Alex Murdaugh: The Epic Fall of a Dynasty Pt. 3

Immense power and privilege is dangerous when it’s wielded by an adult with some degree of life experience. It becomes downright life-threatening when that kind of power and privilege is handed over to a child with no understanding of what they hold or how to handle it. The rich kid with the ability to hide behind their family’s attorneys will always be more of a threat than the poor, street-smart kid from a bad neighborhood. They’ll bring their friends down, even their families and the pillars they stand on.

In Parts 1 and 2 of this epic saga we looked at the rise of the Murdaugh dynasty as well as the rise of the man that would bring it all crashing down. We saw the birth of his drug addiction and the start of his financial crimes as well as the questionable parties that he threw both with and without his family present. We also examined the first death to be linked to the family’s name, though no solid links have been established to this day. For this saga I read Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders by John Glatt on Amazon Kindle. If you’d like to delve further into Alex Murdaugh’s financial crimes and the trials he faced it’s an ideal source.

In early 2017 Paul Murdaugh began dating an attractive blonde girl who attended the Thomas Heyward Academy with him. Morgan Doughty became a regular at Moselle for parties and hunting weekends as she became quite close with her new boyfriend’s family. She freely partook in the alcohol provided not only to the adults, but the teenagers as well. Early on in the relationship she started receiving family invitations to Gamecocks games on a regular basis.

By this point Paul had developed a serious addiction to alcohol. He was drinking every single day on top of the medication he was still taking for ADHD. Using his older brother’s ID, he would buy alcohol and go out to bars often. The drunken alter-ego that his friends had dubbed “Timmy” was making more frequent appearances than before as Paul became increasingly more reckless.

Though her boyfriend was proving to be a loose cannon with a serious problem, Morgan was having fun hanging out with his family. They toted her along to the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona. She’s seen standing alongside Alex during his interview on the tournament at Charleston Airport. Just a couple of weeks after this big trip Morgan took off with Paul, Alex, and Maggie to the Bahamas. The fact that Paul was legally able to drink there made the trip much less enjoyable. He got entirely too drunk and threw up in a hotel gift shop, likely embarrassing his girlfriend. Morgan would eventually try to stage an intervention for Paul, but to no avail. He was determined to continue down his dangerous, impetuous path no matter how many had to suffer for it.

Paul graduated high school in late May 2017. Of course Maggie posted pictures; one of herself and Paul, who was posing in his robes, mortar board, and sunglasses; the other was a prom picture of him and Morgan where Paul looks to be drunk before the dance. There were celebrations aplenty for the latest Murdaugh son to graduate high school. Of course all of these parties included large amounts of alcohol with plenty of underage graduates to drink it. Morgan took a video from one of Paul’s graduation parties where he and his father play beer pong as a father-son team.

After graduation what had already become a daily habit of drinking increased even further as Paul began to drink more heavily than ever before. He started working for his Uncle John Marvin at the rental company he owned amidst all of his partying. It comes as no surprise that he was constantly landing himself in trouble for his drunken behavior and bad attitude on the job. Over the next year he would be cited for half a dozen offenses by his uncle. Most people would’ve been fired from any other job, but because Paul was the owner’s nephew he skated by and kept his position.

Though Paul’s drinking only seemed to increase, his parents never stepped in. On the contrary, they condoned his drinking and even allowed him to drive drunk. Whether it was his car, one of their cars, or one of his father’s boats, he was allowed to take the keys no matter how much he’d had to drink. One late night of partying ended in Paul crashing his truck on a rural Hampton road. Rather than letting him face the consequences for his own good, Alex paid off some locals to haul the truck away before the police were called.

On Memorial Day in 2017 Paul faced his first bout of legal trouble when the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) charged him with possession of alcohol as a minor. The SCDNR polices South Carolina’s waterways as they are quite popular year-round for boating and fishing. That holiday Paul was celebrating on one of his father’s boats the only way he knew how. Though he was driving the boat, he somehow managed to avoid the much more serious charge of Boating Under the Influence (BUI).

Alex swooped in once again to defend his son in court alongside his good friend and former college roommate Cory Fleming. The charges against him were filed the day after Alex had paid off a $510 littering fine that Paul had received at McCalleys Creek sandbar in Beaufort. Soon after their first court date Morgan was brought along with the family on another trip to Arizona. There she witnessed Alex and Cory feeding Paul alcohol as they allowed him to become “extremely intoxicated.” After this trip Alex and Cory requested a jury trial for Paul that was then rescheduled five times over the next year. Paul was finally ordered to attend an alcohol diversion program. Once it was completed his charges were dropped and the incident report later expunged.

It was only a couple of months after his victory in court that Paul’s drinking publicly got out of hand again. He had taken his girlfriend to a wedding alongside his parents, where he and Morgan were both encouraged to drink by Alex and Maggie. The couple had even bought an entire sleeve of miniature bottles of Fireball Whiskey for Morgan before the ceremony. His parents sat back and watched as Paul drank heavily, becoming far too intoxicated before the end of the night. Alex ended up having to drive he and Morgan home.

By December of that year his belligerent alter-ego made another unwelcome appearance at Moselle. Paul had taken Buster’s ID to buy alcohol for a party, where he got so drunk that his mother had be called to come get him and his girlfriend. He had acted so abhorrently that Alex actually discussed the incident with him later, but did nothing more. On Christmas his parents were supplying him with alcohol again as though nothing had happened. He spent the holiday “grossly intoxicated” and only got worse from there as his parents aided his downfall the whole way.

On January 4, 2018 South Carolina was hit hard by Winter Storm Grayson, which rightfully earned the nickname Snowmageddon. In a southern area that rarely sees snow, the entire state was handicapped by the storm. Ill prepared for such a downpour the roads quickly became treacherous for the residents who had little to no experience driving in snow. No matter their rank, all South Carolina state troopers were working to help in whatever way they could during the worst snow storm they’d seen in nearly a decade. Lieutenant Thomas Moore was among the troopers on duty that day. He was in Orangeburg County helping with a Trailblazer overturned in a ditch when he was grievously injured.

The lieutenant was sitting in his patrol car writing down the Trailblazer’s information when another car skidded on the slippery ice and off the road. It hit his patrol car in the rear as he sat inside, breaking his seat and throwing him backwards. The accident left him in a great deal of pain and in need of surgery that he couldn’t afford. Four months after the terrible accident he was referred to Alex Murdaugh by a good friend. Lieutenant Moore had already heard of his reputation as a plaintiff’s attorney. Everyone in South Carolina knew how capable he was of winning sizable settlements. He met with Alex at PMPED’s office and was quite impressed by him. He thought Alex to be a personable man and felt that he could trust him.

The lieutenant hired Alex as his attorney, feeling quite secure in his decision. He felt so secure that he went ahead and underwent $250,000 worth of surgery, paying out of his own pocket. This was a decision that he would come to regret as Alex’s boldest move yet was to plunder the settlement of a state trooper.

