Alex Murdaugh: The Epic Fall of a Dynasty Pt. 2
A dynasty doesn’t topple all at once. With its roots firmly planted into the ground, it holds on for dear life. The chips fly as it’s slowly hacked away. Bystanders, both innocent and otherwise, get pelted with castoff debris. It takes many well-placed blows with much strength behind them, but eventually a dynasty will crash to the ground with the loudest of bangs.
In Part 1 we learned all about the early Murdaughs that founded an enduring legal dynasty. We examined their rise to power and how they passed the torch down as though they were passing a crown. When we left them, Alex was already starting to rob his clients, pulling in old friends from childhood and college to help. An ever-loyal housekeeper and nanny named Gloria Satterfield was raising Alex and Maggie’s sons, who were more than a handful during childhood. And this new generation of outwardly wealthy Murdaughs was being ushered in by the seemingly successful couple.
If you haven’t yet read Part 1, I strongly urge you to do so before continuing on. For this multi-part post I read Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders by John Glatt on Amazon Kindle. It goes into further detail on the family, their background, and Alex’s financial crimes than I will. Going into each and every victim of his white-collar crimes would require at least a two-parter all its own.
Though the Murdaughs of old had always downplayed their affluence, Alex’s growing collection of cars and boats were bucking that standard. In 2010, Maggie joined Facebook and fully immersed herself in social media. She shamelessly showed off every lavish vacation they took, every hunting trip they went on, and every party and event they either put on or attended. After every big hunt, she proudly posted pictures of her husband and sons triumphantly standing over the deer, ducks, doves, and other animals they had killed. Although it would seem that Maggie was merely doing what many others do on social media everyday. Embellishing the perfection and happiness of her family and the life they led.
Alex and Maggie’s older son, Buster, started Wade Hampton High School in 2011. He proved an average student, but was never particularly academically inclined. Due to his name and his grandmother’s position on the school board, Buster received much leniency during his time in the school’s hallowed halls. He joined the basketball team and seemed to be a popular boy in school.
During his sophomore year, two new students joined Buster’s class. Stephen and Stephanie Smith were fifteen years old when they were enrolled. The two were more than brother and sister, they were twins. Living in the tiny, rural town of Brunson, South Carolina, the teenagers had a happy life with their single father, Joel Smith. Joel was separated from their mother, Sandy Smith, but she was still very much a part of their lives. Joel eeked out a living working for the South Carolina Highway Department. The family quickly realized that the area they now called home was quite closed-minded. This would be a problem that would keep Joel up at night due to Stephen’s sexuality.
Stephen Smith was openly gay in a town that remains stuck in the fifties on the matter. He wasn’t going to hide himself away in fear for anyone, though. He would just be careful. Always well groomed with well-applied makeup, Stephen took good care of himself and never left the house without primping first. While he managed to make friends with some of the girls at school, he never had a best friend in the small, backward area. The homophobic and insecure boys at school made fun of him, called him names, and openly bullied him. This led Stephen to keep mostly to himself.
The openly gay teenager living in the rural South held big dreams of being a doctor. With nothing to do but study, he worked hard towards his goal, keeping his grade point average up to ensure acceptance into college. He was a straight-A student throughout high school. Stephen brushed elbows with Buster in Little League baseball, but the privileged Murdaugh son wouldn’t publicly associate with him. It would later be speculated that the two had carried on a secret relationship, but no proof of this has ever been found. All we have is Stephanie Smith’s word that her brother had confided in her about “a fling” between them.
Maggie never missed any of Buster’s ball games. It seemed that she was happier than she’d ever been in Hampton when she was in the stands cheering him on. She pleasantly chatted with others and seemed to have a good time. On the weekends the family would watch the Gamecocks play whatever was in season at the time; basketball, baseball, football. The only time the couple ever mixed with the common crowd was at ball games. Aside from that they never traveled outside of their tightly-knit, highly elevated social circle.
By the time his oldest son was in high school, Alex was siphoning enough money from his clients to live an exceedingly good life. They were chartering jets for fishing and hunting trips all over the world. They also flew across the globe first class as Maggie posted every luxurious moment on her Facebook page. There were many weekend trips to New York city and two-week sailing vacations to Florida’s Key West or the Bahamas. The resorts they stayed at were only the very best and most expensive. After one of their duck hunts out of the country, Randy Sr. came back complaining that he’d hurt his shoulder firing 1,600 rounds of ammo. Any avid shooter can tell you that it costs a fortune to buy that many bullets.
While his older brother was starting high school, Little Paul as he’d come to be known was struggling at North District Middle School. His only real interests were outdoors, hunting and fishing. His schoolwork was left unattended. Alex once said of his son that he “could do anything, but he had to be interested in it.” Just as his father had, Paul struggled to pay attention, leading Maggie to take him to several doctors. He was finally diagnosed with ADHD and medicated. Several prescriptions were tried before Adderall finally seemed to even him out. Alex later recalled the different side effects the different medications had on him, such as loss of appetite and sleeplessness.
