|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by JENN WOOD
***
For nearly a century, the Murdaugh family ruled South Carolina’s Lowcountry like a fiefdom — a legacy that blended law, politics and influence into one powerful name. From their brick courthouse offices in Hampton County, three generations of Murdaughs served as elected solicitors, prosecuting criminal cases across five counties while building one of the most lucrative personal injury firms in the state.
That world began to collapse on June 7, 2021 — when Alex Murdaugh, the once-respected attorney and an heir to this dynasty, dialed 911 to report that his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and younger son, Paul Murdaugh, had been brutally murdered at the family’s Moselle hunting property in Colleton County.
The premiere of Hulu’s Murdaugh: A Death in the Family has reignited national fascination with that fateful night — and the grotesque unraveling that followed. But while the streaming series revives familiar images of privilege and downfall, it also blurs the line between what’s been proven, what’s been alleged – and what’s still unfolding in real time.
Even Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, dismissed the Hulu dramatization as “a fictional soap opera,” calling it “not a serious effort to tell the story — but a serious effort to monetize misery.”
Three years after Murdaugh’s conviction, this story isn’t over. In many ways, the real work of separating fact from fiction has just begun.
***
RELATED | ALEX MURDAUGH NOT HAPPY WITH HULU SERIES
***
THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS
June 7, 2021 – Moselle, South Carolina
It was another quiet, warm southern night on the 1,770-acre Moselle property — a sprawling mix of pine stands, farm fields, and swamp-cut trails outside Islandton, S.C.. At approximately 9:00 p.m. EDT, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were gunned down near the dog kennels — an area the family used to feed and wash hunting dogs, separated from the main house by more than a thousand feet of dirt road and darkness.
Investigators would later determine that two weapons were used: a .300 Blackout rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun — both belonging to the Murdaugh family. The rifle was believed to be one of the same custom-built weapons Alex had purchased for his sons years earlier. Neither weapon has ever been recovered.
At 10:06 p.m., Alex Murdaugh called 9-1-1, his voice shaking as he told the dispatcher he had just discovered their bodies. He claimed he had been visiting his ailing mother, Elizabeth “Libby” Murdaugh, at her home in nearby Almeda, and had returned to Moselle to find Maggie and Paul shot to death.
That alibi began to unravel almost immediately.
Data from Alex’s cellphone, his SUV’s onboard system, and Paul’s phone painted a much different picture — one of movements, calls, and video clips that placed Alex near the kennels minutes before the murders, not half-an-hour away in Almeda. A Snapchat video taken by Paul at 8:44 p.m. captured Alex’s voice in the background — a key piece of evidence that prosecutors would later argue “locked him in” at the scene.
When confronted at trial, Alex admitted he had lied about his whereabouts, claiming paranoia from his opioid addiction made him distrustful of SLED agents. But that admission — combined with the one-hour gap between his alleged visit to Almeda and the 911 call — became the spine of the state’s timeline. It also became one of the most disputed elements of the case, with defense attorneys arguing that digital forensics alone could not close the window between “opportunity” and “proof.”
***
***
THE HULU OPENING
The Hulu dramatization opens with Alex’s frantic 9-1-1 call — an accurate but highly stylized depiction of what happened that night. From there, the series immediately veers into backstory, flashing to a fictional family vacation in the Bahamas, where the writers imagine marital infidelity, simmering resentment, and talk of divorce as the storm clouds build over the dynasty.
The most recent episode also portrayed Maggie as repeatedly ignoring Alex’s phone calls in the days leading up to the evening of the murders – framing their relationship as strained and distant. But according to cell-site and call detail records reviewed by FITSNews, that depiction simply doesn’t hold up. Between May 1 and June 7, 2021, Alex and Maggie spoke almost daily — often multiple times a day — with consistent, connected calls in both directions. Far from showing avoidance, the data reflects a routine pattern of communication right up until the moment of the murders.
According to Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorney, none of that ever happened.
“That trip never happened. The affair never happened. The divorce lawyer subplot never happened,” he told reporter Angenette Levy. “If any of it had, prosecutors would have used it — because it would’ve been a much stronger motive than the one they argued.”
In reality, Maggie’s closest friends and family said she never mentioned wanting to leave Alex. Her sister, Marion Proctor, testified that Maggie loved her children deeply and wanted Paul to “face up” to the consequences of the 2019 boat crash — but divorce was never on the table.
Even Alex Murdaugh himself has joined his attorneys in blasting Hulu’s portrayal. In a statement first reported by FITSNews, Murdaugh said he was “deeply disappointed and disturbed” by the series, claiming it contained “numerous inaccuracies and misleading portrayals that distort the truth.” In the statement attributed to his lawyers, the depiction of his family relationships were depicted as “particularly troubling,” with Harpootlian and Jim Griffin insisting it “totally mischaracterizes his relationships with his wife Maggie and his son Paul, both of whom Alex loves so dearly.”
***
Murdaugh also criticized the producers for never reaching out to him, his surviving son Buster Murdaugh, or his defense team before production. “Instead,” the statement read, “the program appears to rely heavily on sensationalized accounts from secondary sources with no direct knowledge or relationship with him or his family.”
As FITSNews founding editor Will Folks noted in his coverage of the statement, it’s “a bit rich” for Murdaugh — a convicted killer and confessed fraudster — to accuse others of playing fast and loose with the truth. But even independent critics have echoed some of the same frustrations. A USA Today review called the series “exploitative, dull, and lacking a point of view,” arguing that “when there’s no thesis or insight, this series feels dangerously close to pure exploitation of a tragedy real people have endured.”
