The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

Alex and Randolph III sped to the hospital, making phone calls to gather information. Alex walked around the hospital with his grandfather’s solicitor’s badge hanging out of his pocket, hoping to endear himself to law enforcement. Meanwhile, Paul had to be restrained in the emergency room. A Department of Natural Resources warden tried taking Paul’s statement, but Randolph prevented this. Connor and Miley both gave vague statements, but Morgan wrote her statement, claiming that Paul was the driver.

Alex sauntered between the victims’ rooms, coaching them on what to say, but Morgan refused to let Alex in her room. A nurse who refused to be intimidated by the Murdaugh name made Alex stay with Paul and posted a security guard to keep watch. Alex quickly made friends with the guard and continued his movements. Hospital staff overheard Alex’s phone call to Maggie, in which he spoke callously about Mallory. Alex called Connor’s parents about the accident but didn’t call Mallory’s parents.

Alex and Randolph convened with Connor and Miley’s parents in Connor’s room, instructing them to say as little as possible to the police. Alex knew that Paul would face a harsh punishment for the crime, and he also knew that his embezzlements might come to light if an investigation continued. Bauerlein explains that the Murdaugh name was losing its power in Beaufort County, where the boat crashed, so Alex tried thwarting the case early.

Divers looked for Mallory in the dark waterways. Meanwhile, Paul, Alex, and Randolph freely left the hospital. Bauerlein suggests that each man reflected on their fears: Paul for Mallory, Alex for his crimes being discovered, and Randolph for his health.

Renee Beach finally received a call about her daughter from her mother. Neither the Murdaughs nor law enforcement contacted the Beaches, despite being offered Renee’s number. Renee notified her ex-husband Phillip, and the family went to the crash site, which was fenced with police tape. Miley, Morgan, and their parents arrived to show support, and Anthony paced the causeway. As the fog cleared, the search intensified. Randolph and Maggie arrived and crossed through the police tape, ignoring the Beaches. Renee knew that they were trying to conceal Paul’s involvement, and she resolved to hire a lawyer to fight them.

Bauerlein describes Mallory through her friends and family’s eyes. She was a sweet girl who spent most of her time with her friends. Mallory had a life-long crush on Anthony, and the couple became official only weeks before the crash. Unlike Paul, Mallory’s charges for underage drinking weren’t expunged from her criminal record. She had been excited to go to Murdaugh Island, but when she saw the extent of Paul’s intoxication, she had grown scared.

Alex invited Marty Cook, Connor’s father, to the Murdaugh law firm for a private meeting. Marty was Alex’s school friend, and he was indebted to Old Buster for reducing criminal charges in his youth. Alex overexaggerated his trustworthiness, which made Marty wary. Alex told Marty to either stay silent or tell police that Connor had been driving the boat. Marty nodded in agreement, knowing what could happen if he crossed the Murdaughs.

The Murdaughs pressured law enforcement to get a warrant for the boat on a Sunday, knowing that it would be delayed, which would allow the rain to wash away evidence. They were present when the boat was transported, and Alex’s brother, John Marvin, even drove the trailer. Nearly every officer on the case was a friend or a client of the law firm. Bauerlein suggests that key digital and forensic evidence went missing as part of the family’s efforts to obfuscate Paul’s involvement in the crash.

The search continued for a week, and Mallory’s family accepted that she likely died. Anthony’s mother, Beverly Cook, visited the causeway every day with her son. Paul visited too, though his friends didn’t want to see him. Bauerlein shares an anecdote about Maggie entering Beverly’s truck uninvited and asking about the possibility of never finding Mallory. The conversation made Beverly wonder if the Murdaughs would interfere in the search.

Two local volunteers soon found Mallory’s body stuck in the marshland. At the same time, Renee Beach struggled to find a lawyer who had no connections to Alex. She heard of Mark Tinsley, a lawyer out of Allendale. Tinsley sympathized with Renee, but he didn’t want to embroil his firm in a battle with the Murdaughs. However, when Renee revealed the Murdaughs’ preferential treatment at the crime scene, Tinsley changed his mind.

