At 10:07 p.m. EDT on the evening of June 7, 2021, a frantic 9-1-1 call was placed from Moselle – a sprawling, 1,700-acre hunting property straddling the Salkehatchie River between Colleton and Hampton counties in the Spanish moss-draped South Carolina Lowcountry.
On the line was 53-year-old Alex Murdaugh, a prominent attorney and scion of the ‘Murdaughs of Hampton’ – a powerful family/ legal dynasty which had run the picturesque Lowcountry region of the Palmetto State like its own fiefdom for more than a century.
“I been up to it now – it’s bad,” Murdaugh told the dispatcher.
It was bad …
Lying in and around the dog kennels at Moselle were the lifeless bodies of Murdaugh’s wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and their younger son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh – along with spent .300 blackout cartridges and shotgun shells.
Paul Murdaugh was hit by a pair of shotgun blasts on that fateful evening – one to the head, the other to the arm and chest. Maggie Murdaugh was killed by multiple rounds from a semi-automatic rifle around the same time her son was killed. At least two of Maggie Murdaugh’s gunshot wounds were inflicted as she was lying wounded on the ground – consistent with initial reports we received of “execution-style” slayings.
Thirteen months later, in July 2022, Murdaugh was charged by the office of S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson with the murders of his wife and son. That same month, in the Colleton County courthouse where his trial is taking place, Murdaugh pleaded not guilty – availing himself of his right to be tried by “God and country.”
Welcome to FITSNews’ coverage of the double homicide trial of Alex Murdaugh, part of our ongoing reporting on the broader ‘Murdaugh Murders’ crime and corruption saga …
Our news team – founding editor Will Folks, director of special projects Dylan Nolan and research director Jenn Wood – is dedicated to providing our audience with the most accurate, in-depth and up-to-date coverage of what is already being called South Carolina’s “Trial of the Century.”