Ultimately, both Murdaugh’s attorneys and some media reviewers have landed on the same critique: Hulu’s version may make for watchable television, but it adds little to the factual record. For all its production value, the dramatization glosses over the forensic precision — and unanswered questions — that still define what happened at Moselle.
What’s known, not imagined, is that sometime between 8:44 p.m. and 10:06 p.m., two members of South Carolina’s most powerful legal family were executed with their own guns — and the truth of what happened in those 82 minutes remains one of the darkest and most contested mysteries in Lowcountry history.
***
RELATED | DIGGING DEEPER INTO UNRELEASED MURDAUGH FILES
***
MONEY, DRUGS, AND MISSING PIECES
In the months after the murders, Murdaugh’s law firm discovered he had stolen millions from clients and colleagues through fake accounts and fraudulent settlements — thefts totaling more than $9 million on paper (and likely more off the books).
Curtis “Eddie” Smith — Alex’s cousin, former client, and alleged drug runner — remains one of the case’s most puzzling figures. He was accused of cashing Murdaugh’s illicit checks, trafficking drugs, and helping stage the “suicide-for-hire” roadside shooting in September 2021.
He also failed a polygraph when asked whether he killed Maggie and Paul — something the defense later used to allege prosecutorial tunnel vision. Smith has yet to be tried, incidentally.
The Hulu series depicts a clean-cut trial and righteous verdict — but leaves out what’s happening now: Becky Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court, is under criminal indictment for misconduct, perjury, and obstruction after allegedly influencing jurors improperly during the trial.
Harpootlian, who is handling Alex’s appeal, told Levy that Hill “fixed the jury,” claiming she told staff “Alex needed to be found guilty so the book she was writing would sell more copies — so she could buy a lake house.”
***
THE INVESTIGATION: INSIDE THE SLED FILES
From the beginning, the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) built its case around digital evidence, motive, and deception — and the revelation of Murdaugh’s multi-million-dollar financial crimes gave prosecutors their narrative: that Alex killed his family to buy time and sympathy.
But FITSNews’ review of unreleased phone records and text messages has shown that SLED’s so-called “comprehensive” 88-page timeline left out critical communications — including a flurry of messages between Smith, an unidentified number ending in “13,” and Alex himself within 24 hours of the murders.
Those omitted texts point toward the Almeda home of Murdaugh’s parents, and possibly to Barbara Ann Mixson, the longtime housekeeper who worked there for decades — connecting Alex’s alibi location to communications that jurors never saw.
As Harpootlian told Levy, “if you want the truth, read the trial transcript — not the script.”
Because behind every dramatization, there’s a real story — and we’re still telling it.
***
WHERE THE STORY REALLY STANDS
Millions of dollars remain unaccounted for. The murder weapons have never been found. The jury that convicted Alex Murdaugh may have been compromised. Key figures — including Curtis “Eddie” Smith — have yet to face trial. And the appeal challenging Murdaugh’s double-murder conviction is still active, with the potential to reopen the entire case.
The Hulu series will likely close its credits with a verdict, but the final chapter of this saga has not been written. The power networks that enabled the Murdaugh dynasty remain largely intact — and the same institutions that failed to check them still hold sway in South Carolina’s justice system today.
Alex Murdaugh sits behind bars serving two life sentences, but our investigation into the empire that built him — and the institutions that protected him — continues.
The Hulu series got one thing right: this is a story that has captured the public’s imagination. Its producers just mistakenly assumed the Hollywood ending they think puts a bow on it is grounded in reality… or justice. Or, for that matter, that we have reached the end.
Because in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, the misery — and the mystery — are far from finished.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
29 comments
“Executed with their own guns” is not a true statement. I’ve read the forensic reports in the Murdaugh case. The 300 Blackout AR-15 was definitely a Murdaugh gun, because the touch DNA obtained from the six spent cartridge cases was shown to be Maggie’s DNA. This means that sometime previously, Maggie herself loaded the magazine of the gun later used to kill her. All of the arguing in the trial with SLED’s gun expert about tool marks on cartridge cases was a waste of time. It showed that even both the prosecutors and the defense lawyers didn’t carefully read all the forensic reports.
But there was NO forensic evidence showing that the shotgun used to kill Paul was a Murdaugh family gun– the two shells found next to Paul’s body had no touch DNA, only Paul’s DNA from his blood traces when the shells were on the ground. As for shotgun shells in both buckshot and steel birdshot being found in the house three months after the murders, basically every deer and duck hunter in Hampton and Colleton counties has those same kinds of shells.
In the trial, whenever one of the prosecutors said that both guns were Murdaugh family guns, they were lying in order to help sway the jury. What this means is that if Alex didn’t do it, the real killer brought his own shotgun, and was familiar with the hanger/shed and its collection of guns that were easy to grab.
“Touch DNA” is no different from any other DNA of the same person.
“Touch DNA” is obtained from the nuclei of the skin cells shed from the skin all the time and sticking to the object touched.
Usual DNA is extracted from EITHER buccal swabs (also containing shed skin/mucosal cells lining the inner mouth cavity) or the nuclei of white blood cells or young (not fully formed) red blood cell. Mature human red blood cells have no nuclei.
So, for the same person (except in rare cases of mosaicism and/or chimerism), DNA is DNA. By pure sequencing, you cannot tell which cell that DNA came from.
So. Maggie’s DNA being found on the spent cartridges MORE LIKELY means those cartridges were contaminated with Maggie’s blood AFTER THE SHOOTING.
It does NOT NECESSARILY mean that Maggie had ever touched those cartridges while alive.
Also, it it more likely than not means that the real killer(s) brought with them Paul’s stolen guns which were at least two.
