COLUMBIA, S.C. — A “perfect storm” of debts, drug abuse and the looming exposure of his numerous alleged financial crimes is what pushed a seemingly respectable Alex Murdaugh to kill his wife and son, according to a Thursday filing by the South Carolina Attorney General’s office.
The killings were a means to shift attention away from the impending discovery of his financial crimes, which would have resulted in “personal, legal, and financial ruin” for Murdaugh, the filling said.
“The clouds of (the) defendant’s past were gathering into a perfect storm that was going to expose the real Alex Murdaugh to the world,” prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors also indicated in their filing that they intend to seek a sentence that will put Murdaugh in prison for the rest of his life.
Attorney Jim Griffin, who is representing Murdaugh, said he will respond to the state’s filing at a 2 p.m. Friday hearing in Colleton County. Murdaugh is expected to be in attendance.
“We will make our comments in court,” Griffin said.
A former attorney, Murdaugh is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the family’s 1,700-acre Colleton County estate the night of June 7, 2021. Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty.
He is scheduled to stand trial Jan. 23.
In addition to murder charges, Murdaugh remains in the Richland County jail on drug and financial fraud charges.
Dueling motions in pending Murdaugh trial
In recent weeks, his lawyers and state have filed dueling motions.
Prosecutors’ Thursday motion came in response to a motion filed earlier this week by Murdaugh’s lawyers, which asked a judge to compel the state Attorney General’s office to reveal a possible motive.
In their Thursday motion, filed in Colleton County court, prosecutors explained their evidence.
“Motive is the most important fact the jury would want to know in understanding why (the) defendant murdered his own wife and son,” prosecutors said in their filing.
At the time of the killings, Murdaugh was on an “incessant financial roller coaster” and snared in an “unbroken series of misappropriations, lies, loans, debts, and thefts” that belied his surface appearance as a rich, successful attorney and a “scion of the most prominent family in the region,” prosecutors wrote.
Beneath Murdaugh’s gilded surface was a hidden life where “only he fully knew (he was) an allegedly crooked lawyer and drug user who borrowed and stole wherever he could to stay afloat and one step ahead of detection,” prosecutors wrote.
On June 7, 2021, the day that Paul and Maggie were killed at the family’s 1,700-acre hunting lodge called Moselle, Murdaugh’s law firm had demanded that Murdaugh provide an explanation as to where hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees owed to the firm had gone, according to the motion.
“Murdaugh had neither the money nor a plausible legal explanation with which to respond to the demand,” prosecutors allege.
Murdaugh also was facing a pending motion to compel production of his personal financial records in the ongoing civil litigation surrounding the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach in 2019.
Murdaugh’s son, Paul, was alleged to be driving the boat at the time of the crash.
While the motion describes a motive, it also seeks to reject the defense’s motion for a “bill of particulars,” describing the motive filed earlier this week. Prosecutors called this “bill of particulars” an “esoteric and ancient practice” that was in conflict with modern jurisprudence in South Carolina.
Prosecutors detail motive in new motion
Prosecutors in their Thursday filing go to great lengths to explain motive.
“Since people are naturally expected to love their wives and sons instead of brutally gunning them down, why Murdaugh did what he is accused of will unquestionably weigh on any rational juror’s mind when deciding whether the state met its burden of proof,” they wrote.
Prosecutors also say that Murdaugh himself placed the issue of motive “front and center through his own actions,” because “within 30 seconds” of officers arriving on the scene where Maggie and Paul’s bodies were found, Murdaugh suggested that someone angry about the 2019 boat crash might have killed his wife and son, the filing said.
“Based on his own statements, Murdaugh himself placed motive into issue from the outset of law enforcement’s investigation,” prosecutors said.
Parts of the prosecutors’ filing reads like the plot of a novel.
They describe Murdaugh as from a family of “prominence and respect in the community,” who had ”been able to avoid accountability throughout his life.”
“While outwardly giving the illusion of financial wealth from his lucrative law practice, a series of bad land deal(s) exacerbated by the recession permanently changed his finances,” prosecutors wrote.
They continued, “While some thought (the) defendant had recovered with some large cases in the early part of the 2011-2015 (years), defendant had become so dependent on a constant velocity of money to service his huge debt and maintain his lifestyle that even the millions in fees were not enough.”
In addition to borrowing money from anyone — from banks to family — who would lend it to him, prosecutors wrote that Murdaugh “also started to allegedly steal millions from clients, his firm and his family in order to keep his head above water.”
The filing lists four main ways by which Murdaugh allegedly stole: By filing fake expense accounts, by stealing from his family and his law firm, by routing money in his firm’s client trust account to Palmetto State Bank where he gained access to the funds and by setting up a phony bank account at the Bank of America where he sent embezzled money to.
“During this time that Defendant was allegedly stealing millions from clients, despite also earning millions in reported income from his law practice, Defendant was also borrowing millions from wherever or whomever he could,” the filing says.
Murdaugh, they wrote, borrowed nearly $1 million from one law partner over a period of years, and borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from his father and the father of Russell Laffitte, the former CEO of Palmetto State Bank.
All this money was “not enough to stop the incessant financial roller coaster on which defendant put himself,” the filing said.
Last month, Laffitte was found guilty in federal court on six counts of conspiracy, bank and wire fraud and misapplication of bank funds in the first trial related to Murdaugh.
The 23-page filing goes on to describe in detail the escalating financial pressures on Murdaugh.
“This case is unique in South Carolina history for many reasons,” the filing said.
“One of those is that exposing what happened to Maggie and Paul necessarily has its roots in a corruption that began years ago and festered until June 7 was the result. The evidence should be admitted so the jury can fairly assess why a man might murder his wife and son.”
