Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - MURDER Charges Loom for Alex Murdaugh in Shooting Deaths of Wife, Son

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh may soon face murder charges in the death of his wife and son. According to FITS News, South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division will present its case to a Grand Jury on Thursday. Murdaugh is already facing dozens of charges concerning financial fraud.   On June 7, 2021, Maggie and Paul were found fatally shot at their family’s 1,770-acre lodge in Colleton County.  Alex Murdaugh claims that he was visiting his mother in Varnville, 20 minutes from where his wife and son were killed.  Months after the double homicide, Murdaugh was arrested for allegedly stealing $4.3 million from the estate of Gloria Satterfield. The Murdaughs' former housekeeper suffered a fatal fall at their Murdaughs' home on his property in February 2018.  Alex Murdaugh is accused of stealing insurance payouts that were intended for Satterfield’s family.  Murdaugh has currently been charged with 74 counts, accused of stealing money from a slew of clients and his former law firm. Murdaugh has also been disbarred.  TIPLINE: South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (803) 896-20645  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Susan E. Williams, South Carolina Criminal Defense Attorney, Former Prosecutor (Summerville), swilliams-law.net, Instagram: @carolinaladylawyer, Twitter: @ATTYswilliams Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Dr. Michelle DuPre - Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff's Department, Author: "Homicide Investigation Field Guide" & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Forensic Consultant, DMichelleDupreMD.com Matt Harris - Morning Show Host of The Matt and Ramona Show on 107.9 WLNK (Charlotte, NC), Podcast Host: "The Murdaugh Family Murders: Impact of Influence"  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell! In the case of legal superstar Alex Murdoch out of South Carolina. We expect a grand jury indictment, not on embezzling money, not on his usual flim-flam scams on one client after the next to the tune of millions of dollars embezzling from his law firm, doing drugs, the list goes on and on. I'm talking about an indictment for murder and not just murder, double murder. Before we kick back and say, what took so long? I think I know what took so long. As we wait for the grand jury to hand down that bill of indictment with a true bill, as it is called, let's go to the experts. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. But first of all, take a listen to our friends at WJCL. Murdoch murder charges. According to reports, Ellick Murdoch will be charged for the deaths of his wife and son. This comes as he is now also officially disbarred in South Carolina. It's been 13 months since Ellick found Maggie and Paul Murdoch shot and killed on their Colleton County property. Now, according to Ellick's attorney, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division notified the Murdoch family about these charges this morning. According to the latest

report, SLED will present evidence to a grand jury this Thursday. However, reports did not say what that evidence is. I wouldn't think that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division would put something before a great state grand jury if they didn't believe that they had ample evidence. You're darn right. You don't go to a grand jury unless you are locked and loaded. Again, thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Crime Stories. We've been on the case from the very beginning with me, an all-star panel, but first I want to go straight out to Matt Harris.

He is there in South Carolina. He's the morning show host of the Matt Ramona show at WLNK. And he is the creator and star of podcast, The Murdoch Family Murders, Impact of Influence. Matt Harris, this bar, Smith's Bar, don't care. Half the lawyers in the bar are stinkers anyway. I wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw them. I learned that when I was a lobbyist at the Georgia State Assembly. I want to hear about the murder charges. I mean, Maggie and Paul Murdoch were murdered well over a year ago. How many dead bodies does it take connected to that one family for there to be a single criminal indictment such as murder. What's happening? Well, I think that SLED, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, really wanted to make sure

that they had everything in place to bring this indictment in front of the grand jury, probably at Colleton County, where the murders were committed at the Mizzell property. And the fact that Alec has been in jail since, I think, October or November, gave them some time that they didn't have people saying, why is this guy walking around? Why is this guy walking around? So I think that bought them some time with all the white-collar crimes that he had been committing to make sure that this very influential, very powerful family did not interfere with their investigation. And they got everything in place they needed to.