Just a month after the accident that left Lieutenant Moore terribly injured the Murdaugh family suffered a rather strange incident. It was 9:00 on the morning of February 2, 2018 when the family’s beloved, long-time housekeeper Gloria Satterfield arrived at the Moselle property for work. She was walking up the eight brick steps that led to the main entrance of the main house when she fell backward, landing headfirst on the concrete below. To this day there is still much debate about how Gloria ended up on the ground in front of her employer’s house. The Murdaugh’s hunting dogs, Bubba, Bourbon, Blue, and Sassy, were known to roam the grounds of Moselle freely. Alex had always been adamant that Gloria was knocked down by his dogs.

Maggie was inside the main house at the time of the incident. She rushed outside to find to her housekeeper lying in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of their steps. Strangely, she did not call 911 first. Instead she called her husband at the PMPED office before calling anyone else. It was 9:24 when Maggie finally dialed 911 to say that her housekeeper had fallen and was bleeding from her head.

Maggie told the dispatcher that she was unable to get Gloria up. When asked how old her housekeeper was, she wasn’t sure, responding “Like 58, maybe.” The dispatcher asked a flurry of questions to better help the first responders she was sending to the property. Maggie answered with a strained amount of patience, telling the woman that Gloria had fallen while walking up the steps and that she was still on the ground. When asked if she was conscious, Maggie replied, “No, not really.” Her patience quickly ran thin when she was asked for further details. She replied that Gloria was awake but unresponsive before demanding to know when the ambulance would arrive. The dispatcher assured her that they were on their way and that the questions she was asking wouldn’t slow them down in any way.

Gloria lay on the ground as she bled profusely and mumbled. Maggie impatiently gave details of her condition to the dispatcher. She asked if Maggie had applied a compress to control the bleeding. She hadn’t even thought to do such a thing, but agreed to try before asking again if the ambulance was coming. A long moment of silence was abruptly followed by a commotion where Maggie can be heard saying, “I’ve got you.” The dispatcher asked what happened. Maggie said that Gloria had fallen down again. In an irritable tone she asked to get off the phone so she could get down to her housekeeper and help.

Rather than letting Maggie end the call, she asked to speak directly to Gloria so she could ask about her pain level. Maggie handed the phone to Paul instead, who seemed inconvenienced by the questions the dispatcher asked. He bluntly told the woman that Gloria couldn’t talk and she had “cracked her head,” stating that she was bleeding from her left ear. When the dispatcher tried to confirm that Gloria was bleeding from her ear, Paul coldly replied, “And out of her head, she’s cracked her skull.” When asked what happened when she tried to get up, Paul corrected the dispatcher, telling her that he had been holding her up when she asked to be let go. This confused the dispatcher, who was under the belief that Gloria was unable to speak.

Paul was asked if they knew the injured woman in front of their house. He said that she worked for them. When asked if he was aware of any previous strokes he became more impatient than his mother had, demanding that the dispatcher stop asking so many questions and send the ambulance. The dispatcher was stuck explaining for the second time in a row that her questions were not getting in the way of the ambulance’s response. He only slightly calmed at the news that they were already on their way. He mumbled that he believed Gloria to have hit her head and that she “maybe has a concussion,” before asking how long this was all going to take. He then hung up the phone and ended the six-minute call.

Alex sped up Moselle’s long driveway before the arrival of EMS. He would later say that he found Gloria in a semi-conscious state at the bottom of his front steps with blood covering her head and face. Conveniently no one was there to hear what Alex claims happened next. He stated that his housekeeper had somehow regained consciousness and the ability to form words long enough to inform him that his hunting dogs had knocked her down. By the time witnesses gathered around once again she had returned to her semi-conscious, non-verbal state.

The ambulance that arrived shortly after swept Gloria off to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia. From there she would be helicoptered back to South Carolina and admitted to the Trident Medical Center in North Charleston. She was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma inside their intensive care unit. This is what it’s referred to when blood collects between the skull and the surface of the brain. Several broken ribs were also discovered after her admittance, but she was never able to give a reason for her fall.

Initially, Gloria was able to communicate with the hospital staff enough to tell them her name and address. When asked what had caused her to fall she couldn’t remember. It can be noted that she never mentioned a word about dogs, though. Surgery repaired her broken ribs and reconstructed her chest wall. Large amounts of blood were removed from her chest cavity during the procedure. The subdural hematoma was found to be inoperable. All they could do was make her comfortable and surprisingly enough she managed to improve slightly. She was moved out of the ICU, but a brain bleed sent her right back no sooner than she had settled into a new room.

After reentering the ICU she developed a case of pneumonia that prompted her doctor to have her put on a ventilator. For almost three weeks she languished in a hospital bed in a near comatose state. She was unable to communicate with her family, who stayed by her side through every agonizing moment. Though the Murdaughs had always claimed to see Gloria as part of their own family, they were noticeably absent from her bedside in her final days. Maggie visited one time, but Alex and the boys never showed up once. Her son, Brian Harriott, tried to find out what happened to her. Sitting by the side of her bed, he asked her directly, but received no answer.

Gloria passed away on February 26, 2018 of an acute subdural hemmorrhage caused by a stroke. Her death certificate lists her cause of death as natural while marking the cause of her injury as “not available.” No coroner was called or autopsy preformed. Her remains were interred at the Johnson-St. Paul Cemetery in Hampton as her grieving family looked on.

Though they had kept their distance from the hospital, Alex and Maggie both attended her funeral. As Alex offered his deepest condolences and apologies to Gloria’s two sons, he was already formulating an unthinkable scheme to rip them off. In a false display of guilt, he told the boys that their mother’s death had been all his fault. His hunting dogs had knocked her to the ground as they were roaming around the property that morning. He told Gloria’s devastated sons that he felt the need to make things right as he suggested that they sue him for the funeral expenses and compensation for their great loss. The boys had known Alex and his family all their lives as their mother worked diligently for them over the years. He had even represented them in family probate cases and recovered personal damages for them after a car accident. They had no reason whatsoever not to trust him.

Of course Alex already had an attorney in mind to represent Brian Harriott and Tony Satterfield in their wrongful death suit against him. Without mentioning a word about their long history and close ties, Alex sent the boys to his old, dear friend Cory Fleming at the Moss, Kuhn, & Fleming law firm. It was soon after burying his mother that Tony was asked to meet with Cory for the first time at the PMPED office. Alex assured him that Cory would handle the case and it was agreed upon before the end of the meeting that Tony would be named personal representative of his mother’s estate.

After their meeting Cory wrote down a list of demands for his old friend to send to his insurance company. No formal lawsuit was filed and suddenly the narrative around Gloria’s fall had changed. Alex claimed that she had not arrived that morning for work. He claimed that she had only been stopping by to pick up a check for someone else. Because of this lie the insurance company was unable to use a workers’ compensation defense. They would also be able to refuse further payouts if they chose. Alex admitted full liability in the incident, blaming his hunting dogs for knocking her down. Pleased with himself for the plot he had contrived against his trusting former employee’s sons, he sat back and waited for the cash to roll in.