Paul faced his first serious bout of trouble in the eighth grade when he was expelled from school for beating up another student. Even his grandmother’s position on the school board couldn’t save him from being kicked out of the school district altogether. A local teacher was quoted as saying “He was not welcome in the Hampton School District.” Barred from enrolling in Wade Hampton High with his older brother, Alex pulled some strings to get him into the private Thomas Heyward Academy. His new school was located in Jasper County, thirty-six miles from his home. Maggie was forced to drive her son to and from school everyday instead of sending him on the bus. He hadn’t been enrolled long before his reputation for arrogance and self-entitlement followed him. Just as his father had been heard saying on occasion, Paul would tell people, “My last name’s Murdaugh and I can do whatever I like.”
Longtime family friend Jeannine Boulware sold Alex an impressive home on an equally impressive and sprawling piece of land. For only $5 she sold him a 5,275 square-foot house that sat atop 174 acres of land. Forests and swamps that bordered the Salkehatchie River were ripe for hunting and fishing. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a large game room occupied the main house, which was accompanied by a 1,140 square-foot guest house and dog kennels. The entrance was marked by two red brick walls adorning either side of a large metal gate. Beyond that gate was a long private drive lined with old, towering trees. The land deal included two and a half miles of river frontage, a twenty-acre dove field, a fully stocked fishpond, and a rifle shooting range. According to the deed the $5 sale was for the exchange of a “like-kind replacement property” worth $730,000.
Alex wrote a check to Cousin Eddie on October 7, 2011 for just under $10,000 to avoid being flagged by any of the various banks he dealt with. Anything $10,000 or over must be reported by law. As Alex was handing this check over to his cousin to launder for him, he couldn’t have it being flagged and reported. Over the course of the next eight years the corrupt attorney would write another 457 checks to Cousin Eddie for the purpose of laundering, all of which were written for just under $10,000. The sum total of these checks would come to $2.5 million. Later prosecutors would reveal to a shocked public that this money was used to manufacture and distribute illegal drugs all over the state of South Carolina. Their operation wasn’t small, with multiple accomplices involved in their crimes.
Though the Murdaughs were known for wild parties that the whole family could be found at, Alex threw much more private affairs on the weekends for his friends in law enforcement, politics, and his legal profession. These gatherings were on an entirely different level from what he put on in the presence of his wife and children. While large amounts of alcohol could be found at both, his private weekend parties included a lot more drugs and a high-class madam, providing girls for the men in attendance.
Lindsey Edwards was a pretty blonde woman under the madam’s employment in late 2014. She was brought along with a gaggle of other girls for one of Alex’s private parties, hosted at a beach house on the Isle of Palms. When she arrived several men were already doing drugs and drinking heavily. For the first half hour, she and the other girls merely socialized with the men while they drank cocktails. The cocaine that the men passed around was already running low, but the madam had come prepared, with a couple more eight balls to sell to them.
A little later into the evening each of the men paired off with a girl and took her to a bedroom. Lindsey found herself left alone with Alex Murdaugh. In the beginning he presented himself as the perfect gentleman. When he mentioned being a personal injury attorney in Hampton, she replied that she was originally from Beaufort. A small connection was made and the two began to chat about their favorite restaurants in the area.
His friendly, disarming demeanor shattered the moment he closed the bedroom door behind them. Like some kind of disgusting, terrifying monster, he shifted in personality. His eyes went “solid black” as though he were possessed by some evil force as he wrapped both hands around her neck and choked her. Lindsey struggled for breath as she clawed at his wrists, but it was no use. The enormous man was more than she could fight off while also fighting for every breath she could manage. What happened next she described as “violent penetration” while continuing to be choked. Throughout this horrendously scarring experience she was sure that she was going to die.
The moment Alex climbed off of her, she leapt from the bed, grabbed her clothes, and ran to the bathroom. Once she had composed herself, she returned to the living room, telling her madam that she wanted to leave immediately. The madam declined her request, saying she couldn’t go anywhere until the other girls had finished. Looking for any way out of this nightmarish situation, she walked outside to tell their bodyguard what happened. He was quite sympathetic and went inside the house to inform the madam, but she didn’t care. Lindsey was informed by her employer that Alex Murdaugh was an important client that received “special privileges.”