After seeing that BOTH Paul’s and Maggie’s INITIAL shots were non-fatal and NOT aimed at the head, I REASONABLY INFERRED that the shooter was a female trained in hunting game animals, not killing humans in military combat or in law-enforcement activity, BECAUSE the shooter(s) by muscle memory INITIALLY aimed at the height of a game animal’s head, not a human head, and aimed at the human head only after the first shots left the intended victims alive.
And I have several PLAUSIBLE theories AND NAMES of who those likely female real killers are and how each of them would have had access to Paul’s stolen guns or had earlier stolen them herself.
Henri Lorin, Top Fan, here again is my reply, which FITS did not let through, to your above comment:
“Touch DNA” is no different from any other DNA of the same person.
“Touch DNA” is obtained from the nuclei of the skin cells shed from the skin all the time and sticking to the object touched.
Usual DNA is extracted from EITHER buccal swabs (also containing shed skin/mucosal cells lining the inner mouth cavity) or the nuclei of white blood cells or young (not fully formed) red blood cell. Mature human red blood cells have no nuclei.
So, for the same person (except in rare cases of mosaicism and/or chimerism), DNA is DNA. By pure sequencing, you cannot tell which cell that DNA came from.
So. Maggie’s DNA being found on the spent cartridges MORE LIKELY means those cartridges were contaminated with Maggie’s blood AFTER THE SHOOTING.
It does NOT NECESSARILY mean that Maggie had ever touched those cartridges while alive.
Also, it it more likely than not means that the real killer(s) brought with them Paul’s stolen guns which were at least two.
After seeing that BOTH Paul’s and Maggie’s INITIAL shots were non-fatal and NOT aimed at the head, I REASONABLY INFERRED that the shooter was a female trained in hunting game animals, not killing humans in military combat or in law-enforcement activity, BECAUSE the shooter(s) by muscle memory INITIALLY aimed at the height of a game animal’s head, not a human head, and aimed at the human head only after the first shots left the intended victims alive.
And I have several PLAUSIBLE theories AND NAMES of who those likely female real killers are and how each of them would have had access to Paul’s stolen guns or had earlier stolen them herself.
Speaking about “separating fact from fiction,” here are facts to correct the fiction on Mark Tinsley’s lawsuit:
What Mark Tinsley had filed was ONLY a motion, which could have been granted OR DENIED.
I am NOT a lawyer but have been told by AT LEAST TWO judges that I am BETTER than lawyers who practice before them. So, I know things.
Motions for net worth of the defendant are RARELY IF EVER granted so early in the litigation BECAUSE a civil defendant’s net worth is relevant ONLY if a question of PUNITIVE DAMAGES is submitted to the jury,
WHAT COURTS USUALLY DO, it they grant a motion for net worth at all, is instruct the civil defendant to show up for trial with a statement of net worth AT THE TIME OF THE TRIAL, not at the time of event(s) giving rise to the civil law suit.
That practice is related to the FUNCTION of punitive damages: not to compensate the plaintiff but to make an example of the defendant. That is done by assessing punitive damages based on net worth AT THE TIME OF THE VERDICT.
Mark Tinsley’s law suit against the Murdaughs was at least many months earlier than a jury verdict stage: it could have been dismissed altogether because “bad parenting” of an adult child is NOT a recognized cause of action in South Carolina, or because the plaintiff did not allege enough facts, or because Mallory beach was contributorily negligent by WILLINGLY getting on that boat with a drunk Paul, or because others. such as Mallory Beach’s boyfriend did NOT rescue her but let go of her to save his own life.
Even if the civil case had survived to trial, the judge might not have submitted a punitive damages question to a jury because the plaintiff may not have proven malice, or the jury may have returned a large punitive damages verdict.
That no one else is explaining all that to you proves the judges who complimented me as better than lawyers correct.
I just hope this reply of mine does not get deleted.
Jenn Wood mentions the civil law suit about the boat crash. This comment is “separating fact from fiction” on Mark Tinsley’s lawsuit and motion for Alex’s net worth. Prove me wrong if you can:
What Mark Tinsley had filed was ONLY a motion, which could have been granted OR DENIED.
I am NOT a lawyer but have been told by AT LEAST TWO judges that I am BETTER than lawyers who practice before them. So, I know things.
Motions for net worth of the defendant are RARELY IF EVER granted so early in the litigation BECAUSE a civil defendant’s net worth is relevant ONLY if a question of PUNITIVE DAMAGES is submitted to the jury,
WHAT COURTS USUALLY DO, it they grant a motion for net worth at all, is instruct the civil defendant to show up for trial with a statement of net worth AT THE TIME OF THE TRIAL, not at the time of event(s) giving rise to the civil law suit.
That practice is related to the FUNCTION of punitive damages: not to compensate the plaintiff but to make an example of the defendant. That is done by assessing punitive damages based on net worth AT THE TIME OF THE VERDICT.
Mark Tinsley’s law suit against the Murdaughs was at least many months earlier than a jury verdict stage: it could have been dismissed altogether because “bad parenting” of an adult child is NOT a recognized cause of action in South Carolina, or because the plaintiff did not allege enough facts, or because Mallory beach was contributorily negligent by WILLINGLY getting on that boat with a drunk Paul, or because others. such as Mallory Beach’s boyfriend did NOT rescue her but let go of her to save his own life.
Even if the civil case had survived to trial, the judge might not have submitted a punitive damages question to a jury because the plaintiff may not have proven malice, or the jury may have returned a large punitive damages verdict.
That no one else is explaining all that to you proves the judges who complimented me as better than lawyers correct.
I just hope this reply of mine does not get deleted.
