COLUMBIA, S.C. — Alex Murdaugh is expected to be indicted later this week for murder in the grisly June 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son, according to two sources with knowledge of the pending indictments.
Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
Sources also said that agents with the State Law Enforcement Division paid a visit to Murdaugh’s family members Tuesday morning to inform them charges were coming. The State could not reach the family by press deadline.
It was not immediately known whether the expected murder indictment would come from the state grand jury, which has issued numerous indictments against Murdaugh for financial crimes, or from a Colleton County grand jury. Most often, murder indictments are issued in the county where the crime happened.
“I have no official word from anybody about anything,” said attorney Dick Harpootlian, one of Murdaugh’s two lawyers.
Any murder charge this week would be a culmination — at least for now — of more than a year of sensational news stories about Murdaugh, 54, a fourth-generation attorney in a storied Hampton County law firm and the descendant of three legendary solicitors who held sway politically, socially and legally for some 100 years in southeastern South Carolina.
The Murdaughs were so powerful that corner of the state was sometimes called “Murdaugh country.”
The shooting deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul, 22, have been unsolved for more than 13 months, as law enforcement has kept mum on the investigation. Meanwhile, news stories and network true-crime stories about the killings have been aired around the nation.
Their killings were carried out in Colleton County last June 7, where the Murdaughs’ 1,772-acre rural estate, called Moselle, is located.
Murdaugh has told law enforcement that he left the estate earlier that night and returned to find the bodies of his wife and son yards apart on the ground near outlying dog kennels.
”My wife and child have been shot badly. ... Please hurry!” Murdaugh yelled through the phone to a 911 operator on June, 2021, in a high-pitched voice between what sounded like stifled sobs. “They’re on the ground out at my kennels.”
He told the operator they were not breathing.
SLED, the main investigating agency, has not publicly called Murdaugh a suspect. As recently as five weeks ago, SLED Chief Mark Keel insisted the investigation was continuing, saying “it’s still very much active.”
At the time of their deaths, SLED said the community was not in danger and never issued a bulletin for the public to be on the lookout for any suspect.
But one of Murdaugh’s lawyers, Jim Griffin, said months ago that law enforcement had deemed Murdaugh a “person of interest.”
Prosecutors from the South Carolina attorney general’s office are handling the case.
Proving charges against any single defendant could pose difficulties. Paul and Maggie were killed with different weapons. Paul was shot with a shotgun, and Maggie with an assault rifle.
If Murdaugh is charged with the murder of his wife and son, the case could potentially be a death penalty case.
Under South Carolina criminal law, the murder of “two or more persons ... pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct” is an aggravating circumstance that would qualify a defendant for a death penalty case. However, trying the case as a death penalty case would depend on the evidence and the motive, none of which has been made public.
Murdaugh remains in the Richland County jail on a $7 million bond for several finance charges.
For years, Murdaugh embodied the very image of a successful lawyer.
He took trips abroad and around the country, drove a large SUV, won multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts and lived on a large estate with a large Edisto Island Beach house.
But underneath, he was awash in debts and had been embezzling millions of dollars for years from his law firm, his clients and friends, according to lawsuits and indictments against him issued since last September. He also had for years been in the throes of an opioid addiction, his lawyers have said.
His life and image started to become unglued, not in June after the gruesome deaths of his wife and sons, but in September, when his family law firm fired him and, at the same time, accused him of stealing from clients.
They’ve declined to say how much he stole. The thefts began as long ago as 2011, the firm said in a subsequent lawsuit against Murdaugh.
His firing triggered a wave of civil lawsuits and indictments against him for various kinds of financial fraud, including money laundering.
At the center of his alleged thefts was his hometown bank, Palmetto State Bank, which allowed Murdaugh to get numerous loans, dip into various conservatorships he should not have had access to, according to lawsuits, indictments and court records.
Indictments also allege that two of Murdaugh’s best friends were accomplices during his years of financial thefts: Cory Fleming, a fellow law school classmate of Murdaugh’s in the University of South Carolina Law School class of 1994, and Palmetto State Bank bank executive Russell Laffitte, Murdaugh’s friend from childhood who grew up next door.
Fleming’s law license has been suspended, and Laffitte has been fired from the bank.
The bank is under investigation by a federal grand jury.
In all, 15 state grand jury indictments containing 79 charges against Murdaugh alleging he defrauded victims a total of $8.4 million have been issued since last November. Fleming has been implicated in $3.7 million of the alleged thefts; Laffitte in $1.8 million.
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