Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Cup of Justice Bonus 13: Terrified Jurors, Unprepared Witnesses and Dirty Money: Countdown To The Murdaugh Trial

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Murdaugh Murders Podcast hosts Mandy Matney, Liz Farrell and everyone’s favorite attorney Eric Bland discuss the latest in lead-up to one of the biggest trials in South Carolina history — the State v. Alex Murdaugh. Is the State prepared to handle the defense? Will jurors be put in a no-win situation? And is Alex using stolen money to pay his attorneys? Plus, a settlement with Buster Murdaugh and what Liz knows about Brian Walshe. In other BIG NEWS! since publishing this episode, Cup of Justice launched on its own feed and hit #1 on Apple on the first day!!! Please consider giving our newly launched Cup of Justice a 5 star review on Apple & Spotify to help us in our mission to expose the truth wherever it leads!! COJ on Apple: https://apple.co/3HHT9av COJ on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3WMKkAI We all want to drink from the same Cup Of Justice — and it starts with learning about our legal system. What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. Consider joining our MMP Premium Membership community to help us SHINE THE SUNLIGHT! CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. SUNscribe to our free email list to get alerts on bonus episodes, calls to action, new shows and updates. AND by sharing your email, we'll send details on exclusive content only available from our SUNScription email list - CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3KBMJcP And a special thank you to our sponsors: Microdose.com, VOURI, and others. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! Find us on social media: Facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ Instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ Twitter.com/mandymatney YouTube.com/c/MurdaughMurders Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 *The views expressed on the Cup of Justice bonus episodes do not constitute legal advice. Listeners desiring legal advice for any particular legal matter are urged to consult an attorney of their choosing who can provide legal advice based upon a full understanding of the facts and circumstances of their claim. The views expressed on the Cup of Justice episodes also do not express the views or opinions of Bland Richter, LLP, or its attorneys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend. Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee. Exclusive Toronto engagement January 16th in theaters everywhere January 23rd. We are just one week away from one of the biggest cases ever in South Carolina history. State versus Elic Murdoch. It is going to be a very wild ride.

Liz Farrell, Eric Bland and I will keep you in the know with daily coverage and commentary. But first, we sat down on Friday to talk about how prepared we think the state and the defense are, whether Ehrlich is paying for his defense with stolen money, and how Ehrlich Murdoch's jury will be in a very difficult position. Plus, we discussed the boat crash victim settlement with Buster Murdoch and what Liz remembers about her former classmate, Brian Walsh, the wealthy Massachusetts man whose wife has been missing since New Year's Day. So let's get into it.

Hello, hello, guys. How are you? Hey there. What's new? Eric, what's new with you? It's been a while. Well, happy New Year to you guys. I haven't talked to you since the new year. But, you know, we're all in pins and needles waiting to see what happens over the next week and a half. Is it really going to happen? Isn't it crazy that we're this close to, like, did you realize that it's just a week away? I see, you know, listeners saying, well, we're 10 days away and I compartmentalize it. And then when I actually sit down to think about it, like, wow, the fever is pitched. It must be going on. in both camps to prepare.

You know, I do know, like, I'm trying to schedule a time for the Satterfields to get prepared and am I going to be subpoenaed? And a lot of it's always predicated on what the judge is going to do in terms of the ruling on motive or whether there's going to be a last minute motion to continue because, let's say, Dick says the state hasn't produced enough for us and our experts can't finalize their report. But it seems like there hasn't been anything from each side where there's going to be someone who's going to blink. Good point.

So you have not been subpoenaed or you have? I have not. My clients have received an email notice of it. And I've received an email notice of it. But we have not been served with the actual subpoena. Here's the real dilemma that Dick and Kratner in. And that is their preparation is predicated on is Judge Newman. going to rule and let this stuff in or let some out or give a hybrid type of ruling.

And you want to know because you got to prepare, but you don't want to be the one that writes the court. Because if you write the court say, hey, judge, can you make a decision on that motion? Usually the judge says, okay, I'll make a decision. It's against you. Yeah. So unless Dick Creighton jointly get together, and I've done this, where both sides get together and they write a letter to the judge asking him the rule and they both sign it. That way there can't be a situation where the judge is saying, well, he's basically telling me, I'm not doing my job. If both of the parties do that, that's one thing.

I don't think they're getting that kind of cooperation with each other, though. So what you're referring to, Eric, is the motion, I guess, Craton filed two motions. One was to exclude the polygraph and one was to. prevent Dick and Jim from mentioning third party guilt. And then he filed a response saying that the motive or the state's version of the motive is absolutely admissible and all the financial crime, et cetera. So you think that, I guess my question is, isn't that something that they rule on the week the trial starts? Like, it's always been my experience that these like outstanding motions of what to exclude or include happen after the jury.

has been selected. They cannot wait until trial. They have to wait. They have to get that ruling. It's not fair to the lawyers if Judge Newman doesn't give them at least a ruling or some kind of telegraph on what he's going to let in. So I suspect what happens is Liz, either Dick or Creighton will ask for a status conference with the judge. And they're going to tell the judge, this is our concern. You know, we have 100 witnesses. The trial can either be four weeks long if we have to get in all this evidence. Dick is going to say, or if you let it, if you don't let it in-judge, it'll be an easy one-week, two-week trial, 10 witnesses at most. So that's Dix's argument.

