Hidden True Crime - MURDAUGH MOTIVES: Power and Multigenerational Trauma and Shame PART 1

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Recorded LIVE in front of a YouTube audience: February 17, 2023 Forensic psychologist John Matthias unravels how the Murdaugh family secrets play into the possible motives for murder. Alex Murdaugh is at the center of a current trial—charged with killing his wife and son. The family has had a legal dynasty in South Carolina for 100 years —ever since Alex's great grandfather Randolph Murdaugh opened his first law firm in 1910. In the late evening of June 7th 2021 Alex called 911 after he says he found his wife and son shot to death at their rural hunting lodge. Months later —To the shock of many in the area—the influential Alex Murdaugh is arrested and charged in the death of 52-year old Maggie and 22-year-old Paul. But the killings are not what started the unraveling of the family’s tangled history. Forensic Psychologist John Matthias uncovers how the family's history of secrets plays into the possible motives of murder. All parties discussed are innocent until proven guilty. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join a forensic psychologist and journalist (who happen to be husband and wife) on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves.  Subscribe for Friday night lives, psychological analysis, and insider interviews for an in depth look at crimes.  DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California.  Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day.  Dr. Matthias has been an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program since 2007. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. LAUREN MATTHIAS has worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in East Idaho, Boise, and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Your support helps us produce these podcasts/videos. We have some big plans to explore the true crime terrain in a way that no one else has attempted.  WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT:  https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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news and for exclusive content. Become a Patreon member at patreon.com slash hidden true crime. You'll find bonus episodes, early releases, and insider info. Thank you for your endless support. Hidden, a true crime podcast, a forensic psychologist, and a journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes while examining our deepest fears along the way. It is time for our Friday night Hidden Hour, which is a live streaming of our podcast, hidden a true crime podcast. I am a journalist. My name is Laura Matthias. I was a television reporter for 10 years. And Dr. John Matthias is a forensic psychologist who also happens to be my husband. A case that people have been asking us about.

It has caught the nation's attention, much of the world's attention. It's the Alec Murdoch case. We have been listening and we have been watching. We have been following and we've decided on day 20 of this trial to discuss our thoughts about what is hidden in the Alec Murdoch case. Let's start with a summary. It's confusing and a bit overwhelming at times. The last three or four weeks, we've jumped in deeper, but it's still a very complex case.

So I think that would be helpful. So for those new to the Murdoch case, let's go over some basics. Alec Murdoch is at the center of a current trial. He is the son of Randolph Murdoch III. The family is from South Carolina's rural low country, and the Murdox have a legal dynasty in the area that they've had for 100 years. ever since Randolph opened his first law firm in 1910, and then after that he was chosen as the area's solicitor in 1920. Solicitor is a fancy South Carolina way of saying prosecutor.

He was the prosecutor of South Carolina's 14th Circuit Court, and all of the Randolph's have now been the solicitor, Randolph the first, Randolph the second, Buster, and Randolph the third have been the solicitor or the prosecutor of South Carolina's 14th Circuit court. So in other words, the family has held the most powerful law enforcement office in multiple counties since 1920. That means they choose which cases to prosecute, who to prosecute, who not to prosecute, and even who gets the death penalty. So I'll let John explain more about their legal powers in just a minute. But the trial going on right now. We are on day 20 of the Murdoch trial. It centers around Alec Murdoch. In the late evening of June 7, 2021, Alec called 911 after he says that he found his wife and son shot to death at their vast and rural hunting lodge called Moselle about 65 miles from Charleston.

Months later after the murders of Maggie and Paul, to the shock of many of many, in the area, the influential Alec Murdoch is arrested and charged in the death. His wife, Maggie, was 52 years old and his son, Paul, was 22 years old. And that's what this trial specifically is about, the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdoch. But the killings of Paul and Maggie are not what started, the unraveling of the family's tangled history. What seemed to start the unraveling, the enravelling was a boat crash on February 24th, 2019. Paul was 19 years old at the time of this boat crash and was allegedly driving his family's boat while intoxicated with friends. The boat crashed and 19-year-old Mallory Beach, a passenger, was tragically killed. Heartbreaking.

Two months later in April of 2019, Paul Murdoch was charged with boating under the influence resulting in the death of Mallory Beach. Now, this was a really big deal that Paul was indicted because the Murdox were known for getting away with anything and everything in the area due to their legal power and influence. They were even suspected of attempting to frame another boy that was on the boat with Paul, one of Paul's friends Connor, and claimed that he was driving the boat and not Paul. So again, Paul being indicted and charged was a very big.

deal and came as a surprise to many that a Murdoch would finally face consequences. But during that investigation into the boat crash in Paul's alleged crimes, something else happened. Alleged financial crimes of Alec Murdoch were being brought to light. Millions of dollars were missing and taken from his own clients and own law firm, along with other mysterious deaths that people started investigating. the Murdox housekeeper of more than 20 years, 57-year-old Gloria Satterfield, she died of an alleged fall up the stairs in 2018

at the same hunting lodge where Maggie and Paul were killed, but this was 2018. And although the blunt forced trauma and cracked school seemed something more than a fall, it was labeled a natural death. But while investigating Mallory's, Mallory Beach's heartbreaking death from the boat crash,

so journalists were covering Mallory Beach's death from the boat crash where Paul was driving the boat, journalists, local journalists uncovered that Alex Murdoch had defrauded glorious Satterfield sons, that's the housekeeper, of a more than $4 million settlement resulting in her death at the family's hunting lodge. Law enforcement believed that Alex Murdoch's MO was to defraud victims out of settlement money. Prosecutors have stated he has stolen around 10,000. million dollars at this point in time.

