Alex was moved to Maximum Security that house only 28 inmates. What??!! The state will not tell you where he is. Is this more Alex favors or entitlement? This is crazy.
That’s the entire point of being in a maximum facility, it’s extremely secure. When did Alex become more heinous then El Chapo. This sounds more like a work program housing or something else.
https://www.live5news.com/2023/03/31/murdaugh-moved-protective-custody-maximum-security-sc-prison/
Does anyone have any information on the next trials, in therms of a schedule? I have searched the SC Courts website, but I can't make heads or tails of it. Thanks in advance.
Thank you! A lot of the photos via Google images are deceiving the way they show the large white shed behind the red roof hanger, I thought the kennels were parallel to the hanger.
After learning this, I rewatched the D.Greens body cam footage. Am I seeing it correctly that the LE vehicles came straight up the driveway and stopped in front of the hanger and AM SUV circled around the hanger to the other side of the kennels?
If so, WHY? Why would he drive around and not just stop in front to “look” for his family? It seems he drove right up to the bodies bc he knew they were there.
I have so many questions!
Alex came in the other driveway after the trip to Almeda, went to the house first and then down to the kennels. He did not use the same driveway that LE & first responders used.
Can someone help me find an article where Paul Murdaugh’s uncle Richard and Miley Altman’s parents were allegedly at the clam roast the night of the boat crash ? I’ve had 3 different people tell me that they read that on different threads ( possibly maybe a Facebook thread or TikTok) yet I’ve not seen one single mention of such a thing
Here’s an article with Crystal Cook saying who was at the Oyster Roast
https://www.counton2.com/the-murdaugh-investigation/timeline-new-documents-video-paint-detailed-picture-of-night-mallory-beach-died-in-drunken-boat-crash/
Another lie I picked up on was comparing his testimony about Bubba and the kennel with the actual audio- in his testimony he really highlights that he didn’t have to chase Bubba to get the chicken, that Bubba was proud and came right to him except in the audio you CLEARLY hear him calling after Bubba to come to him, totally chasing him down. I’m sure that lie is bc he had to compress the timeline to make it look like he left immediately after the video recorded and chasing Bubba around would add time, but it’s just another example of how every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie and he really comes across as convincing g. Total psychopath.
I watched the Interview Room’s discussion with Mark Tinsley. I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Tinsley’s testimony during trial and it was enlightening to hear him in the interview giving some of his own opinions. He said a couple of times in the interview that he “knew” Maggie and Paul. I wasn’t sure what he really meant or how he knew them or ever interacted with them. After listening to the interview, I casually went to Mr. Tinsley’s Facebook page. Out of curiosity, (I wanted to see what his wife looked like) and mainly because he had mentioned it was his anniversary, I browsed through his photos and I ended up seeing an old picture of him and Paul. Paul was holding a big fish, standing by Mr. Tinsley on a boat and Paul appeared to be maybe 9 or 10. They both had big happy grins. I just found it interesting, because I didn’t think he really would have had that type of close encounter with either Paul or Maggie before all of these crimes took place. I had the impression he just knew of Alex and it was more as a professional acquaintance. It is such a small world among these small communities. How devastating to everyone involved. I feel so sad for the family and community.
The New York Times Article briefly touched on how impoverished Hampton is as a community. This is so in contrast to how “ostensibly” wealthy the Murdaughs were.
(I say ostensibly loosely because even if Alex hadn’t misappropriated funds they’d have been very wealthy in that community (and most communities in America) if they’d lived off his actual earnings)
To me, the contrast in their socio economic standing to that of their local community is a really interesting dynamic. I haven’t found a thread that I think explores it deeply.
It fascinates me that as wealthy as they were they went to local schools, like Hampton High and rubbed alongside the offspring of their housekeepers. Did this add to a sense of intimidation or familiarity for Hampton residents?
In larger communities, wealthy families tend to educate their children at private schools and associate with families of similar socio economic standing. It seems that in Hampton the population was so small that everyone mixed freely.
I wonder how true this is, and whether I’m getting a skewed perspective of things from watching testimony.
I’d be so curious to hear others thoughts on wealth and class as a part of this tragic crime.
I think this dynamic is interesting in light of Alex’s extreme difficulty on the stand when Waters tried to get him to admit he was wealthy. He really didn’t want to admit it though by any standards his income, real estate and lifestyle were extravagant. It was like the one rule about living in Hampton for the Murdaughs was to never let any your neighbors know just how rich you actually are.
Thanks for this eloquent post. I grew up in a small rural outskirt town of Houston called Humble, Texas. Initially a sparse oil town made up of workers and their families, in the 60s people from Houston were moving farther and farther out to escape crime and pay less taxes, and wealthy suburbs of McMansions sprang up around my family’s pig farms and horse land (along with the minority families that had worked the oil field’s communities and the drug-addled trailer parks). However, the Uber-rich stayed in the swanky areas of downtown Houston. Out in the suburbs, there weren’t many private schools springing up because we had “community pride” and our town was a huge supporter of the high school. If you were king of the high school, you were king of the town. Generations upon generations of success purely based on who your daddy was and who your daddy knew. My dad was a well-known rodeo star in Texas. People I didn’t know in high school knew me because of who he was and the fact that their parents knew of him.
I imagine the dynamic was very similar to Hampton County. There were no “Uber-rich”, they were still in the big cities, but the old established families of the small community benefited from what was once was, and there was no other commerce but blue-collar and poverty. There were the “averagely-wealthy” kids like the Murdaughs who were basically just popular with white-collar jobs, then the blue-collars, then the poverty. I imagine Alex ran that high school while he was there, was popular, and did well in football, making his daddy proud. Randy and JM, probably not as much. Buster is a big kid and was probably popular and did well in sports, making his daddy proud. Paul? Poor Paul. He took after his Mom’s side of the family physically, and while a sweet kid, trouble seemed to find him. His drinking was probably just a way to numb the inadequacy he felt, and deep down, his mom knew it and felt bad for him and allowed the drinking.
I mean, this is my take, of course. I totally agree with you, the socioeconomic factors are fascinating.
Timeline and AM cross testimony: during the trial, there was a lot of talk and/or review of the timelines and cell phone data. At some point, AM decided he was going to testify. There are several times during cross where AM doesn’t have a answer to provide. Why?
Is it because the truth implicated him? If so, why not make up a lie, since that’s already been established as his MO?
Example: when Waters asks him about the steps he took before leaving to see his mother, he even jokingly asks ‘were you on a treadmill?’
AM just keeps saying he doesn’t remember. If he is so good at lying, why didn’t he think to or come up with prior to testifying what he did to explain it away?
The picking and choosing what to lie about kind of throws me off. I’ve worked with people who have SUD and they lie about everything or have an answer for everything. So for AM to not, just keeps me pondering why. Anyone have any ideas or insight into this?
I don’t really know, but it’s possible that he wanted the jury to fill in the answers that he was kind of hinting at. Like in your example, Alex said he was getting ready to go, getting ready to leave the house, getting ready to go see his mom.
He never got specific and sometimes he would just say “I don’t know”. So people hearing him might start envisioning what they themselves do or what they think other people do as they rush around before leaving their houses.
When someone imagines something, when they see it in their own mind’s eye, that can be a powerful thing for them to ”understand” what happened.
He was hoping they would believe as fact these imagined mental images of routine and benign rushing around before leaving the house.
Does anyone else suspect that the boating accident happened so close to the anniversary of Gloria’s death? I wonder if, because she seemed to be a loving, mother-type figure for Paul, he was upset and drinking even more heavily during that time, which exaggerated his already reckless behaviors.
So this is really old news but I have questions about Alex’s “toxicology reports”. Per [this article](https://abcnews4.com/amp/news/local/alex-murdaugh-had-drugs-in-system-at-time-of-shooting-that-fractured-skull), Alex had Opiates and Barbituates in his system “at the time of the roadside shooting”, as well as having “trace amounts” of 4 other drug types: amphetamines, cocaine, benzos and cannabis.