So hold on, Eric. Are you saying there's 100 witnesses? Do you know this? No, I presume. Well, let's do the math. You got five on the Satterfield end. You have Mark Tinsley and you have Justin and his clients. You have potentially other lawyers that we don't know about.

So right there you have 15. Yeah. And I know of somebody who's been subpoenaed outside of that. And this person, I'm not going to say who it is, but this person has no idea what they're going into. Like they, but it's the same thing. An email has come. And there's been no preparation, no. So I think a lot of people, I'm assuming, are just kind of in the dark and not knowing what they're going to be asked, A, and B, when they're going.

You're truly, Mandy. Yeah, you're there too. I have no idea. You put me up on the stand. The first thing I'm going to turn to an attorney who's asking me question is, one, I am not going to violate the attorney client privilege. two, I'm not going to give up my work product. And three, there's other sources that can give this information other than me. So this is really concerning what I'm hearing right now, because like you said, Eric,

this should be already probably done. I would assume a lot of these witnesses are very predictable in that we know who they're going to be. So it seems like they could have been preparing this all along. So know what? They have a week left. So is it possible that they'll be preparing witnesses during the trial? like another person with the Attorney General's office will be setting that up as we go.

So either this means it's going to be very long or either what this message is, is that either this trial is going to be very long and that they can take their time in preparing witnesses because they know it's going to take weeks and weeks and weeks or they're going to push this off, right? Those are the two takeaways. Those are the two takeaways. And more importantly, from Dick's standpoint, he's preparing a case if the state does a really good job, then he's got to think to himself, I got to put on a defense. I'm going to have to put on these expert witnesses. I'm going to have to bring in these kind of witnesses who could say if Alex has an alibi or whatever.

If the state does a really poor job, Dick's going to stand up and say the defense rests. State didn't prove its case. So he's got two cases to do. One, to prepare the cross-examination for all the. state witnesses and do his dizzle and beat him up. And if he does a great job, he stands up and says they'd improve their case. If Creighton does a great job and the witnesses weather the storm of cross-examination of the hail storm that Dick's going to bring, then Dick starts to scratch his head and say, my magic is gone. I better put some witnesses up there real quick. So how does that

work? Is that mean that like you hire experts to testify or trial, but you don't actually know if you're going to use them if you're on the defense. So are experts retained knowing that they might have to fly out tomorrow? Or is this, it's really like last minute like that? The experts are paid an hourly fee, usually in the neighborhood of $500 to $700 an hour, believe it. And they get a daily rate so that once trial starts and they're on notice that they could be called, they get a daily rate of anywhere from $10 to $15,000 to $20,000 regardless if they're calling. What? So Dick's got to lay out this money so that these people can clear their calendar.

Remember, this is an expert witness that may have to clear their calendar for two whole weeks. So you have Dick thinking and strategizing that, but also they're doing shadow juries. Remember, we talked about this a couple weeks ago? Dick is not just walking in the trial with the theory and he's going to spout it out for the first time. It's been time tested and road tested. They hired a jury consultant to get together ordinary people like you two, not like me, and David and other people, different ages, whether they're teachers, whether they're in accounting or whatever. And Dick's going to give them their theme. And then they're going to get a response.

And the response could be, Dick, that's. That's horrible. It's not working. It's not resonating with the jury. Or they say, you know what? When you play up the loss of the family of Buster and we'll get into why Martinsley settled because of Buster and Magist's estate, the state's also doing that. The state has a shadow jury too and they have the resources to really be able to do it.

And they have a building courtroom in the state attorney general's office. an absolute courtroom. And they bring witnesses in and they sit them down and they show them where the judge is going to be and the jury and all that. So it's a lot of theater. It's a theater production. Just think opening day for Katz is January 23rd. What's being done today to get ready for that opening day production on Broadway? Eric, when's the last time you went to a Broadway show? Oh, I go all the time. I saw a Book of Mormons five times. We saw it. It was a nice. here. Ronnie Richter is a big show guy, isn't he? In his conference, he has every Broadway show the play bill from everywhere he sees. But yeah, we absolutely love Broadway. You wouldn't know that.

That's adorable. But it's crazy when you told me that, when you were saying that like these expert witnesses for the defense as they're waiting get paid a lot of money, there's also people for the prosecution that like the person, when I talked to the other day was like, I have a job. I can't just like block off three weeks of my life. And they're not getting paid for any of this. They're just summoned and they have to go. It's just really interesting that like the defense.

I mean, first of all, I had no idea how much money went into these trials. And now I understand the difference between a super expensive defense and it's not Fair. Unfair it is if, if Alex didn't have the money for private counsel, I attended a trial where it was a court appointed attorney in Lexington yesterday and I was helping out the, the defense attorney. She wanted my opinion on, on a theme. So I sat on the trial.

She's getting paid $70 an hour. She can't even afford. They allocate about $3,000 for expert witnesses and investigative costs. So for $3,000, you get to get all your experts. You got to meet them. You got to prepare them. You got to have your investigators. So we do have two systems of justice.

Public defenders work with the best they can, and they're really smart lawyers, and they're dedicated. But they're no match for the defense that you're going to see from Dick and Jim. I promise you that. What do you think Dick and Jim's next move is, though? Let's say Newman does rule and say that they can't refer to the polygraph and they can't refer to third-party guilt. What do they have other than third party guilt? Just tear apart the evidence? They're going to tear shreds into the evidence.

