The Murdaugh Murders - to believe Alex didn't shoot his wife and son?

[XelaM]

The trial is currently ongoing in the US and has been the subject of a Netflix documentary The Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.

It's almost unbelievable this case is real and not some movie script for a tragic thriller. It involves the very powerful Murdaugh family- a dynasty of many generations of prosecutors/lawyers who had almost unlimited power and money. They appeared to be above the law. The father was Alex (the heir to the dynasty) and he was married to Maggie with whom he had two sons- Buster and Paul. The younger son Paul appeared to be as appalling a human being as his father (at least according to the documentary).

Five people are dead who were connected to this family:

*Mallory Beach - a young teenage girl who was on a boat that the younger Murdaugh son (Paul) crashed at night being drunk out of his mind. His father Alex tried to initially claim that someone else was driving the boat but then did absolutely everything to make this case "go away" even after Paul had been charged. Paul never faced any consequences for Mallory's death. Her family were pursuing a civil suit.

*Stephen - the elder son's (Buster's) friend who was found dead in the middle of a road in very odd and suspicious circumstances. No one ever faced any consequences for his death.

*Gloria - the Murdaugh housekeeper who allegedly fell down the stairs at their property. Alex collected a $4.3 million insurance payout for her death (on a policy he had taken out a month earlier) and never paid it to her family.

*And now the younger son Paul and his mother (Alex's wife) Maggie were found shot dead on their property with two different firearms.

Alex has been charged with the murders of his son and wife (in addition to having been found to have embezzled huge funds from his law firm and his clients).

But I just don't understand how someone who was so concerned with protecting the family dynasty and whitewashing his son of any responsibility for Mallory's death- why would he shoot the same son two years later? The motive that the prosecution put forward was that he tried to gain sympathy when he was being prosecuted for embezzlement and trying to delay Mallory's family's civil suit. I just don't understand that this is a strong enough motivation for shooting his son?

I liked how some of them were pronouncing the H in vehicle. Think it was Vee-hickle

Jesusxanother who cuts and pastes the plot of a tv programme in lieu of an actual discussion.
Whay is this in aibu rather than telly addicts?

Your post is confusing.
Are you aware this isn't a TV programme?

The Op isn't asking us if we enjoyed the Netflix documentary.

She is asking why a man, who is on trial in the US, killed his son and wife and if we think he is guilty.

If anywhere it should be in news.

The wife was going to leave him as she had been seeing a divorce lawyer so he could potentially lose what he had left. Killed his son as maybe he witnessed mother's death or got fed up of his son being a liability. None of them are normal functioning people. Their family photos give me the creeps

I think Alex wanted Paul dead because Mallory's family were about to start a 40m lawsuit for wrongful death against Paul. The wife also was seeking a divorce. To Alex they just became cost centres. Absolutely hideous man. Doubt we know the half of it.

Buster also needs to be called in for the murder of Stephen.

Reminds me of the Robert Durst case on the series The Jinx.

His wife was going to leave him and he hadn't been paying the bills despite embezzling large amounts of money. His son was there and maybe saw him kill his wife. The insurance would have been huge on his wife.

Then to set up his own murder to make the police think someone was out there.

I think he was broke and he chased money. And he's got dead eyes.

I think he 100% masterminded it. I'm not convinced he physically pulled the trigger. I have been watching the trial live, he will be in prison a very long time regardless.

I only saw snippets over the past few days but I think the prosecution did a good job of defining the time line with his questioning to Alex.

His comment along the lines of “so you are asking us to believe that a stranger, who knew Maggie and Paul were going to be at Moselle that night, and specifically at the kennels, was able to sneak in minutes after you had been there previously, between the times of x and x (it was only about 15 minutes or so) and turned up to kill them assuming that a loaded gun would be available to do the job?!” was the line that destroyed Alex’s case.

And the fact that somehow this fictitious killer’s movements exactly matched those of Alex’s afterwards!

Very sad and ironic that the son he murdered unknowingly provided a significant part of the evidence to convict his father by innocently uploading a Snapchat video of a dog!

There may not be a lot of hard evidence , because the cops cocked it up, but the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

I think Alex is due to be incarcerated for quite a few years because of his financial crimes alone and I sincerely hope he will be given sufficient sentencing for the murders to ensure he will never leave jail ever again. He’s wicked beyond belief.