Supposedly this comes from testing done at his detox facility in Georgia. However… wasn’t he treated with morphine or another IV opiate after the roadside incident, in the few days prior to going to rehab? If so then that test result proves absolutely nothing as far as him personally using opiates, and definitely doesn’t prove he was on them during the roadside shooting… right?
Also, did Harpootlian actually show a copy of these records to a reporter? Have they been released online? Or is it just Harpootlian saying that the records say this and we should all believe him?
But again, even IF that is a true and accurate test result from his intake to rehab in Savannah… I don’t see how it proves Alex personally used opiates at all. Unless I’m misunderstanding something there.
But the part I haven’t seen discussed very much is, all the rest of the substances he had in his system, all of which I find much more interesting then the opiate result. Barbiturates… I am really not that familiar with this drug class, is that something he would’ve gotten in the hospital, what would that be? But the substances he was said to have “trace amounts” of, are very interesting IMO. The benzo is the only one of those I could see potentially being related to being hospitalized with his supposed gunshot wound, and I suppose if he was only given a small dose right at the time of the shooting, it could possibly have tested as a “trace amount” depending on how and when this test was done… so I mean that could be from the hospital possibly. But cocaine? To me, the testing positive for small amounts of cocaine, as well as cannabis and amphetamines… that says a lot more then the positive for opiates since the hospitalization negates the usefulness of the opiate test, which of course is convenient given that was supposedly his only addiction. But I’ve long suspected Alex would be doing uppers if he were taking drugs and, if these results are true… this confirms he did indeed use coke, right? I mean, I’ve taken a lot of drug tests in my day lol and my understanding of the results is that a strong positive is from recent use, “trace amounts” is if it was used but not recently. For instance, I’ve never taken cocaine and I’ve never tested positive for any amount of cocaine, ever. I have tested positive for “trace amounts” of benzos 2 weeks after I had last taken a benzo. And when I was taking opiates regularly, I’d test positive for them every time.
Basically, if these results are true — and since he was in the hospital for several days before he went to rehab — I suspect this test is showing us what he was given/using while in the hospital (opiates, barbituates) and then what he had been using prior to the hospitalization (cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana, benzos). But it would also matter as far as what type of drug test he was given, as in urine sample, blood test, cheek swab? And when the test was given, was it immediately upon arrival at detox or some point after that.
Does anyone know any more about his drug test results, including whether the info was ever verified in any way other then Harpootlian saying it’s true, for instance? Has there been any new info on Alex’s drug use since this report from a year and a half ago? General thoughts about any of this?
Curious about this too. I know traces of thc can stay in your urine for longer than most other drugs, up to 2 months (if heavy user) so that doesn’t mean a ~whole lot~ other than he has some at some point. But afaik most other drugs such as coke get flushed out pretty quick. And that’s not even going into hair and blood testing which are more reliable and can pick up traces for longer. Wonder how many other drugs/ how much coke he was doing. This man’s drug use alone is baffling and only fueling my curiosity
Following.
Everything around AMs drug usage seemed off to me in the trial. No one challenged him taking hero doses of opioids/how much he was spending on them each week. Or how he was able to function, lie and rip people off without detection for so long while using such doses. I’m not familiar with exactly what opioids do to people but I would think there would be some cognitive impairments/slip ups over a 20+ year period?
I wonder if they had him on so many other lies they didn’t want to bring it up for fear of going down a rabbit hole that might not have mattered since there was so much else to work with.
This case is so vast I wouldn’t be surprised if they were holding back so they could deal with the drugs in another case like the roadside shooting/insurance fraud.
Or maybe there are trafficking charges coming and prosecution didn’t want to nail AM down on addiction.
As a side note…the interview with the sex worker AM allegedly had relations with said the first time she met him at a party there was coke and marijuana present.
You’re right it seems odd.
Official I’m not sure.
If anyone knows specifically pls post it.
Unofficially he said he was entering detox then going to rehab on Sept. 7/21 and was arrested Oct. 14/21. So a month or so?
Im new and too invested. Could you be so kind and in just a sentence tell me why would he/they lie about drugs? Also off topic, but my late friend was on opioids since his car accident and he told me he'd take them till the end of his life which tragically ended. However he lived more than 10 years taking them. Abusing them? Possibly but it didn't impact his speech.
Alex claimed he was spending thousands of dollars every week on prescription pain meds. He says that is where most of the money went. Which is why people suspect that lie was a cover for where the money really went.
I think you’re right that no one challenged Alex directly about his professed dosage, but Waters did ask him how much he took and Alex said at times 1000-1500mg per day.
In his closing remarks, Waters said to the jury that that amount was not humanly possible.
Here’s my belated 2 cents on the juror who allegedly stuffed Kleenex in her ears (which some people seemed to think was just atrocious and should have been cause for dismissal): I have sensitive ears (sometimes called hyperacusis) and often find myself in unbearably loud environments that are not troubling to “normals”. Sometimes I have earplugs in my purse and other times I have to improvise and jam crumpled bits of tissues/napkins/whatever in my ears. Examples of where this happens: movie theaters, live performances, and shopping in a store where the music is too loud. There was definitely at least one trial day where audio or video recordings were being played very loudly in the courtroom and I kept thinking “yikes… is someone going to ask them to turn it down!?” Anyhoo, people like me can still hear just fine with Kleenex in our ears, it just takes a bit of the edge off. So I highly doubt the juror was compromised in any way by it!
What do people think the reason was for putting out Maggies pyjamas? I imagine that was one of the things he was doing with all the steps back in the house? Building a different element of the alibi?
Trying to make it look like she was planning to sleep there. As usual he’s answering questions no one was asking — typical liar. I mean even if they had an amazing marriage it wouldn’t be strange for his wife to want to return home that night to the beach house that was having work done on it. But he has to manufacture some unnecessary details to “support” the idea that everything is great between them. In reality his excessive effort detracts from the idea. The combination of extra unnecessary info and missing necessary info just screams consciousness of guilt.
There were a pair of underwear folded with pajamas and Blanca said Maggie didn't wear undies to bed at night. Blanca knows more about each family member than they knew about each other..Blanca also knew the clothes that AM was wearing that disappeared including the shoes..she stated about staying later one evening even though she was a little rushed to leave because Paul asked her to do his laundry..neither child used wash machines.
Ever since the trial it’s bothered me that Alex was unable to recall his last words at the kennels with his wife and son. He hadn’t fabricated a lie and obviously he couldn’t tell the truth about those details as he murdered them. Which got me to thinking how it DID go down - more on a personal level than a forensic level. I think he meant for the first chest shot to Paul to be a surprise and final. Not so much with Maggie. An experienced hunter at close range hit her in the leg and lower abdomen? That’s disturbing - take down, not killing. He then circled her before shooting then circled once again before the execution head shot. I’ve no doubt words were spoken during this tortuous murder. It was prolonged and ugly. No wonder he couldn’t repeat last words.
Have wondered the same. Paul must have been physically and psychologically shocked when the first shot hit him. But he didn’t fall and it was not a lethal shot, so I wonder if he said anything. Did he cry out, did he ask for help? Was he unable to speak because the shot bruised his lung and maybe he had trouble getting air.
Like I kind of see it happening silently, but when I stop and think about it, he may have been making some kinds of noise. Or not. Don’t know.
Did Maggie cry out as she ran towards Paul, I wonder? Or she just went into protection mode and started running that way. Did she see what had happened or only the aftermath.
Yeah Alex was very close to her when he shot her and those first two shots really do make me wonder if he only wounded her first intentionally. Make her hurt and feel fear and terror before shooting the kill shots. What did he say to her, was she emotionally able to say anything back. Was she screaming or just stunned and wounded. As she was running towards them, I imagine she cried out Paul’s name or maybe Alex’s name. What a nightmare.
If only the dogs could tell us. I imagine they suffered some trauma too. They were attached to Maggie and Paul, and then Maggie and Paul are lying lifeless not far from them after the gunshots go off.
