went after the train company, died on

(08:33):
the railroad tracks. Now Buster says it was poor maintenance.
The grade crossing wasn't well up kept, and this was
the leading factor in his death. But there's a rumor
floating around town that that actually was not the case,
and that he took his own life, that he intentionally
stopped his car on the tracks because he was intoxicated. Now,

(08:58):
Buster did not have a great history on appeals. He
was rebuked many times by the state Supreme Court because
his closing arguments were a little bit out there. He
would throw something to the wall to see if it sticks. Also,
Busser himself was indicted by a federal grand jury for
warning a bootlegger to move his stash into another county

(09:20):
so that he wouldn't get caught. So not hey stop
this activity, but hey be a little bit more discreet.
He beat these charges and he was acquitted. So this
is all hypothetical. Theoretical alleged here. But what's interesting is
he says that the train tracks are what caused his

(09:42):
father's death. People around town are saying that's not true.
What's the real story there? We don't know, but it
is interesting to keep in mind as we keep going
because there are a lot of incidents in this story
and if you've heard it before, you know what we're
talking about where it's like, wait, what really happened versus
what you are alleging.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
So what Lindsay's also alluding to is this family's luck sucks.
There is not a more unlucky family when it comes
to murders, homicides and suicides because everything comes back to them.
Buster your son Randall, Now this is Alex's dad. He's
not a great guy either. That that apple did not

(10:24):
fall far from the tree. Now, his wife, Libby told
him once that she's like, you know what I'm done.
I'm divorcing you. I'm going to leave you. In response,
he wrote out her obituary and published it in a
local paper at the Hampton Guardian. That's intimidating.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, yikes.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
So she was like, you know what, I think I
changed my mind. I think we're gonna stay married. I
mean that is egotistical, that's controlling that Smith.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
It is.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's absolutely abusive. Alex or Alex whatever you want to
call him, Alex Aleck, the guy who's in jail now
for murder. He received his law degree from the University
of South Carolina School Law in nineteen ninety four, again
fourth generation lawyer, and then he married Margaret brand Setter
now lovingly nicknamed. Her name is Maggie, and together they

(11:21):
had two sons, Richard Buster they called him Buster after
the granddad, and Paul, which we will later hear refer
to as Paul Paul. We will do a lot. We
will do a quick review of both sons. Paul's history
may have been the catalyst to every single thing that's
set off before the murders to happen, and why we

(11:46):
say that. But first let's get to Buster, because his
story comes first. Now, Buster Murdaal is the surviving son
of Alex and Maggie. He graduated college and he went
to law school. He's trying to follow in his families footsteps.
It's a very rich history. But in his first year
of law school he got expelled for plagiarism. His dad thinking, oh, no,

(12:10):
not my son. My son would never plagiarize. Or you
know what, even if he did plagiarize, I'm gonna get
him back in. I'm gonna start throwing money at this thing.
But you know what, his connections there failed. That college
was like, no, this is our policy. We're sticking to it.
Buster cannot come back to our law school.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
So what about Buster is substantial here? To figure out
why we say that, we have to talk about someone
named Steven Smith. Stephen Smith was nineteen years old in
nursing school at the local college. He had gone to
high school with Buster, and Stephen was a very independent person,

(12:50):
strong in his beliefs. He was his own person. He
was comfortable with who he was with who he wanted
to be. He originally wanted to be a doctor, but
he went to nursing school just because of funds and
he just he knew what he wanted well. Stephen was
found dead on July eighth of twenty fifteen, and he
was found dead laying in the middle of the road,

(13:10):
and at first his death was ruled as a hit
and run, even though just looking at the scene it
didn't really add up. And we'll talk more about that
as we go. So what happened here? So, Sandy, this
is Steven's mom told CBS News that she last saw

(13:31):
her son on July first, twenty fifteen. He came by
the house and visited her, and Stephen told his mom
that he was excited about going on a deep sea
fishing trip with a prominent person. Now he never told
his mom who this person was, but nonetheless he was
excited about it. And he left his mom's house a

(13:51):
storm was rolling through and she's like, let me know
when you make it safely. And he texted his mom
when he got home saying, I made it home safe, Mom,
I love you, And that was the last text that
she received from him. So July eighth, twenty fifteen, it's
three fifty nine in the morning, so it's dark out.
A local man is driving to work and he sees
a young man laying in the road. Well, obviously that's

(14:14):
not a good sign. He immediately calls nine to one
to one and when the police get to the scene,
Stephen Smith is dead and there is a pool of
blood around his head. Now what's interesting here. At first
they think he's been shot, but then they're like, no,
it has to be a hit and run. That's the

