The Murdaugh Family: Part 2

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minted murder. Alex's initial story was that

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he was pulled over on an isolated
road to change attire on his car when

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an unidentified vehicle zoomed passed, firing
a gun at Alex and hitting him in

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the head. He wasn't seriously injured, and as soon as he was questioned

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by authorities while in the hospital,
his wild story began to come apart.

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At the seams, investigators quickly discovered
that Alex wasn't driving alone. He had

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a passenger, Curtis Edward Smith,
who was his relative and friend. When

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pressed about Curtis's involvement in the incident, Alex eventually admitted that Curtis had been

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the one to shoot him because Alex
had asked him to. It was a

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convoluted suicide plan, and he'd wanted
his suicide to appear to be a murder

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so that his eldest son, Buster, would be able to collect a large

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payout on his life insurance policy.
But obviously the plan had gone wrong,

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and despite being shot in the back
of the head, Alex was still alive

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and well. Two days after this
failed suicide attempt, Alex wrote a statement

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addressed to his family, friends and
colleagues, in which he apologized for his

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recent actions and stated that he was
about to go to rehab for his substance

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abuse problem. Alex's accomplice, Curtis
Smith, was arrested and charged with assisting

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in a suicide attempt, attempted insurance
fraud, and aggravated assault. Curtis argued

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that initially agreeing to the plan,
he had not meant to shoot Alex,

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He'd actually grabbed the gun to prevent
Alex from shooting himself, and that the

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gun had accidentally gone off. There
was no version of events that truly made

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sense, but to police, this
story in particular seemed very unlikely. On

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the sixteenth of September two, twenty
one, Alex Murdaugh willingly turned himself in.

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He was charged with three felonies,
filing a false police report, insurance

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fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance
fraud. It was the first time that

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Alex and Curtis were charged for the
same crime, but it would not be

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the last. In mid twenty twenty
two, both men were indicted for money

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laundering related to the distribution of the
opioid oxycodone, with Alex Murdaugh's shady financial

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practices becoming widely known. The next
piece of the puzzle began to slot into

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place, this time with an event
that occurred three years before. In twenty

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eighteen, Gloria Saderfield, the Murdoch
family housekeeper and nanny, had been injured

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at their home due to a fall. She had been hospitalized, but after

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two weeks she was unable to recover
from her injuries. At the time of

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her death, Gloria had been employed
by the Murdoch family for more than two

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decades. Once the funeral was over, Alex Murdoch asked to meet with Gloria's

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adult children, telling them that he
could put them in touch with the lawyer

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Corey Fleming, who could supposedly help
them with their issues surrounding Gloria's death,

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the issues being money. However,
Gloria's sons were unaware that the lawyer he

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had recommended was actually a close friend
of Alex's. Corey Fleming reached a settlement

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with Alex for four point three million
dollars, with two point eight going directly

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to Gloria's sons, but Gloria's sons
never saw that money. In September two

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twenty one, they revealed that they
didn't even know that Alex had reached a

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settlement with their lawyer. Alex Murdau
pocketed that money. In October of two,

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twenty one, Alex was arrested for
a second time, this time because

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of those settlement funds that he had
never given to his housekeeper's family. As

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he'd said in his apology statement to
family and friends, Alex was residing in

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a drug treatment facility located in Orlando, Florida. Police apprehended him there,

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charging him with an additional felony to
add to the existing three that he already

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faced. This time, the charge
was for obtaining property through false pretenses.

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The following year, Alex admitted that
he had never paid Glorious sons the settlement

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and still owed them millions of dollars. Gloria had worked for the Murdahs for

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so long that she and her children
trusted them, considering them like family.

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When Alex Murdah told Glorious children how
she died, they never thought to question

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the story. But with all the
information that had surfaced about the family in

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the years since Gloria died, how
likely is it that Gloria happened to die

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accidentally in the Murdoch family home,
leading to the millions of dollars being siphoned

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by Alex Murdoch. As it turns
out, the cause of Gloria's death remains

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a gray area. This was Alex
Murdoch's story. Gloria had not been looking

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where she was going, causing her
to be tripped by one of the family

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dogs. She had fallen down the
steps out of the front of the house,

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leading to her severe injuries. But
on Gloria's death certificate, the cause

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of death given is natural causes,
which in medical terms means caused by a

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disease or not directly influenced by external
forces. If a person dies because of

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a fall, their cause of death
is trauma. The fall and whatever object

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their body hits is an external force. Gloria also never had an autopsy performed.

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In fact, the coroner was never
even notified that she had died.