All right, if you will not post my comments here, please let your readers look at some of them on your Week in Review on YouTube.
As I was recently unfairly accused of bragging on myself for having, thank God and WITHOUT A LAWYER, and in the court of none other than Judge Clifton Newman, done for myself what Alex-Murdaugh’s four-lawyer-plus-paralegals defense team COMBINED could not do: prevent a jury from returning a wrongful conviction against an actually-innocent criminal defendant, I paste here, too, my response to the latest unfair accusation piled on me.
At the threshold, telling the truth is not bragging; it is teaching.
Alex’s defense team, and all South Carolina’s criminal defense lawyers for that matter, could learn from me how to defend ACTUALLY-innocent, not MERELY constitutionally-PRESUMED-innocent, criminal defendants.
Most, if not all, South Carolina’s criminal defense lawyers know mainly, if not only, how to do one thing well: plea bargain. Even if their client is actually innocent of the charged crime, they force him/her to plead guilty to a lesser crime and get the matter over with while helping the prosecutor save face and be amenable to plea bargain with the next client.
That is THE REALITY of how South Carolina’s criminal “justice” system works. Or worked until the great Dr. Marie Faltas was FALSELY accused and refused to knuckle under.
Don’t take my word for it, take the record.
Dick Harpootlian learned from me and is now saying, “Don’t read the script, read the transcript,” in variation on my long-and-often stated plea: “Don’t take my word, take the record.”
I now modify that to “Take the record, then take my word on my interpretation of that record.”
BTW, note how my writing avoids confusing violations of the grammatical rule of the last antecedent. One more thing y’all can learn from me.
It is difficult but not impossible to “put the toothpaste back in the tube.” But it is impossible to re-blow a soap (or even balloon) bubble once it is burst.
And a skill defense lawyers should learn from me is how to burst bubbles of falsehood.
The COMPLETE transcripts (which I received in “bits and pieces”) of my 22-26 February 2010 Richland County General Sessions jury trial is available for free on Richland County’s Public Index and SC’s Judicial Branch’s website’s C-Track.
The photos of my false accusers harassing ME while I FALSELY got accused of harassing them are available through the federal courts’ PACER at 10 cents/page but possibly free for certain researchers.
The cold-bloodedness of Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (“Weiss”) knowing that I was THE VICTIM of harassment and even rape threats by one Corey/Cory Lamont Curry, whom Hatchet-for-Hire Heather had HERSELF earlier convicted of PWID-crack cocaine but later, in my trial, LIED to Judge Clifton Newman about that Curry’s criminal record, but FALSELY portraying ME as harassing that Curry, is not an exception, it is THE USUAL PRACTICE of prosecutors.
It is not about who is the REAL perpetrator and who is the REAL victim. It is about where the prosecutor’s financial interests are. Which law firm would hire that prosecutor or that judge after (s)he retires from public “service”?
Which criminal defendant would later hire that retired prosecutor or judge if (s)he opens his/her private practice?
THAT is how prosecutorial decisions, clothed with “immunity,” are really made.
Since I owned, and will never own, a law firm, and since I am too God-and-self-reliant to believe in hired lawyers, no one, not one defense lawyer, not one “ethical” prosecutor, not one judge, and not one politician, ever had or has any financial interest in holding Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (“Weiss”) accountable for maliciously and falsely prosecuting me.
That is why I have no problem believing that the gang of prosecutors who procured Alex Murdaugh’s false conviction were knowingly doing it for their own present and/or financial advantage, not for justice.
Once you develop a taste and thrill of lying and seeing your lies believed, you lose all skills and incentives at truth finding.
Take the record of how Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (“Weiss”) continued to maliciously prosecute me; then take my interpretation of why she is the rule, not the exception, although she is an extreme example of the rule.
Then take this interpretation of mine of God’s admonition that the sins of the fathers are called for answers by the offspring to the third generation and the fourth generation: the rotten system you build/tolerate today and let victimize ME today will victimize your third generation and fourth generation tomorrow.
Alex Murdaugh’s forefathers built a system mixing civil litigation with criminal process. It came back to bite Alex.
But two wrongs do not make a right.
Only right makes right.
Surly no one believes Mandy, David, or Liz would exploit a tragedy?! Says absolutely no one who has ever followed their histrionic and error ridden reporting. Alex is where he belongs, but the case is far from over and there are victims here that are still suffering. Even if I wanted to see the Hulu series, I wouldn’t simply b/c of the way they “report” and manipulate “Facts” to create their own narrative, giving no regard to the people they may harm.
Paul and Maggie were killed EXACTLY one week after FITSNews tightened its free-articles policy to generate more subscription to pay the salaries of Mandy and Liz, who had just been hired at FITS.
In her book, Mandy (who had conveniently arranged for herself and her then-fiance David to be vacationing offshore) tells of David pulling out the podcasting equipment (which, for some undisclosed reason, Mandy and David had taken with them on their “vacation”) and starting broadcasting THE MINUTE Liz called from the Low Country with news of Paul and Maggie’s death.
Coincidences you think?
Then, for clincher, read this comment of mine on Jenn Wood’s most recent Week-in-Review interview:
Jenn Wood, dear, “phenomenal acting” or not, HULU’s purpose is clear: consolidate Alex Murdaugh’s wrongful convictions by falsification or insinuation.
HULU reversed the order of Gloria Satterfield’s and Mallory Beach’s lives ending to INSINUATE that Alex caused Gloria to be pushed off the stairs and die so he could get a settlement out of it and misdirect it to paying for the boat crash.