(14:35):
only thing that makes sense because there's no gunshot wound.
But based on the blood and everything, that's what they
thought at first. But as they start looking more into
this hit and run theory, which again is the only
thing that makes sense, there's no debris in the road. Now,
typically in a hit and run, there's damage from a car,
they leave pieces behind, metal glass. In this case, there

(14:56):
is nothing to be found. There's no tire marks, there's
no scuffs on the road. There's actually no injuries to
Stephen himself that would indicate a car hitting him. There's
no internal damage, no internal bleeding, no bruising. All there
is is this very large wound on his head. And

(15:16):
again at first they thought that it was a gunshot,
and then on further examination they realized that it's not.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
When the police first spoke to the corner, the first
thing the corner says is he looks at Steve's body
and he said, this is not a hitter run. This
is a murder. So he was really quick to point
this out. Later that same morning, when Steven's body was found,
his car was finally located. It was pulled off to

(15:44):
the side of the road about three miles away with
the gas cap hanging off. So just picture this small compact,
little sedan on the side of the road. And this
is a quote from Thomas Moore. He's a former lieutenant
on the force that looked into it and he said,
in all these years I've worked a car sitting on
the side of the road with a gas cap off

(16:06):
is is not normal. I thought it looked staged. So
he's thinking something happened to Stephen through file play and
then they went back and they staged the car. Stephen's
small This is heart wrenching because she had turned the
radio on that morning to listen to some music at
the house and she heard a body was found near

(16:29):
Stephen's dad's house. It's very very close to where Buster
lived with his family, like very very close. She immediately
called Stephen's sister to see if she knew where he was,
and his sister said, Mama, didn't, Steven's stayed with you
last night because he didn't come home last night. So
she's starting to connect the dots here because she hasn't

(16:50):
heard from him since his last text he was staying
with his sister. She hasn't heard from him. So a
little past new A little bit further on in the day,
the corner started the autopsy on Steven's body, and like
Lindsay said, there is no gun shot. There's no gunshot
wound whatsoever. And this is a quote from the corner.

(17:11):
It says, it is the opinion of the pathologist that
the deceitent died of a blunt head trauma sustained in
a motor vehicle crash in which the decedent was a
pedestrian struck by a vehicle. So other words, plane words,
the car is driving down the road and somebody hit
Stephen as he was walking from behind with the heavy object.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Sandy found out about Stephen, and she heard the autopsy
report and she immediately has questions because she's like, wait
a minute again, there's no internal damage. It's just a
head wound. This doesn't make sense. And she's like, also, Stephen,
he's not just gonna walk down the street, the middle
of a street, on a back road so late at night.
He doesn't this, this isn't making sense now. Later that

(17:57):
morning she says that she was surprised again because she
drove past the scene where Stephen had been found and
this is something that she said to CBS. She said,
there was Alex and Randy standing on the opposite side
of the road. And when we say Alex and Randy,
that is Alex, Alec and Randolph, his brother Murdaw. And

(18:19):
they're standing on the side of the road, and she's like,
why are the Murdaws here. So the patrolman, Officer Duncan,
is the first to arrive to the scene and he
was the first one to see Stephen, and he was
shocked to learn that they changed the death from homicide
to hit and run because remember it first the coroner's like,

(18:39):
this was a murder, and now they're going back to
the hit and run theory because they did the autopsy
and said, oh, it looks like he was hitting the
head he fled out. Believes it's the wrong call. He
goes to the mortuary. He looks at Stephen and he
is telling his boss there's no body trauma, there's nothing,
there's no pay, there's no dirt, there's no rock debris,

(19:02):
there's nothing in his skin or his clothes or his
hair other than just the blood, no bruising. Also, his
clothes were not torn, his shoes were on his feet
and his phone was in his pocket undamaged. If he's
been hit with us with a car, his phone is
not gonna be in good condition. And they said that
most of the time when someone is hit by a car,

(19:23):
they're quite literally knocked out of their shoes.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
So missy from his body is the road rash from
when he would have fallen or he would have been
hit and project out toward away from the car, landing
on the asphalt and skidding.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
They did say that he had a little bit of
road rash, but it was not It's not what you
would see if you were hit and you slid across it.
It was more like what you would see if you
just kind of collapsed and fell down like a skin,
you know, like a skinned elbow, as opposed to full
body rack.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
And there was nothing in his hair. It was absolutely clean,
and there is a picture of the crime scene and
it's in one of the documentaries on Netflix. His shoes,
one of his shoes was untied. It was very loose laced,
and it was still on his feet. And it is
very common that if for people who have been hit

(20:22):
to be knocked out of their shoes or to have
tears in their clothes, but they just don't. I mean,
it looked like he just dropped right where he was standing.
And another thing about this phone is, if he had
ran out of gas, why didn't he make a phone
call right Why didn't he call someone to come pick