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In mid twenty twenty two, South
Carolina law enforcement announced that they were starting

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the process of exhuming Gloria's remains so
that the cause of her death could be

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investigated further. There is another family
secrets that began to surface during the investigation.

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Although this one was only partially hidden
Paul Murdole's broke crash. When police

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first arrived at the scene of Maggie
and Paul's murders, Alex Murdle had been

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strangely very upfront with them, blaming
the shooting on whoever was supposedly sending Paul

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threats after the boat crash took place. Partially he was telling the truth his

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son Paul had been at fault in
a boating incident that led to the death

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of an innocent passenger. The rest
of the story, however, did not

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quite line up. In twenty nineteen, Paul Murdoll was charged with driving his

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boat while intoxicated, leading to Mallory
Beach's death and the injury of other passengers.

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In two twenty one, when he
was shot to death, he was

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out on bail. It was only
after Paul died that the video evidence of

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police documents about the incident became public
knowledge, causing many people to question if

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Paul's locally famous family and their money
had led to Paul getting a much lighter

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treatment than he deserved. Immediately after
the crash, one of Paul's passengers gave

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a statement to the Department of natural
Resources, telling the officer that at the

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time of the crash, Paul had
been driving the boat. That statement didn't

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quite make it into the incident report. In fact, the officer wrote down

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that the passenger said that he was
unsure about who was behind the wheel.

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The charges against Paul Murdoch were both
felonies, boting under the influence causing great

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bodily injury and boating under the influence
causing death. Following Mallory's death, a

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lawsuit was filed against several people thought
to be liable in the crash. One

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of those people was Alex Murdoch.
At the time Paul was shot dead,

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he wasn't being threatened in relation to
the crash, but his father was.

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Alex was being pressured by the Mallory
family lawyer, who was demanding that he

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released certain details about his finances.
Only three days after Paul's death, the

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hearing was set to begin. This
information gave investigators their best theory as to

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Alex's motive for killing two of his
family members in cold blood, trying to

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gain sympathy in the public eye and
provide a distraction from the financial crimes that

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he was barely able to hide.
Alex might have been a renowned lawyer for

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much of his adult life, but
he was not a good liar. He

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was so disconnected from the real world
that when it all came crashing down on

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him, he wasn't prepared to deal
with the consequences of his actions, and

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now he was facing murder charges in
addition to several other felonies. He was

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indicted for the murders of Paul and
Maggie in July of two twenty two,

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more than a year later. In
court, when he took to the witness

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stand, he admitted that he had
lied to his associates and friends and stolen

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from people who was close to but
he blamed his addiction to opioids for these

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actions, and he insisted that he
wasn't the one to kill his family.

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In March twenty twenty three, Alex
Murdoch was convicted by the jury and found

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guilty of murdering his wife, Maggie
and son Paul. He was sentenced to

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life behind bars, as well as
two counts of murder. Alex was charged

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with an impressive series of financial crimes. He'd consistently siphon money out of his

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family's own law firm, and he'd
stolen money from his own clients without remorse,

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including clients who had received life changing
injuries or disabilities due to car accidents.

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State prosecutors stated that Alex Murdole had
stolen almost nine million dollars from an

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array of different victims. Alex Murdoch
was the king of a local legal empire.

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From the day he was born.
He was guaranteed success, but nothing

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was ever enough for him. Not
enough painkillers, not enough money, not

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enough power. He was so desperate
for his crimes to remain undiscovered that he

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murdered half his family, leaving his
only remaining son effectively an orphan. Alex

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spent his life getting away with whatever
he wanted, but in the end he

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took it one step too far and
the Murdoch Castle came crashing down around him.

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That is ten Minute Murder for today, brief and bingeible true crimes.

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scoot out of here, an email
question to me Joe at ten minute murder

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dot com is my email address.
Hey Joe, love your podcast and your

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quirky sense of humor. My question
is, will you ever recover stories that

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you've already done episodes on in the
past. That's to say, just do

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another episode on someone that you've done
an episode on years ago. Gina in

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Denver, Colorado. Yes, Gina, and thanks for the email. Yes,

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I think I will eventually do that. I've done episodes on John Wayne

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Gacy and the Manson family, but
those are longer episodes, so I'll probably

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start with the ones like that,
just make shorter versions. Essentially, it'll

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be the same information because that doesn't
really change, but tell the story in

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a different, shorter way, make
it more of a true ten minute murder

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episode. Thank you for your email, and that is it. That is

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today's episode. Thank you so much
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