Fuck me. Why even bother having criminal trials now when all they have to do is to let netflix do a sensationalist documentary.

I haven’t watched any of this but personally I find it despicable that this has been allowed to be turned into entertainment before there has been an actual verdict.

By contrast there is currently a fairly high profile trial in the news ATM regarding a nurse charged with murdering multiple babies, and there is absolutely no way mn would allow a thread to stand where people acted as judge and jury to decide beyond their own reasonable doubt whether she is guilty or not before an actual verdict has been reached.

Reminds me of the Robert Durst case on the series The Jinx.

Ohh, I loved The Jinx!! But I found Robert Durst strangely likeable (I know there's something wrong with me 🫣). But Alex Murdaugh is so evil it's almost beyond belief like a poster above said. And it appears the whole family was evil. Maggie's 999 call about the housekeeper's death was so chilling and Paul was just a horrible human being and caused Mallory's death and then didn't seem to have any remorse afterwards. In fact, there is a video shown in the Netflix documentary of Mallory's boyfriend shouting at him to rot in hell because he was laughing when the divers were looking for Mallory in the immediate aftermath of the crash. All Paul was concerned with was calling his grandfather to help him get away with it. I don't know much about Buster, but if the rumours about Stephen's death are true, he's just as horrible as his whole family.

I agree with the poster above about the timeline of Alex being near the kennels just before they died. It makes no sense unless he's the killer/mastermind. And I'm starting to think the cash motive is probably true given that Paul was being sued for the Mallory crash (and as I understand it, the boat crash started the financial investigation that led to Alex's downfall). Maggie was also after Alex's cash in any divorce. Plus, she knew that they killed the housekeeper for the insurance money.

The timeline totally skews the whole thing as there's no way he would be at the kennels if a/ he didn't do it, or b/ if he didn't do it, then he would have heard the gunshots which would have meant a 911 call much earlier.

Motive to me are his fraud issues and drug addiction. Both of those are powerful enough to want to gain back control what he was clearly losing because of Paul and Maggie. Buster doesn't strike as any threat just bumbling along in the background.

I would question though the evidence. Have they done reenactments with both weapons to see if it was physically possible to swap weapons and kill? Assuming the distance would there have been blood splatters/residue? Although I suspect he's quickly got rid of any of that evidence when he went on that jaunt to his parents I've just recently been following it after watching the Netflix documentary.

This is just truly horrific

I would question though the evidence. Have they done reenactments with both weapons to see if it was physically possible to swap weapons and kill? Assuming the distance would there have been blood splatters/residue? Although I suspect he's quickly got rid of any of that evidence when he went on that jaunt to his parents I've just recently been following it after watching the Netflix documentary.

I also don't understand the issue with the guns and why two different guns were used, and although the shell casings were left at the scene anf it appears the family owned the same type of guns, the weapons were never traced to Alex as far as I understand?

Pretty sure Paul was killed first so that he couldn't defend Maggie

Better that the ugly wee bastard died before his reckless behaviour caused someone else to be killed.

Didn't they say the type of weapon used the Murdagh's had but they weren't in their gun room? Then there was that weird drone footage of Buster and one of Alex's brothers removing guns from the room?

I think if it was pre-planned then it would have been covered up and thought out a little more throughly? I think this was more of a panic killing.

I think by this point Alex had fully lost the plot. I mean the fake suicide / paying someone to shoot him was a sign that he wasn't in a good mental state.

I mean if he didn't kill them, who did? There's never been any other suspects

Bare in mind there's also a tonne of people who prob want to protect him out of loyalty/fear, so the odds have not been in the favour of the prosecution of this case from the beginning

I wonder how his family - Buster and Alex's brother in particular must really be feeling about this. Even by their standards, Alex must have gone too far!

That whole trying to get someone to shoot him was also totally insane on another level!

That whole trying to get someone to shoot him was also totally insane on another level!

Make sense to me. He knew he was backed into an inescapable corner ad he wanted the lookalike golden child - Buster - to inherit the life insurance & rebuild the family legacy.

It he didn't actually intend to die. He intended it to look like he and his family were being targeted by people (most likely) trying to avenge Mallory's death.

But*

@XelaM didn't really pull it off - he's deranged

I wonder if they dig in further to the family if they will find generations and generations of them bumping off people who posed a threat to them. Clearly this type of behaviour is being passed down.

People who think they are above the law

But we aren't the jury. We can discuss whatever we please.