They got people to talk that maybe wouldn't have talked. So it's huge. The grand jury is being tomorrow, we understand. Didn't interfere with the investigation. Okay, hold on. Of course, I think they're interfering with the investigation. And you're darn right, Matt Harris. They did all of this legwork while Alex Murdoch is still behind bars.

Now, he's tried to get out on bond. He hasn't been able to do it. And we've had one charge after the next it's all about embezzling money and why that law firm had their nose in the ground and their tail in the air i don't know because he has apparently embezzled millions of dollars from the firm from clients and what do they do sit back and have a cup of hot tea at the country club? I don't know what's going on with that law firm. But as far as this family not trying to interfere with the investigation, Jackie, please play cut 72. This is Ann Emerson at ABC News 4.

On October 21st, 2021, Alec Murdoch called his brother, John Marvin Murdoch, and his son, Buster. They were on a trip to Nevada, now made notorious by this photo of John Marvin and Buster at a Las Vegas casino table. It ended up as an exhibit in court against Alec Murdoch. Alec called his family to warn them. In court the other day, they made a big deal about things. They're going to be moving to try to prevent us from selling stuff. Right. We need to get as much as we can completed.

On the call, John Marvin suggests selling some of the farm equipment to pay off some of Alex's debts, but says it must be done on the up and up. You might speak to Jim if you get a chance just to find out what kind of time frame he thinks before they get any kind of order preventing us from doing anything. Okay. Well, I'm just doing everything by the book. Yeah, and it's going away. It ain't like we're squirreling it away. It's going to pay bank stuff. Well, it goes to the unsecured note, so everything else has something securing it, so it makes sense that unsecured items would go to the unsecured note. So everything else has something secure in it. So it makes sense that unsecured items will go to an unsecured note.

By the book, my rear end. This guy's not worried about by the book. Here he is behind bars. And his wife and his son cold in the grave. And he is trying to manipulate assets. And it'll be, Matt Harris, how can you even say that this family has not been interfering with the investigation? B.S. That is not true.

I guarantee you that. Because if he is behind bars trying to move his money around you know he's behind bars trying to manipulate evidence and witnesses to save his own skin what i'm saying they're going to try to do it and i think sled is being very careful not to let them do it and they don't have to to listen to the pressure of anybody is the fact that ellick's already behind bars he was walking around they would add maybe to hurry the investigation and, you know, you don't want anything, as you know,

Nancy, you don't want anything that could possibly be used as an appeal. So you want to make sure you've got this locked down. It gives you more time when the guy's in prison. Fine. I agree. I don't want a boomerang to hit me in the neck in court or on appeal, but to suggest this family isn't interfering, that's all they do, and it's

all about money. Let me go to Joe Scott Morgan, a professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, host of a brand new series. It's a hit on iHeart. Body bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, just a moment, okay? To this day after my fiance's murder, to this day, I still have nightmares about his murder, about the same things happening to my family and my children. It never goes away. The tiniest threat or no threat, it's a big deal to me. I see danger behind every tree and every white van that goes by. And here this guy is, his wife and son are dead, dead by gunshot wounds to the torso and face. And he's worried about moving money around. I just, I'm so mad. I could stick a chew and nail in half. Yeah, there's a level of callousness that comes along with this case.

That's a nice way to put it. Here he is looking at murder charges, and he's trying to move money around. Right. And, you know, it's like these people are the angel of death, Nancy. It's not just his wife and son that are dead. It's like everywhere they go, people drop over dead. You know, we're, we're thinking about, you know,

Gloria Satterfield, for instance, we don't know that they're connected with that, but they're, they're going to, they're going to exhume her body. We've got this young man found dead in the road. Can I just stop you for one moment?

Sure. They might as well have just pushed her down the stairs. And I'll tell you why I say that, because isn't it true? Matt Harris, star of the Murdoch Family Murders podcast. Isn't it true that after Miss Satterfield fell down the steps outside their home, because of their dogs apparently, and we had this cool, calm, collected phone call by Maggie and the son with 911.