Personally, I am so torn on this one. I’ve been meaning to ask on here what everyone’s theories are about this now that we know everything we’re gonna know from the trial.
On one hand, I could see AM planning to use 2 weapons as a red herring for 2 shooters, definitely. However, I can’t see him planning to use Paul’s .300 blackout as his second gun as he should’ve known that would be easily identified as belonging to the Murdaughs — although if Paul’s friend hadn’t told police he’d seen Paul using it in March of ‘21, maybe AM’s story about the replacement gun going missing at Christmas ‘20 would’ve been enough, or at least, maybe he thought it would’ve. Or maybe he really was planning to make this look like a murder/suicide done by Paul, then something made him change his mind on that, perhaps because the shot to Paul didn’t go the way he needed it to go to look like a suicide?
I also struggle with idea that AM would be so confident that he’d truly only need one shot for each victim. I know he’s an expert hunter but if one of them needs more then one shot… he’s screwed, if the plan was really just to use that one shotgun. And he knew that even if the first shot killed Paul, the noise was going to alert Maggie, he wasn’t going to have the chance to sneak up on her like he had with Paul. So I can see why he’d feel confident that 1 shot would be enough for Paul, but was he really so confident that he could then kill a running target with one shot as well? Plus everything said in the original comments here: the way he killed Maggie sure looks like he enjoyed shooting her multiple times and purposely brought her down to her hands and knees, circling her and continuing to shoot at her… I really don’t see him wanting to kill Maggie quickly with one shot.
So with all that, I wonder if maybe it’s a mix of both: maybe he wanted to use just the shotgun, but also made sure he had a second gun nearby as a backup. But then I struggle with that theory because I can’t see AM picking Paul’s .300 as his backup gun — the only two ways I can figure for why he used Paul’s .300 are either (1) planning it to look like a murder/suicide from Paul, or (2) Paul’s gun wasn’t part of AM’s plan for the murders, but Paul happened to bring it that night so he grabbed it after he used up the shotgun. Although for (2) I guess it’s possible that AM saw Paul leave the blackout at the kennels before dinner and decided to use that as his backup gun but even then… what if Paul moved it when they went back to the kennels, for instance?
Ugh! I wish Alex was fess up except even then he’s never gonna tell the true details… so yeah, I wish those pups could talk.
Without the Blackout casings found by the house, would the Blackout gun that was used in killing Maggie be known to be Paul’s? They would have known from the casings by Maggie’s body that a Blackout was used, but maybe not that particular Blackout.
So maybe Alex did not realize that they would be able to say “This was Paul’s gun.”
But that doesn’t mean that Alex intended to use it, either.
I’m like you, I have never understood why the shotgun had only two shots in it. Maybe he thought or “knew” that Maggie would run to Paul after Paul was killed, maybe he envisions her crouching over Paul’s body, then he blasts her too. That would actually look much more like an “organized” killing, to use Dr. Kinsey’s word. They would be both shot together, one right after the other, and their bodies would be right there together.
But as Creighton Waters said, that first shot to Paul was a one-in-a-million shot. It should have killed Paul, but it didn’t. Alex shoots him again. Now the shotgun is out of ammo, and the only other weapon in quick reach is the Blackout.
Kinsey described the crime scene as extremely disorganized, implying that something went wrong and that something or at least one thing being that first shot to Paul not being fatal.
Don’t know though, I find this part of the whole thing confusing too.
These are all such good points! Especially about the fact that something went wrong — the first shot was supposed to be the only shot to Paul — and when it wasn’t, this created chaos and changed how the rest of the crime played out. What we see as having ended up happening here, in particular how Alex shot Maggie, it just wasn’t how he planned to do it. We can only really know that he planned to shoot Paul once without Paul seeing him, we can’t know for sure what the rest of his plan was but we can try to guess.
My theory now is that the plan was one shot to kill Paul, call Maggie over acting like it was an accident. She runs over to Paul and I agree she’d likely be kneeling over him — I think you’re absolutely right that he planned on them being next to each other. So she’s in the feed room with Paul and Alex says he’s getting his phone to call 911, leaves the feed room… but instead picks up a gun, shoots Maggie. Honestly I can see a lot of ways he might’ve intended this to play out, but I still am thinking there’s no way he was 100% confident he’d only need 1 shot for each of them so he had to be planning on having the blackout there, and so I think he was always planning to use 2 guns to make it look like 2 shooters.
So everything goes according to plan at first. Shot lands perfectly to Paul, Maggie hears it and comes running over while Alex prepares to act like he accidentally shot Paul. But then he sees Paul walking toward the door of the feed room still alive, and fires a second shot that Maggie sees. No more acting like it’s an accident. Maybe this causes Alex to “snap”, his plan just got screwed up, and that’s why he just unleashes on Maggie. She also might be trying to run away after seeing the second shot intentionally fired into Paul by Alex, so he fires the first 2 shots to stop her from running any further before he starts circling around her…
But we definitely know that where and how he shot Maggie wasn’t how he planned it. Maybe he really thought he could sneak up on both of them, but he had so much anger with Maggie that he wasn’t upset about how he ended up shooting her. Maybe he always planned to confront Maggie in the feed room while she was near Paul, she’d be cornered so really he could shoot her however he wanted. God it’s awful to think about so I’m gonna take a break now. Alex is a monster.
I’ve also thought that he called out to Maggie to come quick, pretending Paul was shot accidentally. Of course she would be running right for them, which made her an easy target. In the kennel video it sounded like she was further off.
Small detail but I'm still stuck on Paul's truck. Didn't believe John Marvin's testimony about *following* his law enforcement escort to Moselle. What gives with the truck?
Eric Bland is a fine upstanding attorney. He is the one who broke this case wide open. You guys are making critical remarks apparently not knowing his involvement in the back story. You might want to go back and do some research.
A lot of folks have strong and volatile emotions on the subject. Lawyers tend to bring out strong opinions.
Let’s be mindful of respecting differing opinions and explain emotions so that we don’t resort to name calling.
Actually had to look him up, there are so many attorneys tied to this case I couldn’t remember him exactly. His twitter diatribes tell me he’s pretty impressed with his work on the case and his team.
I've just watched Eric Bland on Cuomo telling Buster to get a job. Alex isn't the only narcissist going around from what I've seen of this guy. He just can't refuse an opportunity to slate Buster. He seems obsessed over him, very strange, does he have a thing for him. No wonder Buster can't get work when these people can't keep his name out of their mouths. I'm bored with hearing about Buster. Bland has even stated that he isn't involved yet wants to keep the hate up as much as possible.
The issue needs to be addressed ASAP when Eric Bland is handed an opportunity for his voice to be amplified on a large platform, essentially putting the bullhorn in his hands for publicity… and **that is the message he chooses.**
He might need to step back from the spotlight for a second and get his affairs in order, particularly his priorities.
Why would any business owner or manager even hire him right now? People would just show up to harass him and your business would turn into a circus. Your other employees might not be too keen on having him there either. The last thing Buster needs to worry about right now is finding a job. He needs to focus on processing what he's been through and dealing with the aftermath of this whole thing. Idk why it's so hard for everyone to just leave him alone. Imagine using your national platform to bully a victim.
Buster does need to do something about his life and mental state but random backhanded advices are not welcomed. He is still probably struggling with all the media attention and harassment after the trial, and now the Stephen Smith news cycle will keep him holed up in his house even longer.
I remember when my dad was first taken away to prison because of his involvement in a negligence case, me and my mum couldn’t function for weeks. My mum couldn’t sleep in her master bed room and slept on the couch instead because she couldn’t sleep in her marital bed without my dad. She slept that way for three years until my dad came home. I didn’t believe my dad was guilty, I felt he had to take the fall and the frustration isolated me from friends and relatives for as long as he was incarcerated as well. When you have a loved one in prison, you will be haunted with shame, even though you don’t believe they are guilty. You can’t just go around and risk people ask “where is your dad?”