Another mysterious death investigation has now been reopened since all of this has come out. A 2015 death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, whose body was found in the middle of a rural road and originally labeled as a hit and run. Like Gloria, he also suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head. The South Carolina law enforcement division, also known as SLED, has reopened the investigation into Stephen Smith's death. And due to FOIA requests and the hard work, again, of local journalists, they've realized just how suspicious Stephen Smith's death really was. It was first, before it was labeled a hit and run. It was actually labeled a shooting. And there were many original police interviews that have come up through FOIA requests.

and in these original police interviews, it shows that both Buster, who is Paul's older brother, as well as Paul, were brought up as possibly knowing Stephen and knowing what happened to him. So here we are today. Alec Murdoch is on trial for killing his own son, 22-year-old son and wife. 100 years later now, this family dynasty is absolutely crumbling. Generations of power completely falling overnight. Multiple deaths are being investigated, all while Alec Murdoch is being tried for the murder of his wife and son. And it all started with the boat crash and Paul driving that boat in 2019.

So I hope that gives a summary. For those that follow this case intensely, they'll know that I left out a good chunk. For those that are interested in learning more, HBO has a great documentary, as does Discovery. and again, Netflix's documentary is coming out February 22nd. And of course, we've been following along with the trial as well. Cousin Eddie is another player. Didn't mention Eddie. But for those to follow, Eddie, I didn't even mention the story of the attempted suicide or Eddie,

or the alleged attempted suicide and the hitman cousin Eddie. I don't even know if we'll get into that tonight. So I didn't bring that up. I mentioned that we were going to be discussing the Murdoch case, the long-awaited a hidden hour where we discussed the case, and I asked for questions. This comes from Jennifer Carter. She asks, is Alec Murdoch just a product of privilege and never having consequences? Or do you think he has an actual personality disorder? He has a history of such outlandish crimes, financial fraud, fake, superiors, That's the Cousinetti story. The fake suicide scheme, possible involvement in the murders of his wife and son, and so much lying. And I want to say to that, even Alex's own defense attorneys

are saying how much he lies. Like that's his biggest issue. Hey, he lies. He's a liar. Yes, so much lying. I wonder, Dr. John, what you think about it and what has caused him to be able to carry out these behaviors while appearing to be a nice, normal guy to his friends. and family. I think this is a good question because it will get us into what I think are the two major components of the Murdoch family. When I think of this crime or these crimes, I actually, I think you have to go back generations to really understand it. I think this is a story about intergenerational power and wealth and privilege. And it doesn't, this story doesn't begin with Alec or Paul or his family. The story begins way back.

in the early 1900s. So I think we need to go there. But in general, I would say this question is getting it two of the major components, I think, that are relevant here. One is power. Jennifer calls it privilege, but I would call it power. And then she asked if there's a personality disorder. I think that would be the other component, which would be mental health issues.

I think those are definitely the two components. but we'll be digging a little bit deeper into what those components are and what they mean as we talk about the Murdoch case. Let's start with power. When people explain crimes a lot of times, they always invoke this idea of power. And I think there's some validity to that. But it's one thing to talk about power. It's another to locate the sources of that power and understand how that power affects families and generations of families. I'm going to start with a quote.

I'm going to read to you a little bit from a psychologist by the name of Mahali Shixon Nehai. Many people would recognize his work. He's the originator of the idea of flow in psychology. So flow has now 30, 40 years of his work, flow has become a major component of sports psychology and some other areas, music, work and creativity. But anyway, Mahali Shiksen Nehi was asked by someone. to explain whether he believed there was, let's call it an overarching law in psychology

that can explain human behavior. And of course, I think most psychologists would say, no, there's probably no such things as psychological laws, that behavior is too complex and too idiosyncratic. But Mahali Shiks and Mihai sort of begs to differ. And so this is from a book called This Explains Everything by John Brockman, Mahali Shix and Mihai as a chapter. It's called Lord Acton's dictum.

And so this is his explanation for what he thinks is probably one of the most elegant explanations for human behavior. And it's Lord Acton's dictum. Here's what he says. I refer to the well-known lines Lord Acton wrote in a letter from Naples in 1887 to the effect that, quote, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. unquote. When a religion or ideology becomes dominant, the lack of controls will result in widening spirals of license leading to degradation and corruption. So I would add that not just religion

in ideology, but when a family dynasty becomes dominant, I would say the same thing. You start having a lack of controls that can result in widening spirals of license leading to degradation and corruption. The idea here is that power corrupts, but as Lord Acton's dictum states, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And Shixen Mihai sees this is a really important law of human nature in the sense that he finds this as a viable explanation for some of the worst genocides of the past several centuries. But it's also an explanation, I think, for a family like the Murdox. The Murdoch family just doesn't have power. They have absolute power. In fact, that county where they reside was at some point, the locals started referring to it as Murdoch

County. So this is a family with tremendous influence. This is a family with tremendous roots in the community. This is a family with a lot of power. So if you're going to understand this story of how we get to these crimes, you have to start with that. So I start with, I start with, I I start with Lord Acton's dictum, and that is that this is a family with absolute power, and absolute power often leads to corruption. So let's start there. We can dive into the causes of that power in a little bit, but before we do that, I want to get to the other component.

I want to just lay out the other component of the story. That component is what I would call intergenerational shame. So I think this is a family with a huge amount of shame, and I'll explain this in a minute, but it's shame that's unresolved. This is a family with trauma. This is a family with probably a lot of grief that has never been resolved. And I think you're getting, you get the lingering residue of shame and trauma over several

generations. And I think when that happens, it tends to escalate. So you have a family here with absolute power and you have a family whose origin story begins with a huge amount of shame. We'll get to that in a second. but the shame with the power is a really toxic combination. And I think the Murdoz story is a story about those two elements. And we're going to develop our argument a little bit more about why that's so.