Wait, go with me on this. Then Murdoch goes to her family and he says, hey, sue me. I'll handle the case. My law firm will handle the case. Sue me because I want you to be compensated. My insurance is going to cover it. Don't feel like you're taking it out of my pocket. Sue me. I'd be mad if you didn't. And then they do sue him. He arranges the whole lawsuit and then he steals the money. He steals the money from his housekeeper's family. And on top of that, the dog story was something I think he created, to be honest with you. He beat the paramedics there, and he was thinking on his feet. That's how his sick mind worked. He immediately said, oh, she told me the dogs knocked her over.

Well, she never had consciousness as far as we know. No one else had heard her say anything. No one else said she was conscious. But he started this story immediately about the dogs because it changed the whole insurance thing. I'm so glad you said that, and feel free to interrupt me right back, okay? This is a free-for-all, okay? This ain't no tea party at Highgrove, as I like to say. That's exactly what happened in the murders of Maggie and Paul. Man, if I were trying this case, I'd put that as state's theory number one. Similar transaction over and over. He takes control of the narrative and spins it out like Rumpelstiltskin because in that case, he started spinning out the narrative that she fell on the dog. The dogs

caused her to fall. In this narrative, he gets there again at a double murder and starts spinning his tail. Take a listen to our cut 68 WYFF. The bodies of Maggie and Paul Murdoch were found on June 7th of 2021 at a home on the family's land in Colleton County. The coroner says they were both shot several times. And in the months that followed, SLED said it found evidence of other crimes surrounding the Murdoch family Alec Murdoch was charged with dozens of fraud related crimes after authorities say he stole millions of dollars from his clients and from the family of his former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield she died after a fall at the Murdoch home Murdoch and a former client Curtis

Smith were also charged in a botched attempted suicide plot I mean at the Murdoch home. Murdoch and a former client, Curtis Smith, were also charged in a botched attempted suicide plot. I mean, at the very beginning, Susan Williams, jump in, whoever that is, jump in. I think it's Matt Harris. The ability for him, as you said, to quickly get in the narrative, the Gloria Satterfield thing, bam, he's the dogs. He goes to town. He also introduces his best friend to the Satterfield family, Corey Fleming, who he says, he'll take care of you, and they work together to steal money from the Satterfields. He spins the story on the Labor Day attempted suicide shooting on the side of the road with Cousin Eddie.

He's right on that story, and this is how it happened. But it's not just that. Remember Mallory Beach and the boating accident. He was at the hospital. Oh, wait. Is this Dr. Dupree? Yes, it is. Let me just introduce you.

With me is Dr. Michelle Dupree, and she's very critical today. She is joining us from this location. I've met with her there, there in South Carolina. She is a forensic pathologist. She is a medical examiner. She has been in law enforcement, and she is the author of the Homicide Investigation Field Guide. You're right, Dr. Dupree, because even in that case, same MO. He's like a ghoul standing over bedsides at the hospital trying to spin out what really happened to this teen girl, 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was thrown

off his boat because his son was drunk as a skunk, high as a kite. And we have been to the location and looked at it ourselves where he crashed, crashed into pilings and sent this girl flying, flying off his boat. She floated in that water for three days before rescue could find her. Go ahead, Dr. Dupree, and state what you were saying. I was just saying that he was at the hospital trying to interfere with the doctors and the nurses treating those children. And he was trying to corner their story and try to get them to not say anything and let him architect that whole story that they were about to tell. And he did the same thing with the Stephen Smith case. He approached the family and tried to be benevolent to them.

Why is that? Why does he try to do these things? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Susan E. Williams, South Carolina, high-profile defense attorney, former prosecutor. You can find her at Carolina Lady Lawyer. Susan, she's right. I forgot for a moment about the very first body that we know of, the teen boy found out in the road. Murdoch was sniffing around all the witnesses on that case, too.