No one would ask how Alex could possibly have known that Gloria’ fall from a small height would be fatal. Instead, everyone would be basking in the glory of their non-existent intelligence in making the connection.
Can there be any other explanation for reversing the order of events?
Among the worst are the fictions that everyone ever represented by Alex was “a victim.” So, here is my response to a comment on FITS’ most recent Week-in-Review:
I am “talking about” “people like” highway patrolman Thomas Moore and now-aspiring politician JJ, both of whom are now clients of Ever-Bluffing Eric Bland (“EBEB”), and both of whom appeared on talk shows and testified against Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) in court in bond hearing(s) and/or in sentencing hearing(s) related to RAM’s so-called “financial crimes.”
Both Moore (white) and JJ (black) appeared as strong as oxen and IMPLICITLY admitted having received larger than expected settlements EVEN AFTER a clandestine cut RAM had kept for himself.
Moore even, in my opinion free from false humility, tried to obstruct justice by going and harassing the wonderful Dr. Erin Presnell to make her change her diagnosis of vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision after she had performed the first autopsy on Stephen Smith. Moore wanted Dr. Presnell to change her diagnosis to a strike with a baseball bat or gunshot wound or some figment of Moore’s fabrications intended to frame the innocent Buster Murdaugh and perhaps Paul, too.
Of course, the second autopsy performed on Stephen Smith, performed at tax-payer’s expense after EBEB’s nagging despite EBEB having collected $100K+ from a Go-Fund-Me page purported to fund that second autopsy, and performed by EBEB’s hand-picked pathologists, only CONFIRMED Dr. Presnell’s initial diagnosis.
EBEB still does his best to hush the result of that second autopsy and to hide where the Go-Fund-Me loot went. But that is for another day and another comment.
The present point is: not everyone whose tire separates receives any compensation, or even replacement of the defective tire, whether or not human injury results.
It takes a lawyer like RAM with a vast network of soft-bribed/soft-threatened insurance adjustors, insurance defense lawyers, and even judges, to extract such huge settlements.
I, for example, bought four expensive tires WITH INSURANCE from a name nation-wide company; and, at different times, each of the four tires separated while relatively new and still under warranty; but that company refused to replace them because they stopped making that size. That company refused to even refund me the price of the replacement tires I had to buy from another company. And no lawyer would represent me in small-claims court for such a relatively small amount.
Had RAM been still in practice, all it would have taken would have been a phone call from him to the tire company for four free replacement tires to have been delivered to me with a proverbial bow on them.
Incidentally, on cross-examination, RAM testified he had represented clients in cases as small as a $50 overpayment to a cable company. Creighton Waters did NOT challenge RAM on that aspect of his past law practice.
MY POINT IS: part of the loot RAM secretly kept out the settlements was not ALL out of RAM’s personal greed but was to continue feeding into the vast network of soft bribes/soft threats that made such disproportionate settlements possible.
Incidentally, too, faced by a plaintiff’s lawyer other than RAM, the tire companies could/would have (successfully?) challenged the Plyler and Pinckney cases as caused by the distraction of the driver(s), not the tire separation.
And MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, none of those so-called RAM “victims” did anything to prevent the tire companies from continuing TO THIS DAY to make tires that separate.
Failure/refusal to prevent FUTURE human injury is, in my opinion free from false humility, the REAL crime in all the stories of RAM’s so-called “financial crimes.”
And EBEB and Creighton Waters are collaborators in those failure-of-prevention crimes. Did Creighton Waters or Alan Wilson or anyone in between refer the separating-tire-makers for criminal investigation into POSSIBLY criminally-negligent tire-making?
Of course not. Lawyers of all colors and positions are not about preventing human injury; they are about making money off it or allowing their friends, relatives, and/or future employers to do so.
Now, you tell me: who are the real victims here?
It was my understanding that Paul’s fingerprints were on the spent Shotgun Shells. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. As for as who to believe, in my humble with an extensive law enforcement upbringing, I think the most and first true reports came from FitsNews.
No one other than you ever said “that Paul’s fingerprints were on the spent Shotgun Shells.”
That would have indeed been quite weird. According to you, would Paul have loaded the shotgun and politely given it to his killer to use that night?
May I correct you? No one other than you ever said “that Paul’s fingerprints were on the spent Shotgun Shells.”
That would have indeed been quite weird. According to you, would Paul have loaded the shotgun and politely given it to his killer to use that night?
If anyone thinks “Alec” was not at the crime scene with Maggie and Paul were murdered, you must have voted for Commie-La Harris as well!
Science has no politics; and former Vice President Harris has nothing to with, and never expressed any public opinion on, Alex Murdaugh’s cases.
Science tells us that the food in the victims’ stomachs at autopsy was too little and too digested for the deaths to have occurred only 22 minutes after the victims large, and relatively fatty, last meal.
In support of separating fact from fiction, I paste here one of my comments on FITS’ last week, not yesterday’s, Week-in-Review:
Will Folks, at 5:54, can’t you ever outgrow your tendency to tell untruth even as you claim heroics in pursuing the actual facts and going where they take you?
Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) NEVER claimed “he was 20 miles away” at 8:44 pm on 7 June 2021.
What RAM always TRUTHFULLY said was that SOME TIME after dinner he went to see his mother at Almeida.
Only in the fictional media is RAM ever portrayed as saying, “I never went to the kennels.”
He does NOT say that phrase in ANY of the three video-taped interviews with law enforcement.
Half-truths ARE lies. So, in emphasizing that RAM initially lied by omitting the brief kennels visit, PLEASE don’t commit the lie of FALSELY claiming that RAM ever pretended to have been at Almeida at 8:44 pm.