But I think that it's those two components that really drive these crimes and eventually lead us to Alec and Paul. And John, you always state that people are as sane or as sick as the secrets they keep. And Lisa Donn states, I think there were a lot of secrets in that family. Perhaps that's how they functioned. Absolutely. And secrets are a part of family that has an intergenerational cycle of shame is going to have a lot of secrets. So I think the key to understanding intergenerational secrets is also understand the shame that lies beneath those secrets. And secrets like shame, when they're buried, they create a lot of problems.

problems. They create a lot of toxicity. They create a lot of dysfunction. And the reason for that is because shame is generally considered by some psychologist to be a master emotion, meaning it's an emotion that might underlie a lot of other emotions. And so if you're not able to express shame, you're probably not able to express other emotions. And if you're not able to express emotions, you're not able to connect with other family members or maybe friends or even people in the community in a way that would be normal. With shame, as the basis for a lot of the dysfunction, you get a lot of other problems down the road. As I said, it kind of spirals and escalates. We'll talk a little bit about my perception of where the shame comes from. John has been doing a lot of studying, a lot of reading,

a lot of delving into family history when it comes to the Murdox. And I'd love for you, John, to share where you think the shame or the secrets might have started. When we started looking at this case, one of the first questions I asked Lorham was, or one of the first concerns I expressed was, where does this begin? And my hypothesis was that it probably begins with Randolph the first. I knew about the train accident, but I had some

suspicions about it. And so that's where we kind of started looking. And when we dug into that a little bit, I would reference, by the way, this is an article by Michael DeWitt Jr. from the Greenville News, February 16th, 2020. The title of the article is, Trouble with Trains, the crash and lawsuit that helped launch the Murdoch dynasty. This is a great article in explaining some of the history of the family and how the train accident that occurred in 1940

really sets the stage for what's to come. What happens is in 1940, Randolph Murdoch I, is by some accounts, he's out gambling. There's some question about whether he was drinking as well. But we know he was gambling and he may have been drinking. We don't know for sure. That can't be confirmed. But he returns home at 1 a.m. in the morning.

And he, according to the engineer driving the train, he stops at the train tracks and he weighs. So the engineer driving the train, his name is W.W. Bartlett. He said that he saw the car 40 yards away, and he saw Randolph the first waving at the train crew. And then he said, quote, the car started and stopped directly on the tracks. So within 40 yards, he sees Randolph the first. He sees him waving. There's some interaction between the two. Everything looks fine at that point. And then all of a sudden, the car moves onto the tracks and the car is hit by the train at full force randolph the first is

instantly killed in the in the train rack so now he's deceased and there's some question about what happened was this an accident or was it something else let me read this this is from 1940 again it's randolph murdock the first the first the first the first the first murder to be made solicitor. The train wreck that started it all. Again, this is from the Greenville News, the train wreck that started it

all. The headlight beams drew closer, brighter, followed by the sound, the steam, the shaking rumble. Then the light and sound and speed overtook Randolph Murdoch, Sr. Engineer W.W. Bartlett testified that he did not see the car near the tracks until about 40 yards away

and that Murdoch had his hand raised as though waving at the train crew. But when the train drew closer, the car started up and stopped directly on the tracks. On July 24th, 1940, the Hampton County Guardian reported that, in quotes, the impact hurled the automobile approximately 900 feet up the track, totally wrecking it, and Murdoch's body was found beside the track approximately 150 feet from the crossing. Both outlets report that on July 19th, 1940, Murdoch's car was crossing the railway about four miles east of Varnville when the car mysteriously stopped in the middle of the crossing. So that's from both outlets. A westbound C&WC freight train plunged ahead in the dark, steamy night.

Murdoch lifted his hand and waved at the oncoming locomotive. In other words, he saw it. the driver later reported this during the investigation. This is a really important moment in the Murdoch family, and I'll explain in more detail as we go along, but it seems to me, based on the evidence, that this is a suicide. I mean, a car doesn't just stop and wave at a train crew, and then all of a sudden end up on the tracks 40 yards from the train unless it's intentional. Right.

Right. He had also been very sick for about a year. He had just gone out of the hospital and two of his wives had died. And he had lost a good amount of money earlier in the depression. So there were a lot of things going on in Randolph Murdoch senior's life before what we suspect is a suicide. What you're describing there is depression. By all accounts, Randolph I seemed to be a really good guy. Nobody had bad things to say about him.

He was an athlete at the University of South Carolina. Everybody seemed to like this guy. As far as I can tell, there's really nothing about him that people were critical of. However, as you pointed out, when the stock market crash in 1929, apparently he lost a lot of money. And he started his law from in 1910. So that was a big blow. He started making quite a bit of money between 1910 and the crash in 1929. and that was something I think that was very upsetting to him.

He didn't apparently recover a lot of that money over the period of the Great Depression in the 30s. And then in 1939, he was having significant health problems. In the meantime, two of his wives had died from health complications as well. And he was gambling the night of the accident. There may have been some alcohol involved. I think if you combine all those elements, you might be looking at a diagnosis of major depression.

impression. So this suicide just, it doesn't come out of the blue. And again, the evidence from the engineer and from the elements of his life or what was going on his life at the time or prior to that train crash would indicate that this was a suicide. But of course, if you're a Murdoch, things are never what they seem. And to call this a suicide, I think, would be a little bit embarrassing for the family. This is a family that wants to present themselves as well put together. There's definitely a certain amount of perfectionism. This is a family that's hobnobbing with senators and high-level politicians. In fact, Randolph I first, his wife, was connected to a number of state senators. And so this, this is a family that I think would find it very embarrassing and

shameful to acknowledge that someone, especially someone as prominent as Randolph I first committed suicide. Yes. And so I think that's where this story starts. when Buster, who's Randolph the 2nd, goes into court and argues about this case, his argument, not surprisingly, is that the crossing conditions, there were no crossing gates at that time. He said that the crossing conditions and the poor state of the crossing area, the visibility and the poor conditions of the crossing area were responsible for the accident. And so it ended up being a rule. It ended up being ruled an accident and not a suicide, which meant that now the door was open for a major settlement, as well as some other things that were to happen later. The Murdoch family was able to actually gain something of a monopoly on cases that involved train accidents and train injuries for roughly 65 years after that accident. So I think there's so many elements here that in some ways, the fact that the fact that, the fact that,

financial fate of this family hangs on essentially a suicide, but they're calling it something else. So it hangs on an accident. But what's being hidden is the reality. What's being hidden is the fact that Randolph I appeared to commit suicide, which is deeply shameful for this family. And it's something that they want to hide at all costs. In other words, the family dynasty was almost created on a, a lie. From the very beginning of this family dynasty, there was a lie and there was shame. And there was also not just a lie and not just shame and not just mental illness, but making money off of that lie by finding success off of that lie. They made money by calling it an accident and keeping this a secret. they made millions and millions of dollars off of this accident for generations to come.