There's going to be a fertile basis to attack a lot of the blood evidence, the brain matter, the DNA, possibly even the mapping of the phones. Dick is masterful. You're going to have a whole different opinion of Dick, I promise you. When it's game time and he's in front of a jury, yeah, he does his little bit of the Columbo fumbling and with the words and all, but he's a cunning on cross-examination. He's tried almost 100 or more murder cases. Craton, Wooders, I guarantee you, has not tried 100 murder cases. I don't know if he's tried one. Well, there you go. I've yet to find one, and that's very scary, but, um, well, it's not usual for the state attorney general's office to be handling a murder case.

Yeah. So that's one thing we should mention that this is so extraordinary that the state Attorney General is doing something that they don't normally handle in the first place. Yeah, they handle like child sexual abuse, drug cartels, corruption. Fraud where there's... In its county lines, too. It's when the Attorney General handles cases that are in multiple counties, right? Right. So, yeah, it's just a specific and murder doesn't usually involve the cases that

Somebody asked me yesterday, I gave a television interview and they said, I'm sure you want Alex convicted. And it kind of braced me. And I said, well, why would you say that? And he said, well, you dislike him so much. And I said, yeah, I dislike him as a human being. I think he's a despicable father, what he's done to his family. I think he's a dishonorable lawyer. But I don't know if he's a murderer. What I want is justice. If a jury determines that justice is Alex should be convicted, then that's just a judge. If they determine that the state hasn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt and they vote him not guilty or a few jurors decide, for me, it would take more than one. If four jurors say not guilty and eight jurors say guilty and it's a hung jury, I'll say justice was done. I won't say that, though, if there's only one juror who holds that.

Well, that's right. That's concerning. And we'll be right back. An elephant in the room as we're talking about the two systems of justice and how Alex Murdoch is able to basically get probably one of the most expensive defense teams murder trial has had in recent South Carolina history. I mean, this is, I don't know who, there's not many other lawyers that you could hire

that are more expensive than Dick and Gem combined. in their powers. But I think the question that a lot of people have is, is that fair? Because we don't really know how much of his money was actually legitimate. And we still don't really know how this is being paid. I mean, I guess with the receivers found 500 grand, 600 grand. How much was it that went towards the defense? But that's a really, really, really good point.

When they released his IRA, they allocated 600,000 to the defense. Are you saying, though, that Sam Freep, the Bitcoin. scandal he's not entitled to a defense. I agree he should not use ill-gotten gains. Yeah. And I mean, I- That's what she's saying. That's such a good point. We don't even know if Randolph's money is legit at this point. But how does he prove that this is not ill-gotten gains? Is that a burden that he should have in addition to answering the charges of murder? Should there have been a preliminary hearing to say, well, you've got to come forward and show whatever money you're paying for your defense

came through W-2 income or 1099 income from the firm or from this source, but not from drugs. I guess that we don't know how anyone pays for their defense who has a private attorney. It could come from their family. It could come from a friend. It doesn't need to come from. The money doesn't need to come from that person. But I think Mandy's point is really good because we actually do know that this man has stolen a lot of money. And we don't know how far back it goes.

We don't know how deep it goes. We don't know what Randolph's involvement was. And everything we know about Buster Murdoch, the grandpa, it's not good. So it sort of does make you wonder, why is he entitled to be able to pay for these high-priced attorneys with, I mean, it seems like we've learned more about what he has allegedly stolen rather than what he actually did earn the honest way. So I don't know from our perspective, maybe that's just how it looks. In this particular case, I'm going to give you a little dirty secret. In every federal drug conspiracy trial in our state, you'll see Pete Strom, you'll see Joe McCullough, you'll see Jack Swirling, you'll see Dick Harpooning, you'll see Andy Savage. These are big time lawyers.

And let's say those people on trial are the bloods. The bloods don't have W-2 income. They don't come in the court with an income tax that they don't file income tax returns. Their whole life, in some of these drug conspiracy trials are just people that have been in and out of prison since they were 16. They did their 10-year leg. They came out, whatever. They've never had a tax return file. They've never had W-2.

They don't probably even have a reliable social security number. And there's Jack Swirling sitting there, driving up in his Mercedes and his Briani suit. And I'm not criticizing Jack because, you know, I've gotten paid by people who were criminals before. But that's the dirty secret. No one asks. I don't ask where you got the money. Don't come with cash. I don't want a wheelbarrow of cash.

As we're talking about the trial and as we're talking about this is going to be a different scenario because Dick and Jim are able to poke holes in things where a lot of defense attorney can't. This is going to be a much more difficult trial for the prosecution because of the defense. But then it seems like we don't know how. how the defense is being paid for and how they're able to, how he's able to get himself into that position when we know that this, most of Alex's career was a fraud. And like, if I was the Pinckney family or the Satterfield family, I would be like, I want to make sure that my mother or son's money has nothing to do with that defense.

Like, it's like a brilliant thing you're raising. I'm telling you the truth. The reason it's brilliant. is because none of what we know about Alex usually comes out before a trial. He's just tried on the fraud stuff. But we've had a year to learn, well, he stole $4 million from the Satterfields. He stole a million dollars from the Pinckney's. He stole Arthur Badger's money for 10 years of a million dollars.