Just two weeks later Lindsey was left with him again after her madam and bodyguard dropped her off at an Extended Stay hotel in North Charleston. She wasn’t told who she was there to service until she had already exited the car. When she refused to see him again, her madam ordered her inside and drove off, leaving her in the parking lot alone. Feeling as though there were no other options, she went to his room only to be raped a second time while having hair ripped from her head. Stuck in a bad financial situation, Lindsey would end up having several more violent encounters with Alex before leaving the industry altogether because of him and the trauma he inflicted on her. On one of these occasions he shoved a washcloth into her mouth before slapping her across the face. Though she’s probably not the only sex worker to have such experiences with Alex Murdaugh, she is the only one that has spoken out.
In early June 2014 Buster graduated high school. Maggie couldn’t have been more proud as she posted a flurry of pictures to Facebook. The family took out an entire page advertisement just to celebrate him and his accomplishment. While Buster would be featured all over his senior yearbook, his classmates, Stephen and Stephanie Smith, were pictured far less. For his senior quote, Buster chose the Babe Ruth quote: “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” Stephen went with the far more amusing Homer Simpson quote: “You can have all the money in the world … but one thing you will never have … is a dinosaur.” In the area where seniors were asked what they were most likely to do, Stephen said: “Become a medical physician or rule the world.”
A couple of months after Buster’s high school graduation, R. Alexander Murdaugh, as Alex had started referring to himself in his professional circles, was elected president of the South Carolina Association for Justice (SCAJ). Originally known as the South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association, Alex’s grandfather had founded it nearly sixty years prior. Later, Alex would confess to being heavily addicted to opioids by this time in his life.
It was at this time that Maggie and Alex started stepping up their game when entertaining. After the Moselle property was ready for guests they began hosting outrageous parties and quail hunting weekends for law enforcement, politicians, and anyone else they felt they needed to impress to stay on top. These parties were tamer than Alex’s “guy’s weekends,” but not by much. There was still a lot of alcohol and drugs, though the drug use was scaled back quite a bit. Underage drinking was a theme at these parties, with Buster’s classmates remembering it as the party house in town.
Of course many pictures of these parties were posted on Maggie’s Facebook page as her and Alex continued to flaunt their success in ways previous Murdaughs never had. As Maggie’s Facebook posts gave a glimpse into the life they were living, her husband’s ever-expanding waistline told of how well they were eating. Buster was eighteen at the time and interning at PMPED in preparation for law school. Alex held tightly onto big dreams of his eldest son graduating Wade Hampton and going on to USC before earning his law degree at USC’s School of Law just as he, his brother, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had. He would hold onto those dreams well after they were dashed and Alex was sitting in a cell.
Paul was fifteen at this time and already drinking quite heavily on top of the Adderall he took for ADHD. He would often invite friends from school over to Moselle for parties, where they would also be allowed to drink. When Alex wasn’t hosting people at Moselle or on sleazy “guy’s weekends,” he was hosting parties on one of his many boats. He kept them at his grandfather’s waterfront property in Chechessee, also known widely as Murdaugh Island.
While Alex and Maggie were endlessly entertaining or vacationing, Paul was along for the ride, drinking the whole way. By the young age of fifteen he was already known as an irrational drunk, getting into fights and frightening people with his unstable, unpredictable, and flat-out odd behavior. Friends would take note of the way his personality shifted as his muscles almost seemed to tense like an epileptic having a seizure. Once he reached a certain point of intoxication, his eyes would widen in an alarming way as he seemed to stop blinking entirely. His fingers would stretch out widely and freeze in that position. Erratically waving his arms, he would become belligerent and oftentimes aggressive. He would even strip down to his boxers no matter the temperature. His friends dubbed the alter ego he would take on as “Timmy.”
In 2015 a friend of Paul’s rented out a condo on Edisto Beach for the week of Spring Break. Though his parents owned a beach house not far from the condo, Paul stayed the entire week with his friends, drinking and destroying the property. Vine videos show the group swinging from cabinet doors and squirting mustard and ketchup up the walls while shotgunning beers. On top of the $40,000 worth of damage they caused, they also “drove a golf cart into the lagoon.” The condo’s owner was reasonably furious and threatened to sue for the damages. Alex swooped in along with the fathers of the other boys involved to quickly quiet everything down. No lawsuit would ever be filed.
His new position as president of the SCAJ emboldened Alex to the point of jumping headfirst and wholeheartedly into politics. He was finally earning the kind of money that would give one the financial clout to pursue such heights, and he wasn’t afraid of taking on the mountain. His good friend, Russell Laffitte, granted him a $500,000 line of credit at Palmetto State Bank, which was secured by real estate. Just three months later, he had already overdrawn his credit line, leaving behind a deficit of almost $52,000. While anyone else would face seizures and foreclosures, Alex’s credit was immediately raised to $1 million. Later that same year Alex and Maggie would donate $2,700 to the campaign of Hilary Clinton while giving thousands more to both senate and city council races. They hosted charity events and fundraisers for many local politicians at their prized Moselle hunting property. To anyone outside looking in, it appeared as though the family had it all at that time.