Again, because I explained n times that the contents of Paul’s and Maggie’s stomachs at autopsy rule out the victims’ lives having ended as early as ONLY 22 minutes after their large, and relatively fatty, last meal, that 8:44 pm video has absolutely NO INCULPATORY value.
Otherwise, please keep pursuing the whole truth and tell it whole and pure.
More fiction is out, now masquerading as journalism, in CW’s 3-part series.
Here is my comment on it:
Not a word about Becky Hill’s indictment? Not a word about the second autopsy of Stephen Smith confirming the result of the first autopsy? And not a word about Gloria Satterfield’s death having been IN HOSPITAL due to pre-existing conditions, NOT her fall at Moselle? The Satterfield estate already got $10 MILLION for the demise of their chronic diabetic relative; and Eric Bland STILL wants $4.3 million more?
Who are the greedy ones here? Who are the evil ones here?
At least HULU disclaimed its broadcast as drama. What is YOUR excuse for presenting this garbage as journalism?
And, in case anyone missed my numerous previous posts about this: the Prosecution’s claimed moment of the end of the victims’ life is WRONG. At autopsy, the food in Maggie’s and Paul’s stomachs was too little and too digested for their lives to have ended only 22 minutes after their KNOWN large, and relatively fatty, last meal.
Liz Farrell said one, BUT ONLY ONE, truth: Social media defeated the Murdaughs.
But who was behind that social media?
And the filthy fiction about Buster keeps being told and retold.
Here is my reply to a commenter on the recent CW broadcast:
God will NOT forgive those who do not acknowledge, and repent for, their sin.
Bearing false witness against one’s neighbor is A SIN against God.
“The Smith young man” was no saint. Gay or not, he was promiscuous and a nude dancer to say the least.
Being a mother does not make you Mother Teresa.
We do not know if Stephen actually said that or Sandy made it up. And even if Stephen had said it, we do not know if he was telling the truth or BS-ing his mother.
BESIDES, if that supposed supposed gay Murdaugh wanted to conceal a supposed gay relationship with Stephen Smith to the point of killing him, why would THAT SAME Murdaugh take Stephen Smith on a fishing trip where the world can see them together?
More fiction is insinuated by CW’s just released so-called “documentary” which tries to re-kindle the debate on whether Alex said “they” of “I” or “that.”
Here is my reply to a commenter who heard “that was so bad.”?
“@Therezumee92 , what really matters is the TRUE time of shooting, not the Prosecution’s weird idea that peoples’ lives end when the batteries on their cell phones are at 0% charge.
In case anyone missed my numerous previous posts about this: the Prosecution’s claimed moment of the end of the victims’ lives is WRONG. At autopsy, the food in Maggie’s and Paul’s stomachs was too little and too digested for their lives to have ended only 22 minutes after their KNOWN large, and relatively fatty, last meal.
Liz Farrell said one, BUT ONLY ONE, truth: Social media defeated the Murdaughs.
But who was behind that social media?”
Without admitting who stoked that social media against the Murdaughs, Liz Farrell’s statement about social media is only a half truth; it is thus as much of a lie as Alex’s omission of his brief visit to the kennels before leaving for Almeida.
The challenges are not only to separate fact from fiction but to separate sense from stupidity.
Here is my reply to a commenter on the most-recently-released faux documentary:
? @marycahill546 , your obsession with framing Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) is as puzzling (because you sound more educated than the others and I could not detect an OBVIOUS financial interest of yours in the matter) as it is self-betraying and self-defeating.
Let’s be logical here:
Are you saying that cell phones have a MAGICAL mechanism which makes them lock REGARDLESS OF BATTERY POWER as soon as the owner is shot?
And how would the cell phone know that its owner is shot anyway?
Or are you saying that RAM locked Maggie’s phone BEFORE shooting her?
If so, then Maggie could have been shot ANY TIME, even a whole hour, AFTER her cell phone locked.
That would mean that Maggie could have been shot by any one at any time between the time her phone locked and the time RAM discovered Maggie’s body.
Same with Paul with this added question: since RAM was at the kennels while Paul took that TOTALLY irrelevant and useless video of by-then-perfect-looking Cash’s tail, why would RAM not have also taken Paul’s phone and disposed of it along with Maggie’s phone?
And here is a clincher: if RAM went to such great trouble to get rid of Maggie’s cell phone the night of 7 June 2021, why would RAM be in such hurry and panic to help SLED locate it the morning of 8 June 2021?
Just to save you time inventing more untenable explanations, MY explanation is that Maggie had laid her cell phone down on her bike or on the side-by-side or somewhere to have BOTH HANDS free to handle the dogs. The REAL killers (and they were several) found it and had to get rid of it BEFORE the attack lest it record what happened and/or lest Maggie reaches for it to call for help.
Please use your education to think sensibly.
I am exhausted from repeating that the time of shooting is closer to 9:30 pm than 8:44 pm.
Are people finally coming around to understanding my explanations or digging their heels further?
Hope, faith, and love. Thank God, I have plenty of the latter two; but it is the first where I pray most for God to sustain in me.
The challenges to my hope keep increasing with things like that CW faux “documentary” and comments which, once they read and understand my explanation, delude themselves into believing the Prosecution could have done no wrong but probably factored-in the stomach-contents method of determining the time of death.
Au contraire: the Prosecution could do no right.
The Prosecution knew, and could not not have known (double negative intended) that Paul and Maggie’s stomach contents at autopsy firmly exonerate Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) as his alibi for 9:30 pm on 7 June 2021, the REAL TIME of the shootings, is confirmed by BOTH RAM’s cell phone AND the digital data of his car.
I am so exhausted.
