The girlfriend of Alex Murdaugh’s only surviving son has complained to police about being allegedly harassed by the media following the disgraced attorney’s bombshell double murder trial.
Buster Murdaugh and his girlfriend Brooklyn White have filed a total of three reports with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office over the “ongoing intrusion into [their] life by reporters,” news station WTOC reports.
The couple, who reside in a Hilton Head condo, was often seen at the gallery every day throughout the six-week trial which led to Murdaugh’s conviction for the 2021 murders of his son Paul and wife Maggie. But even after the highly publicised trial ended, Buster and Ms White say the press has continued to follow them and invade their privacy.
According to an incident report filed this week, Ms White told police that she saw a reporter looking into the windows of her car as she was leaving her home on 6 March. She claimed that she recognized the reporter because he had allegedly been stalking her and Buster for weeks at the Colleton County Court House in Walterboro.
Ms White reportedly told law enforcement officers that the ordeal was “increasingly unsettling and frightening to her”.
Ms White, who works as an attorney for Olivetti McCray and Withrow, said that the reporter in question ran a video account where she said he had published footage of him reportedly harassing Buster and asking him questions.
She also alleged that in the aftermath of the trial, she spotted several reporters photographing and following her as she walked her dogs in her neighbourhood.
Buster and Ms White had previously filed a report after the New York Post published an article with photos that showed his face through a crack in the blinds of their condo. Buster also showed police camera footage that captured a Dodge Challenger car parked outside the home.
Law enforcement told him that more patrols would be implemented in the area. However, the couple called the police again when another driver, who they believed was a member of the media, followed them as they took a walk.
The driver was stopped and let go with a warning, but deputies noted in an incident report obtained by WTOC that he had a camera bag in the passenger’s seat.
While some members of the Murdaugh family have spoken out after Alex Murdaugh’s double life sentencing, Buster and Ms White have remained silent about the jury’s conviction.
Last week, Murdaugh’s attorneys explained they decided against having Buster plead for leniency during Murdaugh’s sentencing so as to not put him through unnecessary trauma after he experienced “more than anybody that we can imagine has ever been through.”
“We could have had Mother Teresa up there speaking on behalf of Alex at sentencing, but he was getting a double life sentence. That was expected,” attorney Jim Griffin told reporters, per Fox News.
“Judge Newman, he is a very stringent punisher when it comes to crimes and sentences. That was never in dispute.”
Buster had followed the family tradition and worked at his father’s since-dissolved firm while he was a student at South Carolina Law School, but he was later expelled due to a plagiarism incident, according to the Wall Street Journal.
His girlfriend, Ms White, obtained her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Alabama before graduating University of South Carolina School of Law in 2021. She’s been working at the Olivetti McCray and Withrow firm as an estate planning lawyer since.
On Thursday, Alex Murdaugh’s legal team announced that they had filed an appeal. The double murderer had 10 days to send a notice of appeal following his conviction.
“Today Jim Griffin and I filed our notice of appeal for Alex Murdaugh,” Dick Harpootlian, one of Murdaugh’s attorneys, tweeted. “This is the next step in the legal process to fight for Alex’s constitutional right to a fair trial.”