Over the next few months the Lowcountry’s rumor mill worked harder than ever as residents whispered their speculations. There were many who believed Paul Murdaugh to have been responsible for the death of the woman that had raised him more so than his mother had. They speculated that he had shoved her down the steps in one of his fits of rage. While some figured that she had run across his stash of drugs, others thought that she had taken him to task for his behavior and paid the ultimate price for it. There are some who have said that Paul openly and proudly bragged about killing his family’s housekeeper.

In May 2018 Buster Murdaugh graduated from Wofford College with his sights set on the family business. He was about to become the fifth generation of Murdaugh to attend the University of South Carolina’s School of Law. At his graduation party, Alex made a rather ironic toast, declaring, “You are known by the company you keep.” Buster spent that summer clerking at the PMPED office as he prepared for his first year of law school.

Paul was nineteen at the time of his older brother’s graduation from college. As Buster worked alongside their father, Paul spent yet another summer working at their uncle’s rental company. He was all set to start USC that fall with a major in criminology as he partied his summer away. At this point he was not only drinking on top of the medication he took for ADHD, she was smoking weed and doing cocaine as well. Morgan witnessed the extent of his partying, saying that he had made friends “with a lot of potheads.” She stated that she didn’t believe Paul ever bought his own drugs. He simply used whatever his friends were passing around.

Paul and Morgan’s relationship was anything but romantic and loving. As his drinking increased and his vices multiplied he became violent towards her. He would cuss, yell, and spit on her in front of people. On occasion he would even hit her. As their turbulent relationship continued to deteriorate Morgan held on, likely hoping that things would eventually improve as many have.

Paul’s recklessness knew no bounds. With little regard for his own life, or the lives of those around him, he decided to drive himself and Morgan back to Moselle from a party one drunken night. His gross intoxication behind the wheel led to chaotic driving. Morgan would later say that he was out of control when he crashed, nearly killing both of them.

Fourth of July that year was a festive time for the Murdaughs as they took one of Alex’s boats out on the water for a day of celebration. In a video from that day a still underage Morgan Doughty can be seen handing a shot of liquor to her boyfriend’s clearly intoxicated father. At the time of this video Alex was fifty years old, partying with kids more than half his age as he earned the reputation of a cool dad among his sons’ peers.

As Paul continued to drink his way through youth, he almost always had his older brother’s ID on him. Buster was stuck having to use his passport as identification many times because Paul was in possession of his photo ID. Somehow it was accepted everywhere he went, even though the two brothers didn’t look anything alike. Aside from their fiery red hair the boys were quite different in size and appearance, with Buster weighing a good seventy pounds more than Paul. Buster very clearly takes after his father while Paul looks more like Maggie. Only one time were the boys ever called out on their scheme at the Edisto Bar & Grill. They had already spent a good deal of the night buying drinks while using the same ID. When a bartender finally caught on they were quickly ejected from the bar.

During the summer of 2018 Morgan started working with her two best friends, Miley Altman and Mallory Beach, at the chic little boutique on Beaufort’s Bay Street called It’s Retail Therapy. At the time Miley and Mallory were dating Anthony and Conner Cook, cousins that all three girls had grown up with. Their ties were strong and their bond was close. They would often hang out together and when Morgan started dating Paul, he became a part of their group by proxy. Though he was an unpredictable drunk, his family knew how to entertain. Morgan’s friends received invites to hunting weekends and parties at the family’s river house on Murdaugh Island, where Paul would usually drive them on one of Alex’s boats. The rag-tag group was all in attendance for the Annual Beaufort Water Festival on July 13, 2018 as well, one of the Lowcountry’s biggest and most popular events. A video taken at the event shows Paul’s parents looking on proudly as he competes in a contest, shotgunning beers with other boys his age.

Just a few days after the big water festival Paul and Morgan went to another wedding with Alex and Maggie. The festivities were dampened for Morgan when her boyfriend got too drunk once again. She also witnessed an intensely heated argument between Alex and Maggie that frightened her. After taking “a painkiller,” Alex became quite antagonistic. His behavior led Maggie to drop him off at his parent’s house for the night.

On September 12, 2018 Alex Murdaugh’s lifelong friend Barrett Thomas Boulware Jr. died of cancer. He was just sixty-one years old when he approached death’s doorstep, sickly, weak, and tired. The prominent Boulware and Murdaugh families went back three generations, with business dealings between them stretching back even further. In Pt. 1 of this saga we looked at the arrest of Barrett Thomas Boulware Jr. and his father in the ‘80s where both were suspected of drug smuggling. After the case’s key witness died strangely and abruptly the charges against father and son were dropped.

Just two months before his death he allowed Alex to take full charge of his business dealings while also giving him the power to make all of his medical decisions. Alex held the power to change beneficiaries on Boulware’s insurance policies. He could deposit and withdraw money from his accounts and pass checks in his name. Strangely the only adage was that Alex not enter into any contract or agreement that would challenge his rights to a jury trial in any way. Four years after Boulware Jr.’s death federal investigators finally took on the daunting task of untangling his family’s business dealings with the Murdaughs. With more than a century’s worth of dealings to look into, the job wouldn’t be an easy one.

Alex’s father, Randolph III, known to all as Randy, was awarded the highest civilian honor in South Carolina, catapulting his family into the apex of their success. On September 20, 2018, the state’s governor awarded him with the Order of the Palmetto at a largely attended ceremony held on the Hampton County Courthouse’s front lawn. The entire Murdaugh family was there to listen to speeches that lauded their family’s enduring legacy. By this point their family had held the Lowcountry’s judicial system down for nearly one-hundred-and-ten years, with Randy and his father covering eighty-six years of that. A big reception party was held after the ceremony just across the street at the PMPED office.

Not even a month after their father received his coveted award Alex is alleged to have stolen $120,000 from his older brother, Little Randy. A mistake made by the firm gave him ample opportunity to rob his own brother without him knowing it ever happened. At the start of every year the partners of PMPED would each loan money to the firm for operating expenses. A few months later they would all be paid back with interest. In early 2018 Little Randy had loaned $121,358 to the firm. Come spring the check of repayment was mistakenly issued to Alex, who quickly covered up the error with a visit to the accounting office. He had them write another check in his name for the same amount, voiding his brother’s name in the internal system. On October 12 of that year Alex deposited the check into his personal account, keeping his brother’s repayment for himself.

Cory Fleming summoned Tony Satterfield to his office on October 31, 2018. He persuaded the grieving son to resign as personal representative of Gloria’s estate. Informing him that the “business issues” involved in the case were beyond his understanding, he advised that Tony step back and allow Palmetto State Bank’s vice president Chad Westendorf to act as personal representative. Tony trusted the experienced lawyer and followed his advice. Meanwhile he was woefully unaware of the close connection between Alex, Cory, and Chad. From that point on Chad Westendorf had full control over the Satterfield estate, leaving the boys in the dark about the future settlements they would reap on the family’s behalf. They wouldn’t find out that they had laid their trust fully in the hands of thieves until the entire dynasty started toppling into the Atlantic.