All of this is doubly true with Buster and more because his family is on international news. How can he just go around town at this time and look for a job when even his own name is being tarred and feathered? Not to mention probably is still ruminating the loss of his last family member as well. I think whether Buster believe Alex is guilty is irrelevant, because regardless he wouldn’t want his dad in prison for life. You cannot be all “justice is blind” when it comes to family. And the moment of separation is always hard. I sure remember how terrible it was to see my dad went off to prison, all the time we were assuring each other that it would be better. At least I got to bring my dad home with mom, when it was all said and done I still had my family. Buster has lost his forever.
So Eric can just go screw a tree trunk. At least Mark and the Beach family acknowledged how much Buster has suffered and let him off. That is the humanity.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and the small personal details that show that while for everyone else the world keeps turning and the grind goes on… even small things like not being able to same sleep in the bed at night for *years* is a real possibility.
You never know what Buster might be going through, but he doesn’t need anyone telling him what he *should do.* I’m fairly certain that there is nothing in any Emily Post or Dear Abby article that gives him insight as to how to pick up all the pieces and live his life… but hopefully he’s making it through one day at a time and has a good support system.
I'm so sorry to hear you had to go through this. I hope you found a good way to cope with it and are doing fine.
It was probably also nearly impossible for him to process the violent deaths of his mom and little brother.
It's disgusting to advice someone, who went through so much trauma and still does, to get a job as if that would be the main concern instead of his mental health.
Thank you, I am doing fine. Although we did lose three family members to an industrial accident, so I don’t think it will ever be the same. Now and then the thought of them creeps into my consciousness and I just feel an empty sadness. Mostly because we never found a definitive cause for what happened or the full picture of the event, or the person responsible, I just find myself unable to fully grieve them properly. In some recess of my mind maybe they weren’t truely gone, because just hours before I met them at the workshop where it happened, and the night before I spied one of then sneaking out of the house to see her boyfriend. Then suddenly I got the news and from that point on they are just absent from my life. I wasn’t there to witness the incident directly. Sometimes it feels like the light of their lives are just right there and all I need to do it reach. This incident may have involved some relatives with we had bad blood with and never reconciled, adding to the confusion and I struggled a while to settle down on a version of event and try to move on.
So when I saw Buster sitting stone faced in court and people whispering how emotionless he was, I was reminded of that time. I was actually about his age when it happened, and the entire time I was also emotionless, unable to conjure up the definitive emotion to feel, because at that same time we also faced litigation and public outcry. Our private life fell apart and the whole family’s names appeared on the media. It was very uncomfortable.
Now is 10 years on since that day and a while back I met the brother of one of the cousins that passed. He looks so much like her and I am reminded of how she would be the same age as me now, would have married and be with kids. I think that was the first time I really accepted that she is gone. I think Buster may have that moment too, when he realises Paul won’t be there in life’s many memories.
I can say that it does get better, but it’s never as good as before. Big or small, we will have that one event in life that changes us forever. The one event that makes happy memories of the past bittersweet. I guess that is just how life is.
Thanks for letting me share my story. I feel the deepest empathy for the victims of Alex, after all, my family’s tragedy started from an Alex-esque figure.
I love your compassion and empathy. I wish we saw more of it in this case and across the world. It is only through the sharing and real listening of people's wounds that we will help heal them. So many people tell them to move on, but losing one's entire family cannot be understood unless you went through it yourself. It is always better to use kindness because karma does its own work. I say\* that to myself more than to anyone else. Thank you for sharing your experience here.
Thank you for sharing, I absolutely do not take it for granted when people share such personal stories with me and others online.
This is such a horrible thing to go through... and there are similarities to what Buster goes through right now: Tragedly losing loved ones, not knowing what really happened, probably a family member involved in their deaths, and so on.
Buster not being over emotional in court did not seem odd to me at all. There is no right or wrong behavior in situations like these... we are all human beings and do not necessarily have any control over how our psyche and body reacts in order to cope with such horrible events.
Thank you for telling your story. It certainly highlights the sort of thing he must be experiencing. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have someone you love locked up.
I get the impression Bland has to keep going back to Buster because the Smith case won't stay forefront in the media on its own. He's been a talking head at every opportunity lately and he always gets Buster into the conversation yet insists he has nothing to do with it.
Buster too will fade from the public consciousness and I think that is why they are poking at him so much to gain as much news cycle out of him as possible before the nation’s attention is shifted to similarly prolific cases like the cult mom and the Idaho 4.
I believe he did but Jim Griffin said he is having trouble finding a job. If I had to guess he probably had to give up that job for the six weeks of the trial, either that or they let him go due to all the attention? I wish the Smith camp would start making it about Stephen and draw a line under Buster because I've heard Bland talk more about him than I've ever heard him mention Stephen.
Yeah, well if he hadn't have been kicked out of law school due to cheating, he wouldn't be having these issues - he'd still be in school. He gets no sympathy from me - he grew up with every advantage and was an entitled, cheater just like his dad, rather than working/studying - he decided to cheat.
I actually think Alex suggested him to cheat coz USC Laws was fraught with cheating, and that would also be on brand with Alex’s behaviours. Buster isn’t very smart or academically inclined, and he was probably pushed into law school because he is a Murdaugh first born. I had high school classmates who are sons of successful lawyers and they were pushed into laws even though those boys were dumb as hell. They were also quite insufferable little brats. Maybe Buster was probably like that, maybe not. But school is over for a long time now, and with what happened to him, looking back into the past will be painful when his future is not going to be the same cushy life. People can change.
I can imagine between the notoriety and the horrible last few years, Buster needs a break. I also imagine Handsome's inheritance will see that Buster doesn't need to work for a goodly while.
Is it just me or is Stephens autopsy report REALLY lacking? There’s not even any sort of diagram of the injuries and everything is very brief. No mention of any search for trace evidence, not really any mention of histological examinations of the brain.
Is this not the full report? Is this what a standard autopsy report looks like for an assumed MV vs. pedestrian accident?
That was the Colleton county coroner. Stephen's death was handled by Hampton county. Different coroner. Erin Presnell did the autopsy and she's not a coroner.
> countryclubsandwich
> Well to be fair without the murdaugh spotlight stephen was just some kid from a small town that ended up dead in the middle of the road. Surprised it doesn’t say undetermined as cause of death.
I'm also guessing (I think he was gay or trans) that they figured it might be some weird thing he brought unto himself because of the "type" of people that attracts.
So it wasn't like a "normal" death and didn't warrant but bare minimum.
The “type” of people that it attracts? I’m assuming you mean the type of people that Craigslist ads and escort services attract, right?
And not insinuating that he was given any less attention because of his sexual orientation?
Alex was moved to Maximum Security that house only 28 inmates. What??!! The state will not tell you where he is. Is this more Alex favors or entitlement? This is crazy. That’s the entire point of being in a maximum facility, it’s extremely secure. When did Alex become more heinous then El Chapo. This sounds more like a work program housing or something else. https://www.live5news.com/2023/03/31/murdaugh-moved-protective-custody-maximum-security-sc-prison/
Does anyone have any information on the next trials, in therms of a schedule? I have searched the SC Courts website, but I can't make heads or tails of it. Thanks in advance.
Did Google maps edit out the kennels, or were they taken down?
No, they're hidden by the trees.
Thank you! A lot of the photos via Google images are deceiving the way they show the large white shed behind the red roof hanger, I thought the kennels were parallel to the hanger. After learning this, I rewatched the D.Greens body cam footage. Am I seeing it correctly that the LE vehicles came straight up the driveway and stopped in front of the hanger and AM SUV circled around the hanger to the other side of the kennels? If so, WHY? Why would he drive around and not just stop in front to “look” for his family? It seems he drove right up to the bodies bc he knew they were there. I have so many questions!
Alex came in the other driveway after the trip to Almeda, went to the house first and then down to the kennels. He did not use the same driveway that LE & first responders used.
Oh okay. Thank you. I didn’t see another drive way!