We just passed the anniversary of Stephen Smith's passing. It's my understanding, according to sources, that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has opened an investigation regarding that death. Well, they said yes. As a matter of fact, they opened that case based on something they found during this murder investigation. So that'll be interesting to see what they learned during this investigation. Joe Scott, I want you to hear this about him spinning out the story. And it starts, you heard our friend Matt Harris, morning show host of LNK and star of Murdoch Family Murders podcast,

state that he shows up on all these scenes. You know who that reminds me of? Wayne Williams. Remember him? He murdered many of the missing and murdered Atlanta young boys and men. I don't know if he did all of them, but he did a lot of them. He would show up. He was a stringer.

He was an amateur newscaster. He would show up sometimes before the cops even showed up at these scenes where they would find the dead bodies. Wow. What a coincidence, right? But Wayne Williams aside, listen to Alex Murdoch. Now, Jackie, this is our cut 27 when we covered Alex Murdoch at the very beginning. It's cut 27, and I want you to hear, gosh, there's so many 911 calls to pick from. Yep, let's hear that one.

Okay, what is her name? Maggie and Paul. Maggie is her name? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And please hurry. We're getting somebody out there to you. Me asking you these questions, don't slow them down, okay?

And you sure they're not breathing? Is he moving at all, your son? I know you said that she was shot, but what about your son? Nobody. They're not you the one of them moving what is your telephone number and does anything look out of place? Ma'am, I... Not particularly, really, no, ma'am. Okay.

You know, Dr. Sherry Short is joining me, forensic psychologist and author of Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect. Dr. Sherry, I'd be very curious if when the cops and EMTs got there, if he was actually shedding tears, or if he was just doing the whole thing to pretend he's crying. And he also says, I only touched them to see if they were alive. I mean, so much of what he is saying is calculated and he's already spinning out his story even then. What behavior would you look for if you had been the cop or the EMT that first arrived on the scene, Dr. Schwartz? Well, one of the first things that I would look for is, as you mentioned, the presence of true emotion, right? Is there really true grief here? Is there fear? Because that's a primary response. Anytime you're going to see somebody, especially your loved ones who

are deceased, and they've clearly been murdered, right? You're going to be fearful. You're going to want to be cooperative. And you're certainly not going to be trying to make excuses for why you touch certain things. This is going to be further from your mind. Oh, I'm glad you said that, Dr. Sherry, because I was just thinking back as you were talking about when my fiance, Keith, was murdered. And when I stayed with my father after he died and waited for them to come get his body. Everybody left, but I just couldn't leave him alone. And I wish that I hadn't seen what I did see of my father. I mean, Joe Scott Morgan, that sticks with you the rest of your life. And I'm glad I did not see my fiance's open casket.

I'm glad I didn't see that. But imagine, Joe Scott, coming and finding your wife. Wasn't she shot in the face, in the head? Well, what we do know, and this is per our friends at Fit News, they've talked about how they know that she was, or it has been stated to them, that she was shot execution style while laying on the ground. And that's kind of interesting when you think about it from a forensic standpoint, because based upon that, we think that she was shot with probably some type of military style platform weapon. Remember, the son was shot with a shot right the sun was shot with a shotgun now you know what they would have had to have done in order to validate

this at the scene once her body was removed these are probably through through gunshot wounds you're talking about a high velocity rifle they would have gone over the area where her body was found and with a metal detector and recovered those rounds that were in the ground. And that's going to be indicative of the fact that she was lying flat on the ground. And it says, Nancy, that she shot multiple times. They don't really say how many times, but we know that she was shot multiple times. And, of course, the son was hit by two shotgun blasts. And Matt Harris joining me, morning show of Matt Ramona, WLNK,

and star of Murdoch Family Murders. First of all, several things coming to mind. What were the two weapons used? We know at least one was a Murdoch family weapon. Gee, I wonder who got a hold of that. But to hear him articulate all of that on the 911 call. I mean, I know I'm projecting, but I could hardly speak after Keith's murder. This was particularly brutal.

