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by WILL FOLKS
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The story of the ‘Murdaugh Murders‘ crime and corruption saga has been told so many times – in so many different ways – there’s an obvious saturation to the saga at this point. The official narrative has been decreed (and duly dramatized) – embedding a certain resolution in the minds of most who have followed this case.
Perceptions have cemented, biases have calcified… and, in most circles, the search for elusive answers and authentic justice has ground to a halt.
Certainly, though, this story isn’t over. Many believe Alex Murdaugh, the once-respected attorney and heir to a generational legal dynasty in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, will get a new trial following documented tampering with the jury that handed down convictions against him for the murders of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and younger son, Paul Murdaugh.
Irrespective of the latest legal wrangling, though, significant components of this crime remain unresolved (and unexplored). And, sadly… may stay that way.
Given the lack of witnesses and murder weapons, much of what really happened on the fateful evening of June 7, 2021 – when Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were savagely slain on their family hunting property near Islandton, S.C. – will remain unknowable. And given allegations of a botched, biased investigation – and a rigged jury at Murdaugh’s internationally watched double homicide trial – much of the “justice” administered in response to this crime remains suspect.
Worst of all? Those charged with seeking the truth – investigators, officers of the court and many in the media – seem intent on protecting the official narrative at all costs, going so far as to engage in acts of intimidation against those who dare to challenge that narrative.
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To be clear: Alex Murdaugh is no victim here. Sure, his Sixth Amendment rights were grossly violated during his trial – and the investigation into the crimes for which he was convicted was clearly mishandled. More ominously, those responsible for upholding justice in the aftermath of Murdaugh’s convictions – notably those tasked with investigating and prosecuting former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill (who tampered with his jury) and Murdaugh check casher/drug supplier Curtis “Eddie” Smith (who many believe helped him cover up the crime) – have failed miserably in their duties.
None of that bestows any imprimatur of innocence upon Alex Murdaugh, though. He was – and is – a serial deceiver, a definitional liar and faux repentant thief whose habitual dishonesty regarding this crime began with his 911 call on that fateful night and extended to his testimony at trial. He is exactly where he belongs… and nothing anyone uncovers from this point moving forward changes that.
Still, those of us with a commitment to the truth – not a commitment to money, fame or flawed institutions – understand that holding Murdaugh accountable cannot be the intent of justice, it must always and forever be its result.
And that means continuing to ask questions of those who were closest to this story… who know its secrets and can help put key pieces of the still-unfinished puzzle together.
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RELATED | HIDDEN TEXTS ‘MIGHT HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE’
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We did that this week via an expansive interview with one of the key figures in this narrative, Murdaugh family housekeeper Blanca Simpson – who had a lasting friendship with Maggie Murdaugh and who, in the aftermath of the trial, has been caring for “Bubba,” the family dog who witnessed the tragic murders.
A native of Brownsville, Texas, Simpson served in the U.S. Navy, worked as a correctional officer and later worked as an investigative assistant in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, specializing in gang intelligence. A translator for Murdaugh’s law firm, she later became Maggie Murdaugh’s trusted housekeeper and personal assistant.
In one of the most significant moments of the 2023 double homicide trial, Simpson told enraptured jurors that Alex Murdaugh attempted to convince her after the fact that he was wearing a different shirt than the one he was wearing on the night of the double homicide. This conversation reportedly took place in August of 2021 – shortly after Murdaugh was confronted by officers of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) about his alibi being shredded by a video filmed by his late son Paul less than five minutes before he was murdered.
This fall, Simpson published a volume of her recollections entitled Within the House of Murdaugh – billed by publishers as an “intimate, first-hand perspective” told with “grace, honesty and heart.”
“Blanca’s perspective… points out clues often overlooked or considered unimportant,” forensic pathologist D’Michelle DuPre noted. “Her insight and knowledge of the family’s habits and dynamics offer a new understanding of a tragedy that never should have occurred.”
Simpson’s book, co-authored with Mary Frances Weaver, is “part memoir, part testimony” – a story of “loyalty, loss and quiet faith.” In an interview about the book with FITSNews, she shared additional revelations about her knowledge of the Murdaugh family – and what she perceived in the aftermath of the Palmetto State’s ‘Crime of the Century.’
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“I wanted to humanize Maggie and Paul,” Simpson said of her motivation for writing the book. “Losing them was more painful than I could have ever imagined, but I knew it was time to share the truth – the real story behind who they were, beyond the headlines.”
In her conversation with FITSNews, Simpson rebuked the characterization of the Murdaugh family presented in recent dramatizations.
“The public wants to see the villain,” she said. “The villainous side is what sells, what gets people to watch your shows. And unfortunately, I think there’s a lot of that going on… (and) people want to see that. But they were normal. They were a normal family. They had their normal issues with their teenage boys.”