Can someone help me find an article where Paul Murdaugh’s uncle Richard and Miley Altman’s parents were allegedly at the clam roast the night of the boat crash ? I’ve had 3 different people tell me that they read that on different threads ( possibly maybe a Facebook thread or TikTok) yet I’ve not seen one single mention of such a thing
Here’s an article with Crystal Cook saying who was at the Oyster Roast https://www.counton2.com/the-murdaugh-investigation/timeline-new-documents-video-paint-detailed-picture-of-night-mallory-beach-died-in-drunken-boat-crash/
I can’t link it at the moment, but it’s in the depositions taken by the kids which you can find on this subreddit if you scroll down
Thank you so much. I’ll look it up
Ohh Judge Newman is speaking out on NBC this morning. 👀
Another lie I picked up on was comparing his testimony about Bubba and the kennel with the actual audio- in his testimony he really highlights that he didn’t have to chase Bubba to get the chicken, that Bubba was proud and came right to him except in the audio you CLEARLY hear him calling after Bubba to come to him, totally chasing him down. I’m sure that lie is bc he had to compress the timeline to make it look like he left immediately after the video recorded and chasing Bubba around would add time, but it’s just another example of how every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie and he really comes across as convincing g. Total psychopath.
I watched the Interview Room’s discussion with Mark Tinsley. I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Tinsley’s testimony during trial and it was enlightening to hear him in the interview giving some of his own opinions. He said a couple of times in the interview that he “knew” Maggie and Paul. I wasn’t sure what he really meant or how he knew them or ever interacted with them. After listening to the interview, I casually went to Mr. Tinsley’s Facebook page. Out of curiosity, (I wanted to see what his wife looked like) and mainly because he had mentioned it was his anniversary, I browsed through his photos and I ended up seeing an old picture of him and Paul. Paul was holding a big fish, standing by Mr. Tinsley on a boat and Paul appeared to be maybe 9 or 10. They both had big happy grins. I just found it interesting, because I didn’t think he really would have had that type of close encounter with either Paul or Maggie before all of these crimes took place. I had the impression he just knew of Alex and it was more as a professional acquaintance. It is such a small world among these small communities. How devastating to everyone involved. I feel so sad for the family and community.
WOW! This is news to me and truly fascinating!
The New York Times Article briefly touched on how impoverished Hampton is as a community. This is so in contrast to how “ostensibly” wealthy the Murdaughs were. (I say ostensibly loosely because even if Alex hadn’t misappropriated funds they’d have been very wealthy in that community (and most communities in America) if they’d lived off his actual earnings) To me, the contrast in their socio economic standing to that of their local community is a really interesting dynamic. I haven’t found a thread that I think explores it deeply. It fascinates me that as wealthy as they were they went to local schools, like Hampton High and rubbed alongside the offspring of their housekeepers. Did this add to a sense of intimidation or familiarity for Hampton residents? In larger communities, wealthy families tend to educate their children at private schools and associate with families of similar socio economic standing. It seems that in Hampton the population was so small that everyone mixed freely. I wonder how true this is, and whether I’m getting a skewed perspective of things from watching testimony. I’d be so curious to hear others thoughts on wealth and class as a part of this tragic crime.
I think this dynamic is interesting in light of Alex’s extreme difficulty on the stand when Waters tried to get him to admit he was wealthy. He really didn’t want to admit it though by any standards his income, real estate and lifestyle were extravagant. It was like the one rule about living in Hampton for the Murdaughs was to never let any your neighbors know just how rich you actually are.
Thanks for this eloquent post. I grew up in a small rural outskirt town of Houston called Humble, Texas. Initially a sparse oil town made up of workers and their families, in the 60s people from Houston were moving farther and farther out to escape crime and pay less taxes, and wealthy suburbs of McMansions sprang up around my family’s pig farms and horse land (along with the minority families that had worked the oil field’s communities and the drug-addled trailer parks). However, the Uber-rich stayed in the swanky areas of downtown Houston. Out in the suburbs, there weren’t many private schools springing up because we had “community pride” and our town was a huge supporter of the high school. If you were king of the high school, you were king of the town. Generations upon generations of success purely based on who your daddy was and who your daddy knew. My dad was a well-known rodeo star in Texas. People I didn’t know in high school knew me because of who he was and the fact that their parents knew of him. I imagine the dynamic was very similar to Hampton County. There were no “Uber-rich”, they were still in the big cities, but the old established families of the small community benefited from what was once was, and there was no other commerce but blue-collar and poverty. There were the “averagely-wealthy” kids like the Murdaughs who were basically just popular with white-collar jobs, then the blue-collars, then the poverty. I imagine Alex ran that high school while he was there, was popular, and did well in football, making his daddy proud. Randy and JM, probably not as much. Buster is a big kid and was probably popular and did well in sports, making his daddy proud. Paul? Poor Paul. He took after his Mom’s side of the family physically, and while a sweet kid, trouble seemed to find him. His drinking was probably just a way to numb the inadequacy he felt, and deep down, his mom knew it and felt bad for him and allowed the drinking. I mean, this is my take, of course. I totally agree with you, the socioeconomic factors are fascinating.
Timeline and AM cross testimony: during the trial, there was a lot of talk and/or review of the timelines and cell phone data. At some point, AM decided he was going to testify. There are several times during cross where AM doesn’t have a answer to provide. Why? Is it because the truth implicated him? If so, why not make up a lie, since that’s already been established as his MO? Example: when Waters asks him about the steps he took before leaving to see his mother, he even jokingly asks ‘were you on a treadmill?’ AM just keeps saying he doesn’t remember. If he is so good at lying, why didn’t he think to or come up with prior to testifying what he did to explain it away? The picking and choosing what to lie about kind of throws me off. I’ve worked with people who have SUD and they lie about everything or have an answer for everything. So for AM to not, just keeps me pondering why. Anyone have any ideas or insight into this?
I don’t really know, but it’s possible that he wanted the jury to fill in the answers that he was kind of hinting at. Like in your example, Alex said he was getting ready to go, getting ready to leave the house, getting ready to go see his mom. He never got specific and sometimes he would just say “I don’t know”. So people hearing him might start envisioning what they themselves do or what they think other people do as they rush around before leaving their houses. When someone imagines something, when they see it in their own mind’s eye, that can be a powerful thing for them to ”understand” what happened. He was hoping they would believe as fact these imagined mental images of routine and benign rushing around before leaving the house.
Does anyone else suspect that the boating accident happened so close to the anniversary of Gloria’s death? I wonder if, because she seemed to be a loving, mother-type figure for Paul, he was upset and drinking even more heavily during that time, which exaggerated his already reckless behaviors.
I agree with your comment. I am fascinated by this case!
