[melancholy music plays]
[overlapping chatter]
[woman 1] All right, there are news people here.
It is the auction of Alex Murdaugh's stuff.
We're here.
There's the turtle lamps.
And some of Maggie's dishes.
[auctioneer] Twenty-five. Got to be able to get 25.
Twenty-five, got to be able to get 25, and 30...
[woman 2] Hundreds of items are here at the Liberty Auction House,
and they are set for auction this Thursday.
Owners say they are expecting the largest turnout they've ever seen.
About 700 people registered
to bid on items from the Murdaugh's now infamous Moselle property.
But there was one piece of decor in particular
that caught the eye of many people.
I'm over here by the, um, turtle lamps.
We could not leave without one.
[Morgan] When the auction was going on,
I saw they were selling off Ms. Maggie's turtle shells.
And, like, she collected them, and she had them just, like, hanging.
Ms. Maggie knew how to decorate.
That house was so, like, welcoming and cozy,
and every little detail was perfect.
Ms. Maggie put so much, like, thought behind it.
It broke my heart just to see it sold.
[auctioneer gabbles]
[man] So guys, here it is, Maggie Murdaugh's bicycle, along with more...
There's a pair of Alex's coveralls.
[melancholy music continues]
[woman 3] The day before the auction,
I was able to go in,
and they allowed me to scout out the merchandise.
One of the more eerie things that I purchased was a vacuum cleaner.
The vacuum cleaner was about $50.
But, eerily,
it comes with an original vacuum bag that is very full.
I've been tempted to open it to see the content, but I have not yet.
At the time of the auction, the auctioneer, he held up a camera bag,
started the bidding, and I just kept my card up
and never knew till the very end
that 704 was the winner of this camera bag.
It wasn't until later
that I took the memory card in their camera
and started to see the images were actually on there,
of vacations and parties at home.
Most of the images do seem to be that of happier times.
It's hard to imagine for anyone
that a husband would murder his wife and son in such a brutal way.
I'll be honest, I found it hard to believe myself.
[music fades]
Especially after seeing the photos.
[tense music plays]
[agent 1] Nope.
-Those aren't the same. -[agent 2] This is what's in the pump.
[agent 1] This was in the pump.
[agent 2] I found, uh...
.300 in another box.
[agent 1] Didn't find any cocaine or nothing.
[agent 2] We ain't here for dope. We got a homicide.
[tense music continues]
[agent 1] Yeah.
[agent 2] Yeah, .300, yup.
[Blanca] I got a call from Alex. I believe it was 6, 6:30 in the morning.
He sounded like he was upset.
He said, "B, they're gone, they're gone."
And, uh, I said, "Well, what do you mean they're gone?"
He said, "They're dead, B."
I said, "What?"
"Maggie and Paul are dead."
I went into shock.
Alex said, "B, are you there?"
I was like, "Yeah, I'm... I'm... I'm here,"
and he says, "There's probably gonna be a lot of people coming by the house."
He said, "You mind straightening up? You know, cleaning up a bit?"
I said, "Well, let me know if there's anything else I need to take care of."
I had to change hats at that point
and, um, do what I had to do.
He asked if I could straighten up, 'cause there were gonna be people coming over,
and, you know, her mom and her sister and her dad were coming.
You know, I just wanted to make sure everything was straightened out
just the way Maggie always made sure when they were coming to visit.
Before I went, he said, "Don't go in the kennel side."
"Go in on the other side because there's a lot of SLED agents out there."
When I arrived, there was a crew working out there.
Nobody said anything to me.
Nobody called me to say, "Hey, what are you doing?"
I walked straight,
got out of my truck, walked to the front door,
unlocked the door, went in.
I turned and I walked towards the kitchen.
I looked and I was like, "I wonder where the pots are?"
'Cause they weren't in the sink.
And I opened up the refrigerator,
and all the pots and the pans were in the refrigerator with the lids.
And I was like, "That's odd. They..."
"They don't..."
"They don't do this."
As I went through the kitchen,
and I went to the left, I noticed her pajamas
in the middle of the doorway, laid out neatly.
-[man] Was that unusual? -[Blanca] That was very unusual.
She wouldn't lay her clothes out like that.
Not in the middle of the door like that.
He shouldn't have been worried about a house being tidied.
I just thought it was strange that he asked her to come over to tidy up.
Kind of like cleaning up the crime scene.