(20:42):
him up unless he was meeting somebody.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Or did he call someone to pick him up? That
is a question. That's an outstanding question, which we will
get to. So Officer Duncan goes back to the road
where the body was found and he searches a mile
and each direction because he's like, there's got to be
some sign of a car. He got hit by a mirror,
the mirror fell off, you know, something was in the

(21:07):
back of the truck, a ladder and the ladder fell
off something. There's going to be some sign of a car.
There's gonna be tire tracks, something. So he goes a
mile in east direction. Nothing, not a thing. Meanwhile, Steven's
wallet is still in his car. Again, the car is
three miles away, so as he just walking down the
street without his wallet, but he needs gas. The doors

(21:29):
are locked and the gas cap is open. It only
takes a few days before rumors start rolling around. And
these rumors are interesting they're big because there's more than
one of them, and they are all naming Buster Murdaw
as a possible suspect. Steven's dad actually got a call
from Randy Murdall, which is Alex's brother, asking Hey, do

(21:53):
y'all need legal representation? I will represent you pro bono. Well,
this is weird, and Steven's mother thinks it's a little
weird because she's like, why are they going to represent
his pro bono and why were they at the scene.
But Steven's dad is like, no, they're just trying to help. Now,

(22:13):
Randolph Murda, if you ask him, you know what made
you take this case or offer to help them. He says,
I was not aware of Stephen's death until Joel, that's
the father, told me they wanted my involvement, and I
contacted law enforcement on their behalf.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
However, did he get called if he with Alex and
standing on the side of the road they were there
at the scene.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
The family says we never asked they offered. Randy's saying
they called me and they're saying, no, he came to us.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Now, Okay, they're injury lawyers. I get there are some
ambulance chasers out there and I get they listen to
police scanners and when they hear something that they roll,
they try to get in and get that case firsthand.
These are prominent people, They're high up in the social circles.
If Alec was already at the scene when it happened,

(23:11):
who told him? Who told him to be at that scene?

Speaker 2 (23:16):
To be fair, Randy Randolph Murdas says, because Stephen's mom
says I saw them standing on the side of the road,
and Randy Murdas says, claims that I visited the scene
of Stephen's death with my brother Alex are false. He
is denying it. He says, I was not there, So

(23:37):
you know, did she mis see something looking back on
it later or were are they lying? We don't know.
But a week after Steven's death, investigators are finally able
to contact Steven's boyfriend and Stephen was on the phone
with his boyfriend that night when he was walking on
the street. Okay, so he was walking down the street

(23:59):
and apparently some guys in a pickup truck were following
and harassing him, and his boyfriend is adamant that Stephen
was murdered. So maybe he was walking down the street.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
But why so these are all rumors. Just to be
very clear, this is all allegedly.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Buster.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
The rumor state had been in the car with some
friends that night when they saw Stephen on the road.
More rumors of a possible secret air relationship between Buster
and Stephen are now coming out too, because a lot
of people are saying that they were friends. They were
close friends, but Buster kept his friendship with Stephen on
one side and his friends in his social circle on

(24:44):
another side, and never did they cross. He liked to
keep them separate. Now, witnesses interviewed as part of the
original investigation repeatedly again and again said, look, Buster is involved.
He is in a relationship with Stephen. Buster's very very

(25:05):
adamant that he was. He didn't really connect with Stephen.
They were really good friends. They just went to high
school together, and there was no way in a part
of a relationship Steven. It was very public about his sexuality.
Steven's friend even came out suggesting that Stephen was secretly
dating Buster. But since Buster's family would not would have

(25:25):
come out against Buster, he had to hide it. There
is no proof of these rumors. It is a small
town city gossip about a secret relationship, but Steven's family
believes it to be true. Remember that seat deep sea
fishing with a prominent person, So they're kind of connecting
the dots here. Now. According to the Greenville News quote,

(25:48):
rumors hinting at a cover up and possible involvement of
one or more members of the Murdouf family began to
circulate around Hampton County area right after Steven's death. The
case quote reeked of insider interference. So you have this
one news article that says it's possible the Murdalls are

(26:09):
involved in this. You have another news article a news
company that says it really feels like they're manipulating the
situation from the inside, and we think it's the murd Alls.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
So you've got these rumors that are bubbling up and
actually making it into the news now, and Buster has said,
this is a quote, these baseless rumors of my involvement
with Stephen and his death are false. I unequivocally deny
any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out
to the Smith family. Now, I want to talk about
real quick here about some things that Stephen said before

(26:44):
he passed. So Sandy, who is Steven's mom did an
interview with CBS, and she said, and when she uses
the name Stephanie, she's talking about her daughter aka Steven's sister.
So Sandy says, Stephanie said the battery k was loosened
on his car, so she had met him, and then
she tightened the battery cable and she asked him to