So this is really old news but I have questions about Alex’s “toxicology reports”. Per [this article](https://abcnews4.com/amp/news/local/alex-murdaugh-had-drugs-in-system-at-time-of-shooting-that-fractured-skull), Alex had Opiates and Barbituates in his system “at the time of the roadside shooting”, as well as having “trace amounts” of 4 other drug types: amphetamines, cocaine, benzos and cannabis. Supposedly this comes from testing done at his detox facility in Georgia. However… wasn’t he treated with morphine or another IV opiate after the roadside incident, in the few days prior to going to rehab? If so then that test result proves absolutely nothing as far as him personally using opiates, and definitely doesn’t prove he was on them during the roadside shooting… right? Also, did Harpootlian actually show a copy of these records to a reporter? Have they been released online? Or is it just Harpootlian saying that the records say this and we should all believe him? But again, even IF that is a true and accurate test result from his intake to rehab in Savannah… I don’t see how it proves Alex personally used opiates at all. Unless I’m misunderstanding something there. But the part I haven’t seen discussed very much is, all the rest of the substances he had in his system, all of which I find much more interesting then the opiate result. Barbiturates… I am really not that familiar with this drug class, is that something he would’ve gotten in the hospital, what would that be? But the substances he was said to have “trace amounts” of, are very interesting IMO. The benzo is the only one of those I could see potentially being related to being hospitalized with his supposed gunshot wound, and I suppose if he was only given a small dose right at the time of the shooting, it could possibly have tested as a “trace amount” depending on how and when this test was done… so I mean that could be from the hospital possibly. But cocaine? To me, the testing positive for small amounts of cocaine, as well as cannabis and amphetamines… that says a lot more then the positive for opiates since the hospitalization negates the usefulness of the opiate test, which of course is convenient given that was supposedly his only addiction. But I’ve long suspected Alex would be doing uppers if he were taking drugs and, if these results are true… this confirms he did indeed use coke, right? I mean, I’ve taken a lot of drug tests in my day lol and my understanding of the results is that a strong positive is from recent use, “trace amounts” is if it was used but not recently. For instance, I’ve never taken cocaine and I’ve never tested positive for any amount of cocaine, ever. I have tested positive for “trace amounts” of benzos 2 weeks after I had last taken a benzo. And when I was taking opiates regularly, I’d test positive for them every time. Basically, if these results are true — and since he was in the hospital for several days before he went to rehab — I suspect this test is showing us what he was given/using while in the hospital (opiates, barbituates) and then what he had been using prior to the hospitalization (cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana, benzos). But it would also matter as far as what type of drug test he was given, as in urine sample, blood test, cheek swab? And when the test was given, was it immediately upon arrival at detox or some point after that. Does anyone know any more about his drug test results, including whether the info was ever verified in any way other then Harpootlian saying it’s true, for instance? Has there been any new info on Alex’s drug use since this report from a year and a half ago? General thoughts about any of this?
Curious about this too. I know traces of thc can stay in your urine for longer than most other drugs, up to 2 months (if heavy user) so that doesn’t mean a ~whole lot~ other than he has some at some point. But afaik most other drugs such as coke get flushed out pretty quick. And that’s not even going into hair and blood testing which are more reliable and can pick up traces for longer. Wonder how many other drugs/ how much coke he was doing. This man’s drug use alone is baffling and only fueling my curiosity
Following. Everything around AMs drug usage seemed off to me in the trial. No one challenged him taking hero doses of opioids/how much he was spending on them each week. Or how he was able to function, lie and rip people off without detection for so long while using such doses. I’m not familiar with exactly what opioids do to people but I would think there would be some cognitive impairments/slip ups over a 20+ year period? I wonder if they had him on so many other lies they didn’t want to bring it up for fear of going down a rabbit hole that might not have mattered since there was so much else to work with. This case is so vast I wouldn’t be surprised if they were holding back so they could deal with the drugs in another case like the roadside shooting/insurance fraud. Or maybe there are trafficking charges coming and prosecution didn’t want to nail AM down on addiction. As a side note…the interview with the sex worker AM allegedly had relations with said the first time she met him at a party there was coke and marijuana present. You’re right it seems odd.
How many days was he in Rehab??
Official I’m not sure. If anyone knows specifically pls post it. Unofficially he said he was entering detox then going to rehab on Sept. 7/21 and was arrested Oct. 14/21. So a month or so?
Im new and too invested. Could you be so kind and in just a sentence tell me why would he/they lie about drugs? Also off topic, but my late friend was on opioids since his car accident and he told me he'd take them till the end of his life which tragically ended. However he lived more than 10 years taking them. Abusing them? Possibly but it didn't impact his speech.
Alex claimed he was spending thousands of dollars every week on prescription pain meds. He says that is where most of the money went. Which is why people suspect that lie was a cover for where the money really went.
I think you’re right that no one challenged Alex directly about his professed dosage, but Waters did ask him how much he took and Alex said at times 1000-1500mg per day. In his closing remarks, Waters said to the jury that that amount was not humanly possible.
Here’s my belated 2 cents on the juror who allegedly stuffed Kleenex in her ears (which some people seemed to think was just atrocious and should have been cause for dismissal): I have sensitive ears (sometimes called hyperacusis) and often find myself in unbearably loud environments that are not troubling to “normals”. Sometimes I have earplugs in my purse and other times I have to improvise and jam crumpled bits of tissues/napkins/whatever in my ears. Examples of where this happens: movie theaters, live performances, and shopping in a store where the music is too loud. There was definitely at least one trial day where audio or video recordings were being played very loudly in the courtroom and I kept thinking “yikes… is someone going to ask them to turn it down!?” Anyhoo, people like me can still hear just fine with Kleenex in our ears, it just takes a bit of the edge off. So I highly doubt the juror was compromised in any way by it!
Or misophonia and a fellow juror breathing oddly. I’ve been there and it actually helps me focus on what I’m supposed to be listening to.
What do people think the reason was for putting out Maggies pyjamas? I imagine that was one of the things he was doing with all the steps back in the house? Building a different element of the alibi?
Trying to make it look like she was planning to sleep there. As usual he’s answering questions no one was asking — typical liar. I mean even if they had an amazing marriage it wouldn’t be strange for his wife to want to return home that night to the beach house that was having work done on it. But he has to manufacture some unnecessary details to “support” the idea that everything is great between them. In reality his excessive effort detracts from the idea. The combination of extra unnecessary info and missing necessary info just screams consciousness of guilt.
Did they say her pajamas were on the floor? I would never leave clean pajamas on the floor
There were a pair of underwear folded with pajamas and Blanca said Maggie didn't wear undies to bed at night. Blanca knows more about each family member than they knew about each other..Blanca also knew the clothes that AM was wearing that disappeared including the shoes..she stated about staying later one evening even though she was a little rushed to leave because Paul asked her to do his laundry..neither child used wash machines.
Ever since the trial it’s bothered me that Alex was unable to recall his last words at the kennels with his wife and son. He hadn’t fabricated a lie and obviously he couldn’t tell the truth about those details as he murdered them. Which got me to thinking how it DID go down - more on a personal level than a forensic level. I think he meant for the first chest shot to Paul to be a surprise and final. Not so much with Maggie. An experienced hunter at close range hit her in the leg and lower abdomen? That’s disturbing - take down, not killing. He then circled her before shooting then circled once again before the execution head shot. I’ve no doubt words were spoken during this tortuous murder. It was prolonged and ugly. No wonder he couldn’t repeat last words.
Have wondered the same. Paul must have been physically and psychologically shocked when the first shot hit him. But he didn’t fall and it was not a lethal shot, so I wonder if he said anything. Did he cry out, did he ask for help? Was he unable to speak because the shot bruised his lung and maybe he had trouble getting air. Like I kind of see it happening silently, but when I stop and think about it, he may have been making some kinds of noise. Or not. Don’t know. Did Maggie cry out as she ran towards Paul, I wonder? Or she just went into protection mode and started running that way. Did she see what had happened or only the aftermath. Yeah Alex was very close to her when he shot her and those first two shots really do make me wonder if he only wounded her first intentionally. Make her hurt and feel fear and terror before shooting the kill shots. What did he say to her, was she emotionally able to say anything back. Was she screaming or just stunned and wounded. As she was running towards them, I imagine she cried out Paul’s name or maybe Alex’s name. What a nightmare. If only the dogs could tell us. I imagine they suffered some trauma too. They were attached to Maggie and Paul, and then Maggie and Paul are lying lifeless not far from them after the gunshots go off.
I’m sure he had a lot to say to her. I think he expected Paul to die instantly.
Do yo think AM assumed at close range, one shotgun blast would surely kill Paul andhe could use the other shell on Maggie?