Stephen Smith graduated alongside Buster and amid rumors of a romantic relationship between them. I will say again, these rumors have never been substantiated. After graduation Stephen began pursuing his dream of a medical career by enrolling at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. The first stepping stone on his path was becoming a registered nurse. While attending college, he also started openly exploring the gay lifestyle. His twin sister would often help him get ready for a night out. When it came to his hair and makeup nothing but perfection would be accepted.
His father, Joel, would often worry about his son. He was well aware of the kind of mindset people in that area had about the gay lifestyle. Even today Brunson, South Carolina is not a safe place to be gay. He bought an old SUV for his son to drive to school. With the commute being an hour both ways, Joel wanted to make sure he was as safe as possible.
During his first semester, Stephen would come straight home from school to get started on his homework. Things began to change after the first semester, though. The twins celebrated their nineteenth birthday on January 29, 2015. Stephen chose to celebrate the night by going out clubbing with some friends in Charleston. That night he met forty-seven-year-old Marc Bickhardt at a gay disco. Though they spent the next several months in contact through social media, they didn’t have their first date until April of that year. A relationship blossomed between the two, though Stephanie would refer to this man as her brother’s “sugar daddy.”
Marc began giving Stephen money and even bought him a cell phone, paying the monthly bill for the sake of privacy. At the end of that May he failed his exams. A special summer course would be required to rejoin his class the following semester. With his dream still fighting for life, he enrolled. His dream may have been fighting, but it was on life support by this time. As he began losing interest in his classes, he started ditching school to smoke weed. Most of his days were spent in his mother’s Jacuzzi tub, taking selfies on his IPad to post online. Stephanie recalls her brother becoming secretive around this time as he started to come and go as he pleased.
Stephen began spending more time in gay chat rooms after falling out with a friend named James from his first responder class. Using the name Noah Rivers, he connected with men online that started sending him gifts. Piles of packages would arrive at their doorstep, all addressed to Noah Rivers. These packages contained things like porn and dildos. Marc would later tell investigators that Stephen had been working for an escort service out of Hilton Head. Under the name “Brian,” Stephen was raking in up to $3,800 a night.
Stephen bought a yellow 2007 Chevrolet Aveo shortly before the Fourth of July. For the holiday he decided to drive out to Bobcat Landing with some friends to go swimming. At about two o’clock in the morning an altercation broke out that led to the police being called. According to a later statement by Marc, Stephen had told him of the fight, saying a man with a Guns N’ Roses tattoo had “harassed” him for his sexuality. He told Marc that this man had messed with the locks and battery on his new car. He ended up having to text his sister to come get him, telling her that the police were already on their way. Just three days after the altercation, he found himself stuck at an Exxon station when his car wouldn’t start. With Stephanie being the family’s best mechanic, he called her to come fix the problem, which turned out to be unscrewed battery connections and a loosened oil drain plug.
The incident was strange, but Stephen didn’t let it phase him. There was no doubt that someone had tampered with his car, but he still drove straight home to get ready for an evening out nonetheless. After a shower, he put on some tan khaki shorts, a black short-sleeve shirt, and blue athletic shoes. At six o’clock that evening he left the house, telling his sister that he would be at school. That was the last time she’d ever see her twin brother alive.
At 3:57 the following morning, Ronnie Capers, owner of a Hampton-based towing company, was driving down the long, lonely, rural Sandy Run Road when he thought he saw a deer lying in the road. It wasn’t until he drove closer that he realized it was the body of a man. Pulling over at the very next stop sign, he called 911 to report the finding. The dimly lit two-lane road was only made darker by the woods surrounding it. When Deputy Michael Bridges of the Hampton County Sheriff’s Office arrived at 4:40 that morning, he almost missed the scene completely due to the immense darkness enveloping it.
Stephen Smith was found to be lying out in the middle of the road with his arms outstretched and a gaping, seven-inch wound to the right side of his forehead. Due to the sight of the wound and the fact that the impact had caved his head, officers initially believed that a shotgun blast had caused the fatal injury. Within five minutes of Deputy Bridges calling EMS they were on the scene. Just minutes afterward the South Carolina Highway Patrol, the Hampton County Sheriff’s Office, and two firefighter units arrived as well. As this was initially considered a crime scene the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Crime Scene Investigation team was also called in.
No tire marks were found anywhere on the road. Not even the smallest trace of a car was found. No debris, no broken pieces of headlight. Not a single paint scrape, or a shard of broken glass. One only had to look at the body to tell that Stephen had not been struck by a car. Both shoes were still on his feet and his phone and keys remained in his pockets. The presence of a hole in his skull just above his right eye sent investigators searching for a projectile. None was ever found.