(27:05):
get out of the car and help her, and he
said no, I'm not getting out, and the reporter says,
like he was scared, and Sandy says, right. So then
the interviewer asks her, at any point did you think
that someone in the Murdoff family was involved? And Sandy says, well,
the longer it went on, the more I was asking

(27:27):
myself questions, but I just couldn't find the connection a
powerful family, and then you got Stephen, who was just Stephen.
But then she starts thinking back on her last conversation
with Stephen a week before, and she says, somebody was
messaging him a lot. He told me that he was
going deep sea fishing. She asked where he was going

(27:50):
and he said Key West. She said who are you
going with? And he said, well, I can't tell you,
but you'd be surprised. It's kind of like a prominent person.
And then all she said in response was, well, I
hope you have fun. And that's why she says he
was going deep sea fishing. He wouldn't tell me who,
but that is the specific quote that she gave as

(28:12):
to what her son told her.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Now, Stephen and his family are working class. They don't
have extraordinary amount of funds to just drop on deep
sea fishing and a plane ticket down to the keys.
They're in South Carolina, so that's that's a plane ride
or a very long boat ride. And so he is
working hard, going to nursing school. His funds are tight.

(28:38):
Who in that area would have the money just to
fly some friends to go deep sea fishing. Buster does
fit in that category. He does fit in that category. Now,
is he the only one that fits in that category? Absolutely?
Not all, guys, We're going to take a really quick break,
and we have a lot more to talk about on

(28:59):
just this Steven side of it, So we'll get back
to you in just a minute. All right, guys, thank
you so much for joining us again, and let's talk
about the case fall, because nothing in it indicates that
investigators even spoke to buster. During this time of investigation,

(29:20):
no interview was conducted. Rumors are flying, but the police
never go talk to him.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
So my question did they never go talk to him
or was it one of those things where he was
lawyered up so fast because his family was obviously going
to represent them and didn't let them, Like, would there
be a record of if they tried that. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's a good question. I don't know the answer, but
I know he if they tried, he would have loitered
up pretty fast.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Oh absolutely. So what I'm wondering is is if they
ever even made the attempt, because I mean, we know
if they're at the scene, or even if they're not
at the scene, he's going to be represented quickly. So
I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Well, not only that, it's you have the corner that says, hey,
this is a homicide, and all of a sudden, not
a day later, it's a hit and run, which to
me is still a homicide. It's still manslaughter, is still
malicious intent to hurt somebody, so it's still a crime.
Darryl Williams calls the Highway Patrol with some information that

(30:29):
he had received now he had been told by a friend,
Sean Conley, that Sean was out driving that night and
that he thought he had hit a deer. Could this
be Stephen. He wasn't sure since it was night and
Sean had been highly intoxicated when it happened. So this
is separate from Buster. This is separate from everything else.

(30:51):
This is a guy that says, hey, I have a tip.
My friend told me he thinks he hit a deer,
but he was really drunk. Maybe it could have been
still even we don't know, but you guessed it. No
one interviewed Williams about his tip or Sean about that night.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
So let's go look at Sean's truck and see if
there's a dent in the mirror or whatever it may be. No,
they didn't do that, and that's what makes me. That's
what gives me pause about them not interviewing Buster, is
that they didn't do it with other people as well.
So the police didn't seem to be really interested in investigating.

(31:31):
As you can tell, it was actually years before it
was brought back to the public's attention. And Sandy, his mom,
is mad. She has no answers for what happened to
her son. So she writes to the FBI and begs
for help, and they actually did answer. They came to
her house and together they managed to unlock Stephen Selpham.

(31:52):
And according to Sandy, this is a quote. The agent said,
there was a lot of interesting information in the phone
that needed to be looked at. There's something in that
phone that nobody wants out there. But Sandy also says
that local and state agencies, when they were given the information,
did not pursue the information, and she kept staying on them.

(32:13):
She kept contacting him, what's the status on this? But
the case stayed cold. So the case remained cold. But
Stephen was exhumed in twenty twenty three after the murdal trial,
and because of the trial, and this is from CBS again,
because they did interview the team that did it, and

(32:37):
they said that they're convinced that an object was attached
to a vehicle traveling out a high speed and that's
what caused the single fatal blow to Steven's head. Now,
it was about a seven inch gash and it basically
split his skull. So this is hard, fast, big, This
is not just you know, hitting your head on a

(32:58):
table or any thing like that. So the doctor said,
whatever hit him was fast and it was large. And
the interviewer says, so a hit and run, but an
a typical hit and run. And the doctor says, yes,
very atypical. So again, seven inch split skull, blood around
the head on the ground, and a little bit of

