Alex Murdaugh on trial for murder of wife, son. Here’s a timeline of the events
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Murdaugh murders in Colleton County
Two members of a powerhouse legal family were shot and killed June 7 in Colleton County, SC. Read more of our coverage.
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Alex Murdaugh is on trial in rural Walterboro, South Carolina, for the grisly shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul.
Since their deaths in June 2021, the case has riveted the nation with convoluted twists and ever-changing narratives: another Murdaugh shooting, alleged to have been a suicide for hire gone wrong; financial improprieties and millions in missing money; and reopened death investigations and associated lawsuits connected to the family, which ran the prosecutor’s office in the region for 86 years.
South Carolina’s justice system — state police, along with criminal, civil and probate courts — is charged with sorting it out as the saga continues to unfold.
Here’s a timeline of major events that have happened since June 2021:
Murdaugh murders
Monday, June 7, 2021: Alex Murdaugh calls 911 to report that his younger son, Paul, and wife Maggie have been shot to death at the family’s sprawling 1,700-acre estate on Moselle Road in Colleton County.
Thursday, June 10: Autopsies performed on Paul and Maggie Murdaugh at the Medical University of South Carolina show they both suffered gunshot wounds. Meanwhile, S.C. Attorney General says criminal investigation into 2019 fatal boat crash, in which Paul faced three felony charges of drunken driving, will remain active. Randolph Murdaugh III, Alex Murdaugh’s father, who was ill at the time, dies.
Tuesday, June 15: SLED releases first public statement, which confirms Alex Murdaugh was the person who called 911.
Thursday, June 17: Alex Murdaugh’s brothers, John Marvin Murdaugh and Randolph “Randy” Murdaugh IV, make family’s first public appearance on “Good Morning America” saying Paul received threats after before the shooting.
Tuesday, June 22: SLED reopens investigation into the 2015 death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith based on information gathered during the Murdaugh double homicide case.
Friday, June 25: Alex Murdaugh and his surviving son, Buster, announce a $100,000 reward leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who killed Paul and Maggie. It expired at the end of September.
Wednesday, July 14: A log filed by the state of police reports from the crime scene becomes public, revealing that police seized firearms from the scene where the Murdaughs were killed, and that police may be investigating “forced entry” onto the property.
Friday, Aug. 6: The S.C. Attorney General’s Office drops felony charges against Paul Murdaugh in the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach. The investigation into the crash continues.
Wednesday, Aug. 11: 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone recuses himself from the Murdaugh double homicide investigation.
Friday, Sept. 3: Members of the Murdaugh family’s century-old law firm, Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth & Detrick (PMPED), confronted partner Alex Murdaugh, accusing him of misappropriating a large amount of money. He says he’ll resign.
Roadside shooting in Hampton
Saturday, Sept. 4: Alex Murdaugh was allegedly shot in the head on the side of a rural Hampton road. He survives.
Monday, Sept. 6: Alex Murdaugh releases a statement saying he’s resigning from his law firm and entering a rehab facility. Hours later, PMPED releases a statement about the missing funds and Friday’s confrontation.
Wednesday, Sept. 8: S.C. Supreme Court suspends Alex Murdaugh from practicing law.
Tuesday, Sept. 14: Curtis Edward Smith is arrested in the Sept. 4 shooting of Alex Murdaugh, charged with one count each of assisted suicide; assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature; pointing and presenting a firearm; insurance fraud; and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. The charges come after Alex Murdaugh tells SLED that he asked Smith to shoot him so his son, Buster, would receive a $10 million life insurance payout.
Wednesday, Sept. 15: Curtis Edward Smith is released on a $55,000 cash bond for his four charges. The sons of the Murdaughs’ former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a trip-and-fall incident in their home in 2018, sue Alex Murdaugh, another attorney and a banker, alleging hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance money was never distributed to them. SLED announces it is investigating Satterfield’s death upon request of Hampton County Coroner Angela Topper.
Alex Murdaugh arrested twice
Thursday, Sept. 16: Alex Murdaugh turns himself in to police on charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and falsifying a police report stemming from his botched staged murder attempt. Soon after, a local judge grants him a $20,000 personal recognizance bond.
Friday, Oct. 1: Gloria Satterfield’s sons reach a settlement with Beaufort lawyer Cory Fleming, accused of working with Alex Murdaugh to withhold death settlement money.
Thursday, Oct. 14: Alex Murdaugh is taken into police custody in Florida from a rehabilitation facility in Orlando. Earlier in the day, Curtis Edward Smith appears in prerecorded interviews on multiple national news stations, saying he didn’t shoot Alex Murdaugh.
Saturday, Oct. 16: After waiving extradition, Alex Murdaugh returns to South Carolina and is booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County.
Tuesday, Oct. 19: S.C. Circuit Judge Clifton Newman denies Alex Murdaugh bond on the missing money charges pending a psychiatric evaluation.
Friday, Oct. 22: SLED releases the 911 calls from after Alex Murdaugh was shot on Sept 4. One witness said it “looked like a set up.” Multiple lawyers file coordinated lawsuits against Alex Murdaugh to prevent him or his surviving son from disposing of any financial or property assets without approval by a judge.