“I just want to make sure people know that there was another side to them – and what happened was just a decision he made,” she said.
Simpson also dispelled rumors that Maggie Murdaugh had met with a divorce attorney in the weeks leading up to her murder.
“Most definitely not,” she said. “I think that was taken out of context, I think she might have been on the phone or joking around with somebody else, but that was a running joke within the home that she was going to say ‘I’m going to divorce Alex Murdaugh and I’m going to marry me some Tom Brady.'”
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“She would have said something to me about that,” Simpson added, referring to the divorce rumors. “Or she would have asked, you know, what do you think about this?”
On the evening of the murders, Simpson recalled Maggie Murdaugh telling her Alex had “asked Paul to come home that night” and that his younger son was “not too happy about it.” She also observed an unknown individual – whom she mistakenly believed to be Paul Murdaugh – driving a tractor through the property hours before the murders. In her book, Simpson suggests this may have been Alex Murdaugh “using the tractor’s scoop to dig a deep hole” in an area of the property “ideal for burying evidence.”
“The property was think with heavily wooded areas where even a drone flying overhead wouldn’t spot the disturbance,” Simpson wrote in her book. “Why would someone take the tractor to the fields, hours before the murders, when no one else was around – not Maggie, not Paul, not the groundskeeper?”
According to Simpson, the moment she knew Murdaugh was guilty was when she saw “a beach towel from the laundry room on the front seat of Alex’s Suburban” in the initial body camera footage from Colleton County sheriff’s deputy Daniel Greene.
“I rewound the video to make sure I was seeing things correctly,” she wrote in her book. “Almost instantly, I shouted ‘Oh my God, he did it!’ It was then I knew.”
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“The towel on the seat told me that Alex had been in that laundry room at Moselle,” Simpson said. “That was one of the towels that I had laundered earlier and folded and placed up on the shelf in the laundry room. And so that told me he went in the laundry room.”
If Murdaugh cleaned up the crime scene, Simpson is adamant he had help. In fact, she told us she knows who helped him.
“I know who they are,” she said.
Who, then?
“I will not disclose that,” Simpson said, citing concerns for her safety.
Simpson said she would be willing to share her suspicions with investigators, although she claimed they waited “a week and a half” after the murders to interview her – a delay which caused some to suggest she was complicit in a cover-up.
“I was criticized,” she said. “It was said that I cleaned the crime scene, that I washed the blood out of the shower, that I, you know, moved stuff around – and so it deflected off law enforcement… that I was the one who basically messed up the crime scene.”
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“Well, where was the search warrant on the house?” Simpson asked. “Nobody told me I couldn’t go in. Nobody said anything to me. Nobody stopped me. Nothing. I went straight in the house. I stood there. Nobody stopped me. I was never made aware that there (were) people in that house. I did not know that there (were) people in the house that night. I didn’t know.”
As for the investigation itself, Simpson told me after the interview that “people need to look at it from the perspective of who was actually in charge at that moment, you know, who made the calls?”
“They really need to look at that,” she said. “That’s where power, you know, power and privilege has a lot to do (with it). That was my lesson in money, power (and) privilege 101.”
Asked whether she believed Murdaugh deserved a new trial, Simpson said while some people “feel it was not a fair trial” a second installment “is gonna stir everything all up again.”
“If they determine that he needs a new trial, the so be it,” she said. “Do I feel that he deserves a new trial? If he can answer the question how he could leave his wife and son there for a whole hour before calling 911, even though he claims he didn’t do it, that’s the hurtful part to me – that he left them there to go get his alibi.”
Our conversation with Simpson was just one part of this story, though. We also met Bubba – the yellow Labrador whose exploits with a chicken on the evening of the murders ultimately led to Alex Murdaugh being placed at the scene of the crime.
With the blessing of Buster Murdaugh, Alex’s surviving son, Simpson adopted the precocious pooch.
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“I’ve known him since he was a puppy, and he was stubborn then,” Simpson said of Bubba. “I used to call him mule, I said he acts just like a mule.”
Bubba has slowed down considerably since his heyday at Moselle, but in hanging out with him and Simpson at their friend’s lake home in the Midlands region of the state this week – it was abundantly clear his mischievous streak is still alive and well.
Of interest? Simpson mentioned during our conversation how Bubba’s interactions with Alex Murdaugh changed following the murders. Recalling a moment when Alex was dropping off items retrieved from his late son’s apartment, she noted how “Bubba was not his usual self around him.”
“I (could) see the hesitation in him,” she recalled. “(Alex) called to him and he was hesitant.”
To view my conversation with Simpson in its entirety, click here…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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