Right. In fact, between 1995 and 2002, CSX, which is the train company responsible for all of the trains in South Carolina, CXX paid $8.8 million to the firm. And it was well known locally that a lot of the locals would say that the Murdoch law firm was the house that CXX law firm was the house that C, S-X built. So in that short period of time between 1995 and 2002, they made millions. And that doesn't even account for the other 50-plus years of settlements, that they were getting so, they were getting millions and tens of millions of dollars from the train company because that death in 1940 was rolled in accident. When in reality, if you look at the evidence, it seems pretty clear that that was a suicide. And so there's almost this sense that, I think there's almost something like imposter syndrome possibly in the sense that the family knows deep down that they're profiting

off of trauma and grief and a suicide. And it was never fully acknowledged to be that. And so I think this shame is going to be insidious and it's going to run deep and it's going to run across generations because it's not being called what it is. There's some really fascinating research about Holocaust survivors and how that trauma affects them and has affected them. And we know that as many as several generations, three or four generations, two or three generations after the Holocaust, that mental health issues are much more significant, that there is this transmission of trauma and grief across generations. And so I think you're seeing some elements of that. Marcia Weaver states, fun fact.

the only county in South Carolina to not have a Walmart because PMPED, the law firm that Alex Murdoch and his brother Randy are a part of, the Murdoch law firm, is known to sue big corporations and win. Walmart refuses to build in that county for fear of something happening and fear of lawsuits. And I want to say yes, Marsh is right. That's exactly what they did to the railroads. And so all these other big corporations are seeing what the Murdox have done. to the railroads and they're saying, no way are we going to go in there when this family has absolute power in this county to sue us and to just create lawsuit after lawsuit, personal injury attorneys, you know, and the prosecutor. Also, because numerous big corporations

have refused to go into the county, it remains a very poor county compared to the surrounding counties because there aren't as many jobs. Right. And on that point, by the way, on Marsha's point in 2004, the American Tort Reform Association called Hampton County the third worst, quote, judicial hellhole in the United States based on the fact that Hampton County had more out-of-county cases, many of them related to train injuries than anywhere else in South Carolina, and they were getting above-average settlements. And so actually, Marsh is right in the year 2000, Walmart put out a statement saying that they were not going to local. a store in Hampton County due to the legal environment or the unfriendly legal environment.

So yes, that's that's that's very true. So that issue actually speaks to power. We haven't really addressed that fully. But let's so let's back up a little bit and talk about this idea of power in the Murdoch family. In 1910, we're going to have to talk about Randolph the first still. In 1910, Randolph the first starts his law firm. He's a one-man ban. He's doing his own thing.

To promote his law firm, he actually starts a newspaper, just a local newspaper, but he talks about his law firm in the paper. It's kind of a form of marketing for himself. In 1920, however, a number of politicians in South Carolina set up a solicitor position in Hampton County and in actually the five surrounding counties. And this is really important because the solicitor is essentially the attorney general which means that they have control of cases that go in and out of the court system. One way to think about this is that you have someone who is essentially the prosecutor

among five counties and he has his own law firm. So imagine the scenario that let's say somebody has a DUI and they need help. So that person goes to Rand off the first law firm and says, I have a DUI, I need help with this. Well, you know, since Randolph I is the solicitor, he can then tell that person, okay, you know, give me $10,000 and we won't prosecute you. I can make that go away. It's a really interesting conflict of interest, but it's also a situation that sets up

potential abuses of power to an extraordinary degree because the prosecutor or the solicitor has so much control over the judicial system, and yet at the same time is running a law firm, which is an obvious conflict of interest, but the Murdoz don't care. They're quite content to occupy both of those positions, which is to have a private law firm and to be solicitors for many, many years until roughly 2006, they can exploit that situation for themselves. On that issue, which is, by the way, if people watch the documentaries, one of the constant refrains in the documentaries from the locals is nothing's going to happen.

It's the Murdox. Nothing's going to happen. It's the Murdox. We know that this is going to disappear because it's the Murdox. This issue of power comes up repeatedly. People say, I don't want to cross the Murdox because I'll pay the price. I don't want to get them on my bad side because they'll retaliate. That's power.

And maybe that's not just power. That's absolute power. So you have a massive law firm that's benefiting. from these train injuries, and you have some of the partners working as the prosecutors in that same five-county district. And there's really, I don't know what can be done about that, but it creates this huge discrepancy and power between the Murdox and other people in the community. Susan Wood is saying, thank you so much for all this background information on the Murdoch

to make so much sense. And then Casey Ann says the toxic family cycle will be broken one way or another. either by choice of a family member deciding to make those changes or the family continuing their cycle, leading them to their own demise. Thank you, Casey, for that great, great comment. That is what we're seeing here, right? This toxic family cycle. Since we're talking about the intergenerational transmission of shame,

I want to read a quote from a book by a couple of family therapists. This book is called Facing Shame. It's called Facing Shame Families in Recovery. It's all about what they call shame-bound. family systems. And it's written by Fossum and Mason. Marilyn Mason happens to be, she was a long time professor at the University of Minnesota in their medical school, and she's done some interesting work on family systems and shame. Let me just read quickly from this book. For those that are interested, this is page 44 and 45. They ask the question, what types of families are inheritors of shame?