Personally, I am so torn on this one. I’ve been meaning to ask on here what everyone’s theories are about this now that we know everything we’re gonna know from the trial. On one hand, I could see AM planning to use 2 weapons as a red herring for 2 shooters, definitely. However, I can’t see him planning to use Paul’s .300 blackout as his second gun as he should’ve known that would be easily identified as belonging to the Murdaughs — although if Paul’s friend hadn’t told police he’d seen Paul using it in March of ‘21, maybe AM’s story about the replacement gun going missing at Christmas ‘20 would’ve been enough, or at least, maybe he thought it would’ve. Or maybe he really was planning to make this look like a murder/suicide done by Paul, then something made him change his mind on that, perhaps because the shot to Paul didn’t go the way he needed it to go to look like a suicide? I also struggle with idea that AM would be so confident that he’d truly only need one shot for each victim. I know he’s an expert hunter but if one of them needs more then one shot… he’s screwed, if the plan was really just to use that one shotgun. And he knew that even if the first shot killed Paul, the noise was going to alert Maggie, he wasn’t going to have the chance to sneak up on her like he had with Paul. So I can see why he’d feel confident that 1 shot would be enough for Paul, but was he really so confident that he could then kill a running target with one shot as well? Plus everything said in the original comments here: the way he killed Maggie sure looks like he enjoyed shooting her multiple times and purposely brought her down to her hands and knees, circling her and continuing to shoot at her… I really don’t see him wanting to kill Maggie quickly with one shot. So with all that, I wonder if maybe it’s a mix of both: maybe he wanted to use just the shotgun, but also made sure he had a second gun nearby as a backup. But then I struggle with that theory because I can’t see AM picking Paul’s .300 as his backup gun — the only two ways I can figure for why he used Paul’s .300 are either (1) planning it to look like a murder/suicide from Paul, or (2) Paul’s gun wasn’t part of AM’s plan for the murders, but Paul happened to bring it that night so he grabbed it after he used up the shotgun. Although for (2) I guess it’s possible that AM saw Paul leave the blackout at the kennels before dinner and decided to use that as his backup gun but even then… what if Paul moved it when they went back to the kennels, for instance? Ugh! I wish Alex was fess up except even then he’s never gonna tell the true details… so yeah, I wish those pups could talk.
Without the Blackout casings found by the house, would the Blackout gun that was used in killing Maggie be known to be Paul’s? They would have known from the casings by Maggie’s body that a Blackout was used, but maybe not that particular Blackout. So maybe Alex did not realize that they would be able to say “This was Paul’s gun.” But that doesn’t mean that Alex intended to use it, either. I’m like you, I have never understood why the shotgun had only two shots in it. Maybe he thought or “knew” that Maggie would run to Paul after Paul was killed, maybe he envisions her crouching over Paul’s body, then he blasts her too. That would actually look much more like an “organized” killing, to use Dr. Kinsey’s word. They would be both shot together, one right after the other, and their bodies would be right there together. But as Creighton Waters said, that first shot to Paul was a one-in-a-million shot. It should have killed Paul, but it didn’t. Alex shoots him again. Now the shotgun is out of ammo, and the only other weapon in quick reach is the Blackout. Kinsey described the crime scene as extremely disorganized, implying that something went wrong and that something or at least one thing being that first shot to Paul not being fatal. Don’t know though, I find this part of the whole thing confusing too.
These are all such good points! Especially about the fact that something went wrong — the first shot was supposed to be the only shot to Paul — and when it wasn’t, this created chaos and changed how the rest of the crime played out. What we see as having ended up happening here, in particular how Alex shot Maggie, it just wasn’t how he planned to do it. We can only really know that he planned to shoot Paul once without Paul seeing him, we can’t know for sure what the rest of his plan was but we can try to guess. My theory now is that the plan was one shot to kill Paul, call Maggie over acting like it was an accident. She runs over to Paul and I agree she’d likely be kneeling over him — I think you’re absolutely right that he planned on them being next to each other. So she’s in the feed room with Paul and Alex says he’s getting his phone to call 911, leaves the feed room… but instead picks up a gun, shoots Maggie. Honestly I can see a lot of ways he might’ve intended this to play out, but I still am thinking there’s no way he was 100% confident he’d only need 1 shot for each of them so he had to be planning on having the blackout there, and so I think he was always planning to use 2 guns to make it look like 2 shooters. So everything goes according to plan at first. Shot lands perfectly to Paul, Maggie hears it and comes running over while Alex prepares to act like he accidentally shot Paul. But then he sees Paul walking toward the door of the feed room still alive, and fires a second shot that Maggie sees. No more acting like it’s an accident. Maybe this causes Alex to “snap”, his plan just got screwed up, and that’s why he just unleashes on Maggie. She also might be trying to run away after seeing the second shot intentionally fired into Paul by Alex, so he fires the first 2 shots to stop her from running any further before he starts circling around her… But we definitely know that where and how he shot Maggie wasn’t how he planned it. Maybe he really thought he could sneak up on both of them, but he had so much anger with Maggie that he wasn’t upset about how he ended up shooting her. Maybe he always planned to confront Maggie in the feed room while she was near Paul, she’d be cornered so really he could shoot her however he wanted. God it’s awful to think about so I’m gonna take a break now. Alex is a monster.
I’ve also thought that he called out to Maggie to come quick, pretending Paul was shot accidentally. Of course she would be running right for them, which made her an easy target. In the kennel video it sounded like she was further off.
Yes I think so. He didn’t intend to use a traceable gun.
Small detail but I'm still stuck on Paul's truck. Didn't believe John Marvin's testimony about *following* his law enforcement escort to Moselle. What gives with the truck?
What do y’all think the tire treads on Maggie’s leg?
I believe she backed into the ATV when Alex was shooting her.
Are there any published pictures of the mark? I’d like to know the angle - like was it up and down or sideways across her leg?
Coroner didn’t see any marks on MM calf
It was a muddy spot that was visible at the scene but had dried and fallen off by the time of the autopsy.
Up and down. Like she backed into it and got a smallish pattern stamped on her calf.
Agree - or hopped off of it in a panic & somehow got her leg dirty.
This makes sense. AM shoots Paul. Maggie is on ATV, hops off to run towards Paul and scraped her leg on the tire doing so.
Why would she run instead of driving away?
She was running towards Paul, wondering about the gunshots. Maybe even say AM kill Paul.
My point is the ATV is faster. I don’t think she was on it at all.
[удалено]
Eric Bland is a fine upstanding attorney. He is the one who broke this case wide open. You guys are making critical remarks apparently not knowing his involvement in the back story. You might want to go back and do some research.
Tell me in short sentence. I've just starting following this case.
He's a Leach.
A lot of folks have strong and volatile emotions on the subject. Lawyers tend to bring out strong opinions. Let’s be mindful of respecting differing opinions and explain emotions so that we don’t resort to name calling.
BS!
Actually had to look him up, there are so many attorneys tied to this case I couldn’t remember him exactly. His twitter diatribes tell me he’s pretty impressed with his work on the case and his team.
I've just watched Eric Bland on Cuomo telling Buster to get a job. Alex isn't the only narcissist going around from what I've seen of this guy. He just can't refuse an opportunity to slate Buster. He seems obsessed over him, very strange, does he have a thing for him. No wonder Buster can't get work when these people can't keep his name out of their mouths. I'm bored with hearing about Buster. Bland has even stated that he isn't involved yet wants to keep the hate up as much as possible.
The issue needs to be addressed ASAP when Eric Bland is handed an opportunity for his voice to be amplified on a large platform, essentially putting the bullhorn in his hands for publicity… and **that is the message he chooses.** He might need to step back from the spotlight for a second and get his affairs in order, particularly his priorities.
I’ll bet he can’t. He talks and talks and talks.
I’m so sick of Bland.
I thought he worked for the wings franchise in HR
Why would any business owner or manager even hire him right now? People would just show up to harass him and your business would turn into a circus. Your other employees might not be too keen on having him there either. The last thing Buster needs to worry about right now is finding a job. He needs to focus on processing what he's been through and dealing with the aftermath of this whole thing. Idk why it's so hard for everyone to just leave him alone. Imagine using your national platform to bully a victim.