[tense music plays]
The next morning, Moselle was a free-for-all.
There were people all out at the crime scene.
Including John Marvin, the youngest of the brothers.
[agent 2] How you doing, sir?
[attorney] Did SLED agents come through and search it while you were present?
[John Marvin] They did. I don't know how long I'd been back up there.
They came and... And we kinda talked in the, uh, playroom.
I think someone described it as "the gun room."
Um, yeah, they talked about they needed to come in the house and search for things.
They will bring the, um... bring Paul and Ms. Maggie back home.
'Cause there are two people, it will take a little bit longer.
They will be able to return.
[attorney] How long did you stay down adjacent to the crime scene?
-Do you recall? -[John Marvin] Quite some time.
[attorney] What was Alex's condition?
Oh, he was... he was just broken. I mean, distraught.
Everybody was. There were a few other people there, but... but he just...
All we did is hugged and cried. I mean, we didn't...
I don't even know that we talked.
[attorney] Did you eventually go down to the kennels?
[John Marvin] I did. I needed to see for myself what... what had gone on
and just, you know, just kind of take it in.
I will say this. Before I went,
I was... I was unsure whether I was allowed to go,
because I knew it was a crime scene.
And so I reached out to a friend of mine in law enforcement.
Uh, I believe it was Michael Paul had given the... the okay to go there.
[attorney] Was it cleaned up?
Um, no, Jim, it was not cleaned up.
When you're talking about a massive bloody crime scene,
the State will pick up a lot of the costs
to clean up your crime scene.
Those services were offered to the family, and they were turned down.
[John Marvin] I saw blood. I saw brains. I saw pieces of skull.
I don't know what I was... It was terrible.
And for some reason, I thought it was my...
Something that... that I needed to do for Paul, to clean it up.
It felt like it was the right thing to do.
I felt like I owed him.
[tense music plays]
[Kenneth] In my humble opinion,
the... the job of an independent expert is to tell the truth,
as much as you know it,
and convey that evidence to the men and women of the jury.
And it doesn't have to be the magic fingerprint machine
or the magic footprint machine.
You know, you can do a lot with good camera gear
and a measuring device and, uh, good documentation.
The evidence will point you in the right direction.
It's just whether you make the right inference or not is what counts,
and I... I believe we saw some of that in this case.
[Alan] As we got further into the investigation,
the defense's theory of the case was presented to us.
They tried to prove, because there were two guns,
Alex Murdaugh could not have been the singular killer.
There had to be two shooters.
I was frustrated by it,
so I started talking to Kenny Kinsey if it was even plausible.
[Kenneth] I went to the scene.
My job was to verify what was reported.
What is the order of the shotgun wounds to Paul?
Where's the shooter positioned?
I was hired by the AG to answer those questions.
They knew there were not one but two guns there
because of the different shell casings found on the ground.
There's a couple of ways to look at it, but I do believe there's one shooter.
I think if it was two people,
it would have been a lot more efficient than the way it was carried out.
A re-enactment's gonna show the things that you can prove.
It had to happen this way
because you've got all this circumstantial activity.
I didn't create this, but I have seen similar animations.
This one is pretty historically accurate.
In my opinion, Paul was the first victim.
He was a capable young man, pretty strong.
To be frank and honest,
I think he would have fought back if he wasn't first.
He certainly wouldn't have let his mother be victimized
without at least trying to fight back.
He was standing about midway in the feed room.
He was initially shot one time.
He walked toward the door of the feed room.
Whoever pulled the trigger on that shotgun
was probably greatly surprised that Paul was still standing.
So at that point in time, you've got one option.
Use the second shell that's in the shotgun to finish the job.
Paul received that second and fatal wound
as his upper body was just outside that doorway.
The second victim was Ms. Maggie Murdaugh.
She was not killed with the same weapon that Paul was killed with.
She was shot with a rifle. A .300 Blackout, specifically.
The circumstances from where they found Ms. Maggie
would tell you that she was going towards that feed room.
Ms. Maggie encountered the shooter.
We don't know which shots hit Ms. Maggie,
but we know that three of them were non-fatal.
One to Ms. Maggie's left thigh and the one to her abdomen,
which takes her down on her hands and knees.
It's the first fatal one, delivered while she's down,
that just caused her body to collapse.
She never moved again.
At that point, the shooter repositioned behind her.