Uh, the word is with the AR-15 and especially at that close of a range, uh, Maggie, his wife was decapitated or very close to being decapitated that's not awful i mean that's just beyond gruesome uh and then you see your son also who is uh blasted in the face with uh a uh buckshot and birdshot. So it is hard to imagine even talking on the phone, seeing your wife in that kind of shape and your son. Matt, how do you theorize the use of two weapons? A lot of people automatically say, wow, it must have been two perps.

Not true. I think the big question is who was shot first. But if you use the shotgun, it probably only has the birdshot and the buckshot in it. And you're not going to load it again. That's going to take forever. You're on a hunting area. The AR-15 and the guns are all there. Sometimes they're on the back of some of the gators and things they drive around. So you have easy access. So it's not a big deal

really to think about shooting one and picking up another gun that's only a few feet away. It's not, everybody went to the right away, including me, that there had to be two people. But when you have access to guns that quickly, it's easy to go from one gun to the right away including me that there had to be two people but when you have access to guns that quickly it's easy to go from one gun to the other okay so one was a shotgun one was an ar-15 correct yeah and saying that she was lying down and shot execution style on the head i don't know that i agree with that but i'm not privy dr dupree to all of the autopsy findings yet. We will be, but I don't see why she couldn't have been shot in the torso and then after she fell, shot in the head to finish it off. That is more likely, I believe, what happened. My sources have actually told me that Maggie was lured there, that Paul was there first, and that Maggie was lured there a bit later. So whether

that's true or not, I don't know, But that sources that I have have actually told me that. How do you think she was lured there? Anybody jump in? This is Matt from Impact of Influence. Yes, she she we talked to John Marvin, Alex's younger brother. And he indeed said Maggie was in Edisto. It was called to come to Moselle because they were going to go see the father who was in the hospital. Paul came from work in John Marvin's truck.

They were there prior to him leaving to go to see his mother, which is a weird timeline. We can get it out if you want. But, yes, she was called to have a family dinner. And that raised some questions, too. Like, who made the dinner? Because John Marvin said he didn't know if Blanca, who was their housekeeper cook at the time on Moselle, or Maggie made the dinner.

Well, wait a minute. How do we know they even had dinner? Oh, well, they were supposed to have dinner. Okay. You know that. That was the plan. Because I think we would have had evidence of where they went supposed to have dinner. Okay. You know that. That was the plan. Because I think we would have had evidence of where they went out to dinner or where they ate in the home, that the dishwasher was still running, something like that.

Yeah, we don't know any of that yet. That'll have to come out. But that was the plan anyway. Right. Was to have them to have dinner. Yes. And then, I don't know if that person, the Blanca, who was working there, if she knows something, we haven't heard much of her. We know that Alec on the jailhouse tapes has mentioned her a couple of times having talked to Blanca.

Where's Blanca? How's Blanca doing? Blah, blah, blah. So I'm interested to find out if she has any insight into this and where she is and what's going on. We haven't heard much. Also, there are sources that have suggested to me that they were both killed a good bit earlier than what has been stated, that they were actually killed before Alex went to visit his father, I'm sorry, in the hospital, and that was to set up an alibi. So my question is, I want to know from that crime scene, tell me about the blood. How dried is it? You know what, this interesting, Dr. Dupree, I went round and round with you, specifically Dr. Michelle Dupree, immediately after the shootings about this very thing, about whether the blood was dried, had the body temperature decreased

to any significant amount so we could tell how long they had been dead to verify or destroy his timeline. Remember that? We went over it and over it and over it. And we don't know that because we don't know what the coroner made to make those determinations. It's simply his word. But how did he make those determinations? And we just don't know. I want to know how dry was it. For those of you just joining us, bombshell, an indictment we believe will be handed down Thursday by a grand jury. In many jurisdictions,

grand juries meet on specific days. In my old jurisdiction, it was every Tuesday and Thursday, and it would go for hours and hours. And when you're a young lawyer, you're sent to grand jury. You present evidence. There is no cross-examination. You may have only one witness, like a lead detective in a case, and the grand jury can ask questions. There's normally about 40 people in there taking off the voter registration logs, and they have a free-for-all with the witness if they want to. If not, the witness leaves, and the district attorney puts it to them. True bill or no bill?