He stole from his law firm. And we get to know, all this is theft. Okay. So what is he actually living on? Is he just living on stolen money? Well, you pointed out that in the income tax stuff, he actually made really good money. So now you can just get a mathematician to say, okay, if you made $2 million in 2011 and 1.2 in 2013 and his expenses at Mazzle were this and his expenses on Holly Street were this and his kids going to college.

And a forensic accountant can figure out, hey, he's living life now just on stolen money because his real money got burned away. And you raise that point, and I think it's legitimate. And we don't know where all the money went. Right. That's the other question. And we never will. Do you ever think we're going to find out? Yeah, I don't think we will, but I'm hoping that we'll find out some more.

One thing I do want to talk about, though, is the jury. And we were talking earlier amongst each other about the questionnaire and this sort of extensive. To me and Mandy looks extensive anyway. You said it's a normal type questionnaire. It's asking what crime shows you watch, what bumper stickers, you have on your car, where do you get your news? Those are questions you say you would ask to in this circumstance. Yeah, I would ask in my specific voir dire. Now, Dick and Jim are submitting their own voir dire questions to the court. And I promise you, there's 300 of them on there.

Their own specific voir dire, in addition to the jury questionnaire, and the state have the same thing because the more we can know about you guys, the better we can make a decision on what our juror is, because Dick's being told by his jury consultant, he's got a jury Spangali, I promise you. And how much does that cost? Oh, my gosh. Those, they usually charge anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 to pick you. Yeah, I'm telling you, this is big money game.

It's big game hunting, man. Don't be shot. And this consultant is telling Dick, this. is the ideal juror. It's you, Liz. You're highly educated. It's okay. I promise you I'm not the ideal juror here. But you're single right now. We see you walk a dog, are brilliant in how you write. You have an intuitive mind. Aside, if you were not a journalist in this case, that you were just a regular journalist. Someone would say, hey, I want that juror on there because she's going to ask really hard questions. So were they looking at that stuff? Are they going through their social media?

Are they going through their? Oh, my goodness. You do not, cannot imagine. A good jury consultant will call Eric's friends. They'll go see what kind of country club I belong to. They're going to go to my house. They're going to see, do I keep a neat yard or do I do my own yard work? I'm telling you, this is high stakes, big game, honey.

Okay, so that raises questions because you have somebody who's sort of, of in the community of Colleton County right now trying to determine who's who and what's what. Could the Murdox hire an independent jury consultant? Could a defendant hire somebody is pretending to be a jury consultant who's going around trying to suss things out or perhaps put ideas in people's heads? Because from what we understand, people in Colleton County, some people anyway, are terrified since they've gotten their jury summons. Yes. And that's a real thing. People don't want to be on this jury for very real reasons. So is it possible that that system could get corrupted in some way, a jury consultant on the defense side anyway?

Or on the prosecution side. Remember, we can't make contact with prospective jurors. We cannot or it becomes an obstruction of justice charge. We can't say, hey, I know you're sitting on that Murdoch jury next week. Hope you enjoy it. We're all watching you. You're going to do the right thing. That becomes obstruction of justice. jurors have that juror consultants have to operate in the dark kind of 500 yards away in sunglasses behind the tree with binoculars. That's that's the process and in-depth, but they cannot make contact directly or indirectly with a juror. I can't go to you, Mandy, to call Harriet on the phone, your friend Harriet, who you know is a part of the jury veneer and say, hey, I know Eric. He's one of the trial attorneys. Man, he's a great. guy. You wouldn't believe what he did. My mother had a situation with her employment. He didn't charge her anything. He met with her. He drove down there. He's one of the greatest guys. You're going to like him.

I can't wait for you to see him in trial. You can't do that. David and I have been on this newspaper.com adventure looking up Murdoch history recently. And that rings a good bell. The OG Alex Murdoch back in 1950 something, he was charged with that. He was charged a jury tampering, correct? Some sort of, yeah, I think it was jury tampering. It was, it was talking with a juror. He took him out to a diner. Oh, G. Alex Murdoch. Listen, I've talked to two witnesses who are under subpoenaed that will be testifying. They are petrified. And I'm, when I tell you petrified, they're asking me, can we get out of it? What can we do? I was consoled.

it. I was consulted as a lawyer to give them advice. And I said, no, there's nothing you can do. You can't get out of it just because you're scared. Now, we know about mafia trials where they put the screens in front of the jury that the prosecution or the defense cannot even see the jurors. I'm sure jurors in this case are very scared. We remember what happened to the OJ jury. You may not Mandy, but definitely Liz would. When those jurors voted not guilty, they were a pariah for the rest of their life. They were followed around and mocked.

These jurors are scared. I would be scared. And I'm Eric Glenn, a lawyer. If I had to sit on Alex's jury and I voted somehow not guilty, people are going to get pissed off at me. So the fear, you know, Judge Newman's got to be the one that deals with this. He's got to have that foresight to think, okay, how do I make witnesses feel comfortable? How do I make jurors feel comfortable?

You know, all these things play in because there's television cameras there. Everything you've just said points to a problem, right? And I guess it's the same way, like you said, with the mafia. But if we're talking and having these conversations about people being terrified to either testify as a witness or to sit on the jury because there is no, if they vote, if they come to the conclusion that he's not guilty or if they say he is guilty, it's a no-win situation perhaps for them, perhaps. So isn't that the problem?

