Jurors deciding the fate of Alex Murdaugh delivered a swift and sure verdict on Thursday — but they didn’t even hear any more damning evidence against the embarrassed legal scion and his proclivity for violence.
Murdaugh allegedly beat and raped a prostitute who claims he hired her through a sex trafficking ring that targeted “mayors, judges, attorneys, prosecutors and police officers,” and was never heard by jurors.
Lindsey Edwards, 28, made the explosive allegations in August in a video interview with a South Carolina news site.
The mother of four, who says she was a victim of sex trafficking while working as a pole dancer, recalled multiple incidents around late 2014 or early 2015 when she was allegedly forced to have sex with Murdaugh and subjected to multiple savage assaults by the lawyer who was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
Prosecutors told DailyMail.com they will now move forward with more than 100 other charges against Murdaugh, including financial crimes, conspiracy to assist suicide and obstruction of justice. He also faces a drug trafficking investigation.
But the South Carolina Attorney General’s office declined to comment on the status of a reported investigation into Edwards’ claims of four counts of brutal assault and rape by the disgraced legal scion, and his ties to the deeply connected sex trafficking ring. with law enforcement claiming Edwards.
Lindsey Edwards, 28, worked as a stripper and claimed she was forced into prostitution, hired for sex by Alex Murdaugh and abused by him
Edwards said her “Mrs” took her and several other girls to a private party at a beach house in late 2014 or early 2015, where she met Murdaugh. “He ripped chunks of hair out of my head,” she said of Murdaugh
On August 2 Matches News published an interview with Edwards and uploaded it to YouTube, in which she tearfully told the horrific story.
Her account was never shown to the jury in Murdaugh’s case, after the judge ruled last month that it would be too confusing to provide evidence of his infidelity.
Murdaugh’s sister-in-law Marion Proctor told the judge she believed he had cheated on her sister 15 years ago — and that her sister had raised the issue around the time of the murders. “She didn’t think anyone else was going on, it just bothered her,” Proctor said.
The judge allowed her to testify but did not allow the jury to hear about the alleged infidelity.
Following his conviction on Thursday, Murdaugh now faces at least five separate state investigations, including a financial crimes investigation for defrauding customers and employees, charges of trafficking oxycodone and meth, obstruction of justice in the investigation into his boating accident of Paul. son that killed 19 people. year old Mallory Beach.
“We intend to pursue the other pending charges against Alex Murdaugh. However, there are currently no charges against him related to sex trafficking or assault. We can’t confirm anything and certainly can’t comment on anything that may or may not be under investigation,” South Carolina Attorney General Robert Kittle’s spokesman told DailyMail.com.
“In addition to the four charges he was just sentenced on, there are 99 financial charges pending against him, and three local charges related to the roadside shooting incident: conspiracy, false payment claim, and filing a false police report.”
In an interview last August with Fits News founder Will Folk, Edwards said her “Mrs” took her and several other girls to a private party at an Isle of Palms beach house in late 2014 or early 2015, where she met Murdaugh.
“Apparently it was a men’s weekend or something. There was a bunch of guys there drinking and doing drugs. They had a fire on the deck and ate food and just hung out,” she said.
“I think for the first hour we were there we were taking shots, doing cocaine, smoking weed, hanging out by the fire and just talking and getting to know them.
“That’s where I met Alex Murdaugh.
“At least there were enough girls for everyone there,” she told Folk. “They had their pick from the crowd between the girls. He attached himself to me. He was very nice at first, very gentlemanly,’ she said.
He told her he was a personal injury attorney from Hampton, South Carolina.
‘When it came time to actually give it a service, my expectations were still quite high. I was like okay, shouldn’t be so bad, I’ve done this hundreds of dozens of times at this point. He seemed like a very nice person.
But Edwards said that’s when the nightmare started.
“You could just see his whole personality change,” she said. You saw it in his eyes. Maybe it was the cocaine and stuff. His pupils dilated so much that his eyes were almost completely black.
“I was violently suffocated with both hands, while I was pressed on the bed with my throat,” she said. “It was to the point where I couldn’t breathe.
“I blacked out, I saw spots, I saw stars. I hit and scratched his wrist as much as I could to get him to stop, because at that point I thought I was going to die.
“It was also during violent penetration. As soon as he was done, I got up and ran out as fast as I could, even completely naked.’
She got another job with Murdaugh at a hotel in North Charleston a few weeks later, without Edwards’ knowledge.
Edwards is a mother of four and said she was a victim of sex trafficking while working as a pole dancer. She said she finally decided to come forward after recognizing Murdaugh during his murder investigation
Edwards posted a video on her TikTok page showing her pole dancing. “I was violently suffocated with both hands, while I was pressed on the bed with my throat,” she said. ‘It was to the point that I couldn’t breathe’
Edwards claimed that police officers would get free sessions with prostitutes in exchange for alerting the ring to sex trafficking stings, and that her pimp threatened her with her powerful connections. Edwards is pictured on her TikTok in an instant
She said he ripped pieces of hair out of my head this time.
“I had bald spots on the back of my head. The hair there will take a while to grow out.’
Just a few days later, she claimed the madam set her up with Murdaugh again.
“I still had handprints around my neck that I covered with makeup,” she said.
Edwards said she feared for her life and managed to escape by smuggling her phone and calling a taxi.
But five hours later, her captors found her at home, dragged her out, and she was “forced to go back and serve Murdaugh,” she said.
“He was even angrier then,” she told Fits News. “I got hair pulled and choked. If he wasn’t strangling me, a washcloth would be put in my mouth and I would be violently slapped in the face for a good 20-30 minutes.”
Edwards said when she asked her pimp why she had let Murdaugh beat her, the woman told her he was a “personal friend.”
Maggie, Paul, Alex and Buster Murdaugh with their dog Bubba. Alex was found guilty of the murders of Maggie and Paul on Thursday
Murdaugh is pictured at sentencing on Friday. He was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of his wife and son
On August 2, Fits News published an interview with Edwards and uploaded it to YouTube, in which she tearfully told the horrific story
Edwards said she eventually decided to come forward after recognizing Murdaugh during his murder investigation, and hoped she could use the notoriety to campaign for women’s reproductive rights, an issue close to her heart.
She told Fits News that she didn’t want any money for her story and that any payout from a potential civil lawsuit would go to a human trafficking victim charity.
“I would like to open a foundation for victims of human trafficking so that they can start their lives again and not have to fight tooth and nail like I had to to get to where I am today,” she said.
Edwards’ attorney, former state legislator Mandy Powers Norrell, previously confirmed that the mother-of-four had spent hours with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) officers telling her story.
SLED did not respond to requests for comment this week about the status of their investigation.
