America has been following for two weeks with avidity the trial of Alex Murdaugh, a powerful lawyer from the South accused of having killed his wife and son, a true chronicle of the fall of a crook in the garb of a notable.
As in an Agatha Christie novel, members of high society, domestic workers and cheated friends parade at the bar, under the avid eye of the cameras which broadcast the hearings live throughout the United States.
Wednesday, coup de theater: they were suspended for two hours because of a bomb threat, the origin of which remains mysterious.
As soon as the proceedings resumed, the cameras once again focused on the accused, a burly 54-year-old red-haired man who denies any responsibility in the murder of his wife Maggie, 52, and their younger brother Paul, 22, shot to death in 2021 at their South Carolina property.
Coming from a long line of very influential judges and prosecutors locally, he knows the world of courtrooms well. For his trial, he also had to take down the painting from his grandfather, who sat for a long time in the court of Walterboro.
This wealthy family fascinates the media, which repeatedly broadcasts a very glamorous photo of the Murdaugh couple with their two boys – she in a fur coat, the men in a black tuxedo – as well as aerial images of their huge estate, nicknamed “Moselle”, where men liked to hunt wild pigs.
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On June 7, 2021, this bourgeois decor turned into a crime scene.
Shortly after 10 p.m., Alex Murdaugh called for help in a groaning voice, explaining that he had discovered the lifeless bodies of Maggie and Paul, near the kennel.
To the investigators, he assured that he made this macabre discovery just after visiting his mother, a senile woman unable to corroborate his statements.
On the stand, the elderly lady’s carer confirmed he had spent “twenty minutes” by her side that evening, but reported troubling pressure on the following days. During a one-on-one, “he told me he stayed 30 to 40 minutes,” and the next day he offered to fund “my wedding party,” Mushel Smith explained, visibly very uncomfortable.
This discrepancy is significant because, according to the prosecution, the murders took place around 9:45 p.m., after which the victims stopped answering the phones.
A minute earlier, however, Paul was chatting with a friend about an injured puppy. To show him the animal, he had recorded a video that he did not have time to send.
Investigators have recovered it: we hear Paul, his mother and a male voice.
For the prosecutors, and several witnesses, no doubt, it is about Alex Murdaugh.
dark side
Never could a father who, in the opinion of all, had a “loving relationship” with his wife and children could have committed such a “horrible” murder”, retorted his lawyer Richard Harpootlian, underlining the absence “of material evidence”.
Alex Murdaugh had a dark side, the prosecution replied: to maintain his lifestyle and an addiction to opiates, he had been stealing crazy sums of money for years from his law firm, his clients, his relatives … and was close to being unmasked.
First, because his son Paul had, while driving a boat drunk in 2019, killed one of his friends. As the trial approached, the courts sought to know the state of the father’s finances to find out if he could pay any damages.
Then, because the financial manager of his law firm had spotted anomalies in his files. The morning of the murder, she had asked him for an explanation.
Finally, because he had embezzled millions of dollars paid by an insurance company to the relatives of his housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a fall on the stairs of “Moselle”.
At the helm, his son Michael Satterfield, a frail young man in a sweatshirt, explained that he too had called Alex Murdaugh to account in June 2021.
insurance scam
For prosecutors, the cornered father devised a desperate scheme to divert attention. With suicidal intent.
Two months after the murders, he was found with his head bleeding along a road.
The investigation quickly showed that he had asked a former client to kill him so that his eldest son, Buster, would receive $10 million in life insurance. But his accomplice missed it.
This insurance scam as well as the hundreds of frauds uncovered since the murders will be judged later.
Before that, the jury will have to render its verdict. Alex Murdaugh faces the death penalty.
Without waiting, several podcasts and documentaries have already retraced his journey. “The Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” is due out February 22 on Netflix in the United States. And Hulu is preparing an adaptation.