Like, we're having this conversation in a very normal. Wait a minute. What is the no-win situation if they vote guilty? What are you saying, Liz? What are you about to say? Tell me that. I'm just saying that in the context of Colleton County is very small. If we're going to extrapolate from previous history and jury tampering,

this sort of, I don't know if we would call it a myth or a fable or this sort of mythology surrounding PMPED or surrounding ELEC when it comes to their influence over juries. And we're, you know, again, we're talking about a man whose father was the solicitor's grandfather's great-grandfather in an area that is, people don't necessarily move from. It's multi-generational that you're, if you live in Colleton County right now, your great-grandmother could have known Buster. your grandmother could have been friends with Randolph. So I guess what I'm saying is that we're having these conversations like they're normal.

And it should not even be that way because if we're having this conversation, shouldn't there be very big gestures happening? I know that Judge Newman signed an order saying that nobody can talk about the jury outside of just referring to them by their number. But shouldn't there be bigger gestures than that? because we have to be able to trust in that system, that jury system, right? Yeah, well, I just wanted to say, I think what you're concluding, Liz, is that I don't think in Colleton County there can be such thing as a fair trial with Alex Murdoch.

I think he's going to have an advantage no matter what happens. And I think through all the fear and the history of his family and everything like that, I think we have to stop pretending, like, all these rules that we have in place are fair because they're not. And if Alex was a, if Alex was Curtis Eddie Smith, it would be a totally different trial in a totally different situation. And I'm sorry, it would be way easier to convict him. And it's an uphill battle for the prosecution because of the rules that we have in the United States. And I think, Liz, you raise a really good point. You know, if they come back guilty, do they go home and they feel safe?

Alex is guilty. Does Alex have tentacles? Are there people who are going to be upset at the jurors for convicting Alex Murdoch? There's going to be a significant contingent that is happy. What about that sliver? Yeah. Are they going to be unhappy that their guy is never going to get back on the street? or that we got implicated in this trial,

and now you voted guilty, are we going to be charged next? We also don't know everything that Alec was involved in, so we don't know what industry we're talking about when we're talking about what he was involved in. So we don't know if we're talking about drug trafficking on a large scale. We just don't know. And if it is, then Colleton County would be probably the scene of that, to some extent, because that's where Moselle was.

We'll be right back. A couple people have reached out to me who have said like, I'm worried that because we don't know where the money is and because we don't know what Alex was up to, there's kind of a gap in the prosecution's entire story, an entire narrative. And will that affect and will that hurt them because the jury's just kind of like, okay, that kind of makes sense. but because we don't know the whole story and because, I mean, I think a small fraction of the people who have been involved in Alex Murdoch's criminal circle have actually been charged. That's brilliant what you just said because that's what didn't happen in this case. The way you find out where the money went, people have to roll. People have to talk.

How do you make people talk? You squeeze them. you put a belt around them so they can't breathe. They should have charged a lot of different people in Alex's circle, not just Corey, not just Russ, but bank officers. Are there other lawyers involved? Are there John Q's citizens? And you start squeezing all around Alex.

People talk and then we'll find out where the money went. But all they did is they went after the head of the snake and didn't kill the body yet. I feel like that they are charging people based on what the public knows. So they're charging when they have to. Yeah, exactly. They're charging when they have to. That's it. Some things have not been made public.

Yeah, like when we got on the TV and say, why isn't Corey been charged? We got on the radio and you started writing articles where all of us saying, why isn't Alex already charged on the Satterfield case? It's reactionary charges. We've been saying for nine months, why isn't he tax fraud charged? It's like they're reacting. You are 100% right about they're not charging to people that we don't know about. But the only person that they're doing that's not reactionary is Curtis, who is obviously a low-level dude in this.

He's not a top gun. Like, it almost seems like they're charging Curtis as like a, we got somebody. Like, don't worry. We're going hard. And it's like, I don't care about that guy. Can I ask you to something, if we can tell through our intelligence, who's running the show over in GEDANCE Europe or over in Ukraine, don't you think the FBI knows who Alex was cavorting with to get his pills or where his money was going? They know. The question is, do they want to open it up right now?

or if they open it up, then it all becomes unmanageable. Everybody's getting prosecuted. It serious seems like that the target's going to be, we're going to take Alex down, we'll take Corey down, we'll take Russ down, and that should satisfy the public. Yeah, and I mean, but when we're talking about witnesses and being afraid, witnesses get less and less afraid the more people are charged and the more people are actually behind bars,

and that that assures them that the system is on their side and the system is protecting them. When there's so few people that are involved are being charged, witnesses are naturally going to clam up and they're naturally going to be afraid to speak out against all of these very scary and powerful people. And so, again, that just speaks to, Alex is getting a different trial here.

and because of the way that this has all been handled. And I don't like to say that, and I hate to say those words, but here we are. Absolutely. There's two things I want to say. One is that this sort of goes back to what we were saying earlier with Dick and Jim and how Eleg is affording this, because one theory early on was that Dick and Jim, I'll say Dick more than Jim, they were taking the case or somebody like Dick Harpulian would be interested in this case, not.