Anthony and Beverly Cook struggled with their grief and anger, but Mark Tinsley’s work alleviated their fears that the Murdaughs would get away with the crime. Before Tinsley took the case, he was on vacation in northern Canada, where he stalked wild rams in the wilderness. Bauerlein draws comparisons between Tinsley’s hunting and his legal skills, given that he ceaselessly pursued his targets in both arenas. Tinsley had occasionally worked with Alex in the past, and the two men got together socially as Buster and Paul grew up. However, Tinsley grew to see Alex as a fraud who hid his corruption with charm. Tinsley had a strict moral code and was motivated to help the helpless. He saw his work in court as a physical fight on his client’s behalf.

Tinsley collected digital evidence not only of Paul’s unreprimanded drinking habits that led to the crash, but also of Alex’s attempted cover-up. A judge officially charged Paul with boating under the influence and causing death and injuries. Paul’s lawyers—Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian—got him special privileges while he was out on bond; Paul was permitted to move unrestricted through the county with no ankle monitor or blood-alcohol testing, and he wasn’t processed at the jail.

Alex continued stealing from the Satterfields during Paul’s investigation. He convinced a judge to file an insurance settlement off the books and stole $2.96 million of the final sum. Alex then used the money to pay off debts, to pay Paul’s lawyers, and to buy pills. He worried that Mark Tinsley, who had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him, would soon discover his unlawful financial records. Tinsley knew about Alex’s methods of stalling investigations, but he wasn’t deterred. He formulated a complex plan of lawsuits against other parties—like the bar that sold alcohol to Paul—in order to pressure Alex, but Alex continued to ignore the requests. Alex’s lawyers offered a $1.5 million settlement of scraped-together funds, but Tinsley wouldn’t accept less than $10 million. The Beaches grew frustrated with Paul’s refusal to take responsibility.

Bauerlein shares several anecdotes about the Murdaughs’ slipping power. Hampton County locals connected the mysterious deaths of Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield to the family. Additionally, Connor Cook, in his deposition about the boat crash, mentioned the Murdaughs’ lack of accountability. Stephen Smith’s family also started a petition to remove Randolph III as grand marshal of the Watermelon Festival due to the family’s scandals.

Bauerlein explains that Maggie felt more isolated after the boat crash. She kept few friends, but she found a confidant in her new housekeeper, Blanca, who worked briefly as the law firm’s translator before taking on the housekeeping work. Maggie confided in Blanca that she thought Alex was lying about their finances. She started living separately in their beach house because she was depressed by the chaos that her husband and son caused.

After a year and a half, Tinsley still didn’t have Alex’s financial records. At the first lawsuit mediation, Alex claimed to be broke, which Tinsley doubted. The mediation gave Tinsley no new information, but it did solidify his resolve to obtain Alex’s records by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Alex continued to spend thousands of dollars on pills and paid a “fixer” to get Buster back into law school after he was kicked out. At the same time, his father’s and mother’s health was failing.

Bauerlein provides updates on the cases related to the Murdaughs as of 2021. Troopers continued to follow leads unsuccessfully in Stephen Smith’s murder. Tony and his younger brother were evicted from Gloria’s house, and the two received no money and few replies from Alex. Alex continued to steal indiscriminately. Tinsley was diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer, but while undergoing treatment, he focused his uninterrupted time on Mallory’s case. He organized evidence of the attempted cover-up, and he presented his findings to a group of lawyers and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) officers. The group agreed that the issues were egregious, and the Attorney General soon started investigating Alex.

The Murdaughs continued to keep up appearances, and the whole family, including Paul, continued to drink wildly. Alex’s pill addiction became harder to hide from Maggie. A judge planned a hearing for Tinsley’s motion to compel, which would force Alex to hand over his financial records or face jail time. Alex’s law firm also became suspicious about missing fees.