the most likely candidates are those that protect their history with secrets, mysteries, and myths. Stories of inherited shame often result from bankruptcies, suicides, child deaths, and accidents. The rules of shame-based systems produce several generations of repressed affect. What is common to all such families is the commitment of all family members to maintain the secrets, their secrets, through rigid rules about what may and may not be talked about. These rules prohibit spontaneity in the family relationships. With spontaneity, the real feelings and facts might be revealed. Family members create powerful myths about their histories,

often leaving out the painful historical shapers of the shame. The children in these families are loyal through their lack of questioning about the past, thereby colluding in the family rules. Wow, Crime Geek says, nailed it. There's actually a couple of elements of that quote that I think are worth talking about. One is this idea of repressed affect. Families become extremely dysfunctional when emotions are not expressed openly and they're not processed. And so when shame is one of the primary emotions in the origin story we've talked about,

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where absolute power exists, one of the rules is we don't talk about imperfections. We don't talk about emotions. Everything is perfect in our family. And in fact, that's one of the family, that's one of the primary family narratives with the Murdoch family, which is we're the Murdoch family, we're above the law, we're untouchable, we're special. If I had to try to pinpoint the major family myth of the Murnaut family, I think that would probably be something to the effect of, we are a rich, powerful, and perfect family. And that's the myth they're trying to perpetuate.

If you ask me what the motive is in these crimes, if you want to go as deep as we can, I think you land somewhere near that myth. That what's being threatened here is the myth of perfection in the Murdoch family. It's the myth of this is a rich, powerful, untouchable, perfect family. And as Alex says, several times during the trial, he says, he said he was talking to Maggie's sister

and after the murders, and he said, my goal is to clear Paul's name. He doesn't care about who the murderer is. He doesn't care about all the emotional fallout from the murders. The only thing he cares about is clearing Paul's name, right? And that's the myth. That's the myth of wealth and power and perfection. And that's what the Murdof family is trying to maintain in all costs.

That was such an interesting moment during trial this week when Maggie's sister stated that, that after the murder, she said, I'm going to clear Paul's name. You talk about a facade, but in many ways a facade is like a pageant, that their entire life for this generation, generations of Murdox has been a pageant as well. Can you talk about that a little bit? So there's this thing called the Watermelon Festival in Hampton. I believe it's in Hampton. Maybe some of our listeners can correct my location, but it's a parade.

I sort of think of the Murdoch family. When I first heard about the Watermelon Festival, I thought of how that's a metaphor for this family, that each of the Murdoch patriarchs was featured prominently in this festival. They would ride tractors or floats or whatever. their floats were always the most prominent and they were the most visible part of the parade. And when I think of a parade, I think of the pageantry. I think of the superficiality, the focus on appearances, the focus on the facade, not what's beneath the facade. And so I think in some ways this festival is a metaphor for this family. They look good. They maintain a lot of

nifty appearances and they certainly seem to have a lot of wealth, but what's below the surface? We don't know. Well, I guess we know now. We're learning what's below the surface. But a family like this is creating a pageant. They're creating a facade. They're creating a certain appearance. They're creating this myth. And they're invested in that at all costs. And so I think when Paul becomes involved in the boat accident in 2019, a lot of that facade starts to unravel. And so I think there's, over time, there's very much an existential threat to this family. The family myth is starting to disintegrate. The family myth is being threatened. And Paul, by all accounts, seems to be the person responsible for that, which, by the way,

would give Alec a strong motive to murder him. old gris states paul brought new shame to the family breaking the family myth amen to that and that is followed by by shannon begley who states what could the motive be for alec doing it doing it i assume are the murders let's talk about paul specifically and let's start with what old gris says paul brought new shame to the family breaking the family myth yeah i agree with that. It's interesting because in family therapy, we sometimes talk about, and by the way, I have my master's in family therapy, which I've always found to be invaluable. I think there's many psychologists have a tendency to focus on individuals and not to the systems that surround

those individuals. And I think sometimes that that can be a mistake. That's not always true, but psychologists generally speaking are trained more to deal with individual pathology and not family systems. So I love family systems. I'm very grateful to have my master's in family systems. It's helped me enormously in my career. But what I was going to say is that sometimes a person like Paul is what we call the IP. That stands for the identified patient. The identified patient is usually the person in the family that's acting out.

It's the person in the family that's causing all the problems. And so most families have a tendency to point the finger at the IP and say, hey, look, our family's great. It's just we have this little troublemaker over here, and he needs to. help, so I'm throwing them into therapy and you fix them and then everything will be fine. Of course, what they don't understand is that the pathology is system-wide. It's created and enacted by the entire system, meaning the entire family. And so it's real family systems. People understand that the identified patient, somebody like Paul who's acting out, is really just a symptom of the

dysfunction in the family. I can make a strong argument, by the way. And Paul, you know, I'm not Paul is not a sympathetic character, but I can make an argument that in many ways, Paul is acting out so severely in such an extreme degree because he is really testing the limits of this family met. And he's really, you know, today we learned that some of the nicknames for him were little detective, right? And I think that's a really interesting nickname in the family for Paul because it seems suggest that he's trying to uncover some of this shame. I don't know that he's trying to find

shame and uncover it. I think he's feeling it and he doesn't know how to express it. And so he's, he's trying to figure out what this is about because he knows he's acting out as something that he doesn't understand. He's acting out, I can argue that he's acting out four generations of shame. He feels it, he feels powerless in some ways to contain his behavior. But I think he's really testing, let's call it the code of behavior and the values of the Murdoch family system and the Murdoch family dynasty. So I think in a way, Paul is symbolic of somebody who eventually, it could be Paul, it could have been another child at some point, but somebody who's going to really test the limits of this system because there's so much shame and so much toxicity and so much

dysfunction that at some point, someone somewhere is going to do something like Paul did. Alec called Paul a little detective. We learned that in court today. Right. Or yesterday. Not good for someone trying to keep secrets. Yeah, I agree. I really think, and again, I'm not saying Paul's a sympathetic character because this is a guy.