(33:20):
road rash and that is it. So hit by something?
But what So the doctor says, well, it could be anything.
It could be a ladder, it could be hanging off
the back of the work truck. It could be an
extended side mirror, the metal type that you see on
some farm vehicles or some larger vehicles. So something's sticking
out of the car. So we are going to pause

(33:42):
on Stephen for a little bit. He will come back
up later, and we're going to go back to the
family because there's another really big incident that we have
to talk about, and this one is actually with the
other son, Paul.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
All right, let's talk about Paul or Paul. Paul Paul
Myrdal is Buster's younger brother. Alec and Maggie bought a
boat that they used and they let Paul and Buster
take it out with her friends. On February twenty third,
twenty nineteen, Paul takes five friends on a boat trip
and this ends in absolute tragedy. So on this boat

(34:21):
we have Connor Cook, his girlfriend Molly Altman. Anthony Cook
is Connor's cousin, and his girlfriend Mallory Beach. Paul has
his girlfriend Morgan Dowdy. So we have three boys, three girls.
They're all on relationships, all fun loving kids. Most for

(34:43):
the most part, they're good kids too. I mean, these
are not the hell raising crazy kids. These are just
your typical high school teenagers. Mallory is nineteen, well a
little bit out of high school. She was with her
friend Anthony at a house party and they were having
an oyster roast on paul Key Island with their friends.

(35:06):
They decided to meet first at Myrdal Island. It's a
river property owned by the family of their friend Paul Mrdall.
So since Paul and his then girlfriend Morgan were also
going to a party, they agreed that they would meet
and then they'll just take Paul's boat there. Now. In
the Netflix documentary, which I totally suggest you go and watch,

(35:29):
Morgan described Paul as having a very violent personality, but
this only really came out when he was not just drunk,
but the next level drunk, like the really sloppy sloppy drunk.
He would become very angry, he would be violent. He
was very aggressive.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
So all the kids were under twenty one and Buster
had given Paul his ID to use to get alcohol.
So there is valence footage of a local convenience store
that shows Paul using the ID to buy beer for
all of his friends using Buster's ID. So sometime around
six point thirty on February twenty third, Anthony Mallory, Paul,

(36:13):
and his girlfriend Morgan Connor, and Miley were at the
Murdoff family river house and they say that about seven
o'clock they left. In her interview with investigators, Miley says
that they arrived at the house party and stayed there
for several hours drinking and having fun. But around midnight,

(36:33):
she says, they left the party. They got back on
the boat and Paul insisted on driving to a bar downtown.
So Paul and Connor went inside of this waterfront bar.
They ordered two rounds of shots, Jaeger shots and lemon drops.
This is a lot of alcohol because remember they had

(36:54):
been drinking before this too, and now they're taking shots.
Connor used the fake ID, Paul used busters. The girls
and Anthony stayed behind and sat on the swings of
this playground near the dock. Well. Now, Paul is extremely drunk,
and there's footage of him walking around with his friends
and down the sidewalk and he's stumbling, he's talking loud,

(37:16):
he's slurring his speech. He's getting agitated because remember his
girlfriend said that when he hits that next level, he
just gets really just angry. So then he and his
then girlfriend Morgan start arguing about Paul driving and she's like, no, this,
you can't drive. You're completely wasted, and he's adamant, I'm

(37:37):
gonna drive the boat back. So at one fifteen am,
they get back on the boat and they take off.
Keep in mind, it's February, it's it's cold, it's foggy,
it's dark, and Miley later said to investigators that some
of the group starts arguing with Paul because he's driving
the boat. He's drunk, he's driving like a fool. Okay,

(37:58):
he's driving like a crazy person. He's basically doing donuts
in the boat. And Anthony says, let me out at
the dock pull over, I'm out, but Paul would not
stop the boat now Morgan. It later testified that Paul
kept leaving the wheel to fight with her, and that
Mallory was scared, so he is walking away from the

(38:21):
steering wheel of the boat while it's going in circles
and won't let anybody else drive. During this argument with
his friends, Paul actually hits his girlfriend.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Investigators would later note that the onboard Garmin GPS showed
the speed of the boat had increased. Forty five minutes later,
the boat comes to a stop on the water for
just a few minutes. Then someone pushes the throttle all
the way down. Anthony hits the floor of the boat
and is holding onto his girlfriend. So at this point

(38:57):
the arguments happened, he has hit his girlfriend, the boat stopped,
He gets behind the wheel again, goes full throttle, which
knocks people back on the ground. The boat crashes into
the Archer Creek bridge pillar and gets beached on land.
Middle of the night. It's cold, it's foggy. You can't

(39:19):
see on this river. You just can't. They're going full
speed and they plow right into this pillar. The it's
what holds the bridge up in the water. Those Towers
plows into it. The boat careens off and beaches itself
on the bank. Mallory gets tossed off. Connor immediately doves

(39:42):
not on one. It's two seven in the morning, and
this call is heart wrenching. Just if you watch the Netflix,
if you watch the Netflix documentary, you have been warned
it is a trigger. He is begging, he's crying, he's
screaming at the operator. Where's Mallory. Where Smellory? Come find Mellori?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Where is she?