On the weekend prior to Maggie and Paul’s murder, Alex’s paralegal and his chief financial officer pursued him about the missing fees. On Monday, June 7, Alex woke up late and disheveled, and Blanca fixed his blue polo shirt before he left for work. At the office, the CFO confronted Alex about the fees, but a phone call about Randolph III’s worsening condition cut the conversation short.

Bauerlein then depicts the evening of the murders. Alex left the office, but did not visit his father. He called Maggie and Paul and persuaded them to return to Moselle. Maggie was still living in Edisto, and Paul was working out of town with his uncle, John Marvin. Alex and Paul arrived at Moselle, and the pair drove around, checking the property and shooting targets. When Maggie arrived later, the family ate dinner. Maggie and Paul went to the kennels to check on a friend’s injured dog. Alex later left to visit his mother. Paul was active on his phone, but soon, no one could reach him or his mother. At 10:00 p.m., Alex called 911 after discovering Maggie and Paul’s bodies at the kennels, both having been shot. Bauerlein shares transcript excerpts of Alex’s conversation with the Colleton County dispatcher, in which he described the bloody scene.

Sergeant Daniel Greene arrived at the scene and met Alex, who was now wearing a white T-shirt. Alex suggested that Maggie and Paul were killed because of the boat crash, since Paul had received threats. Paramedics and other officers arrived, and soon a crowd of Alex’s family and friends gathered. Alex answered Greene’s questions about when he last saw his family with uncertainty, claiming that he visited his mother for an hour and a half and saw Maggie and Paul 45 minutes before that.

Deputies collected evidence and determined that Maggie and Paul were shot with different guns. The fire chief covered the bodies so that the family wouldn’t see the gruesome scene. The coroner also refrained from performing a rectal thermometer because of the large crowd watching but determined the time of death as 9:00 p.m. A deputy swabbed Alex for gunshot residue. The police captain expressed suspicions about Alex having touched Paul’s phone before calling 911. Detective Laura Rutland and SLED agent David Owen led the case, and Agent Owen took over because of the potential connection to SLED’s boat crash investigation. Both investigators understood that the small-town connections would make the investigation difficult. Owen and Rutland called Alex and his attorney into Owen’s truck for the first official interview.

Alex explained his movements from when he last saw Maggie and Paul to when he returned to Moselle after visiting his mother. After dinner, Alex claimed that he napped, and when he awoke, Maggie and Paul were still out of the house. Alex said that he left just after 9:00 p.m. and returned just before 10:00 p.m. Maggie and Paul still weren’t in the house, so he went down to the kennels, where he found the crime scene. Alex described his relationships with Maggie and Paul, and he again suggested that the attack was connected to the boat crash. He was also suspicious of the new groundskeeper because the man used to be a Navy SEALs vigilante. Throughout the interview, Alex interrupted his responses to spit tobacco and weep. Alex ended the interview when Buster arrived.

Agent Owen collected Alex’s clothes at the house. SLED did not lock down the house for processing because the crime scene was so far away, and because the house was crawling with visitors. Owen returned to the kennels as technicians processed the scene in the daylight. Bauerlein describes the gruesome scene; the gunshots blew Paul’s brain from his skull, and the feed room that he lay in front of was covered in blood. Maggie lay nearby and had been shot multiple times.

Owen collected Paul’s phone, which Alex had placed neatly on Paul’s back, noting other pieces of important evidence as well. When the groundskeeper arrived for work, Owen interviewed and cleared him. Owen also interviewed the Murdaughs’ dog caretaker. The man said that the kennels were in disarray compared to how he left them the previous evening. Investigators cleared the scene that morning, and Bauerlein explains that this detail became a major issue during the trial. On their respective rides home, Agent Owen and Detective Rutland considered the inconsistencies in Alex’s behavior.