Alex Murdaugh Charged With MURDER! | Breaking News

Alex Murdaugh, a disgraced South Carolina lawyer, was charged with murder Thursday for the deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.

During a hunting trip to the family's hunting estate "Moselle," Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were fatally shot.

According to his death certificate, Paul, 22, was shot in the chest and head. According to Thursday's indictment, he was shot at close range with a shotgun. According to a person familiar with the investigation, Maggie, 52, was found lying facedown and shot multiple times in the chest and back, according to the indictment.

Mr. Murdaugh's lawyers denied guilt in a statement. “Alex wants his family, friends and everyone to know that he did not have anything to do with the murders of Maggie and Paul. He loved them more than anything in the world,” read the statement. “But we know that Alex did not have any motive whatsoever to murder them.” They asked for a trial to begin as soon as this fall, an unusually quick timeline.

Attorney General Alan Wilson said the case will be tried "as soon as reasonably possible."

In addition to Maggie and Paul's deaths last year, two other suspicious deaths, an assisted suicide attempt, and millions of dollars in missing money have been investigated by the South Carolina lowcountry's most powerful family.

His 81 felony charges, mainly related to financial crimes, such as breach of trust, forgery, and money laundering, have kept him in jail since last October in Columbia, South Carolina.

For More on that, we go to True Crime Todays PJ. PJ gives us some context on Murdaugh's financial dealings.

Murdaugh allegedly defrauded personal-injury clients of at least $8.5 million by taking settlement payments meant for trust accounts and depositing them into his own account. In late June, he was also charged with distributing oxycodone. In many cases, he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have blamed many of Mr. Murdaugh’s problems on an opioid addiction.

State prosecutors gave scant details on the indictments which were handed down by a grand jury in Colleton County, S.C., Thursday morning.

Mark Keel, chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said that the investigation has been painstaking and methodical.

“Over the last 13 months, SLED agents and our partners have worked day in and day out to build a case against the person responsible for the murders of Maggie and Paul and to exclude those who were not,” Mr. Keel said. “Today is one more step in a long process for justice for Maggie and Paul.”

He was the former head of the state trial lawyers' association, founded by his grandfather, which was disbarred earlier this week by the state supreme court. In addition to running one of the state's largest personal injury firms, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather served as district attorneys for the five-county region for nearly a century.

Prior to being fired last September, Mr. Murdaugh was a part-time volunteer prosecutor and a partner in the family firm.

The Parker Law Group spokesman declined to comment on the indictments.

As a result of long-standing relationships with the family, local law-enforcement agencies bowed out of the investigation into Maggie and Paul's murders. It has been a year since state investigators said little about what happened, other than there was no danger to the public. Mr. Murdaugh's lawyers said last fall that despite being identified as a person of interest, his alibi was solid since he was visiting his ailing mother that evening.

He admitted liability for the theft of a $4.3 million insurance settlement in a lawsuit filed by the sons of his former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield in May. Ms. Satterfield died a few weeks after falling down the stairs at Moselle. SLED has opened an investigation into her death.

Murdaugh has largely been indicted by a statewide grand jury based in Columbia, which investigates conspiracies involving multiple players and spanning jurisdictions. There have been three criminal charges filed against alleged conspirators, including a banker, an attorney and a former client. As a result of Mr. Murdaugh's duping, they have pleaded not guilty.

Moselle's sprawling, swampy 1,700 acres are also partly in Hampton County, home of the family firm, so the double-homicide charges were heard in Colleton County.

The Murdaughs have held significant power for a century in Colleton, one of the five counties in the 14th Judicial Circuit. Since the local solicitor recused himself last August due to close ties to the family, the state Attorney General's office presented the charges.

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