The very day after Tony signed off, Cory filed a wrongful death suit against Alex’s insurance company, Lloyd’s of London. Stating that he had no defense at all, Alex admitted to causing his housekeeper’s death through negligence. He urged a payout to keep his personal reputation in tact. Attorney Scott Wallinger was hired by Lloyd’s of London to look into Alex’s claims. In his report, he strongly advised the company not to fight the suit, stating that Alex was “a third-generation lawyer practicing with his family’s law firm in Hampton.” Wallinger wrote that if the suit was contested they would have no choice but to hold a hearing before a 14th Circuit jury, which would always favor the Murdaughs they had remained loyal to for generations. The 14th Judicial Circuit would always rule in favor of a Murdaugh. After all it is better to go with the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

Lloyd’s of London decided to settle with the well-respected and influential Murdaughs upon reading Wallinger’s report. They cut a $505,000 check on December 4, 2018 that went directly to Westendorf. Oddly the documents appointing Westendorf as personal representative weren’t signed until December 18. The day after his papers were signed Cory petitioned Hampton’s Court of Common Pleas to approve a “partial settlement.” He listed $166,000 in attorneys fees along with another $11,500 for additional expenses.

Judge Perry Buckner was a longtime friend of the Murdaugh family. He would approve the settlement never realizing Alex’s motivation to sue himself. Cory received a check for $403,000 in early January 2019 that should’ve gone to Gloria’s mourning sons. Instead Alex directed Cory to deposit that check directly into his sham Forge account. As Cory continued filing wrongful death suits against Alex’s other insurance providers Tony and Brian were left uninformed and powerless to stop them from stealing everything.

Thanksgiving of 2018 was quite bountiful for the Murdaughs as they enjoyed an impressive spread undoubtedly paid for by Alex’s clients. Anyone on Maggie’s Facebook friends list could’ve seen the flurry of pictures that she posted of her happy family that day. The day after the feast Paul took his girlfriend to a Gamecocks game in Clemson, South Carolina. At the football game he was seen openly doing cocaine in public. During Christmas of that year his father was swooping in again to save him from trouble after a drunk driving accident. Paul crashed Alex’s truck into a friend’s BMW, leading Alex to pay the friend off in cash for the damages to his car. It would seem that Paul’s chaotic lifestyle was eating a hole in the family’s pockets by this point.

In February 2019 Paul and Morgan made a trip out to USC’s School of Law to visit with Buster. The real reason for their impromptu drive was to borrow his ID for a big night of partying. The three of them met up at the Thomas Cooper Library so Paul could grab the ID before taking off on a fateful night. Morgan and her two best friends had been invited to an oyster roast by their co-worker, Madison Wood. Deciding to make it a date night, the girls all invited their boyfriends. Paul came up with the idea that they all spend the night at his grandfather’s river house on Murdaugh Island. Since the Beaufort police’s DUI task force was heavily patroling that night, he suggested that he drive them to the oyster roast on one of his father’s boats. It sounded like the perfect night out.

On February 23, 2019, Paul arrived at Parker’s 55 gas station and convenience in Ridgeland. Cameras picked him up as he pulled in at 5:30 that evening, towing Alex’s seventeen-foot Sea Hunt fishing boat with his white pickup truck. While inside the store Paul bought a six-pack of Michelob Ultra, a fifteen-pack of Natural Light, and a twelve-pack of White Claw for Morgan. He also bought a pack of Marlboros and some mint gum at the counter. Flashing his brother’s ID and using his mother’s credit card, he paid the $48.61 total. He hoisted the beer over his head in a show of success as he walked back to the truck. Miley and Conner waited in a Jeep nearby while Paul bought party supplies. From there Conner followed Paul over to the Lemon Island Marina Landing and helped to get the boat into the water.

As Paul drove the boat to his grandfather’s house, Conner drove in his Jeep to meet him there. It was 6:00 when Morgan arrived to meet the group at the river house. The party was already underway, with her friends on their second beers. Morgan grabbed a mango White Claw and started playing catch-up. Soon after Mallory and Anthony arrived with their overnight bags, ready for what promised to be a wonderful night among friends. Everyone climbed onto the moored boat as Mallory walked inside the house and up the stairs to get changed. Coolers were loaded down with enough beer and liquor for a frat party as they prepared to head towards the oyster roast just eighteen miles north of Paukie Island. By 7:07 that evening the entire group was on the boat, heading towards the roast.

Paul was driving as everyone else passed around a bottle of Crown Royal and took Snapchat videos to send to their friends. Not one to miss out on the party, Paul shotgunned beers from behind the wheel. As they made their way to the party the sunny, blue skies of day gave way to the peaceful, starry skies of night. With temperatures already in the upper fifties it promised to be a chilly night.

It was around 8:00 when the group arrived at the oyster roast, which was hosted by Brunson Elementary School principal Kristy Wood and her husband, James. Miley’s parents and Paul’s Uncle Randy and Aunt Christie were among the twenty guests attending. Roasted oysters were merely the appetizer, with the feature of the evening being a Lowcountry boil. Shrimp, sausages, and potatoes combine for a delicious Southern delicacy. The party was a BYOB event for those of legal drinking age. Paul moored his boat at a neighbors dock. He and the rest of the group would make trips back and forth to the boat for more beer throughout the night. As the adults drank and played cornhole, the younger attendees spent their time at the basketball goal playing H-O-R-S-E.

It was after midnight when the roast finally ended and everyone was drunk as they made their way home. Due to the low visibility that night Kristy offered Paul and his friends a place to crash, but they weren’t interested. It had grown cold and foggy out and it would only be worse out on the water. Determined not to let the party end so early, the group climbed back onto the boat and shuttled across the water. Anthony was the only one ready to end the evening. He could clearly see that Paul was drunk enough for his alter-ego to come out and ruin the night. He offered to call an Uber to take everyone back to the river house, but no one else was willing to accept the ride.

The Garmin GPS system on board shows the boat departing from the dock at approximately 12:11 that morning. Eager to keep the party going, Paul decided to drive to Luther’s Rare & Well Done bar in Beaufort for shots. While everyone else was ready to get back to the river house for the night, Conner was on board for a pit stop. The boat’s navigation lights weren’t working that night. In an attempt to better see in the dense fog, Conner held a small flashlight for Paul to navigate by. But the light’s beam wasn’t near bright enough to cut through the heavy fog enveloping the saltwater creeks they traveled. Zero visibility and broken lights led Paul to use his GPS system to navigate the waters. Though plenty of life jackets were readily available to the passengers no one was wearing one.