I just had to type this reply to a commenter on that CW faux “documentary”:
? @Therezumee92 , au contraire. Were the Prosecution basing their time line on the medical examiner (different in South Carolina from “the coroner”), there would have no case to even take to the grand jury.
The medical examiner’s findings put the shootings around 9:30 pm, when BOTH Alex’s cell phone data AND car data put him at Almeida.
I regret not having seen your comment earlier. I would not have ignored you.
Blanca is the most recent one of Alex’s former employees, colleagues and clients, to sell him for money or to save their own skins.
Here is what I wrote about Blanca’s today’s interview with Will Folks, in which Blanca mentions Barbara BTW:
At 23: 01 Blanca WRONGLY assumes no one else had gone into the house that night.
In fact, Blanca did NOT know about Paul and Maggie until THE MORNING AFTER when Alex called her from Almeda and asked her to go tidy Moselle up for visitors.
By then, AT LEAST TEN OTHER PEOPLE had been to the house that night, INCLUDING Mark Ball and his wife and Buster and Brooklyn.
So, whatever was done to the laundry room was DEFINITELY not done by Alex, who NEVER entered the house after getting a gun after discovering the bodies.
Don’t take my word. Take the transcripts of the trial testimony.
Blanca has to say Alex did it to sell her book just as Becky Hill had to push for a guilty verdict to sell her book.
What people would not do to innocent others for money!
It is fiction that key clothes were never seen again.
Now Blanca tells us that, because a man took his own towel to his own car, he murdered his wife and younger son both of whom he adored and treated lovingly according to Blanca herself.
To separate fact from fiction, Blanca had left Moselle on 7 June 2021 LONG before Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) had returned from work and Paul had arrived to Moselle from work at John Marvin’s tractor shop at Okatee.
In Paul’s tree-shrub video, RAM is seen wearing what Blanca described RAM as wearing to work in the morning minus the sport jacket.
It makes perfect sense that after six hours in the office in that outfit plus two or so hours riding around Moselle with Paul in that hot and humid day, RAM would have showered and changed into the more comfortable outfit he wore to see his mother in Almeda.
RAM could have showered and changed before or after dinner.
RAM also had to rush to Almeda to comfort his agitated mother before her sleeping time. Were RAM the real killer, he would have spent the night in there in the empty bed of his terminal hospitalized father and left the bodies to be discovered by a Moselle worker in the morning.
It also makes perfect sense that RAM would take a towel to the even hotter and more humid kennels to dry his own perspiration.
Where other than his own car would RAM leave that towel?
How that proves RAM shot his wife and younger son is beyond my SubZeroIQ.
But perhaps one of you Einsteins can explain it to me.
Ever heard Napoleon Bonaparte’s “cherchez la femme”? Alors, voici des femmes who COULD have been the real shooters of Paul and Maggie:
?@Carrie-k1m3i and ? @KarenSmith-g8e , at least three young women in possession of Paul’s previously-stolen guns and with some training in hunting game animals but no training on shooting humans as in the military or in law enforcement.
I drew that conclusion from the fact that the first shots at each of Paul and Maggie were, due to muscle memory, aimed to the height of a game animal’s head, not a human head.
The list of POSSIBLE candidates starts with Paul’s ex-girl friend who had had a love-hate relationship with Paul and had, ironically, been taught to hunt by the Murdaugh’s themselves.
The list goes through Gloria Satterfield’s sister, Ginger, and ends with Mark Tinsley’s daughter, Emma, who had had a love-hate relationship with her father after he divorced Emma’s mother. But, according to “The Devil at His Elbow,” a book by Valerie Bauerlein (who is now a paid publicist for Mark Tinsley in his new Spivey case), Emma “returned to [Mark]” after the Murdaugh shootings.
Add an unexplored Lesbian by the name of Olivia Boyles; and an unnamed woman who jumped off a bridge the night of the shootings.
Also worth considering is an email from Private Investigator Sara Capelli sent Mark Tinsley an email overflowing with guilt that Sara had caused Paul’s demise.
A common thread tying all those women (except possibly Sara and Emma) is that Mandy Matney had privately interviewed them before the shootings after she began a public campaign (which allegedly included laisons with her sources) to demonize Paul and get him indicted for the boat crash.
Mandy Matney also rabidly and publicly campaigned to frame Buster (and Paul) for Stephen Smith’s death. Even though that part failed, no one apologized to Buster. Instead, a separately convicted fraudster, now widely-read blogger, taunted Alex after his life sentences, “Your son is next, Alex. Justice for Stephen Smith!” Remember that?
And you still don’t want to believe that Murdaughs get falsely accused BECAUSE. and in spite, of their name?
Another fiction “Murdaugh towels never left the house” was written by a commenter on FITSTube. Pasted hereunder is my reply to her?
? @marycahill546 , here you go again!
What was so sacrosanct about “the Murdaugh towels”? Were they maidens in a an ancient Ottoman harem? Or babies who could crawl but not walk? Or nuns in a Carmelite convent?
And if “he hosed off blood off of him at the kennels” why return to the house to get a museum-quality towel? Couldn’t he have left himself wet or grabbed something from the kennels to dry himself?
And why would he drive home buck naked just to get to the house anyway?
Really, what is it about you that makes repeat such nonsense?
You take the cake.
Jenn Wood and Will Folks, it is no fiction that Blanca Simpson said on your FITSTube/YouTube channel interview of her that she knows who “helped” Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) in the shooting of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.
I am NOT a lawyer; but having been complimented as “better than lawyers” ON THE TRANSCRIBED RECORD by at least two jurists, I am confident in concluding that “help” in fatal shootings is a felony and that knowing but refusing to disclose who “helped” in the fatal shooting of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh is misprision of a felon or felons or at least obstruction of justice.
