Six investigations are tied to the Murdaughs. Here are the charges Alex is facing.
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Alex Murdaugh Coverage
The Murdaugh family saga has dominated the news after another shooting, a resignation and criminal accusations — with Alex Murdaugh at the center of it all. Here are the latest updates on Alex Murdaugh.
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Disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, from Hampton’s once-prominent legal family, is likely headed to the other side of the justice system: prison.
Arrested twice in as many months in separate cases following the still-unsolved murders of his wife and younger son, Murdaugh faces five charges, felonies that can result in him spending decades behind bars.
Charges filed last month of falsifying a police report, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud stem from his botched shooting over Labor Day weekend. Murdaugh’s arrest Thursday on two felony counts of obtaining property through false pretenses refers to allegations that he took $4.3 million in insurance proceeds owed to the estate of his late housekeeper.
If convicted of all charges and given consecutive sentences, Murdaugh could face up to 45 years in prison.
But as Murdaugh, 53, is brought from an Orlando, Florida, jail to a South Carolina courtroom for his latest bond hearing, he’s also in the midst of four other criminal investigations, as well as multiple lawsuits related to his family. Some of the lawsuits stem from the unrelated deaths of two people in recent years.
Murdaugh’s first arrest was in mid-September after he acknowledged to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division that he had asked a friend, Curtis Eddie Smith, to shoot him dead so that his surviving son, Buster, could get a $10 million insurance payout. He was released on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond hours after turning himself in to police on Sept. 16.
Smith also is facing charges in the scheme but denies that he shot Murdaugh, who had called 911 to report that he’d been shot and was airlifted to a Savannah hospital.
On Friday, Murdaugh’s lawyers released medical documents in an effort to prove the severeness of his injuries.
Less than a month later, Murdaugh was taken into police custody a second time in a different case.
On Thursday, SLED confirmed that Murdaugh was being held at the Orange County Corrections Center in Orlando, where his lawyers say he was at a rehabilitation facility.
He’s facing two felony counts of obtaining property through false pretenses in the missing $4.3 million insurance proceeds owed to the estate of his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield.
Murdaugh was still in custody in Florida on Friday afternoon, but will face a judge for a bond hearing in South Carolina on Tuesday.
“Today is merely one more step in a long process for justice for the many victims in these investigations, SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement about the charges. SLED “will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of those who were victimized by Alex Murdaugh and others. As I have said previously, we are committed to following the facts wherever they may lead us and we will not stop until justice is served.”
The statement alludes to the many other investigations still open that are directly or tangentially connected to the Murdaughs, including Satterfield’s 2018 death; the 2015 reopened cold-case death investigation of 19-year-old Stephen Smith; and allegations that Murdaugh misappropriated millions of dollars at his family-founded, century-old law firm, Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth, & Detrick (PMPED).
SLED is also investigating the June deaths of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh. Alex Murdaugh, who called 911 the night of June 7 to report that his wife and son had been shot, is the only person publicly named a “person of interest” in the case. That’s typical in cases such as these, and Murdaugh has maintained that he did not murder his son and wife.
The state Attorney General’s Office is probing the possibility of corruption during the investigation of the boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in 2019 and first thrust the Murdaugh family into the national spotlight. Paul Murdaugh was charged with driving the boat while drunk. Those charges were dropped after his murder.
One of Murdaugh’s attorney, state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, said on national television Friday that Murdaugh knows he’ll be behind bars at some point.
“He has indicated clearly that he is going to try to right every wrong — financial wrong — and others that he may have committed,” Harpootlian told “Good Morning America” in an interview. “Look, he’s reconciled to the fact he’s going to prison. He understands that. He’s a lawyer.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Six investigations are tied to the Murdaughs. Here are the charges Alex is facing.."
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