so much for what money he could make off of Elek and not so much because of the win. I think we've talked about that before, the thrill of the win and to prove that he can do it, but because of the people that might be protected or getting protected in this, that there's a bigger picture here that Dick might be fighting for, protecting whatever this secret or whatever the money went secret, whoever's involved secret. But the second thing I want to say is that it is a. a mistake for the state attorney general's office to think that we don't know some of the people that should be charged at this point. Just because we're not saying their names, we can't say

their name because we don't have the proof or the evidence in front of us, but we do have the sources that have seen the proof or the evidence. And we have heard that this stuff has gone in front of the state attorney general's office. So it would be a mistake for them if they are following our lead. Or the ODC. Yeah. Or the state. the ODC. So it would be a big mistake for them to follow our lead or other media's lead when it comes to outing people that should be charged. They shouldn't wait for that anymore. They should just act on what they have because of what you said, Mandy. It's just there's safety in numbers and we don't have that safety right now, especially given the short time period

between the charges and Alex's trial. There just hasn't been enough time. And I will give that to the state attorney general's office. This is unlike anything they've seen. before. This is, the scope of it is so much larger, but we still sense that there is a protection happening and that there is a deference being paid. And to go back to what you guys were saying, I was talking to a friend who has been subpoenaed. And I will say this, that that motive, the idea that it's just sympathy, I think is going to trip a lot of people up, that Eletk killed his wife and son to get sympathy because it sounds pathetic, right? That sounds very dramatic, it sounds like something a six-year-old would do. It's not about sympathy as much as it is

about deference. Now, it worked, like we've said many times, but deference, that is the bigger thing, is to get people to stop asking questions. And I think that that is more understandable. You can understand how you would want to distract, granted, a man killing his son to distract somebody from something bigger. Again, it goes back to this does fit in. We can't say it's logical, but that's Elyke Murdoch. We can't make logic out of his bad ideas. He's not good at this. He's not good at his second plan was terrible too. His second shooting plan was terrible. Speaking of, the Mercedes guys. So we heard this week about the settlement that is going to hopefully be approved between the Beach family, Miley Altman, Morgan Doughty, Connor Cook, and all the lawyers,

and John Marvin, the state of Maggie Murdoch. I shouldn't say John Marvin. John Marvin as the PR for the estate of Maggie Murdoch and Buster Murdoch. And one of the things that has happened is they're going to sign over the Mercedes to the Beach family. And the Beach family is going to auction that off once all of this clears once it's out of evidence because that's where it is now. Do you guys think that that would get a lot of money? I'm really curious about that. It could. It could be, you know, the lock of hair from Einstein or it could be Einstein's pen or something like that. There could be a real purient investor who has a purient interest in having the car or, you know, whether it's the Labor Day shooting car or Maggie's car or whatever,

it could. It could bring more money than just its fair market value. You got to leave the windows broken there, right? Like you've got to leave those bullet holes intact and not get it fixed up and just let it get sold as is. But all right, so speaking about settlement, what are your thoughts when you saw that come through? I think that it was a great move. I think that finally, and I think it was a good move for Buster too, to finally do something that I probably, I probably, promise would be against Alex as well. Alex's will is take every penny. Alex wants to take every penny and every dollar for himself and hoard it away.

And for Buster to essentially give up 90% of his mother's estate for the victims and to say, like, we're out of the, and to give the beach family a sense of peace. and for the Beach family to give Buster a sense of peace. And I think that that's a great thing. To put an end to this before trial is a really great thing too, because it just lets, it gives peace to a lot of people, I think, in a very tumultuous, in a very non-peaceful time for people for someone like Buster. And this has really been the first time that Buster has done.

anything publicly for the victims. And I think it's good and it's a sign of a little bit of hope here. I totally agree. I think it's a strategically great move on Mark's part. I know we all have different feelings about Buster and his culpability and whether he's a victim or he's part of the problem and not part of the solution. And we can debate that. But from my standpoint, I see him as a sad case.

He lost a mother. He lost a brother. He lost a father. His family name is distorted and tarnished forever. He's a young man. Doesn't look like he has a bright future. So it was smart for Mark to get him out of the courtroom. It was smart to get Maggie's estate out of the courtroom because Maggie's dead.

She died in this whole process. Now, we can debate whether she was call on the 911 call with Gloria Satterfield. or she was a woman that loved her state of wealth and prominence in that county. But she was murdered, flat out. No one deserves to be murdered. No one deserves to be killed. So Mark gets her out of the courtroom. It gets the sympathetic people out of there, in essence.

And more lawyers. Remember, the more lawyers you have in a courtroom, the more that lawyers are talking, the more that issues get confused. Now it eliminates a lot of lawyers from asking a lot of. of questions because remember for each witness, each set of lawyers gets to question that witness, which makes it longer and longer and longer. Yeah, it's such a mess. So I just want to say, we were talking about this on the episode, the latest Murdoch Mortars podcast episode, and it looks like the estate was about $5 million, but it looks like the victims, at least

the ones that are the main plaintiffs, are going to have to split about 8.000. $800,000. And it just shows you how you can start with this really big number and, you know, it gets whittled away by whatever. And in this case, there's a couple of things. One, I think it showed great compassion on the part of the Beach family that they left some of the money for Buster, that it wasn't just trying to take everything. It was here. We know we do think you have faults in this and that Mallory is debt in part because of your actions. but we're not cruel, we want you to have a life, and here's, here's some of your mother's money. And then the second thing is it shows you, too, how much bleeding was happening.

And again, I haven't really wrapped my head around this, but the lawyers for Maggie's estate had charged almost $300,000 already. And I think that even just to somebody like Mandy and me, we're not lawyers, but we can tell what work is, you know, it doesn't seem from the outside that they would have had a lot of work to do up until this point. It's certainly not $300,000 worth. So it's a little annoying that that money has already been lost because, again, when we're looking at $800,000, that's a lot of money. But we're also talking about it could have been more. And it isn't because the family was doing whatever they were doing with these lawyers.