It's pretty cut and dried. Take a listen to our cut 69, our friends at ABC News 4. John Marvin Murdoch says SLED paid him a courtesy visit this morning, exactly 400 days after his nephew and sister-in-law were killed. John Marvin Murdoch says SLED told him they plan to charge his brother, Alec, in connection with the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul Murdoch. John Marvin says SLED came to tell him the news today because they did not want the Murdoch family or Maggie's family, the Brandsetters, learning about the charges through the media. I asked John Marvin how the family reacted to the news. He was very straightforward. He said, I don't know if SLED has it right or not. I don't know if law enforcement

has the answers. We want the truth. I'd be willing to put money if I were a betting woman on the fact that SLED, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, has taken this long to bring murder charges for a very important reason. They got their ducks in a row because Susan Williams, high-profile lawyer out of South Carolina, the minute they hand down an indictment, the defense, Murdoch, can slap a demand for speedy trial on the state. And that means they got to go to trial within about six months. Two grand jury sessions following the indictment. Isn't that true? That's true.

They better be ready. That's correct. One thing I wanted to bring up, talking about just going from the body being exhumed of Gloria Satterfield, two bodies that won't be exhumed, we absolutely know, are Paul Murdoch and Maggie Murdoch, because their bodies were cremated. You know what? I'm so glad you said that. I completely forgot about that. And to you, Matt Harris, joining us, podcast star of Impact of Influence. I guess that was Murdoch's decision to cremate the bodies. I would have to think that was his decision. And we still haven't seen

Maggie's death certificate, interestingly enough. We saw Paul's. Paul's death certificate says, puts the time of death at nine, but we have not seen Maggie's death certificate. And the Colleton County coroner put the time of the murders between nine and 930. And just one clarification, Alec was not visiting his dad in the hospital that night. He was visiting his mom, which is about a 20-minute drive. I thought he did both that evening. I thought he saw his father and his mother. He did his father earlier in the day, we believe.

His lawyer said from 9 to 9.30, he was watching a game show with his mother in her house, which is about a 20-minute drive from Moselle. Man, this guy owes so many people money. Maggie Murdoch was starting to bounce chicks at her charity events. That's not a good look. She had been seeing divorce lawyers. It was in the middle of divorce. All of his financial shenanigans, in other words, embezzling to the tune of millions, would have come out. He could not

let that happen. And here he is with a money motive 20 minutes away from the double murder of his wife and son. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. And now, finally, Thursday morning, indictment is expected to happen. Let's take a listen to Anne Emerson, ABC News 4. John Marvin tells me he hasn't seen the evidence against his brother. However, Alec Murdoch was first identified by his own attorneys as a person of interest in the murders back in the fall of 2021. But I also texted with Alec Murdoch's lawyer, Jim Griffin, today.

Interestingly enough, he says, we have not been advised by anyone associated with law enforcement or the Attorney General's office that Alec will be charged with murder. Griffin said, I am aware that SLED advised the family that they intend to seek murder indictments from a grand jury later this week. We won't have any comment until charges are actually brought against Alec. Now, Alec is still behind bars on 81 state grand jury charges, not for the murders. So far, the disgraced Hampton lawyer is only formally accused with

various financial crimes, theft, fraud, and money laundering. There's also a drug trafficking allegations as well. And Murdoch's bond is now set at $7 million. Back to you, Matt Harris, joining us, star of the Murdoch family, Murdoch's impact of influence. Why now? What do you think? Hasn't it been, I believe, 400 days since the murders? Is that the right count? Yeah, yes. Yes, exactly. A little over a year. I think, as you have said, and then you know, through going through this, if you're going to indict somebody who's a high profile figure, especially in that case, and especially a family of attorneys, and he's got some of the best attorneys in the state working for him at this point. You want to make sure every single thing is in a row.