The moment Trooper David Rowell set eyes on Stephen’s remains he knew that this had been murder. Nothing at the scene would lead even a rookie investigator to believe that this had been a vehicular accident. When Hampton County coroner Ernie Washington arrived at 6:25, he immediately ruled the death a homicide, pointing to the head wound as a bullet’s entry point. He also pointed out a defensive wound on Stephen’s hand. When South Carolina Highway Patrol’s Sergeant Moore mentioned this in his report, he also stated that he had double-checked with the coroner on his ruling. It was a homicide. When Coroner Washington ordered the remains sent off for autopsy, the Highway Patrol officially handed everything over to SLED.
Stephen’s car was found just three miles away on Bamberg Highway with its gas cap hanging loose. The doors were locked and the battery wasn’t working. The car wouldn’t have started anyway because it was completely out of gas. The keys found in Stephen’s pocket unlocked the doors, but the car couldn’t be searched until a warrant was obtained. His wallet and driver’s license were later recovered from inside. Strangely it would take years before someone attempted to find out why he would’ve left his wallet behind after running out of gas.
After a quick walk through of the scene SLED agents inexplicably handed it over to the Hampton County Sheriff’s Office without any further explanation. Though his death was initially suspected to be a homicide it wasn’t treated as one. No evidence was gathered from the scene nor was any blood spatter analysis performed. Sketches were drawn up and photographs taken, but that seemed to be the extent of the crime scene investigation.
Stephen’s parents were given the tragic news at 10:30 that morning. Just hours earlier his mother had heard that a body was found on Sandy Run Road. Immediately she called Stephanie to see if her brother had made it home safe the previous night. Worry consumed her when she learned that he had not come home. Grief filled her when she was informed of his death.
It was very shortly after the coroner’s notification that Joel Smith received a strange phone call from Randolph Murdaugh IV, Alex’s older brother. Little Randy was offering to represent the family pro bono in any future personal injury claims pertaining to Stephen’s death. Declining the offer, Joel hung up the phone with an odd feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach. How did the Murdaughs learn of Stephen’s death when it had not been made public news yet? No one else in Hampton County besides the authorities and the Smith family were aware that he had been the person found on Sandy Run Road at the time that Little Randy made his generous offer. Over the next few weeks Sandy would also receive calls from the seemingly selfless Murdaugh attorney. He asked for all of Stephen’s electronic devices and was denied access to them. Randolph IV has never made a comment either confirming or denying these phone calls.
Pathologist Dr. Erin Presnell at the University of South Carolina performed the autopsy at 11:30 that morning, which was attended by two SLED officials. She said that she found no evidence of a gunshot wound and ruled that his death had been the result of “blunt head trauma sustained in a motor vehicle crash.” For reasons unknown she also took a rape kit. In her report Dr. Presnell wrote that a vehicle mirror had struck Stephen in the head. The autopsy concluded at 1:43 that afternoon with SLED officials taking the evidence back to their laboratory. South Carolina Highway Patrol was advised by SLED that this death warranted further investigation, but the warning was not heeded. The victim’s remains were already on their way to the Peeples-Rhoden Funeral Home in Hampton for preperation.
Highway Patrol Trooper Lieutenant Thomas Moore was enraged to hear that Stephen’s death had been ruled a hit-and-run. Everything at the scene pointed to foul play and everyone there had seen it as well. Rather than sit on his hands and stew over the blow, he picked up the phone with the determination to find out why. He called Coroner Washington to ask him why he had changed his mind so quickly after assuring him twice that this was a homicide. Then he called the Peeples-Rhoden Funeral Home to inform them that he was sending an officer to pick up Stephen’s clothes. He ordered them to stop whatever preparations were under way and cover the body. After speaking with the funeral home, Moore made his most frustrating call yet.
When Dr. Presnell answered the Lieutenant’s call, she was immediately asked why she had labeled the death a hit-and-run. Adamant that there had been no bullets or fragments revealed during X-rays, she was certain that a gunshot didn’t cause the injury. As to her reasoning for labeling the death as she had, Stephen had been found alone in the middle of the road. That was all the reason she had, and evidently needed to mark it a hit-and-run accident. When asked what she thought could’ve caused such an injury to his head, she coldly replied that it was Moore’s job to find out that information, not her’s.
As soon as the news of his death went public the old rumors that had followed Stephen and Buster in high school came back in high volume. Only this time it wasn’t just the whole school whispering, it was the whole town. There was also a new rumor added as the residents of Hampton speculated about the involvement of Buster and Paul Murdaugh. For many this could serve as the only explanation for Stephen’s case being closed so quickly. There are still those who believe a well-placed call by the Murdaughs swept it all under the rug, though there is no proof of this or of any involvement on the part of Buster or Paul.