As they hurdled towards their destination in dangerous conditions, Mallory was sitting in Anthony’s lap at the back of the boat. She was still drinking beer as she cuddled with her boyfriend and enjoyed her night. At 12:35 Conner was forced to grab the wheel, steering the boat away from the Woods Memorial Bridge, which Paul was about to crash into. Still insisting upon stopping at the bar for shots, Paul told his friends that he knew the bartender. He was confident that he could get them all in using Buster’s ID. Aside from Conner, no one else wanted to stop. Morgan demanded to go home, but was ignored by her drunk boyfriend as his personality shifted into that of Timmy. As everyone protested and urged Paul to drive them back to the river house, he snapped, yelling that it was his boat and he would do what he wanted.

Just four minutes after the near-miss at Woods Memorial Bridge the boat pulled into downtown Beaufort’s day dock. The group all took Snapchat videos as a cruise ship sailed through the swing bridge. After pulling up, Paul suddenly changed his mind and drove off. He quickly changed his mind once again and pulled back into the day dock shortly after. He tied the boat up just outside of the store that Morgan, Miley, and Mallory worked at as Morgan yelled at him not to go inside that bar. He ignored her again and went about his business as though he’d never heard her at all. Paul did exactly what he always did. Just what he wanted.

It was at this point that Anthony and Paul almost came to blows for the first time that night. Anthony wanted to take his girlfriend home and get her safely away from what he saw as an unfolding situation. Already too drunk to care and motivated to drink more, Paul went on to the bar with Conner walking alongside him. Luther’s Rare & Well Done sat just across the dock as it seemed to call to him. While he and Conner walked over the others waited at Waterfront Park. They talked and laughed as they sat on the wooden swings together.

The boys walked into Luther’s at 12:55 that morning, flashing Buster’s ID. The bouncer, Jake Price, stamped their hands with the letters “PX” before letting them inside. They walked straight to the end of the bar, where they found seats and ordered Jaegermeister bomb shots. Paul happily paid the $16.50 bill with his mother’s credit card. An old high school classmate of theirs named Kayla Canavan was managing the bar at that time. Paul asked her if she could get the rest of his friends in, but she told him no. As he and Conner downed their shots they made Snapchat videos documenting the illegal activity.

Only nine minutes after arriving they were already ready to leave. On their way out of the bar Paul almost got into a fight. After drunkenly knocking over a chair another patron quipped, “What did that chair ever do to you?” Paul immediately boiled over with anger, demanding to know what the other patron said to him. In an effort to deescalate the situation, Conner held him back. Once he calmed the pair exited the bar and rejoined their group at the park. As they headed back to the boat somehow they were all totally unaware of the immense danger they faced.

Paul was unsteady on his feet as he made his way along the sea wall, arguing with Morgan the whole way. She tried to distance herself from Timmy as she marched through the fog and back to the boat. Mallory and Anthony brought up the rear of the group as they walked along. The pair looked lovingly into each other’s eyes as though they were the only two people in the world. Mallory took a sweet picture of the two of them to post on Snapchat. The caption read, “Date Night.”

It was 1:13 that morning when the boat departed from downtown Beaufort’s day dock. Everyone was begging Paul to let Anthony drive. He was far less intoxicated and more than capable of driving such a large boat. Angrily, Paul spat that it was his “fucking boat” and he knew the waterways better than any of them. Anthony and Mallory were together in the back while Conner and Paul were at the center console. Morgan and Miley were piled in the front as Paul sped off into the fog. Even though the conditions were terrible and their driver was drunk no one on the boat felt the need to put on a life jacket.

At first Paul sped off in the wrong direction, causing him to turn around under the swing bridge he had almost struck earlier. Turning south toward Port Royal Sound and Murdaugh Island the kids still only had a flashlight to navigate the foggy darkness that lay ahead. The temperature had dropped to a chilly fifty degrees by the time they jetted back out onto the water. Paul started driving like a mad man, hitting the throttle and speeding the boat up only to slow down slightly enough to do donuts. As his friends watched him they could clearly see the hallmarks of Timmy on display. His arms and fingers were almost stiffened and outstretched as he grew more belligerent by the moment. Morgan’s pleas to be careful with their lives in his hands only caused him to boil over and explode. Screaming that it was his boat, he took a swig of beer and declared that he would be damned if he let anyone else drive it.

They entered the narrow, winding waterway of Archers Creek at 2:13 that morning. Mallory professed her fear to Anthony, who then asked Paul to drop them off at the nearest dock. He responded by pointing Mallory in the face and telling her to “shut up.” When Anthony rose from his seat and told Paul not to make that mistake, he quickly backed down. Paul flopped out across the seat and started stripping his clothes off in the cold night air. Throwing his clothes to the floor, he returned to the console in his boxers and grabbed the wheel from Conner’s hands. As he slammed the throttle down hard, Anthony fell into the back of the boat, grabbing Mallory to protect her. Mallory positioned herself back into her boyfriend’s lap as he buried his face in her chest to shield it from the whipping wind and water.

When Paul released his iron grip on the throttle it was only to storm to the front of the boat and scream in his girlfriend’s face. He accused her of disloyalty. He screamed that she wasn’t taking his side. Over the next few minutes Paul would march back and forth between the console and the front, leaving the wheel just to scream at Morgan. Miley sat awkwardly beside her best friend as Paul called her names like “bitch” and “whore.” Morgan yelled right back, not willing to take the verbal abuse. Pushing him away, she asked if he was going to hit her again. His reply was to spit on her before slapping her across the face.

Sitting on a cooler, Morgan hid herself under a blanket as she started to cry. Miley tried her best to console her as Paul returned to the console and yanked the wheel back from Conner. As soon as he had the throttle in his grasp he slammed it down hard, sending the boat speeding forward. Continuing his rant on Morgan, he would repeatedly leave the wheel to yell at her at the front of the boat. Each time he left the console, Conner would grab the wheel and take over. From her spot underneath the blanket, Morgan could tell who was driving. Conner drove slower and smoother, while her boyfriend’s driving was erratic, bumpy, and fast.

At around 2:20 that morning Paul returned to the wheel for the final time, shoving Conner away as he leaned into the throttle. According to the Garmin GPS system the boat abruptly raced from an idling speed to thirty-five miles-per-hour. Miley screamed Conner’s name, prompting Morgan to peer from underneath her blanket. She looked up just in time to see Archer’s Bridge hurdling towards them. Miley braced for impact, screaming at the last moment. The boat crashed head-on into the bridge’s dolphin head, which was just three wooden pilings lashed together. Making a sharp right, it smashed into two more pilings before becoming airborne and crashing back down onto some rocks.

Paul, Anthony, and Mallory were thrown from the boat and into the freezing water while the others were knocked to the floor. Conner hit the center console, knocking him unconscious. He suffered multiple jaw fractures as well as a deep laceration to his face. Morgan was screaming hysterically due to a serious wound to her hand. Miley woke her boyfriend to make sure he was alright before the pair went to see about Morgan.