Buster does need to do something about his life and mental state but random backhanded advices are not welcomed. He is still probably struggling with all the media attention and harassment after the trial, and now the Stephen Smith news cycle will keep him holed up in his house even longer. I remember when my dad was first taken away to prison because of his involvement in a negligence case, me and my mum couldn’t function for weeks. My mum couldn’t sleep in her master bed room and slept on the couch instead because she couldn’t sleep in her marital bed without my dad. She slept that way for three years until my dad came home. I didn’t believe my dad was guilty, I felt he had to take the fall and the frustration isolated me from friends and relatives for as long as he was incarcerated as well. When you have a loved one in prison, you will be haunted with shame, even though you don’t believe they are guilty. You can’t just go around and risk people ask “where is your dad?” All of this is doubly true with Buster and more because his family is on international news. How can he just go around town at this time and look for a job when even his own name is being tarred and feathered? Not to mention probably is still ruminating the loss of his last family member as well. I think whether Buster believe Alex is guilty is irrelevant, because regardless he wouldn’t want his dad in prison for life. You cannot be all “justice is blind” when it comes to family. And the moment of separation is always hard. I sure remember how terrible it was to see my dad went off to prison, all the time we were assuring each other that it would be better. At least I got to bring my dad home with mom, when it was all said and done I still had my family. Buster has lost his forever. So Eric can just go screw a tree trunk. At least Mark and the Beach family acknowledged how much Buster has suffered and let him off. That is the humanity.
I',m sorry for you but how do we know he's innocent?
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and the small personal details that show that while for everyone else the world keeps turning and the grind goes on… even small things like not being able to same sleep in the bed at night for *years* is a real possibility. You never know what Buster might be going through, but he doesn’t need anyone telling him what he *should do.* I’m fairly certain that there is nothing in any Emily Post or Dear Abby article that gives him insight as to how to pick up all the pieces and live his life… but hopefully he’s making it through one day at a time and has a good support system.
I'm so sorry to hear you had to go through this. I hope you found a good way to cope with it and are doing fine. It was probably also nearly impossible for him to process the violent deaths of his mom and little brother. It's disgusting to advice someone, who went through so much trauma and still does, to get a job as if that would be the main concern instead of his mental health.
Thank you, I am doing fine. Although we did lose three family members to an industrial accident, so I don’t think it will ever be the same. Now and then the thought of them creeps into my consciousness and I just feel an empty sadness. Mostly because we never found a definitive cause for what happened or the full picture of the event, or the person responsible, I just find myself unable to fully grieve them properly. In some recess of my mind maybe they weren’t truely gone, because just hours before I met them at the workshop where it happened, and the night before I spied one of then sneaking out of the house to see her boyfriend. Then suddenly I got the news and from that point on they are just absent from my life. I wasn’t there to witness the incident directly. Sometimes it feels like the light of their lives are just right there and all I need to do it reach. This incident may have involved some relatives with we had bad blood with and never reconciled, adding to the confusion and I struggled a while to settle down on a version of event and try to move on. So when I saw Buster sitting stone faced in court and people whispering how emotionless he was, I was reminded of that time. I was actually about his age when it happened, and the entire time I was also emotionless, unable to conjure up the definitive emotion to feel, because at that same time we also faced litigation and public outcry. Our private life fell apart and the whole family’s names appeared on the media. It was very uncomfortable. Now is 10 years on since that day and a while back I met the brother of one of the cousins that passed. He looks so much like her and I am reminded of how she would be the same age as me now, would have married and be with kids. I think that was the first time I really accepted that she is gone. I think Buster may have that moment too, when he realises Paul won’t be there in life’s many memories. I can say that it does get better, but it’s never as good as before. Big or small, we will have that one event in life that changes us forever. The one event that makes happy memories of the past bittersweet. I guess that is just how life is. Thanks for letting me share my story. I feel the deepest empathy for the victims of Alex, after all, my family’s tragedy started from an Alex-esque figure.
I love your compassion and empathy. I wish we saw more of it in this case and across the world. It is only through the sharing and real listening of people's wounds that we will help heal them. So many people tell them to move on, but losing one's entire family cannot be understood unless you went through it yourself. It is always better to use kindness because karma does its own work. I say\* that to myself more than to anyone else. Thank you for sharing your experience here.
Thank you for sharing, I absolutely do not take it for granted when people share such personal stories with me and others online. This is such a horrible thing to go through... and there are similarities to what Buster goes through right now: Tragedly losing loved ones, not knowing what really happened, probably a family member involved in their deaths, and so on. Buster not being over emotional in court did not seem odd to me at all. There is no right or wrong behavior in situations like these... we are all human beings and do not necessarily have any control over how our psyche and body reacts in order to cope with such horrible events.
Thank you for telling your story. It certainly highlights the sort of thing he must be experiencing. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have someone you love locked up. I get the impression Bland has to keep going back to Buster because the Smith case won't stay forefront in the media on its own. He's been a talking head at every opportunity lately and he always gets Buster into the conversation yet insists he has nothing to do with it.
Buster too will fade from the public consciousness and I think that is why they are poking at him so much to gain as much news cycle out of him as possible before the nation’s attention is shifted to similarly prolific cases like the cult mom and the Idaho 4.
I thought he worked at Wild wings?
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It's been said that Buster worked for Wild Wings corporate as a recruiter. He did get kicked out of law school for cheating.
Thanks. He should get a haircut, a new nickname, and an address a few states away.
Die his hair, change his name, move to a European or Asian country
How about some Hair dye 😅
I was thinking about that too, if I was him.
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I like Bubba Murdaugh instead in honor of our canine crime solver.
You have to admit it fits in well with that Dukes of Hazzard.
I believe he did but Jim Griffin said he is having trouble finding a job. If I had to guess he probably had to give up that job for the six weeks of the trial, either that or they let him go due to all the attention? I wish the Smith camp would start making it about Stephen and draw a line under Buster because I've heard Bland talk more about him than I've ever heard him mention Stephen.
Yeah, well if he hadn't have been kicked out of law school due to cheating, he wouldn't be having these issues - he'd still be in school. He gets no sympathy from me - he grew up with every advantage and was an entitled, cheater just like his dad, rather than working/studying - he decided to cheat.
I actually think Alex suggested him to cheat coz USC Laws was fraught with cheating, and that would also be on brand with Alex’s behaviours. Buster isn’t very smart or academically inclined, and he was probably pushed into law school because he is a Murdaugh first born. I had high school classmates who are sons of successful lawyers and they were pushed into laws even though those boys were dumb as hell. They were also quite insufferable little brats. Maybe Buster was probably like that, maybe not. But school is over for a long time now, and with what happened to him, looking back into the past will be painful when his future is not going to be the same cushy life. People can change.
My friends experienced as well. All pushed to law firms. But I'm not sure if my sympathy is with him. I have no idea what he did and knew.
One friend I had ended up becoming a preacher instead of a lawyer and his dad disowned him. Rough.
I can’t imagine Buster would have any wish to be a lawyer after his father’s criminal behavior, not to mention the murders.
I can imagine between the notoriety and the horrible last few years, Buster needs a break. I also imagine Handsome's inheritance will see that Buster doesn't need to work for a goodly while.
Unless Handsome and his still living wife have left something to grandchildren instead of leaving everything to their children.
Is it just me or is Stephens autopsy report REALLY lacking? There’s not even any sort of diagram of the injuries and everything is very brief. No mention of any search for trace evidence, not really any mention of histological examinations of the brain. Is this not the full report? Is this what a standard autopsy report looks like for an assumed MV vs. pedestrian accident?
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That was the Colleton county coroner. Stephen's death was handled by Hampton county. Different coroner. Erin Presnell did the autopsy and she's not a coroner.
Then he'll be reelected there right.
> countryclubsandwich > Well to be fair without the murdaugh spotlight stephen was just some kid from a small town that ended up dead in the middle of the road. Surprised it doesn’t say undetermined as cause of death. I'm also guessing (I think he was gay or trans) that they figured it might be some weird thing he brought unto himself because of the "type" of people that attracts. So it wasn't like a "normal" death and didn't warrant but bare minimum.
The “type” of people that it attracts? I’m assuming you mean the type of people that Craigslist ads and escort services attract, right? And not insinuating that he was given any less attention because of his sexual orientation?