His wife and kid were shot to death in February, and their lawyer’s life has fallen apart ever since. On Thursday, he turned himself in to police after admitting to staging his own murder earlier this month, but he continued to claim his innocence in the deaths of his family.
Lawyer Alex Murdaugh is expected to face charges including lying to the police and conspiracy to conduct insurance fraud in connection with the scheme, which was intended to ensure that his older son could collect on his $10 million life insurance policy.
As one of his lawyers put it, Mr. Murdaugh devised his plan while depressed over the loss of his family and his battle with oxycodone addiction. As a result, Mr. Murdaugh thought his insurance coverage would not pay out if he was found to have killed himself. This was incorrect, he said.
One of Mr. Murdaugh’s former clients was arrested earlier this week by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, a state police unit probing the Murdaugh case. In spite of being shot in the head, Mr. Murdaugh survived with only a skull fracture, according to his lawyers, and was able to check himself out of the hospital two days later.
On Thursday morning, one of Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers, Jim Griffin, stated that Mr. Murdaugh was in police custody and that he would appear in court in Hampton County, S.C., in the afternoon.
South Carolina’s rural Lowcountry has seen a succession of astonishing developments over the past century, including the arrest of 53-year-old Mr. Murdaugh, who has been in charge of a regional prosecutor’s office for eight decades and a law business for the past few years.
After Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh were found dead at their home in June, the Murdaugh family was thrust into the spotlight and three more fatalities, including two that are still under investigation, were brought to light.