Tuesday, Dec. 7: Six months passes since the murders at Moselle. No arrests have been made. No suspects have been named publicly.
Sunday, Dec. 26: Maggie Murdaugh left all of her property to Alex Murdaugh when she died, according a copy of her last will and testament obtained by The Island Packet. It’s unclear what that property is exactly, but her will, which was signed Aug. 15, 2005, appears to indicate Alex Murdaugh is entitled to the family’s 1,770-acre property.
Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022: The broker selling the Moselle property where Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were killed says an offer has was made on the home and he had spoken with several interested parties before officially listing the “Cross Swamp Farm” for $3.9 million.
Sunday, March 27: Alex Murdaugh’s brother, John Marvin Murdaugh, tells The Island Packet that he helped investigators find Maggie Murdaugh’s cellphone, which was found along the road about half a mile from the body. He said he is embarrassed by what his brother has been accused of doing, but does not believe he was involved in the killings.
Wednesday, March 30: A transcript of a court hearing reveals a private investigator turned over video footage to authorities she allegedly took of Paul Murdaugh days before his murder and of his family’s Moselle property where Paul and his mother’s bodies were found.
Alex Murdaugh indicted, heads for Jan. 23 trial
Wednesday, May 4: A state grand jury indicts former Hampton banker Russell Laffitte on various financial charges and added new indictments against suspended lawyers Alex Murdaugh and Cory Fleming.
Sunday, May 29: A new possible key player in the Alex Murdaugh saga emerges, a largely unknown small town lawyer named Chris Wilson. The Bamberg-based attorney — whose friendship with Murdaugh dates back to college when the two attended the University of South Carolina law school together — has knowledge that touches on both sets of crimes, people familiar with the cases said. Wilson, 53, already cooperated with law enforcement in the financial crimes investigations. He is mentioned — but not identified by name — as an “attorney with another firm” in two of the 15 state grand jury indictments that allege Murdaugh stole $8.4 million from clients and associates.
Friday, June 3: The body of Gloria Satterfield, a key figure in the investigations swirling around disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, is exhumed from its burial place.
Wednesday, June 15: Jail recordings are released, showing the son of suspended Hampton County lawyer Alex Murdaugh told his father during a recorded phone call in December that his dad did “some illegal” stuff.
Tuesday, June 28: Alex Murdaugh and his alleged accomplice Curtis Smith have been hit with new state grand jury indictments that include drug trafficking and running a longtime money laundering scheme involving $2.4 million in stolen money.
Tuesday, July 12: News breaks that Alex Murdaugh is expected to be indicted for murder in the grisly June 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son.
Thursday, July 14: Alex Murdaugh is officially indicted by the S.C. Attorney General’s Office in the shooting deaths of his wife and son.
Wednesday, July 20: Alex Murdaugh is denied bond in the June 2021 murders of his wife and son, and pleads not guilty.
Wednesday, July 20: A federal grand jury indicts former Hampton banker Russell Laffitte on various counts of bank and wire fraud in connection with alleged schemes by Alex Murdaugh to misappropriate millions of dollars supposedly under bank supervision.
Friday, Aug. 19: Alex Murdaugh is indicted on new charges that he stole money from his former Hampton law firm and that he illegally cashed a sizable check that should have gone to one of his brothers.
Wednesday, Aug. 24: The State reports about a short cellphone video of the Murdaugh family purportedly taken right before Maggie and Paul were fatally shot at their rural estate in June 2021, depicting a “happy family,” according to a source familiar.
Tuesday, Nov. 22: Former South Carolina bank CEO Russell Laffitte is found guilty on all six counts of conspiracy, bank and wire fraud and misapplication of bank funds, ending a three-week trial that puts Alex Murdaugh in the spotlight.
Wednesday, Nov. 23: Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh ask a state judge to prohibit testimony at trial about “blood spatter patterns” on Murdaugh’s T-shirt and want to get copies of all communications published between the state and one of its scientific witnesses.
Friday, Dec. 16: Alex Murdaugh is indicted on tax evasion, the South Carolina Attorney General’s office announces.
Tuesday, Dec. 20: The S.C. Attorney General’s Office announces it will seek a life sentence, not death, for Alex Murdaugh in the killing of his wife and son. “After carefully reviewing this case and all the surround facts, we have decided to seek life without parole for Alex Murdaugh,” Attorney General Alan Wilson says.
Wednesday, Dec. 28: The much-delayed trial in the wrongful death case of Mallory Beach against disgraced former lawyer Alex Murdaugh and convenience store magnate Gregory Parker will finally proceed but no date has been set.
Alex Murdaugh goes on trial for double murder
Monday, Jan. 23, 2023: Murder trial for Alex Murdaugh, accused of killing his wife and son in June 2021, begins in Colleton County with jury selection.
On Monday, Feb. 13, the trial entered its fourth week with no end in sight. A cavalcade of forensic and witness testimony has been presented by the prosecution, amid a bomb threat hoax and the loss of three jurors — two to testing positive for COVID-19 and one to an unspecified medical excuse. The proceedings began with six alternates, though, so the trial goes on.
This story was originally published October 25, 2021 at 10:52 AM with the headline "Alex Murdaugh on trial for murder of wife, son. Here’s a timeline of the events."