You also are getting possibly more and more people to talk. Like, what is Cousin Eddie saying? What is Chris Wilson's phone calls that came out? What do you mean Chris Wilson's phone calls came out? Chris Wilson is an attorney friend of Alec's who Alec said, and it came out that Chris and Alec talked two times on the way from Moselle to Varnville where his mother lives, and two times driving back from Varnville to Moselle. Those are what Alec would probably be using as is, hey, I couldn't have done it. I was on the phone and I was with my mom. But if they find out through technology, were those phone calls actually made on the road or were they made from the murder scene?

Question. You said Alex Murdoch was on the phone with an attorney friend, Chris Wilson, from Moselle, the scene of the murders, to his mother, and then from his mother's back to Moselle, correct? Right, which seems like a lot of phone calls to one guy. Okay, wait a minute. What a coinkydink, Joe Scott Morgan, that he is at Moselle, their hunting lodge,

where the two murders go down. He leaves to visit his mother for one game show, and they're murdered in the small window of time between then and him coming back to Moselle to call 911. I don't believe in coincidences in criminal law, Joe Scott Morgan. No, I don't either. And the fact that he is, you know, he kind of hovers over all of these cases where he's kind of moving in and out. He just happens to be at these specific locations. And again, this goes back to this trail of bodies

that are kind of connected throughout this entire story, Nancy, where he happens to be on the scene and enters in and enters out. And one quick point back to Gloria Satterfield that is amazing to me in this particular case. When she was essentially declared dead at the hospital and released, I find it very, very fascinating that the coroner where she died was never notified of her death. Now, Nancy, this is a traumatically related death. When she rolled into that hospital with this diagnosis of severe head injury, I mean, it's severe, too. She's treated by the staff. That physician should have known better. He wound up actually attending, actually wound up signing her death certificate.

And with all of this pathology that she had, this head trauma, he still listed her manner of death, remember there's five. As natural. As a natural death, Nancy. As a natural death. I mean, it's so deep.

The wrongdoing is so intertwined throughout that area. Back to you, Matt. Question. Matt Harris joining me. So why are charges expected now after 400 days? You said more people are talking. I think cell phone data has been obtained. I wonder if there's not any video data such as ring doorbells, traffic stop lights. I don't know what.

But what do you think brought about the charges now? Well, I think it's those things that we talked about, especially the timeline being so tight you mentioned. You know, that is so darn tight. They're saying the murder is between 9 and 9.30, 20-minute drive to his mom's house, right? And how long was he at the mother's? About 30 minutes. Yeah, not very long.

And they had to carefully coordinate and analyze the phone calls to the friend Chris Wilson with the game show he watched with his mother that he can so accurately remember, and the condition of the bodies, how long they had been dead, what else they could tell. Maybe, do you know what kind of car he was driving? I know, no, I'm not sure which car. Was it that big one he was driving when he got shot in the head? Oh, the shot in the head, he was driving? I know, no, I'm not sure which car. Was it that big one he was driving when he got shot in the head? Oh, he was shot in the head. He was driving that Mercedes. I think they had

two different Mercedes. I think, you know, a lot of them were in the law firms, but I think his wife had one and he had one. I'm just trying to figure out if they had a nav system in it, and that takes a minute to get that information. Little known fact. He had all new cars. Good, good to hear because now they've got the nav system. So there's so many things they had to assemble. So that's why the charges are coming now, we believe. Do you think it will be difficult to charge a single defendant when there are two weapons used?