Corporal Michael Duncan, head of the South Carolina Highway Patrol’s Multi-disciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT) was present during the lack-luster crime scene investigation on Sandy Run Road. He witnessed the body lying in the road and thought immediately that it was no accident. Not only did he believe Stephen’s death to be murder, he believed that it was covered up. He’d never heard of a rape kit being performed in an autopsy where a hit-and-run was the determined cause of death. He also found the secrecy surrounding the case to be quite odd and suspicious.
Two press releases went out from the Highway Patrol. They begged for witnesses to the incident to come forward and shed some light while also sending officers to hand flyers out to passing motorists on Sandy Run Road. Meanwhile Moore went to the funeral home to examine the remains for himself after sending officers back to the scene to look for any debris from a car. They came back empty-handed.
Moore was accompanied by the head of MAIT, Corporal Duncan, as well as SLED agent Brittany Burke when he arrived at Peeples-Rhoden. The three of them examined the body closely as they took pictures. Duncan remarked in his audio notes that he believed Stephen to have been struck by something other than a car. The others agreed as they all noted the lack of trauma anywhere else on his body. The only injury he sustained was to his head. All three were baffled that this was even considered a hit-and-run, especially so quickly. Determined to uncover the truth, they decided to dig further.
These dedicated agents were fighting an uphill battle from the very beginning. What little evidence they had was already contaminated as the case had been handled by everyone else with little regard. They were finally able to examine his car for themselves a few days after his death, but it was of little use to them. It had already been sitting wide open in a compound lot since its discovery. They found that there had been absolutely no chain of custody done with his clothes, either.
Meanwhile Stephen’s family couldn’t be convinced by anyone that his death had been an accident. They knew him to be too careful to allow such a thing to happen. In the past Stephen had always been paranoid about walking, or even waiting for a ride on the rural roads of their small-minded town. Just weeks before his death he had run out of gas on the very road his body was later discovered on. He called his sister for help and waited for her in the woods just off of the road for his own safety. Even with his father and sister repeatedly passing him, he still refused to come out until they were parked right in front of his hiding place. They still firmly believe that his death was a hate crime.
Though his family was well aware of Stephen’s sexuality, they were unaware of any romantic partners. They were equal parts shocked and confused to learn of his relationship with Marc Bickhardt when he suddenly arrived at Stephen’s wake. The relationship itself didn’t surprise them half as much as the age difference between them. With an apparent inability to read the room, Marc announced his relationship to Stephen for the entire crowd in attendance, causing much discomfort among the grieving family members. Only maximizing the discomfort, he stopped to take a phone call as Stephanie was walking him to the casket to view the body. Answering the phone, he simply cried, “Yes, Stephen’s dead!” before hanging up. When he asked Stephanie what had caused his death, she replied that it had been a hit-and-run. Marc told her bluntly, “No, he was beat to death!”
When Stephanie asked how he could possibly know such a thing she received no answer. Marc merely asked if he had been sexually assaulted before leaving the service. Stephen’s funeral was held the following day. The day after he was laid to rest Marc made an emotional post to Facebook. He talked about falling in love with Stephen and making plans for marriage after his graduation from nursing school. This was news to Stephen’s family, who had never even heard Marc’s name until the wake. They had certainly never heard anything of an impending wedding, which was something he definitely would’ve confided in his sister about.
Regardless of the hit-and-run determination South Carolina Highway Patrol’s MAIT team continued to quietly and discreetly investigate the death as a homicide. Due to the autopsy’s ruling they had to be very careful. Any whiff from upstairs about their investigation could end the Smith family’s chances for justice. As they talked to friends of Stephen they quickly found that they were far from the only ones that believed he was murdered. Time and again the same name kept popping up in statements. Buster Murdaugh. The rumor mill was churning out speculation of an intimate relationship between them as well Buster’s possible involvement. The team quietly gathered as much information as they could from this angle so if the opportunity ever arose to confront the family with it they would not be ill or under informed.
Marc was one of the first interviewed after it was seen that he was hanging around Sandy Run Road. He claimed to have been in constant contact with Stephen on the night of his death. At around 3:30 in the morning he said that Stephen had run out of gas and was walking home. Walking through the dark, rural area he was unable to maintain service. When his calls started dropping Marc grew concerned for his safety. He was sure that the escort service he said Stephen worked for had murdered him. Marc told investigators that was more than willing to take a lie detector test if needed.
The first time that Stephanie went out shopping after her brother’s death she learned exactly how active the rumor mill had been. The opinion of many in town was that Stephen had been killed by Buster and a group of his friends. This was the first she had heard of this new theory on her brother’s death. When speaking with investigators she had to admit that Stephen had become more secretive in the two weeks that led up to his discovery in the road. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but what she did know was that he was coming home later at night than before and behaving strangely. Aware that he would “put himself out there” online, Stephanie conceded that he could’ve met someone that he wasn’t telling anyone about.