At minute 34:28 Blanca deserves an Oscar BUT at the same time makes a Freudian slip: “that [RAM] left them there. That is the hurtful part to me.”
RAM left Paul and Maggie ALIVE in the kennels. But Blanca’s slip implies that RAM knew who was planning or threatening to shoot them that night. She admits she knows who “helped” in the shootings.
Whoever supposedly “helped” in the shootings could have been THE shooter(s).
Remember? The hand of one is the hand of all. Or is law applied selectively in this state?
THIS CANNOT BE LEFT AT THAT. Ignoring Blanca’s statement is obstruction of justice.
No matter Will Folks’ friendship with Alan Wilson or Dylan Nolan’s loyalty to his former boss, same Alan Wilson, BOTH Will and Dylan must FORMALLY request Alan Wilson to ask the AG of another state to investigate the knowledge, if any, behind Blanca’s statement that she knows who “helped” AND IMMEDIATELY RELEASE THE RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION to the public.
If it turns out that Blanca was bluffing and simply teasing knowledge she does not have to promote sales of her book, sales must be IMMEDIATELY halted and her book de-published.
Society cannot have obstructors of justice profiting from publications of their obstruction.
Petting a dog does NOT make you a saint and does NOT mitigate obstruction of justice.
And while Alan Wilson is at it, if he ever gets to it, he should get that AG from another state to look at BOTH “Cousin Eddie’s” cases and SLED’s supposed “progress” in the investigation of Stephen Smith’s demise. Specifically, if undue pressure had been applied to SLED to waste tax-payer money on a second autopsy of Stephen Smith (which only confirmed the diagnosis of the first autopsy), all AFTER Sanctimonious Sandy Smith (“SSS”), Malicious Mandy Matney (“MMM”), and Ever-Bluffing Eric Bland (“EBEB”), had schemed to, and did, raise over $100K on Go-Fund-Me to pay for that second autopsy.
Don’t accuse me of asking or expecting too much.
Paraphrasing a Republican politician from the 20th Century, extremism in the pursuit of justice, transparency, and integrity, is no vice.
God speed to you and to me.
Never adding to fiction, but having pasted on this thread my comments “as are” to Blanca Simpson’s interviews, to paste here too my:
“Self-correction: Apparently Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) did enter the Moselle house, but ONLY ONCE MORE after getting the gun after discovering the bodies. RAM was asked by the first responders for his clothes, the white T and shorts RAM had on when he called 911. So, RAM had to enter the house at Moselle to take these off and put something else on. I do not recall enough of the trial transcript to know what he put on instead. But I am sure the blue shirt RAM had on during that videotaped interview with SLED inside a vehicle looks A WHOLE LOT LIKE the blue shirt RAM had on in Paul’s video with the sapling which would not remain upright.”
I also add that, in most, if not all, of the videos and photos of RAM between and including the morning of 8 June 2021 until his last day of freedom, RAM is wearing a vertical-stripes blue shirt and kaki pants or shorts.
I have no time or software to filter out the light effect off those several videos and photos and determine whether one of those shirts IS the one from Paul’s 7 June 2021 circa 7:30 pm video. But someone should do that easy investigation to put to rest the unfair and unfounded rumors that RAM wore that shirt to the kennels and destroyed it later.
God speed and God bless.
NOT bragging on myself, but all truth-seekers should today be thankful for my existence, my knowledge, and my courage to post to Will Folks’ Blanca interview replies such as this to one who pretended I “clearly do not know the facts of the case”:
?”@mandychadwick8762 , I (1) watched ALL Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s (“RAM”) two-murder trial; (2) read ALL documents in the federal case where it was revealed that the whole Gloria case was an insurance fraud fabrication about dogs having tripped her, etc.; (3) PERSONALLY know MOST of the prosecutors in the state criminal trial and many of the insurance defense lawyers in the federal civil case; so, I know what tactics they are capable of cold-bloodedly and unscrupulously deploying; (4) had in 2009-2012 defended myself WITHOUT A LAWYER, mainly in the court of none other than Judge Clifton Newman, and, thank God, first prevented a jury from returning a wrongful conviction of me; and later, always thanks to God and STILL WITHOUT A LAWYER, I got those false criminal charges against myself dismissed WITH PREJUDICE; and (5) am a quadrilingual MD, MPH who, in my much younger years, performed 48 autopsies which required meticulous medical records review to correctly diagnose the main cause and contributory causes of death.
So, what is it that you think you know about this case more than I do?”
This invitation to supply any more real facts is extended to all readers of this outlet.
The key to separating fact from fiction is the TRUE time of the shootings.
The answer is at the end of this pasted reply to a commenter on FITSTube:
? @RJ1234-d1s , repeating a falsehood ever more frequently and ever louder never makes it true in the end.
Has anyone EVER answered with OBJECTIVE science my assertion that the shootings COULD NOT HAVE happened as early as only 22 minutes after the victims’ KNOWN large, and relatively fatty, last meal?
This time I call on pathologists of conscience, I even call on FITSTube or Jenn Wood to interview Dr. Michelle Duprey (Eric Bland’s hand-picked pathologist for Stephen Smith’s “second autopsy”) about BOTH (1) the timing of demise by stomach contents as related to contents and quantity of last meal; AND (2) Stephen Smith’s “second autopsy” having confirmed that he died where his body was found as a result of vehicle versus pedestrian collision.
America cannot be great without BOTH the Constitution and true science.
Do NOT destroy both in the service of vendetta and greed of a chosen few against chosen fewer.