Everybody on the panel, jump in if you've got a thought. Absolutely not. I don't think it will be. Hold on, I hear Dr. Dupree. Go on i hear dr dupree go ahead dr dupree absolutely not that is a forensic countermeasure um wait a minute you're talking like an expert what do you mean a forensic countermeasure it's something that is used to throw the police off two guns you automatically assume that there are two different perpetrators. So if a single person uses two guns, that's the most logical conclusion. But we call that a forensic countermeasure so that we are not thrown off the case by some trick like that.

Anybody else? Well, let's not forget that Elick Murdoch was a part-time solicitor, and his family had been solicitors for 100 years. He has been a part of many murder trials, whether it be him or his father or his grandfather or his great-grandfather. The guy's kind of aware of what could throw people off, as she is implying right there, or what needs to be done or timelines or this or that. He's schooled in the whole thing. Oh, very well put. You want to jump in on that, Joe Scott Morgan,

about will it be difficult to prove a case against one person when two weapons have been used? I don't think it will. Well, it probably won't be. I think the biggest problem they're going to have, I think that the defense is probably going to exploit in this, is the fact that these are two shoulder-fired arms. And that's always been my contention that you've got a shotgun which is a long arm and you've also got

this ar platform weapon that's a long arm shoulder fired it always seemed to make more sense to me that if you were you know in from a military and policing perspective you carry the ar and then you have a sidearm a pistol and it's just it's just, it's an odd, it's an odd point, data point along the way that you've got two shoulder fired arms. And granted, yes, this guy's got access to weapons. It's his property. But again, I go back, there seems to be a lot of involvement with other parties. Are you trying to say he got somebody to help shoot his wife and son with him? Because I think it was just him.

Well, perhaps. And as Dr. Dupree had rightly pointed out earlier, per her sources, where she had stated that one had been lured there. And that seems logical. And then you bring the other one in. Oh, my God. Look, Maggie, our son is deceased now. And she immediately falls to the ground. She's crying. She's in. Oh, my God. Look, Maggie, our son is deceased now. And she, you know, immediately falls to the ground. She's crying.

She's screaming. She's carrying on. The next thing you know, she's dead. She's deceased. Yep. Fitz News reported that it was a blood spatter on his shirt, maybe. And I forget which one of your experts I had on my show talking about it. He mentioned the long-arm rifles.

If you were using those, he thought it was unlikely you would get a spatter. So there's a little bit of a, might be an issue there. I believe they went overboard to say it was an impact spatter, but they wouldn't say it was blood. But it had to be some type of bodily fluid because that's what causes impact spatter. Hey, Matt, let me ask you one more question. What evidence do they have on all the financial related charges about, I can only guess to the tune of millions of dollars, what evidence do they have? A paper trail? Oh, yeah, they've got a huge, huge paper trail. They've got, he wrote checks out to Cousin Eddie, who does not appear to have any money. And don't forget there's also the drug trafficking charges that just popped up a week ago

or so with cousin Eddie and him and Alec. And he had a fake account, Forge, which was very close to a real company called Forge. Fake account, yeah. Kind of a mitigation. It closely resembled the name of a mitigation firm, right? Yeah, yeah. And so they It closely resembled the name of a mitigation firm, right? Yeah, yeah. And so they've got tons of paperwork. Instead of like JCPenney's, Jackie, it says something like CJPenney's or JDPenney's, some configuration like that to trick the court and everyone else to think clients' money upon settlement from, let's just say, an insurance company

would be funneled into this mitigation firm, but it was actually his accounts. I mean, there's a trail a mile wide, plus you got a lot of clients that were never paid. You know, I just don't understand why this law firm didn't notice it until there were how many dead bodies? Let's see, one, two, three, four, five dead bodies, but hey, that's on them. We wait as the grand jury hands down a true bill of indictment on double murder against legal heir Alex Murdoch. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.