Corporal Duncan was honest with the grieving twin of their victim when he told her that they were “at a loss.” While they knew there was no way his case was as simple as a hit-and-run, they couldn’t come up with any evidence to prove their suspicions. They urged her not to let the public in on that information, though. Instead they wanted her to put the word out in town that the highway patrol was following up on some serious leads that could bust the case wide open. It was their hope that if they shook the bush a little some berries would fall out.
Though Buster Murdaugh has remained a person of interest in the case, that’s far from saying he’s a suspect. Though in Hampton’s court of public opinion he remains the sole suspect. The investigators tacitly working the case were highly interested to find out that Buster’s Uncle Randy had called the Smith family to offer his services pro bono on multiple occasions. They were even more interested to learn that the first of these calls came before the public announcement of Stephen’s death.
Sandy Smith’s sister, Pam Chaney, called a law firm in Savannah to handle Stephen’s personal injury case on behalf of the family. All seemed well and good until the Murdaugh name was mentioned. Immediately at the mention of the name they refused the case. It was as though they were dropping something toxic from their grasp.
Meanwhile MAIT agents were making little progress in finding answers. Though they had his IPhone, they were unable to unlock it. His IPad was downloaded, however, uncovering a cryptic message sent to an unknown person. It simply said: “Frankly I want to go home. The heat is killing me.”
The very day that Trooper Todd J. Proctor took lead on the investiagtion he went to the Medical University of South Carolina. There he interviewed Dr. Erin Presnell to find out why she had ruled the death a hit-and-run. Openly hostile and overtly rude, Dr. Presnell made it clear that she was busy and could not speak with him without the coroner’s permission anyway. When Proctor informed her he had already obtained that permission she outright called him a liar. Challenging the arrogant pathologist, he offered to call Coroner Washington then and there to clear things up. Finally Dr. Presnell put away her fangs and backed down.
She told Proctor that the only evidence that led her to her ruling was the fact that Stephen had been found in the middle of the road. The trooper asked if she thought that a baseball bat could’ve caused the injury sustained to his head. She didn’t think so. Then he asked if someone striking a bat from a moving car could’ve caused the injury. She conceded that this was possible, but said that her report was only preliminary. She told Proctor that it was up to him to find out what exactly had struck him. The very next day Coroner Washington faxed over the final autopsy report with a note stating that he didn’t agree with Presnell’s findings, either. He added that the pathologist had offered to change the report to read however he liked.
Just a couple of weeks after Proctor’s visit with Presnell, Stephanie texted Corporal Duncan with new information. Not satisfied just waiting around for her brother’s case to be solved, Stephanie had been making her own inquiries around town. After finding an old classmate with some new information she arranged a meeting between him and Trooper Proctor. Taylor Dobson had been a grade ahead of Buster and the Smith twins when they attended Wade Hampton. The information he had learned was so sensitive that he was afraid to speak of it over the phone. It wasn’t until he could meet with the trooper in person that he felt comfortable telling what he had heard. He stated that while he wasn’t concerned by “no big name in Hampton,” he knew that others had already been told to keep quiet.
Taylor gave Proctor a secondhand account of a story heard from one of Buster’s friends. Though he named the friend, the name has not been made public. In this story Buster left Moselle with some friends at around midnight to get something to eat. Driving his Ford F-150 down Highway 601 near Crocketville, he saw Stephen’s yellow Chevrolet Aveo on the side of the road. When he saw Stephen walking down the road, he decided to make a U-turn so he could “mess” with his former classmate. Someone inside the truck is said to have stuck something out the window that struck Stephen “In the head or the back.” This story has never been substantiated. Even Taylor Dobson said he had no idea if it was true, but pointed out that the Lowcountry’s residents were still too afraid of the all-powerful Murdaughs to speak out against them.
MAIT investigators worked the case diligently for three months. In ten separate interviews Buster’s name was mentioned, only further fixing their sights on the young Murdaugh. The investiagtors woefully overplayed their hand when they tried to get in touch with Buster to speak about the case. He never returned their calls and the investigation was halted soon after. Word came from the very top to stop pursuing it altogether. Frustrated officers felt that they were close to something big. They thought that they were close to unraveling the secrets of the Lowcountry’s most powerful dynasty. Though they wanted nothing more than to pursue the case, they had no choice but to stop as they prayed they would get another chance in the future.
Joel Smith died at home on October 1, 2015 after battling a brief illness. Though he didn’t see his son’s investigation cut short, he would never get the opportunity to see justice done in the future. Many believe that the distraught father died from his broken heart.
Sandy Smith publicly pleaded for answers that Thanksgiving. Though she mentioned no names, she said that her son had been killed by former high school classmates from “prestigious” families. In an interview with The Guardian she begged for someone to come forward and help close the case, saying that she’d “do whatever it takes” for her son’s killer to be caught. She spoke about the “fling” Stephen had confided in his sister about, revealing that her son was scheduled to set sail on a deep-sea fishing trip that July. Stephen was killed on July 8.
