A harrowing trial has revealed decades of secrets surrounding killer Alex Murdaugh’s family dynasty, including a diabolical threat once made by his father.
The disgraced attorney is serving two life sentences for the murders of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul, as well as a consecutive 40-year prison sentence for stealing millions of dollars from clients.
Coming from a long tradition of corruption, scandal and men abusing their power, an investigation of The Wall Street Journal found.
Alex’s father, Randolph Murdaugh III, was allegedly a “serial womanizer” who cheated on his wife Libby Murdaugh.
When Libby discovered his infidelity and threatened to divorce him, Randolph III allegedly called the state’s largest newspaper to publish her obituary as a warning of what would happen to her if she left him.
Convicted killer Alex Murdaugh comes from a long line of corruption, scandal and men who abuse their power, an investigation has found
Alex’s father, Randolph Murdaugh III (pictured), was allegedly a “serial womanizer” who cheated on his wife Libby Murdaugh.
Libby died at the age of 85 in March, three years after the disgraced lawyer tried to use her as an alibi in the murders of his wife and son.
Randolph Murdaugh III’s father, Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh Jr., served as solicitor for the 14th Judicial Circuit, a large swath of South Carolina encompassing five counties, from 1940 to 1986.
During his tenure as a lawyer, Buster was accused of being the leader of the largest bootlegging ring in the South, according to The Journal.
Several witnesses testified that he pressured them to lie, but Buster was eventually acquitted.
When he returned to the attorney’s office, he retaliated by accusing the witnesses against him of violating the state liquor law.
Like his son Randolph III, Buster was said to be a womanizer. Buster allegedly hired a hitman to eliminate a woman who said Buster had impregnated her. However, the alleged killer fell asleep while hiding.
A portrait of double murderer Alex Murdaugh’s grandfather Buster has been removed from the South Carolina courthouse where his trial was held.
Libby (pictured) died aged 85 in March, three years after Alex tried to use her as an alibi in the murders of his wife and son.
When Libby discovered her husband’s infidelity and threatened to divorce him, Randolph III reportedly called in her obituary to the state’s largest newspaper as a warning.
For more than a century, the Murdaugh family wielded immense power in the Lowcountry, with three generations of the family serving as elected attorneys general, as district attorneys are known there, in the 14th Circuit from 1920 to 2006.
Randolph Murdaugh Sr., Alex’s great-grandfather and founder of the family law firm, died when his car mysteriously stopped on railroad tracks in 1940 and was struck by a train. The death resulted in a payout to Buster.
In the Netflix documentary ‘Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,’ journalist Michael M. DeWitt Jr. revealed that, according to the train conductor’s comments to the local newspaper at the time, Murdaugh Sr. was near the tracks and waved at the train as it sped toward him, then accelerated his car so that it was over the tracks at the moment of impact. His body was found 150 feet from the crossing.
Murdaugh Sr. had been battling an illness before he was killed, but felt well enough to visit a friend on the afternoon of July 18, 1940. As he was driving home around 1 a.m., his car mysteriously stopped at a railroad crossing, according to DeWitt Jr., who cited newspaper clippings from the Greenville News from that era.
A freight train struck Murdaugh’s car, killing him instantly, it was reported. Another Hampton County Guardian report said the train’s conductor stated that Murdaugh Sr.’s car was near the crossing and that he flagged down the train as it was speeding toward him. As the train approached, the car sped off and ended up on the tracks when the train struck it.
A portrait of Alex’s grandfather, Randolph ‘Buster’ Murdaugh Jr. (pictured), has been removed from a South Carolina courtroom.
His death was ruled an accident despite speculation that it was alcohol-related or possibly suicide.
The Murdaugh family is reported to have sued the railroad company, Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Co., over the accident.
The company was sued for $100,000, the Greenville News reported. The settlement was settled privately for an undisclosed amount of money.
Four generations later, untimely deaths still surround the Murdaugh family, including Mallory Beach, who died in a 2019 boating accident with Paul Murdaugh at the wheel, Stephen Smith, one of Murdaugh’s sons who was found dead on the side of the road in 2015, and the family’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield.
In 2021, Alex Murdaugh shot and killed his wife Maggie and son Paul at their Moselle property.