Anthony awoke about forty yards away from the rest of the group underneath the bridge. He lay on the opposite side of the bank in fifty-five degree water as he clung to a piling to keep from being swept away in the strong current. Using the pilings to pull himself along, he managed to swim to the other side. He passed by Paul, who was gripping onto a piling as he lay in deep mud, screaming Morgan’s name. Anthony only had one question when he reached the others on the shore. Where was Mallory? Miley replied, “What do you mean where’s Mallory?”

When it was clear that she was nowhere to be seen, the group started calling out for her. Anthony jumped right back into the freezing water to look for her. As the others began frantically searching for Mallory, Paul was still clinging to his piling in the mud, calling out for Morgan. It was noted by the rest of the group that he didn’t sound panicked in any way. He was just screaming her name as he lay there like a helpless child. Finally he pulled himself from the ground and walked over to Morgan on shore. She curtly informed him that Mallory was missing and demanded that he get away from her. Paul didn’t seem to care in the least that one of their group was gone.

Conner called 911 through a broken jaw at 2:26 that morning as Paul tried to assure everyone that it would all be okay. Though his jaw was fractured in multiple places, Conner managed to remain calm as he spoke with dispatch. The only trouble was that his injury made him difficult to understand over the phone. As he tried to tell the dispatcher that they were at Archer’s Creek, she thought that he was saying Archer Street, which is in that area. It took several more attempts to make himself understood as Morgan could be heard shrieking in the background.

The dispatcher asked who was in the background as Morgan continued to scream for her friend. Conner informed her that there were six of them in their group and one was missing. Rather than simply use Google to help narrow down the location quicker, the dispatcher wasted valuable time attempting to nail it down on her own. All Conner could do was try to break it down for her the best he could, telling her that they were located underneath the only bridge on Archer’s Creek. Morgan wailed about being “soaked in blood” as the dispatcher sent first responders out to find the crash site. When asked if anyone was hurt, Conner excluded himself, telling the dispatcher that only one of them had been hurt before telling her again that one of their group was missing. Eight minutes into the call Morgan clearly began to understand the extent of her wound as she panicked further. She begged them to hurry because there were wooden fragments lodged into her arm.

Conner continued to direct the dispatcher to their location while walking to the main road connecting to the bridge with Miley and Anthony. They carried a flashlight to signal the ambulance with. Just three minutes into the call EMS, fire rescue, and military police had already been dispatched. The problem was that they had been dispatched to the wrong location. While the kids stood soaking wet and scared in the cold emergency services were arriving a mile and a half away at the Russell Bell Bridge. They received fourteen more incorrect locations before finally getting to the scene of the crash.

Corporal John Keener and Sergeant Troy Krapf of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department were the first to arrive at 2:40 that morning. The pair had already rushed to the Bell Bridge before making it to the correct location. Fire rescue and EMS were still trying to work out the location in this wild goose chase, but luckily they now had the officers to help get them there. Corporal Keener recalled the moment he first encountered Conner Cook, Miley Altman, and Paul Murdaugh at the base of the bridge. Paul was certainly a difficult character to forget, standing in the cold night air, dripping wet and wearing only a pair of boxers. He was extremely drunk and the officers quickly took notice.

Morgan was in shock by this point. Her hand was terribly injured and she was in need of medical attention. Corporal Keener got a brief description of Mallory and passed it along to the dispatcher. Blonde hair, pink shirt. With that officers began combing the shoreline in the hopes that she would be found quickly. Dense fog and thick mud prevented the search from expanding beyond the shoreline. Keener followed Anthony’s trail of blood and footprints from underneath the bridge and into the marsh hoping to see something the frantic young man had missed, but found nothing. It seemed that the search for Mallory would be fruitless until the sun came up to provide some much-needed light and warm the waters some.

Alex Murdaugh’s boat had sustained a severe amount of damage in the crash. Beached at the base of Archers Creek the hull was completely split with a six-foot-long gash only adding to the port side’s many disfigurements. It was sitting directly on the rocks at a forty-five degree angle as the boat’s 115-horsepower motor sat a foot above the water. The intense fog that threatened to swallow the scene whole kept anyone from seeing the damage caused to the bridge.

Corporal Keener set about rounding up the group to learn their names, ages, and the cause of the crash. Immediately he could smell alcohol on the breath of every person he spoke with, but by far the drunkest of them all was Paul. Names and ages seemed easy enough information to obtain, but when the question of who was driving at the time of the crash was raised no one wanted to respond. Initially the corporal chalked it up to underage kids not wanting to cop to boating under the influence, especially given the fact that their friend was missing, but he would quickly find that things weren’t quite that simple.

The group quickly proved difficult to reign in under the circumstances. They were all still drunk, panicked, and in shock. Anthony refused to give up on finding Mallory as he continued to search and shout her name hoping for a response. Paul drunkenly wandered about in his sopping wet boxer shorts as he attempted to use his phone to call his grandfather. When he found that the phone was also soaking wet and wouldn't work, he threw it to the ground in frustration. When he asked Keener if he could use his phone, the corporal replied that he didn’t have it on him before pointing out that he had dropped his own in the grass. Keener asked the drunk young man his name and Paul wasted no time in literally spelling out every letter of the powerful name he carried. Though too drunk to behave himself, he was aware enough to throw around his family’s clout in the face of authorities.

Miley finally handed her phone to Paul so he could call his grandfather. Needless to say Randolph III was none too pleased with the latest fuck-up of his youngest grandson. As Miley and Conner listened to the conversation that took place between grandfather and grandson they were shocked and horrified. Standing in earshot distance of his friends he told Randolph that Conner had been driving the boat when it smashed into the bridge. As he broke into what can only be assumed to be fake sobs, he cried, “Mallory is gone and we can’t find her,” as though he had actually helped look for her, which he didn’t.

It was 2:55 that morning when fire and water rescue services finally arrived. They were followed by officers from the Port Royal Police Department, the South Carolina Highway Patrol, the Coast Guard, and the Department of Natural Resources, who police the waterways of the Lowcountry. The scene was pure chaos when Beaufort County deputy sheriff Stephen Domino arrived. EMS was still en-route and the group was in hysterics over Mallory. Deputy Domino sat Anthony Cook down in the backseat of his patrol car. Anthony informed him that his mother worked for SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) and that he needed to call her. Through tears and sobs Anthony begged his mother to come out to Beaufort before explaining the situation the best that he could. He just kept coming back to the point that mattered most to him; Mallory was gone.

Anthony was asking his mother to call Mallory’s parents for him and inform them to get down there. At that point he noticed Paul walking toward him, boxers still wet from the crash and a grin plastered on his face. Anthony’s composure completely shattered in that moment as he yelled for the officer to “Get the motherfucker there away from me!” Domino found himself having to restrain Anthony as he tried to get out of the car and attack Paul right there in front of everyone. As the deputy attempted to calm him Anthony screamed loudly for all to hear that Paul needed to “rot in fucking prison,” going on to say, “He ain’t gonna get in no fucking trouble.” When Paul had the nerve to smile at Anthony again, he erupted, screaming that Paul was smiling like the situation was funny. Pointing to the fact that Mallory was gone, he went on say, “I hope you rot in fucking hell!”