Speaker 1 (40:06):
We don't know where she is.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Think about it this way. You know, they get into
a boat accident. If you get flung, you're getting flung
into the water. So they all come up and they're like, okay, one, two, three,
four or five. Oh crap, someone's missing. And that can't
be a good thing when you've been in an accident
because you could lose consciousness or whatever and you're underwater.

(40:31):
You know, there's there's only so much you can do
when it's when it's dark, and so they're just immediately
feeling helpless. It is horrifying. It's sad, it's tragic. They're kids,
they're all kids.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
And they've been drinking for hours, so they've got this adrenaline.
They've got all of this alcohol just coursing through their veins.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
They're not.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
In the mindset of Okay, calm, don't panic. Search. They're
just like, we need help. We need adults here. Let's
get some adults here to help. Deputy Sheriff Stephen Domino,
he is no longer in this position, by the way,
was one of the first responders to arrive. The water
rescue team is there by two forty six am, so

(41:15):
the call comes in at two o seven. The deputy
told forty eight hours that when he arrived, he found
Anthony distressed. He's pacing. He was able to calm Anthony
down and asked him to go sit in the patrol car.
Anthony didn't stay in that patrol car very long because
he is at his wits end. He truly loved Mallory.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
So then Paul Murda walks up from the boat and
Anthony gets mad, and the Deputy Sheriff says, quote, he
actually tried to rush through me to get to Paul
because I guess he saw him smiling and it just
set him off again. So Anthony is telling Domino that

(42:03):
he saw Paul driving the boat right before the crash,
he's drunk. They tried to stop him. He's telling him
the story and then he sees Paul and he just
gets so enraged. It's now, I don't know. Forty five
minutes later, Paul's walking around in his boxers. His clothes
are gone. Now don't know if it's because they're wet.
But Anthony's just like, dude, what are you doing? Why

(42:25):
are you so calm? Why are you smiling? How are
you not freaking out? We can't find mallories. And on
the police camera video you can hear him explode at Paul,
yelling at him that he should have let Anthony or
Connor drive the boat. Keep in mind, he says this,
They've got it on the police CAMI. This is a
huge criminal offense because they're all under twenty one and

(42:47):
now someone is missing. So Paul's driving, Paul's underage, Paul's drunk.
What does that mean for Paul. Paul was not given
a field sobriety test or one of the breathalyzer machine
tests or anything like that. Now he's visibly drunk. They
know that he's drunk, they can tell, but they didn't
take him to jail. When all the kids said, he

(43:08):
is the driver of the boat who did this. So
instead of calling his dad, Paul calls his grandfather. This
is Randolph Murdach. The third calls him for help. And
after that call, Paul tells police, No, it wasn't me.
It was Connor driving that boat and he was sticking
to it. Connor was driving the boat. Now keep in mind,

(43:28):
Anthony already told police it was Paul. Other people said
it was Paul. Anthony is yelling at Paul, which is
captured on the audio, but he's like, nope, it was Connor.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
All the kids were taken to the local Memorial hospital
except for Anthony. Anthony refused to leave. He was going
to stay there until they found Mallory. He was that
distressed over it. Connor had a broken jaw, but still stayed.
Remember it's still super foggy and they had to pause
rescue efforts until the sun burned off the fog. Paul

(43:59):
was being let's just he was being an ass. He
was arguing with everyone to the extreme that the police
had to place him in the ambulance and ride with
him to the hospital because they were afraid he was
going to hurt either the empty or jump out of
the ambulance. At the hospital, his blood alcohol was point

(44:20):
two four.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Oof.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
He gets to the hospital an hour and a half
after the crash.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Wow, that's how much he's drunk. Is a skunk drunk like.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Now, believe it or not. South Carolina has a legal
limit for miners and that's point oh two. If you're
twenty one, it's point oh eight. They you do have
a legal limit for a minor in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
So he was regardless, he well over that and then some.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
So let's talk about what happens in this hospital. Miley
is injured. Her hand is severely injured. Miley, Paul, and
Connor are all placed in separate rooms, but they're kind
of close to each other. Alex and Paul's grandfather, Alex's
dad makes it to the hospital. There is video footage
of these two fools going room to room and they're

(45:16):
talking to these kids about what happened. These kids had
just been through a traumatic event. They have lost their.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Friend and their parents aren't they Their parents.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Are not there, and they're telling everyone Connor was driving.
Connor was driving. Don't you remember that Connor was driving?
Not my son, not my son, Connor was driving. Oh
my gosh, I this infuriates me. And they told the

(45:47):
police to stop talking to the kids because they were
Now the kids' lawyers aren't there now, I guess they're
not have to okay that you.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Can't just say this person's lawyer, can you or can you?