I'm not really sure what they were doing. Settlement is never perfect. It's an imperfect resolution for answers, but it's a compromise. Somebody gets a little, you got to give a little. My famous saying I always say to clients on, should you settle or go to trial, fast quarters are better than slow dollars. If you can get some quarters now, you can use those quarters, and turn them into dollars rather than waiting four years to get the dollar because four years,

you don't know where that dollar is going to be and can you collect on it. You may end up with a paper judgment. That's the Faustian bargain that Justin Bamberg and I made. Do we settle now for Gloria's case or do I just go to trial and get that Whopper judgment? So Mark has this compromise that he does. Let's get a little bit of money now. We got to give a little bit of money to Buster. I don't know whether it was altruistic by the Beach family, but Mark said to them, look, I was told that if we don't do this, they're going to drag this out till the 12th of never.

And then they're going to appeal it for another five years. So closure now, faster quarters rather than slower dollars makes damn good sense to me. And real quick about Palmetto State Bank, we talked about this. It looks like they're going to be standing in line trying to take some money to. What are your thoughts on that, Eric? Because it seems to me like you made a really bad investment with Ehrlich as a client. You guys gambled a lot on him. That is on you.

You picked him. You allowed him to take out money or do whatever. Look, I'm tired of hearing Palmetta State Bank stand in the victim line with their played out. Okay. They are not a victim. They tried to do it in Russell Lafitte's trial. They're trying to do it now. You can't separate your 50 years of business between Big Russ and Alex's dad and Russ and Alex.

And separate all of that and all the benefits that came with being associated with this powerful law firm to all of a sudden say, well, I get to stand over here now in the victim line. To me, it's galling to me and I'm getting tired of it. It's not a good luck, that's for sure. I mean, let's just Alex Murdoch would have not been able to steal and scheme to the

to the extent that he did without Palmetto State Bank. That was very 100% clear in Russell's trial. And how dare them for being like, we're in the same category as all these other people who were super vulnerable

and in terrible situations and lost people. And their life's crossed with Alex in very tragic ways and then they were stolen from. How dare they? It's just incredible. I just, again and again, in this story, we just run across people that are just selfish and greedy and horrific and my God are just unable to see that their involvement was terrible and what they did was a mistake and you reap what you sow. Palmetto State Bank and yes you did that with Alex you sewed there and like Alex had a piggy bank

of fun money to play with for years and years and they never ever once stopped him from anything and instead they just said let's keep playing and so how dare them it's your red wagon you painted it now you must pull it that's exactly what you just said about PSB. They reap what they sow. They created this monster. They enabled this monster. Now own this monster.

Yeah. And don't stand. You're not a victim of it. Liz, before we go, I wanted to ask you a question. Oh, yeah? What'd you want to ask me? So we've been on this weird true crime world for the last year and a half.

And suddenly you realized that you were, uh, that you knew somebody in another, giant case that is captivating the nation, the Brian Walsh case. How has that felt? How have you been dealing with that? Have you been, have people reached out to you in weird ways? Like, what's been going on? Yeah, it's been really weird. First of all, I did not even know that this had happened. You had sent me a story. I didn't click on it. Listeners had sent me a story. I didn't click on it. You even sent me a story that had his name in the headline, Mandy, and it just didn't even occur to me. And what's really funny about this is I had a crush on Brian when I got to the Heath School. And I remember telling my dad,

my dad's from Ireland, or was from Ireland. And I remember telling him that his last name was Walsh and he's Irish. And my dad found out his last name was Walsh with an E at the end. And he's like, he's not, he's not Irish, Liz or Elizabeth. He called me Elizabeth. Okay, so he was in my friend group, we weren't to seventh and eighth grade together. He ended up going on to a private school, a boarding school. And I can't remember which one he went to. If it was Phillips Andover, it might not have been. I don't want to slander one of those schools. But that totally fits with his personality. He was funny and he was really nice. And I don't want to say that. And so now that I'm on that side of things and understanding how people must have felt in Hampton County when they found out that

Elek, his wife and son were killed and then finding out that people were suspecting that it might have been him. I know that most of us, you and I, Mandy, especially, were like, no, you don't say. But a lot of people did have trouble wrapping their heads around that people who knew them and even knew that he was shady still had trouble wrapping their heads around it. And I don't know that I have trouble wrapping my head around this anymore. I first found it very disturbing when I couldn't sleep very well after I figured it out that this was the Brian Walsh that I went to school with because it's like, God, I now know two people, but in the presence of two people who might have done heinous things to their wives. But this is closer to the bone. You know,

Mandy and I, we don't experience that. Yes, Murdole is so shocking to us, but I've never had a situation where a friend really committed a bad crime. Have you, Mandy? I'll talk about that on another episode. You have. Yeah. I mean, I was really good friends with somebody who was charged with a very horrific crime later in life. But he also got into a bad car accident. And like his brain, it seemed like he was never the same after that when I knew him.