At this point no one seemed to know who this strange kid wandering around in his underwear was. Domino asked outright if he had been the one driving when the boat crashed. Anthony answered honestly, saying that when he got down to the floor with his girlfriend to protect her, Paul had been the one at the wheel. He assured the officer that he had begged to drive the boat himself. Breaking down, Anthony asked the deputy a heartbreaking question; How would he carry on living without Mallory?

Anthony was desperate to know that his girlfriend was being searched for. Domino assured him that the Coast Guard already had boats in the water searching every inch for her. A helicopter was also on its way to step up the effort. Anthony looked up at the officer and asked him if he’d ever heard of Alex Murdaugh. When Domino replied yes he was quickly informed that the red-haired drunk staggering around in his boxers was Alex’s son. When Domino asked directly if Alex Murdaugh’s son had been driving at the time of the crash Anthony simply and sarcastically replied, “Good luck!” Without even hearing the phone call Paul had made earlier he already knew where this was going. The senior members of his powerful family were due to swoop in and sweep up at any moment.

Police tried to keep Paul away from Anthony, but he was totally uncooperative. As Anthony still sat in the back of Domino’s car the first two of the ambulances arrived at 3:04. EMS workers had less luck with Paul than the police had as he insisted that he wasn’t in need of medical attention. Paramedic Shayna Orsen wrapped a blanket around his thin, wet frame to warm him up, but he didn’t want it. Miley recalled him becoming confrontational with deputies that were merely trying to help, even getting in one officer’s face and asking, “You think that you’re a bigger man than I am?”

Miley, Conner, and Paul were put in one ambulance together while Morgan was taken from the boat on a stretcher and loaded into another. When the bloody towel was removed from her hand by a paramedic and the extent of her injury revealed, she had a panic attack. The group was taken to Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Paul was so unwilling to go he was nearly handcuffed. He tried getting out of the ambulance to find Morgan, at which point he found himself restrained. Corporal Keener remembered his “belligerent” behavior, saying that he “wouldn’t listen to anyone,” and couldn’t “comprehend anything.” Due to his unruly behavior it was requested by EMS that a deputy ride along with Paul, Miley, and Conner for the safety of everyone aboard.

It was a long ride for those stuck in the ambulance with Paul. He cussed out a female paramedic that was simply trying to calm him down. He had to be strapped down just so his blood pressure could be read and other tests performed. Miley described him as “rude,” saying that it was enough that he could’ve been taken to jail. As Miley and Conner asked repeatedly for updates about Mallory and whether she’d been found yet, Paul could’ve cared less. All he was concerned with was getting a hold of his father. Calling him by his nickname, Paul kept saying, “I need to call Big Red!”

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) didn’t arrive until 3:30 that morning, well after the ambulances. Many of this agency’s officers were close friends of the Murdaughs, holding coveted invitations to parties and barbecues thrown by the family. It would be this agency overseeing the investigation into the crash. Conservation officer Pritcher was the first of SCDNR’s officers to arrive. With fifty officers from different agencies all milling about the dense fog the scene must have been overwhelming to all involved. Pritcher quickly noted that word was traveling among some of the officers that Paul Murdaugh had been driving, while others thought that Conner had been behind the wheel at that fateful moment. Upon hearing that one crash victim had stayed behind for the search, he decided that he had to talk to Anthony Cook.

All Anthony cared about was finding Mallory. He continued asking where she was at when officer Pritcher brought him before his car to speak with him. The conservation officer’s dashcam picked up the entire conversation between the two. When Anthony was asked who had been driving at the time of the crash, he didn’t flinch or even think before he answered. Paul Murdaugh had been driving. Pritcher asked, “Paul was driving?” With Anthony’s immediate conformation that should’ve been that, but it wasn’t. The report that Pritcher later wrote up directly contradicted his dashcam footage, stating that Anthony didn’t know who was driving.

Morgan Doughty arrived at the hospital at 3:00 that morning. In ER room 16, she opened up to nurse Lupe Moreno about her concerns. She was worried about Mallory and infuriated with Paul for causing the crash. Finally fed up with her boyfriend’s reckless, drunk, selfish behavior, she’d resolved to break up with him on her way to the hospital. Morgan had the nurse call her mother and ask that she meet her there as she waited for a doctor.

Not long after her arrival the rest of the group made it there as well. Conner was wheeled in on a stretcher with Miley walking alongside him. When the couple insisted upon being seen in the same ER room they were informed that only one patient could be seen in a room at a time. Unwilling to leave her boyfriend’s side, Miley quickly walked to the lobby for a visitor’s pass before returning to Conner’s room. Paul was strapped down to the stretcher that wheeled him into the hospital as he cussed at the staff.

Inside ER room 10 conservation officer Pritcher would later take pictures of Paul in his hospital bed. He was still visibly drunk, his boxers were still wet, and he had been hooked to a cardiac machine. Over the course of the next hour he would disconnect that machine three times. Covered in scratches, these were the only injuries he sustained from the crash that he caused with his negligence. When nurse Karen Taylor asked how much he’d had to drink that night Paul lashed out her, saying that they should be doing their jobs by finding his friend. He was asked exactly what he had been drinking that night and admitted to having “all kinds of alcohol [and] all kinds of drugs.” Demanding his clothes be returned to him, Paul declared that he was leaving. He ended up having to be restrained again to keep him there.

Just a few minutes later Randolph III and Alex Murdaugh came strolling through the hospital’s door. After a brief stop at the front desk to check in they walked directly to Paul’s room. Ordering the drunk and belligerent young man to calm down and cooperate with the staff, they quickly took matters into their own hands. They weren’t just there to reign in the family’s most unruly member, though. They were also there to start the mission of sweeping his biggest incident under the rug.

When Paul looked to his grandfather and asked if he was going to be okay, Randolph III quickly and curtly told his grandson to “shut the fuck up!” Paul continued to appall not only the staff, but his grandfather with his disgusting behavior. When ER technician Laura Kent handed him a portable urinal to collect a sample he responded by asking her if she was going to hold his penis for him. When she later returned to collect the urine sample, he pointed to her butt as he commented, “That’s nice.” Physician assistant Kristin Strickland performed a trauma test and classified Paul as having “Altered Mental Status.” Her conclusion was that the severity of the crash and Paul’s irrational actions following it pointed directly to her diagnoses. Little did she know that Paul’s behavior that night was typical for him.