Although she was already deceased,
the final shot was into the... the top of her head.
The Murdaughs owned lots of weapons,
and they owned several shotguns.
They owned, in particular, several .300 Blackout rifles.
I think that the two weapons were intended to create this illusion,
to manufacture this alibi that "it can't be me."
"I couldn't have done it. It had to be two people."
[reporter] Alex, how are you feeling today?
[Valerie] During the trial, the defense wanted to send a message,
to make sure that the jury knew
that the Murdaughs were on Alex's side and behind him.
So the defense calls Alex's surviving son,
Buster Murdaugh, to the stand.
Buster, I want to now talk about the weekends leading up to June 7th.
If you could play defense exhibit 61, please.
It's in evidence.
[all on video] ♪ ...to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you! ♪
♪ Happy birthday, dear Alex! ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you! ♪
-[Alex] Thank y'all so much. -[man] Yay!
It was a normal Memorial Day weekend at Edisto with your family and friends?
That's right.
Well, that's not true.
There was a lot going on at that time.
One weekend prior to the murders,
I had talked to Maggie.
She said, "Paul got in trouble again." I said, "What do you mean?"
"He was on the boat with friends, and they were drinking."
She said that they called Alex.
She said, "I think he said he was gonna take care of it."
[tense music plays]
DNR had stopped him
with a boat full of people already drinking,
with a cooler full of booze, ready to go out on the water.
DNR held him back and took all the booze off the boat.
You would think someone who would be appearing in court
to decide whether he'd be going to jail for killing someone from a boat crash
just two years before
would not be still found on a boat partying.
It makes you wonder if it was another pressure point for Alex,
knowing that he couldn't control anything that Paul did.
It just added to the pressures that were mounting up in Alex's life.
[David Owen] All right, sir.
Um, so when we spoke the other night,
I got kind of a basic overview.
-Yes, sir. -Um, and it was pretty traumatic.
That's okay. I know you need to ask me. You ask me what you need to.
So I just... I want you to...
Let's start Monday morning,
and... and take me through your day.
[Alex] Monday morning,
I went to work.
I left a little bit earlier than normal because my son Paul was coming home.
[tense music plays]
[Alex] We were gonna replant some sunflowers the next day.
We rode the property, just... just bullshitting.
Looking for hogs.
Little bit of target shooting.
I think he shot two times and I shot one time.
[gunshot]
[tense music continues]
[laughter]
[Alex] Better than it was.
It was more than an hour, probably.
Mama wasn't home yet.
She had gone to a doctor's appointment.
At some point, we were all back at the house together.
Maggie had gotten home.
[tense music continues]
[Alex] We hung around the house for a little while.
Maggie and Paul went to the kennels.
Normal occasion, they would drive.
Drive a buggy, drive a four-wheeler,
or very common to walk.
I stayed in the house.
I was watching TV.
I actually fell asleep on the couch.
One of the first things I did when I got up was call Maggie
because I was going to my mom's.
I texted her at, like, 9:06.
She didn't answer at that point,
and I left to go to my mom's.
Checked on my mom,
talked with Shelly for a few minutes.
[tense music continues]
[Alex] I left my mom's.
I know I called some people on the way.
I know I returned a call from my brother John.
I know that I talked to Buster.
I went back home.
I got to the house.
Nobody was there.
I got in the car.
I went back to the kennels,
and I saw Maggie and I saw Paul laying down. I knew...
I knew it was bad,
and I called 911.
[Valerie] When the interview happened,
Alex and his family were at John Marvin's property.
As I understand it, Randolph had just left the hospital and went to see Alex
to give a word of encouragement and to check in on things.
Randolph was very frail
and was understandably very sad.
While the interviews were being conducted, Randolph went home.
He died later that same day.
You know, and that's devastating, not just for Alex, but the brothers.
It was an immense catalog of loss in just a matter of days.
All three, Randolph III, Maggie, and Paul, are buried on the same weekend.
[Blanca] In my Bible, I still have her obituary.
Maggie and I had a conversation.
We were just joking around.
We said when we get old and gray,
Maggie said, "I'm gonna sing at your funeral."
And I said, "Well, I'll sing at yours."
I said, "Whichever one. But we're gonna be old and gray."
Um, I said, "We'll have plenty... plenty of time to learn the song."
She wanted "Amazing Grace."
And, um...
And we left it at that.