During the summer of 2015 Alex Murdaugh came up with a new way of laundering money stolen from his clients’ personal injury claims. He opened an account with Bank of America under the name “Richard A. Murdaugh, Sole Propietor doing business as Forge.” Relying hard upon the good name of Forge Consulting LLC, Alex mimicked their name in his account creating a good ruse that worked well for years. Though Forge is based in Atlanta, they have an office in Columbia, South Carolina. Working with plantiffs’ attorneys, they distribute structured settlements when a beneficiary is either underage or incapacitated. The client’s payout is placed into an interest-accuring account to be paid out over time rather than all at once. The consulting firm and the head of their Columbia office, Michael Gunn, actually worked quite closely with Alex and other attorneys at PMPED over the years. Michael Gunn never would’ve guessed that Alex was up to such schemes.
Though Alex had already been robbing his clients blind for quite some time, it wasn’t until this point that he began siphoning funds directly from their payouts and into his own pocket. The first victim to be taken using his fake Forge account was a man named Deon Martin. Over the course of thirteen months Alex asked Deon to write two checks to his Forge account that totaled $383,000. Deon was convinced that this money was going into a trust set up for him. Instead the money funded Alex’s drug habit and his family’s opulent lifestyle. Later Alex would be accused of depositing these checks for the purpose of paying off credit card bills, writing personal checks, and withdrawing cash.
Several weeks after opening his phony Forge account he and Maggie chartered a jet to Los Angeles, where they stayed in luxury as Maggie posted it all to Facebook. She posted more pictures of her perfect and happy family on December 1, 2015 as they enjoyed a day out on one of Alex’s boats. Later the very same day she posted the now famous pictures of her smiling family decked out in their very best for the Carolina Yacht Club black-tie event. All of this was to bolster the image of the perfect, successful, loving Murdaugh family. Those looking at these posts on Maggie’s page as they hit the “like” button and added a comment never could’ve guessed the kinds of secrets they were sitting on.
While the Murdaughs were living the high life on one of their many luxurious trips to New York, Trooper Todd Proctor was obtaining a warrant for Stephen’s cell phone records. Verizon Wireless released these records as the trooper hoped that his last-ditch effort would pay off in dividends. If anything was ever found it was never made public. The case went cold and wouldn’t heat back up for several years, though it seemed quite brief.
Alex was eagerly taking part in both local and national politics as he lobbied President Barrack Obama to appoint a Palmetto State judge to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. His “Payment for Potholes” program was also set up to send South Carolina residents who had damaged their vehicles on the the state’s crumbling roads straight to him. These residents seeking compensation were essentially set up for highway robbery. He also involved himself with proposed legislation to repeal local government rules against gender discrimination for public restrooms.
As Alex’s crippling addiction grew ever-more out of control he became less picky about who he wronged. Jordan Jinks had been his childhood friend. Since childhood the two had remained in contact as Jordan did the occasional odd job for his old friend. When a traffic accident left him terribly injured he could think of no one he could trust more than Alex Murdaugh to handle his personal injury claim. For the next two years Alex took his old companion for $150,000 of his $830,000 settlement. As many others whose money ended up in Alex’s fake Forge account, Jordan was told that this money was going into a trust for his medical bills. In reality Alex had forged his signature and laundered his friend’s money for his own personal use. On top of that, he also paid himself another $325,000 in fees from his friend’s settlement.
Johnny Bush was another of his clients taken for an obscene amount of money. Johnny believed that his trusted attorney had taken $100,000 of his settlement for “accident reconstruction." It’s alleged that he actually wrote a $95,000 check to deposit into his Forge account. It was only three months after Johnny Bush was robbed of a sizable chunk of his settlement that another of Alex’s clients was asked to write a check for $70,000. This check went right into the fictitious account to be laundered for Alex’s personal use. This man believed that he was getting a structured settlement, but instead he got robbed. Only a week after depositing this check he asked another client to write a $90,000 check into the account before billing them for made-up expenses totaling $5,500. Alex chartered a jet to New York for a weekend with is wife on the money stolen from this client.
Alex sold his much loved Moselle property to Maggie in December 2016 for the same $5 he had paid for it. The property deed stated that he had charged his wife $5 “and love and affection” for the home as well as the land it sits on. John Glatt refers to this as “a sleight-of-hand property deal” in his book Tangled Vines. A lot of eyebrows raised at Palmetto State Bank when the $2 million mortgage lien on the property was considered.
With much more to get into, this seems a good stopping place for Part 2. In Part 3 we will finally get to the incident that brought it all crashing to the ground. We will also examine some of the white collar crimes that provided a motive for the most shocking crime of all. This story is far from over and only gets more twisted and startling as it unfolds.