Dr. Mark Mercier was called in to deal with Paul’s disorderly behavior. He took note of the young man’s slurred speech and noticed that when he attempted to stand he would just topple over. As the doctor was noting Paul’s condition, the nursing staff was noticing something else entirely. They saw Paul’s father as a completely passive bystander to his son’s actions. As the young man continued to behave irrationally and treated the female staff disgustingly, Alex just sat by and watched as though there were nothing he could do and he knew it. Meanwhile Randolph III was growing increasingly more infuriated with each passing moment. At one point he stormed from the boy’s room as he said, “He’s drunk as Cooter Brown!”

For the next hour that passed Randolph stayed by his grandson’s bedside while Alex paced around the lobby and hallways, putting the entire staff ill at ease. He introduced himself to all of them working in the ER that night and they would all later recall the smell of alcohol that rolled off of him. His nervousness was difficult to miss as well. When a charge nurse caught him attempting to enter patient rooms she asked a security guard to keep an eye on him. Alex wandered the halls as though he had nowhere better to be, making phone calls while also making the staff uncomfortable. He was overheard speaking with Maggie as he assured her that their son was fine, but Mallory was still missing. He was heard telling his wife, “She’s gone, don’t worry about her.”

Alex was eager to speak with Morgan, presumably to ensure that they were all on the same page where protecting Paul was concerned. After entering her room the first time Morgan told the nurse not to let him back inside under any circumstances. For the next two hours that followed she underwent surgery to correct her injured hand. No sooner than the girl had gotten out of surgery was Alex trying to enter her room again. He even told a nurse outright that he needed to tell her what to say. Though he attempted to get back into her room multiple times her nurse would not allow it. His inappropriate behavior didn’t stop there. He was merely starting with the one he already had influence over, likely thinking she would be the easiest to convince.

A fractured jaw and a deep laceration below his mouth left Conner in an immense amount of pain. Though he smelled of alcohol and was suffering from his injuries he still managed to hold onto his composure and cooperate with the staff. The only time he withdrew into vagueness was when posed with the question of who was driving. Miley made no bones about telling Kristin Strickland that Paul had been driving when the boat crashed. With the truth out there, hanging in the middle of the exam room, Conner just nodded his head silently in agreement.

Strong pain medication was administered for his jaw fracture. By the time he was taken for a CAT scan he was well under the influence of their effects. As the CT tech was pushing Conner’s wheelchair down the hallway for his scan, Alex stopped them and asked that the tech give them a moment alone. In that brief moment Alex made it clear that if Conner just kept his mouth shut and said he didn’t know who was driving that he would be looked after in the ensuing investigation. Once his scan was finished and he was returned to his room he found his parents there waiting for him. Alex had already cornered them, suggesting that they hire Cory Flemming to represent them in any criminal investigations into the crash. Alex had also managed to hem Morgan’s mother in as well. To those on the outside looking in the attempt at a cover-up was more than obvious.

Paul’s blood alcohol level was tested at the hospital at around 4:00 that morning, revealing a staggering .286 blood alcohol content, three and a half times the legal limit. This was a full three hours after his visit to Luther’s Rare & Well Done for shots. At the time of the crash it would’ve been much higher. When Pritcher arrived at 4:35 that morning to take pictures and conduct interviews he found Paul still strapped down to a gurney while a security guard sat outside his room. He would later recall how “out of control” he was, noting his “Bloodshot eyes, slurred speech.”

When Pritcher asked him who had been driving when the boat crashed Paul became confrontational, asking why he needed to know. It wouldn’t help find Mallory, he reasoned in his drunken state. “What if it was me who was driving the boat?” he asked as though he were testing the water with the tip of his toe. He apparently found the temperature not to his liking because when asked again he vehemently denied driving. In the very same breath that he used to throw the group under the bus, he also called them his best friends.

Pritcher went straight from Paul’s room to Conner’s to catch him before he was transported to Charleston for surgery on his jaw. Conner’s father was in the room with him, sliding a finger across his throat to signal his son to stay quiet. Following his father’s cue, Conner claimed that he only remembered hitting the bridge and had no recollection of who had been driving at the time. Miley backed him up on the story.

With that Pritcher returned to Paul’s room to get an official statement from him. He managed to catch the boy alone and he agreed to give the statement freely. Just as the conservation officer was getting the forms out Randolph and Alex walked in and put an end to the visit. He was curtly informed that Paul did not need to give him a statement. Pritcher wasn’t like a lot of his colleagues at SCDNR, who were close friends of the Murdaughs. Not realizing the kind of powerhouse he was standing in front of he merely told the pair that he was already talking to Paul. Randolph quickly interjected and let the man know who really held all the cards in that room when he informed him that he was the boy’s lawyer and he would not be giving any statements.

His last interview was the strangest of all. While speaking with Morgan, Alex actually appeared in her doorway, setting her on edge. Pritcher recalled that she seemed to be “a little skittish” when he spoke with her. She demanded that the nurse not allow him in her room and wouldn’t speak with the officer until her door was shut and the curtains were drawn. Though she had told her nurse earlier that Paul had been behind the wheel, she now told the officer that Conner had been driving the boat because Paul was too drunk.

Meanwhile Archers Creek was abuzz with activity. Many were scouring the shore with handheld flashlights while multiple vessels were out in the water searching for Mallory Beach. The Parris Island Fire Rescue and the Beaufort Marine Rescue Squadron were among those combing the waters for any sign of her. The heavy fog cast over the gloomy scene only allowed for ten feet of visibility. It would be hours before it would lift enough to improve search conditions. Divers and the Coast Guard joined in the massive search effort after the fog cleared enough for them to safely do so.

At 3:40 on that dense morning it became the job of SCDNR Sergeant Adam Henderson to photograph the wreckage. He found Anthony Cook still at the scene. Wrapped in a blanket, he was sitting on the ground beside his mother as he waited hopelessly for word on his girlfriend. When Henderson spoke with him, he was clearly in shock. It’s also clear that somehow Alex had gotten to him, too. His story had changed to state that he wasn’t sure who had been driving when they left downtown Beaufort.

At 6:30 that morning Paul was given his discharge papers and released from the hospital, much to the relief of the staff. Having thrown off his clothes before the crash, he was given paper scrubs to wear home. Just minutes after his grandfather walked him out of the hospital he returned to the ER nursing station demanding to see Morgan. At that moment she had just undergone surgery and was in the process of filling out paperwork. Nurse McAlhaney stated that it was quite clear to her Morgan didn’t want to talk to him. Upon seeing his face she ran back to her room. When he tried to give her a hug, she pushed him away from her. Alex had to come back inside to take his son out of there.

This seems as good a place as any to stop for Part 4. In what will hopefully be the final part to this long-winded saga Mallory Beach will be found and the Murdaugh house of cards will begin to topple. As Mallory’s parents, Paul’s ex-girlfriend, and his group of former friends rose up against them, the Murdaughs quickly learned that they were not in fact untouchable. As lawsuits pile up after the crash and Alex’s financial misdeeds are discovered by his coworkers the drama reaches it crescendo in a shocking and bloody turn of events. Look out for Part 4 of the Murdaugh saga.