Let's go back to Mallory Beach in the boat accident. This is a kid who physically assaulted his own girlfriend Morgan before the accident. In fact, a few minutes before he was. the scene hitting her, punching her, and spitting on her. And yes, he was intoxicated, but that's not acceptable behavior in any circumstance. And so Paul, it's hard to really sympathize with a character like Paul. He's an abuser. He's violent.

Seems like he may have been, potentially he may have been involved in previous murder. So I don't want to argue that Paul's a saint, but I do want to say that I have more compassion for him when you understand. When you understand the intergenerational cycle of shame and when you understand that Paul may be bearing the brunt of that type of shame and that type of dysfunction and toxicity, I think, for me at least, it's easier to have a little more compassion for him. I think Paul's the guy who's had enough and he's coming to this system feeling all of these emotions

that he isn't able to express because nothing is communicated or talked about in the Murdoch fan. family, and it hasn't been for 100 years. And so somebody's got to act out this dysfunction. I think the people who acted out the most are Alec and Paul. You know, the way that Maggie and Paul were killed, there was some overkill. They were both shot. It's been discussed a lot in court and in the trial, just how brutal it was with Paul. he you know his his brains were everywhere it almost blew his head off you've talked about some rage he might have felt innocent until proven guilty the trial's still going on kay i'm glad to see you're watching

it too kay woodcock is here with us so you know innocent until proven guilty but let's say that alec murdock killed his wife and son and killed paul there was rage involved in this killing can you talk about that well i think paul As I said earlier, I think Paul really poses a serious threat to this family dynasty, more so than anyone else in the Murdoch family. And I think both Randolph III, I'll call him Handsome for our purposes today, to distinguish him from the other Randolph's, but Randolph the third, both Randolph the third and Alec,

who talked all the time until Hansom's death in 2021, I think they both recognized that Paul posed a significant threat to the family dynasty. And so in that sense, Alec was to some degree, I think, enraged because Paul was about to unravel the entire dynasty quite quickly. This family had spent 100 years building this dynasty and creating these connections and these political connections and being solicitors. And yet here, this 19-year-old kid or 22, he has the potential to destroy everything they build almost overnight. And so I think Alec is absolutely enraged by that. And that shows if Alec turns out to be the person that murdered Paul and Nagy, or if a jury sees it that way, I can see how that raged.

Rage expressed itself in the way he murdered Paul. When you do that, your level of anger and rage is off the charts. And I have to believe that the nature of the killing, I think, would also point to Alec to some degree because let's say it was a, I don't know what defense is going to argue. I think one of their arguments might be that it was some type of drug hit. If you're killing someone because of drugs, you're not going to have that kind of rage. You're probably not going to use a shotgun. You're probably going to use something that's more precise to kill someone.

one like an assault rifle that was used on Maggie, but a shotgun, a close range in the head, that's just almost inconceivable. I think Alex was Alec and or handsome were absolutely besides themselves with anger over the fact that Paul was threatening this family and the family myth and their dynasty. Hillary states clues to anger towards Paul because he set things in motion with the boat crash. so personal, stating that our relationship was as good as it could be. Crime Geek states it took 100 years to build this dynasty and five minutes to destroy it. Right, exactly.

And I think both Alec and Handsome or Randolph the 3rd, I'm just going to call him handsome because that's his nickname with the grandkids. We'll talk about that in a minute too. But I think they were so distraught and so. angry at what Paul had done. And not only were they angry, they had two years. So it was, the boat crashed occurred roughly two years before the murders.

They had two years to stew over the fact that Paul was going to unravel or destroy their dynasty. I want to mention who Kay Woodcock is, because she's here in chat with us tonight. She said that she's watching, preparing for their own trial.

Kay is the grandmother of J. Vallow, Lori, Laurie Valo and Chad Daybell case. That is going to trial at the beginning of April and Kay, so much support for you while you prepare and so much support we're going to give you when that trial is going on. So we just want to say thank you for being here and that we're with you as a hidden true crime community. Thank you for being here. Donna is saying Dr. John, don't forget that Alex was facing his own exposure as a thief, but I'd like to to point out, I don't know if anybody would have known that had the boat crash not happened

because it was during the boat crash investigation that journalists uncovered the settlement that Gloria Satterfield Sons were supposed to receive after her death at the Hunting Lodge at Moselle that that they did not get because Alec Murdoch took that and that was only uncovered because of the boat crash where Paul was driving. Right. So I agree with that. I think the prosecution is presenting one of the primary motives for the murders that these financial crimes were looming and with the civil suit from Mallory Beach and her family pending three days after the murder of Paul and Maggie, there were a lot of concerns that those crimes would come to light and Alec would be deeply embarrassed. But again, to me, that's part of maintaining this family. myth. The family myth being we're a rich, powerful, untouchable, perfect family.

And if you're committing, if you're stealing millions of dollars from people, you're going to have a hard time maintaining that myth. So to me, I agree that I think that factors into the motivations, but I think maintaining this whole mythology of the Murdoch dynasty

is probably more important to, certainly more important to handsome and critically important to Alec as well. Can we talk about Hanson, by the way, Jennifer Carter pointed out that Paul called his grandpa handsome. That's Randolph III directly after the boat crash. And that is seen in body camp footage that the public can see. So it's right after the boat crash. It's the middle of the night. Police are there. Mallory's missing. Anthony's calling his mother. And Paul is asking to borrow a phone,

borrow a phone. He needs to borrow a phone and he finally gets a phone and the first person he calls is handsome. You mentioned you wanted to bring up handsome and maybe talk about his name as well. One thing I haven't talked about is the relationship between shame and narcissism. There is a very close relationship. We haven't really gone to that yet, but there's a lot of research showing that shame can be one of the foundations of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. in the sense that narcissism is largely about grandiosity and trying to maintain one sense of being perfect and special and unique. And shame obviously is very much the opposite of that.