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Well, it's iffy because some of them are nineteen. I mean,
they're all under twenty one, but I think all of
them are over eighteen.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
But here's the thing though, But Morgan, who was Paul's girlfriend,
was like, I didn't want Alec in my room. I'm
scared of him. I didn't want him in there. So
let's say that she is over eighteen, she didn't want
him in there. No, I don't know. So did she
choose him as the attorney? I don't know. Now it's

(46:33):
possible she could have been stressed out and been like,
I know he's a lawyer, so hey, you know in
the moment, I don't.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Know he's my friend's dad. He but don't go telling
these kids to lie for you. And all of them
are saying to the cops at the scene, your your son,
Paul was driving, and now they're going to change the
story that gets him in even more trouble. Yes, absolutely so.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Uh and again you're not checking on the kids either.
You're not saying, hey, are you okay? Walk me through
what happened? Tell me what happened. It's hey, Connor was driving.
Don't forget that there was, Like Morgan even says, or
one of them says in the Netflix documentary, Yeah, he
wasn't checking on us. He was telling Coachink what happened exactly.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Typically, no one's allowed in a patient's dream unless they
were a relative or their medical staff. The hospital ended
up having to kick them out pretty much that they
asked them to leave so they could get medical attention.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
So very unfortunately, Mallory was found eight days later, five
miles down the river. She was deceased, and the autopsy
revealed that she died of blunt force trauma to her
head and drowning. Immediately, her family files a wrongful death
lawsuit against Paul's family. Totally get that Paul's underage drinking.

(47:52):
He bought the alcohol using a fake ID that his
brother gave him. Three people are injured, one is dead.
This is a major financial liability for the family of Paul,
And who is going to know what kind of trouble
that can cause, well, Alec Murda because that's what he does.
So on April eighteenth, twenty nineteen, on what would have

(48:14):
been Mallory's twentieth birthday, Paul Murdaw was indicted and charged
with three felony counts of voting under the influence, including
causing the death of Mallory Beach and seriously injuring to
other passengers. So the next level of law enforcement was
brought in to investigate why the police were pressured not

(48:35):
to press charges against Paul before this. So the family
of Connor Cook filed a lawsuit against Paul and his
family as well, claiming that Alec had encouraged the teens
to retain fleming in order to orchestrate the protection of Paul.
So basically saying that he also said, hey, hire this

(48:56):
person to defend you, to represent you on all this,
because that he knew that person and that person would
end up making Paul look good in the long run.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
So Paul pleaded again, okay again, sorry, I'm suing you, Lindsey,
and you're going to tell me what lawyer to hughes,
right right, which it's a conflict interest.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
The only time that happens, and that becomes a big
sticking point too. But Paul pleaded not guilty to all
the charges and he was out on bond awaiting trial,
and the lawyers that represented Paul ends up being the
same legal team that will represent Alec Murdau later when
Alec goes to trial. And by the way, the judge

(49:43):
denied the prosecutor's request that he wear an alcohol monitor.
So what does he do. He gets out and he
has seen all over town drinking and partying after the
bail hearing, celebrating that he is out. So his social
media it actually shows him drinking as early as fifteen
years old, very early on. And again Paul is a

(50:07):
mean drunk and in fact, when he was very drunk
and he goes into this angry mode, his friends called
him Timmy. They changed. He wasn't the same person when
he was drunk, and it started at fifteen years old.
His personality when he was raging drunk was timmy.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
And this is not the I'm hiding behind my parents
back drinking. There are pictures of him drinking on his
parents social media.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Ridiculous. Yeah, but Paul Murdau would not make it to
his trial So while out on bond and three days
before the first hearing, Paul and his mother Maggie were
murdered in their ranch house hunting a state named Moselle.
And the day before a hearing for a judge to

(50:57):
consider emotion to come pell Alec to turn over his
financial records. So two things there. Three days before the
first hearing for Paul and one day before a motion
to make Alec turn over his financial records. Also, midnowns
to Alec murda, Maggie had hired a private forensic accountant

