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Murdoch Dynasty Origins

2:16:58 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

A South Carolina legal dynasty sits at the centre of four deaths that stayed unanswered.

  1. A surname outranks any credential in Hampton CountyFor almost a century you could grow up, grow old and die there without meeting a prosecutor who was not a Murdoch.
  2. Scene investigators and the pathologist never agreedEveryone at the road said it was not a traffic accident; the autopsy called it a pedestrian-vehicle collision and cited unnamed historical information.
  3. Money trouble surfaced days before the double murderThe firm's accountant Jean confronted Alec about 792,000 dollars in fees on the morning of 7 June 2021; Maggie and Paul were killed that night.
Executive Summary AI
  • Fred opens episode 170 with a sixteen-page write-up split into five acts, on the Murdoch family of Hampton County, South Carolina, where for almost a century nobody ever knew a prosecutor who was not a Murdoch.9:41
  • Act one is Stephen Smith, 19, found dead in the middle of a two-lane road on 8 July 2015 with a catastrophic head wound, no bullets, no gunpowder residue and no braking marks, while his car sat 4.5 km away.16:41
  • Dr. Erin Presnell ruled it a pedestrian-vehicle collision with the mode of death undetermined, which the sheriff's office, SLED and the Highway Patrol's MITE unit openly disputed; by 2016 the case was cold and the name Murdoch had come up more than 40 times.25:15
  • In February 2018 the family's housekeeper Gloria Satterfield died three weeks after a fall at Moselle, and Alec told her sons Brian and Tony to sue him so his insurance would pay, steering them to his college friend Corey Fleming.52:45
  • On 24 February 2019 Paul crashed his father's boat after an oyster roast, killing 19-year-old Mallory Beach, his blood alcohol measured at 0.286; on 7 June 2021, hours after the firm's accountant confronted Alec over 792,000 missing dollars, he called 911 to report Maggie and Paul shot dead at the kennels.1:08:12
Key Quote
“There are no bubbles, there's no gunpowder residue, there are no signs of braking on the road.”
— Fred19:38
Key Quote
“Suspects have never been identified and in 2016 everything stopped, so the year after the death.”
— Fred46:17
Key Quote
“there's no need to tell anyone who was driving.”
— Fred1:16:40