So a lot of times narcissism is built on the avoidance of shame and it requires a certain level of denial of shame. The story of Handsome, this was in one of the obituaries written about Randolph the Third. And again, Randolph the Third, a lot of people say a lot of good things about Randolph the Third. I don't want to paint a portrait here that he's some evil guy that's out to harm people. I don't think that's true. I think he seems to be a reasonably good human being. This story is interesting.

However, because I think it's a little unusual. the story is that after his first grandchild was born and it was a girl, he asked his first grandchild to call him handsome because, quote, he had never had a woman call him that. I don't know what to make of that story. At first I thought, well, maybe this is just, maybe this is some kind of Southern thing. And maybe he's being a little sarcastic or ironic or something.

Some people have thought it was cute. oh, you know, why didn't I think about instead of Nana? And, you know, it's an interesting name for your grandchildren to call you that. But on the other hand, it is a little unusual. It is a little idiosyncratic. And my first thought, you know, I think of the story of Narcissus, which is that Narcissus looks at a pond. He sees his image and he becomes obsessed with his image. He can't stop thinking about how handsome he is and how beautiful he is.

And of course, because Narcissus is obsessed with his image in the pond, he stops eating, he stops doing anything, and he dies from the fact that he's so smitten with his image. When I heard this handsome story, I thought, oh, man, you know, this is almost like the story of Narcissus, except instead of the pond, the grandchildren become the reflection. And they're reflecting back, his need to feel handsome, his need to feel superior, his need to feel beautiful. his need to feel beautiful like narcissus. You know, the difficulty with the story of narcissus is that narcissus only sees one thing. He only sees his beauty and his reflection. And what he doesn't see is a more complex self.

He doesn't see the darker parts of himself. He doesn't see his pain. He doesn't see his suffering. He doesn't see his shame. And so narcissism in that sense is purely a reflection of what we want to see about ourselves. and most specifically those parts of us that we see as being special or grandiose. So that's the connection to shame.

But when I heard that story, I couldn't help think that there's probably a fair amount of narcissism in this family that's also that goes hand in hand with shame that's probably being passed down intergenerationalally as well. Is Randolph the third a narcissist? I don't know. I wouldn't diagnose him. I've never met the guy. I've never done any testing with them. So I'm jumping the gun. I want to make it clear that this is speculation.

But that story, I think, is somewhat unique. And it does remind me of that. And I think if you're going to explain the Murdoch family, I think you probably need to bring in this other component of shame, which is narcissism. And my guess is that, at least for the men in the Murdoch family line, you probably have quite a few narcissistic features or traits that would be found in many of those men. we've already discussed this a bit but but to go a little bit further because we're getting a lot of questions hailey managold asks why jump to murder why not just leave paul high and dry and take the fall

totally susan asks this is the answer to the question everyone has been asking how could alec have killed his son now i know that we've talked about it the shame the pageantry but i think some people are still having a hard time wrapping their minds around the brutality of it. Earlier in the show, somebody asked this specific question. Barley asks Dr. John Alex fills a bill for a family annihilator. Others are just stating fill aside, but is he more suited to being a family annihilator? Let me clarify some terms. The term family Annihilator comes from a researcher named P.E. Deetz in 1986. Deets saw family annihilators as mainly husbands or spouses that eliminated the entire family and then often committed suicide.

So when I think of the term family annihilators or family annihilation, I think of some type of a murder, suicide combination. And that's how the term was originally used. However, researchers began to change that turn to familicide because they learned that many men. So famililicide and family annihilation is almost entirely committed by males. Let's say that. And they tend to be older males, by the way, 30s and 40s. But familicide is when you kill a spouse and or a child or children. It's that combination. And oftentimes, familicide does not involve suicide. It does involve suicide many times, but not all the time. And so I think Dietz, the reason I prefer to use the term famililicide is because somebody like

Alec Murdoch, although he set up this fake suicide attempt later, did not commit suicide. And familicide takes that into account. Philicide is strictly the killing of children. So it's different. So familicide entails the killing of a spouse and or at least one or multiple children. So what we're talking about here is famililicide. There's a category of famililicide. called this is research done by Liam and Cohen Rat. I've talked about their book Domestic Homicide,

their textbook. They have a category that is predominant among familalicides, and that's the category they called the despondent husband or despondent husbands. And Alec Murdoch fits that category almost perfectly. Usually despondent husbands, they've lost their job or they've lost a spouse or separated from a spouse. They're very concerned about their financial future. Alec Murdoch, obviously is very concerned about his financial future. They're undergoing, there's something called anomicide, which is somebody who's homicidal or suicidal based on the stress created as a result of drastic economic changes, which leads to a sense of desperation.

Alec Murdoch knows that major economic change is probably coming in his life because he has all these fraudulent transactions. There's a tremendous amount of stress that that's, generated for him. I think there's a lot of desperation. In that case, I think that could potentially lead to homicide. T-Diva is asking something. That's a great question. Is Alex crying for the loss of his family in court, or is he crying for himself? In fact, our thumbnail tonight is one of the many pictures of Alex Murdoch crying in court. Why is he crying? You're going to put me on the spot here.

Well, if you want to plead the fifth. I'm going to answer that question by talking about a couple of things. Okay. In the hospital, after Mallory Beach was missing and no one had found her in the hospital in 2019, Alec and his father, handsome, show up. And they're talking to all the young people that were involved in the boat crash. And one of the nurses over here is Alec on the phone with Maggie saying, quote, don't worry, babe, she's gone. Yeah.

Don't worry, babe. She's gone. As in don't worry about Mallory suing us for injuries or wrongful death because she's gone. There's no body, no sweat. I don't care. Right. So that's one story. The other story I would tell about Alec is the story of a young man by the name of Haikim.