(51:21):
to go through all the family's finances and had consulted
with a divorce lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
So we haven't gotten to the murders yet. We got
death and a lot of trauma, but we haven't gotten
to the murders yet.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
No, we haven't. And in fact, we thought we were
going to get through one more depth tonight in this episode.
So who knows how long this is. Maybe this one
is going to be four episodes. We don't know. It
won't be more than that, but it'll it'll be three
or four.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
We said that too about our first one we did.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Why you got to call me out? There's a lot
more to go on this. All that to say, and
again we're not reinvestigating. We are not you know, there's
a big podcast out there that's their thing whatever. But
we have wanted to talk about this one for a
very long time, so it's been interesting to do.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
I wanted to start talking about it when I was
watching this trial because it was smoke, it was mirrors,
it was drama. It Yeah, I don't know how Lindsey's
still my friend afterwards.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Because I was watching it right there with you. We
were in it together, and like, if I had to,
you know, if we had I don't know, baseball practice
or whatever. I was like, Jen, if you hear anything good,
let me know.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
All right, guys, so join us next week when we
release the next episode, or if you're on Patreon you
might get a lot sooner. Well we'll see, yeah, and
I'm gonna we'll try to do these all together again
like we have been.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Or should we just do them one at a time.
Let's do two and two, okay, two and two, two
and two, it shall be.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, And don't forget we are still fighting for Rocky.
That is our past, that is our cause. We are
still fighting for him. Go ahead and hop back while
you're waiting us to release another episode, go back and
listen to Rotar Redemption. Still collecting letters for Rocky, email
him to us corpus looked at Yahoo dot com.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yes, and you know on that note we said it.
It's been a little while now, but the state did
carry out the first nitrogen hypoxia execution, which was atrocious
because it took over twenty minutes for the person to die.
And that is Rocky's chosen method. And even the issues

(53:39):
and questions that the first one caused, they don't seem
to be slowing down and no one seems to be
stopping them, which is a new reality for Rocky because
the only saving grace was it's untested, it's unproven, and
no one has done it yet, so it was buying
him time and that is not the case now.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
So yeah, the company that issued the drugs did pull
back and say, you can't use our drugs for the rips. True,
So there there has been that. Yeah, Yeah, there's a
rope block there, And thank goodness, and don't forget Patreon
if you want to hear more episodes and join us

(54:19):
for our live Patreon events which typically happen at the
end of every month. Three dollars a more get you
on our discord server, which is a lot of fun.
I will say, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
We have a good crew. It's interesting. I was thinking
about this actually today. We have a lot of people
on Patreon, but we have there's only a handful that
are like active in the discord server. Several of them
are on discord, but there's maybe like I don't know,
six or seven that are that are actually active, which
is fine because no one has to do anything that

(54:52):
they don't. You know, it's the benefit is there for
whoever wants it use it or not, that's totally up
to you. But like it's I don't know, you've become
like this little close knit group. I love checking in
on everyone and seeing what everyone's up to. And I
don't know, it's just a fun, little fun, little family. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
And we have folders for different topics, Like if you're
really into fitness, we have a fitness folder. If you're
really into true crime, of course, we have a true
crime folder. But then we also have like a kids
books yes, oh my lindsay just real a quick side
note and you can edit this out or delete it.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Fourth Monkey's ruined me. I'm listening or i'm reading, and
I got the audiobook because I am that dork, because
I won't put it on my bookshelf unless I read
it or listen to it. And it's like a little
trophy none of this is true, which I'm sure is
a great book. I am sure if I had not
read Fourth Monkey, that would have been a really great book.

(55:50):
But I am struggling through it because I want to
read the second Fourth Monkey in the series.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yes, okay, so endorsement time if you are a reader.
I started, and now I'm like recruiting everybody to read
it with me. At the Fourth Monkey series. It's a trilogy,
and the first one, the first one, is called the
Fourth Monkey, and it is the best book I've read
in a long time. I just finished the second one
last night. The second one was even better than the first,

(56:19):
and so I read like the first chapter of the
third one last night and I am all in. It's
kind of I don't know, Jen, how would you describe it.
It's kind of like a CSI meets Dexter meets Sherlock
detective chasing down a serial killer, but it's so well
done and so well written. Yes, to the point.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
To the point I actually read the acknowledgments, which I
don't normally do, and the first paragraph in the first
book talks about it. He goes, Okay, listen, my childhood
was good, my parents were great. None of this comes
from personal experience.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
It's that bad that he had to be like, I promise,
I'm good. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Hey, I'm okay, guys type and an acknowledgement. But we
do have a lot of avid readers, Lindsay and I
are among them.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
So with all that said, we will be back with
y'all very soon to finish off the case of murdering
Murdle as you called him during the trial. So I
think that names stick.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, but the deception of low Country, I mean, it's
it's there, it's real. But until then, you know what
we said to Flicia Bay

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}265: High Profile: The Murdaugh Family, Part 1