[Morgan] The night that he passed away, I didn't even know he had passed away.
I just remember I had just cooked dinner and I was just cleaning up,
and, like, I had thought about Paul.
[tense music plays]
And I felt like he would be, like, really glad to see where I'm at in life.
And then the next day, I woke up
and got the call from my mom that he had passed away.
It sounds so crazy.
I was like... I feel like he, like, visited me,
I don't know, on his passing journey.
[tense music fades]
[train horn blares]
[Valerie] After the funerals, late June, July, early August,
there was an early statement that there was no harm to the public, no danger.
That was it. There was no details about how Maggie and Paul were killed,
any possible suspects.
It was just silent.
[Alan] During the investigation,
we were trying to put together Alex's timeline and confirm his story.
He said he went to Almeda that night to visit his mother.
The only other person he claims he spoke to
was his mother's caretaker, Shelly, so we decided to contact her.
[tense music plays]
[Creighton] As a lawyer, we can make people testify.
But we want people to get up and tell their part of the story
and understand that they have an obligation to justice
and that justice depends on people willing to take that brave step
and to get up there and tell their story.
In this case, it's gonna be on, you know, national, international television.
[tense music continues]
[Shelly] Momma always said, "Tell the truth if it hurts."
I'm grateful I had a good support team, my children, my son and my daughters.
My children were my lifeline.
[music fades]
[attorney] The State of South Carolina
will now call Ms. Michelle Smith to the stand.
[Shelly] My life changed when I took the stand.
It taught me the true meaning of being honest.
Ms. Smith, please tell these folks about the night of June 7th.
[Shelly] On June 7th, I came to work that night at Ms. Libby's house.
Just a normal night.
At about 9:30, Alex called me.
He said, "Shelly, I'm outside." I was like, "Okay."
I went to the back, let him in.
Alex came to check on his mom, let her know his dad was in the hospital,
but she was asleep.
He was acting very strange. Like fidgety.
So he watched a TV show with me for a little bit.
He said, "I'm getting ready to go," and he left.
The next day, after the murders, Alex came to the house to talk to me.
He said that, "If someone asks you that I was there,
just say I was here about 30 to 40 minutes."
That's not true. He was here 20 minutes.
What was he telling you about
that he was at the house the night of the murders?
That he'd been there 30-40 minutes.
We're sitting there, and it felt like everyone was pulling for Shelly,
'cause it was so visibly difficult for her to be up there.
[attorney] Why are you crying?
Because they're a good... a good family, and I love working there,
and I'm sorry all this happened.
I felt bad for Ms. Shelly. You could see that she was upset.
I just think that she was afraid to testify,
but she knew that she had to tell the truth,
and that's what she got up there and did.
She didn't let Alex convince her on that time.
She stuck to her time.
It became clear in the course of her testimony
that she'd been very scared, and she'd confided in these family members
that she had doubts about what Alex Murdaugh
was asking her to say, and that's why they were there.
We had a brother-sister conversation because he's a police officer.
So like, "It's okay. You know, just tell the truth. You know, that's it."
"Just tell the truth. Be honest."
[attorney] He wasn't there 30 or 40 minutes, was he?
No. No.
It was unbelievable to me.
It became clear to us that Alex went over to Almeda
to establish an alibi.
He lied about the length of time he was there
to make it seem like he wasn't home at the time of the murders.
[Shelly] It seemed I was the only one that night that Maggie and Paul was murdered,
so that's why Alex asked me, considered me to be the alibi.
I couldn't believe it. It was... it was a shock.
He thought I was going to be on his side, but I'm not going to lie.
[Blanca] After the funeral with Paul and Maggie,
Alex called me and said, "I need to ask you a favor."
"I want to know if you and Michael," my husband, "can move into Moselle."
At that point, he was staying in Almeda.
We thought we were doing our part to help him out.
That first night, it was kind of scary to stay out there.
[Kenneth] The Moselle property,
for some that have never experienced total darkness,
this is a new definition of dark.
[Blanca] Even though they put out a bulletin saying that there was no danger,
we didn't know if somebody was gonna break in, thinking there was nobody there.
We were still talking about
just the devastation of the actual murders happening
and nothing really being done as far as finding out who was involved.
Would they still be looking out to search for Alex and Buster?
But it seemed as if Alex and Buster were out living their life.
I remember seeing them at Edisto on Facebook,
and going on trips and boat tournaments down in Edisto for the summer.