Pinkney. Hakeem Pinckney was deaf and young African-American male. He was deaf and then he got into a really serious car accident. He was paraplegic. He was in the hospital. Alec Murdoch decided to represent him. He got a substantial settlement of, I forget the exact number. I think it was just under a million dollars, but he received a substantial settlement for Hakeem Pigny and not a single dime went to Hakeem Pinkney or his family. And Hakeem Pinkney was in desperate need of medical attention. His bills were piling up. His mother and his family couldn't afford to keep him in the hospital.

He eventually dies about a year or two later. I don't have the exact time frame, but he passes away. And when Hakeem Pinkney is in the hospital, Alec Mertrude is chartering private jets to various locations across the country at $60,000 a crack. Alec Murdae buys Maggie an $100,000 Mercedes with the Hekeem-Pigney money. So, if you hear these two stories, the question you have to ask is, is this someone with a conscience? Is this someone who cares at all?

Is this someone who has remorse? My answer to that has to be, I doubt it. My answer is those tears seem really theatrical to me. If you want to know about Alec Murdoch, I think you should ask the Pinkney family, or maybe you should ask the family of Mallory Beach what they think of them. I think they're going to tell you what those tears mean more than me. Nancy asks. Dr. John, what do you think of Paul's alter ego, Timmy that came out when he was extremely drunk?

Signs of Timmy, spread fingers, belligerent, all present after the boat accident. Julie Holden then adds, the spread fingers are so odd to me. Yeah. You know, there's a funny story I have that when I was at the VA for a while, this was years ago, but I worked at the VA working with veterans. And I worked with one veteran who also had an alcohol problem and he had a tendency towards violence as well. And he would do the same exact thing with his hands.

He would spread them. When he was getting angry, he would do exactly that. And he said his explanation for that was that he was getting ready to pounce. He was getting ready to act and become violent. And I think there's something to that. It's almost as if he's posturing for, he's posturing to jump on prey or he's, he's preparing himself to act in a violent fashion. And in fact, that's exactly what he did on the boat, by the way.

Melanie Evans asks, from jail, Alex pressed Buster over and over again to reenter law school after being apparently ousted for a cheating scandal. How does this fit into maintaining the family myth? I assume that if he can get him back into law school, he can carry on as if the family's perfect. They can continue to maintain the dynasty and Buster can take over the law firm. And so I think that's a big part of the family myth is having Buster return to law school and act as if this is a family that I'm sure is going to act as if nothing happened. And they'll just carry on. I mean, of course, you have to overlook the murders and Alec has to be acquitted in order to maintain that myth.

But I think it's part of the overall myth in the sense that he sees Buster carrying on the family lineage in the family profession in the same way that everyone else has. Collette is reminding everyone that Dr. John has a book club and people were asking us earlier on Patreon. If we have a February book, we do. The Examined Life.

We're reading it right now. And you can also see bonus episodes of Hidden True Crime on patreon.com slash hidden true crime. We hope you'll join us there. It's a way that you can support us and we give back as well. Thank you.

What would you like to end with when it comes to the Murdoch family and their alleged crimes. Let me share with our listeners some of the various symptoms of shame that show up in this family. There's addiction and alcoholism. Let's lump those together. So drug addiction and alcoholism. There's corruption, including witness tampering and witness intimidation, which occurred with Buster, which is who has ran off the second. There's fraud, financial crimes. There's violence. There's illegal activities, including bootlegging back in the 50s.

There's a history of infidelity and compulsive sexual behaviors. There's a history of compulsive spending, including chartering private jets, buying luxury items all the time, expensive Mercedes, for example. There's a history of gambling among multiple members of this family. And I want to say that all of those in one way or another have potentially some ties. to this intergenerational cycle of shame that begins with the train crash. So I think that's important to point out that the ripple effect from a crash like that, from a train crash that's probably a suicide can be enormous if it's not processed. If that trauma and that grief and that shame are unresolved and not processed,

that's potentially the fallout. That's what you see. So my final thoughts would be if the two components of the Murdoch case are absolute power and intergenerational shame, that it seems to me that the way to solve this type of problem is to be more responsible. This is the Peter Parker thing in Spider-Man, is to be more responsible with power, to understand the importance of sharing power and not hoarding it, and also to not be afraid of the pain that's involved in exploring our shame, which is a difficult task. But every family suffers and deals with pain. And as much as we want to avoid it,

and as much as we want to avoid shame, I think my lesson here would be try to delve into that shame and try to face that pain directly. And I know that takes a lot of courage. So share power responsibly and try to as much as possible, explore your shame if you can, and we'll all benefit from that. The Murdoch dynasty begins with a train crash and suing the railroads for millions of dollars, and it ends with a boat crash and Mallory Beach's family suing the Murdox for millions of dollars.

And it all comes down to the secrets that they kept and the shame they kept hidden for generations. There's an old cliche about the way something begins is usually how it ends. And that is because those beginnings, if they're traumatic, they involve a certain amount of shame unless that's resolved, that type of toxicity is going to work its way to its natural conclusion if nothing's done. Thank you for the support you gave us for the wonderful questions. if we did not answer your question, please leave it in the comments of this video.

Again, every hidden hour on Fridays, we have a live streaming of our podcast. And then in the middle of the week, we edit these and make them our podcast, a hidden a true crime podcast. You can find on any platform that shares podcast episodes. Again, for those that want to continue to support Hidden a True Crime podcast, we have a Patreon. Patreon.com slash hidden true crime where we have a Patreon podcast where you can get an RSS feed and download podcast episodes ad-free as well as bonus episodes where we discuss other things including Netflix films we like. So we hope to see you there as well. For anyone that has any more

additional questions when it comes to the Murdoch case or any other case we cover, please leave your comments on YouTube that we've learned the easiest way. way to read your questions. Thank you, Dr. John. And I'm going to head over to be on News Nation. So definitely tune in to Ashley Banfield's show Banfield, where we'll be discussing the Murdoch case and different theories surrounding the trial. Good night. Good night. Good night, guys. Thank you. May justice be served. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent.

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