And so I kind of got peace with that. But it's very, it's extremely hard. And I'm sure for you too, Liz, to just be like, how is this person that I used to laugh with. How could he be? Could he have done this? But then again, I appreciate the fact that like you're not going on TV saying like he couldn't have done this because I've seen people do that. I've seen people do that with crimes like this, you know, that are like, I was friends of this guy when I was 14 and he was really nice and blah. He could have never have done this, I promise. What we've learned in all of this is that people can be very different, especially when

stress and money is involved and they grow up to be adults. and things don't work out the way that they want them to. I think Brian Wash and Alex Murdoch are kind of in the same boat there. Laws were closing in. It just creates a lot of stress, and people turn into different human beings. Do you think that there's a lot of lawyers like Mark Tinsley or other lawyers that did business with Alex and watched him?

And are they asking themselves the hard question? did I not see this? How did I not see it? How did I not see opioid use if there really was? How did I not see the way he was manipulating settlements? I would be asking those questions if Alex was my friend or a colleague that I was doing business with over and over. Remember, there's probably 15 attorneys that are doing business with Alex in multi-party cases as plaintiffs and the same defense lawyers. There should be defense lawyers asking themselves questions. Why didn't I see the shadiness about Alex, whether it's the people who represented him in the Gloria Satterfield matter? I think the problem is this.

And just comparing him to Brian Walsh, I don't know that Alec Murdoch has a lot of people in his life who could say that he was nice and funny and that's it. That's all they say about him because I think there's always a butt with him. And they're probably with people who knew Brian past 14 years old. They have a butt there as well. So I don't know. It's kind of funny hearing you say that. Like the imagining people walking away from a friendship with Eleg Murdoch and being shocked, I get shocked that he might have killed his wife and son.

That's extreme. But that he would find himself in a situation like this should not have shocked anyone in my opinion. Based on what we knew about him before this, what we knew about ELEC before this. I wanted to bring up one thing that a listener has asked us, just because I want to clear it up before the trial started. We were asked, why are Mandy and Liz so certain that cousin Eddie or another worker slash crony was not at the murder scene? I'm not saying ELEC wasn't there or orchestrated everything or even pulled the trigger,

but my lifelong experience with the AMs of the world tells me these men rarely get their hands dirty literally. They hire help for everything. So to address that, one, we've been told over and over by sources, who know ELEC, he would never trust anyone to do something of that nature. So that's a little much you're putting it. Let's just, let's just subscribe to the entire Murdoch theory that we've all said, and they are and they aren't.

Eleg is not going to give somebody something that big to hang over his head. And that's just the plain and simple of it. They trust family and that's it. So outside of that, that's why we don't believe that Cousin Eddie was there, but we will say that obviously there's a lot of, there are a lot of questions about what Cousin Eddie's role might be outside of all of that. So it's not, and I also would say we're not saying that we're certain he wasn't at the scene. We're saying that we believe the evidence is going to point to Ehrlich being the person who shot and killed Vaggy and Paul. I fundamentally disagree with you. I'm not saying that Eddie was at the scene, but Alex has done stuff,

letting people in his intersactam, whether it's Corey Fleming or it's Chris Wilson. Those are different crimes. Or it's cousin Eddie to buy drugs or it's cousin Eddie to get. Corey Fleming. Yeah. It's not murder. But he did do something on Labor Day with Cousin Eddie. Sure.

Whether it was a shooting or whatever. It's pretty, there's a number of people out there that have some juice on you. And I don't know a lot of criminals that would put themselves that there would be four or five people that have real juice on you. But there's the kind of juice that you can control as an assistant solicitor, volunteer, whatever he was. So if Cousinetti ever came back and was like, you do drugs, he could be like, really? Guess what you do? But with murder, I don't think he's going to have the same ability to hold it over. I don't think he's going to have the recourse there to say.

I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah. Two things I know about our sister. If somebody like Eddie commits a crime, it gets solved pretty quickly. They get arrested very quickly. They're very sloppy. At the scene even.

Yeah, at the scene. There's a lot of people like Eddie don't really know how to cover up a crime. Not Eddie, but like political. I mean, he doesn't have any political sway. He has no agency there. Yeah, powerless, powerless people get arrested very, very quickly. And it becomes very apparent in the investigation early on that they get charged a lot quicker. Let's just put it that way.

You know, I learned, and I didn't have to learn it by reading Dostoevsky and crime and punishment, I just watch what's happening on the news. You cannot commit the perfect crime. You cannot do it. You look at the Idaho guy. he's a PhD he's a PhD student He studies criminology So he studies crimes

Look at all the stupid mistakes Leaving the sheath of the Of the night Driving back and forth Knowing that there's got Leaves his phone on with him If you're going to do it Don't bring your phone that you can be tracked

You can't commit the perfect crime Alex couldn't commit the perfect crime If he indeed is the murder Brian Walsh apparently bought $450 worth of cleaning supplies and is on camera. You tried to start on the internet that said, how do I dispose of a 115 pound woman? Yeah. I mean, I feel like we could serve as advisors at this point to how to at least commit a

non-stupid crime. I mean, these criminals really are dumb. This is it before the trial, guys. So I guess get your rest. Can't wait to get my thumbs working and Twitter, Twitter fans. We're going to give our opinions. It's going to be a wild time. I mean, we'll never forget it.

We'll never, ever forget this time, ever. Yeah, we are going to do a lot of talking during the trial with our M&P premium members, so we're excited. This Cup of Justice bonus episode of the Murdoch Murders podcast is created and hosted by me, Mandy Matney, with co-host Liz Pharrell, our executive editor, and Eric Bland, attorney at law, aka the Jack Hammer of Justice from Lunar Shark Productions