Just living life like normal.
Alex gets back. He's tanned and has lost a lot of weight.
Comes into the SLED office in Walterboro
for what Alex has asked for, which is an update on the case.
What they later say they think is an informational interview.
Alex, I appreciate you coming in today. Um...
-Glad to do anything. -I understand.
Um, I know we got a lot to talk about. I know you have millions of questions.
-Yes, sir. -Um...
But before we get started with your questions,
this has been going on for over two months,
and we've done a lot of work.
I know you have.
[David] I've got some more questions that I need to get clarifications on.
One thing that I'm trying to understand is your timeline.
What time did Paul get home that night?
Um, me and Paul...
got there about the same time.
[tense music plays]
[laughter on video]
[Alex] Better than it was.
There is a video of, uh, you and him on the farm that night.
And you were in khaki pants and a dress shirt.
You were playing with a tree.
-I don't remember playing with a tree. -[David] Yeah. Um...
But, I mean, the... the question of that is,
when I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt.
At what point in the evening did you change clothes?
I'm not sure. I...
You know, it would've been...
-Before dinner? After dinner? -No, it would have been...
What time of day was that? I would have thought I'd already changed. [sniffs]
Uh, there's not a timestamp on it, because there's so many posts.
Um, but I want to say it looks to be about dusk.
So that would've been 7:30, eight o'clock.
I guess I changed when I got back to the house.
It was fascinating, 'cause David Owen was presenting him with evidence.
"Yes, you were wearing something different than you were later that night."
"When did you shower? When did you change?"
The most important night of your life, and Alex doesn't recall.
[tense music plays]
[Blanca] August 20th, 2021, Alex approached me.
He said, "B, come in here. I need to talk to you."
"Come here and sit down." And I was...
First of all, for him to tell me to sit down and sit still...
You know, he never stood in one place,
and it was kind of hard to get a full conversation from him
because he's always busy.
When he asked me that, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna sit down."
So I sat down and I said, "What's going on?"
He said, "You remember what I was wearing that day?"
Meaning the day Maggie and Paul were killed.
I found it kind of odd. I do remember what he was wearing.
But I didn't wanna say anything.
But he pressed on, you know,
"You remember, you know, the shirt and this?"
He said, "I just got a bad feeling."
At that point, I didn't know what he was talking about,
because I didn't know that there was a video.
I just thought he was just grieving, you know.
It still puzzled me a lot that he would ask me something like that.
But it was just a feeling that I got
when he made mention of that, you know, again and again.
-A few more questions. -Okay.
-Did you kill Maggie? -No. Did I kill my wife?
-[David] Yes, sir. -No, David.
-[David] Do you know who did? -No, I do not know who did.
-Did you kill Paul? -No, I did not kill Paul.
-Do you know who did? -No, sir, I do not know who did.
Do you think I killed Maggie?
I have to go where evidence and facts take me.
[Alex] I understand that.
And you think I killed Paul?
I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me,
and I don't have anything that points to anybody else at this time.
So does that mean that I am a suspect?
[David] You are still in this.
[Alan] Within a couple of days of that meeting
with the senior leadership of SLED,
his entire world was starting to unravel.
[telephone rings]
[man] A telephone conference interview of Alex Murdaugh.
9/13/21.
[Jim Griffin] This is Jim.
[Ryan] Hey, Jim. This is Ryan Kelly and Jomar Albayalde with SLED. How are you?
-[Jim] Hey, Ryan and Joe. -[Ryan] Yes.
[Jim] We're in an office with Alex and Dick,
and, um, I'm just gonna put the phone here on the table next to Alex.
-[Alex] I was in a very bad place. -[Jim] What does that mean?
[Alex] I thought it would be better for me not to be here anymore.
I thought that it would make it easier on my family
for me to be dead.
-[Dick] So you decided to end your life? -[Alex] That's correct.
I called Curtis Eddie Smith on the telephone.
[Dick] Who's Curtis Eddie Smith?
Eddie Smith was called "the fourth Murdaugh."
He helped clean up whatever they needed cleaning up.
Eddie Smith was rumored to be Alex's drug dealer.
They were involved together in drugs, financial fraud, cashing of checks.
Was he involved in the murders?
[tense music plays]
[interviewer] Did you shoot either of those people on the property of Moselle?
[music fades]
[tense music plays]
[music fades]