Murdaugh Murders Podcast - How Many People Will Go Down For This? Part Two (S01E43)

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Starting point is 00:00:57 That's M-I-R-O.com. I don't know how many people will get indicted in the next few months for alleged crimes involving Ellic Murdoch, but the Murdoch saga has taken a few wild, unexpected turns in the last week. And the more we learned, the more disgusted we are with those involved in this. My name is Mandy Matney. I've been investigating the Murdoch family for three years now. This is the Murdoch Murders podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. As police are investigating the five deaths that have been tied to the Murdoch family,

Starting point is 00:01:51 we're also trying to answer a big question in this case. What happened to the money? Disgraced attorney Ellic Murdoch stands accused of stealing more than $9 million from his clients so far, and we're still trying to figure out exactly what he was doing with all that money. So far, this follow the money trail has led us down some strange, unexpected paths. Remember, following the money is what led Fitznews to uncovering Ellic Murdoch's ties with alleged drug smuggler Barrett T. Bowler, who was the former owner of Moselle.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Following the money also led us to discovering the strange and mysterious jellyfish operation tied to multiple PMPD attorneys. Also the money trail led us to a mysterious $5,000 check written to a YMSC police chief just weeks after the murders. So yes, following the money in the Murdoch murders case has been a wild ride so far. But we never expected it to take us to the story that Liz broke in the last week. The headline, which I believe should get the award for headline of the year, said Ellic Murdoch paid $110,000 for a funeral home in 2020.

Starting point is 00:03:07 That seems unusual. For a lot of people, especially those of us who watched Ozark on Netflix, the headline turned necks and raised eyebrows. What is a guy connected to so many deaths and missing money, doing paying $110,000 for a funeral home? Like every story involving Ellic Murdoch and his alleged schemes, this one is complicated. So we're going to break it down for you brick by brick. When all is said and done with the Murdoch case, we're not sure where

Starting point is 00:03:41 Ellic's funeral home purchase is going to fall on the long spectrum of strange twists, but it's gutter rank high because this strange twist has other strange twists contained within it. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. This all starts with a funeral home in Estal, run by the Martin family. Earlier this year, in January, the receivership team, the attorneys who were appointed by the court to account for all of Ellic's assets, subpoenaed the owner of the funeral home for, quote, any and all documents in their possession regarding the transaction referenced within, including but not limited to any correspondence, text messages, or emails.

Starting point is 00:04:22 The transaction in question is a wire transfer Ellic made in January, 2020, from his personal checking account at Palmetto State Bank to a bank in Darien, Georgia, for the purchase of a funeral home, a Cadillac hearse, a limo, and some other property. The funeral home, which is in Brunswick, Georgia, and that's about two hours from Hampton County, was called Hall Jones and Brown, and it had been owned by this guy Abe Brown, who was so respected that he had a park named after him before he died in 2019. After his death and the death of his wife, the funeral home went into foreclosure and was put up for sale by Southeastern Bank sometime in December 2019. John H. Martin, the director and

Starting point is 00:05:06 owner of Martin's funeral home in Estle, which is in Hampton County, put a bid in for the business, and then somehow Ellic Murdoch got involved. Also involved were Russell Lafitte, who signed off on the transaction at Palmetto State Bank and the mysterious Blanca. I'm not sure if this is the same Blanca that Ellic and Buster talked about in one of their jailhouse phone calls, but someone named Blanca okayed the transaction as well. Russell and Blanca's involvement was likely just bank protocol, but it's still worth noting because of how often in our Murdoch reporting, we come across the same ensemble of characters. The funny thing with all of this, by the way, is that Ellic sent the wrong amount to the Georgia Bank at first because of course he did.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Ultimately, he wired just over $110,000 to purchase this funeral home and its bits and pieces on behalf of John Martin. Now back in present time, the receivership wants to know more information about this, so they subpoena Barton and the funeral home for their records and nothing happens. The receivers then send a certified letter to Martin being like, uh hey, you kinda have to do this by the end of March or we're gonna have to get a little ugly about it. But still, nothing. So they filed a motion to compel Martin to produce the documents, and that is when Fitznews wrote about this very strange situation. It obviously raised questions for us, such as this one. Why did Ellic Murdoch buy a funeral home in Georgia? I swear there was

Starting point is 00:06:45 one brief moment where I pictured grabbing my dog and my passport and moving to New Zealand, where Ellic could never find me because he probably doesn't know that's a country. Another important question it raised, is this where some of that allegedly stolen money went? So get this, it might have been. Here's why. Within the hour of me publishing this story, I got a text from Mandy. She was like, you're not going to believe this. The funeral home guy is the father of one of Ellic's victims, allegedly. The team at Fitznews kicked into gear. Jen Wood, our researcher at Fitz, was able to independently verify what Mandy's source had told her. And then I updated the story because it appears that Ellic Murdoch loaned money to a family

Starting point is 00:07:29 from whom he is accused of stealing nearly $600,000 from. And as we found out a day later, that family, the alleged victims of one of Ellic's schemes, says they paid back the money to Ellic, the alleged thief. I mean, how perverse is that? Okay, so twist number one, Ellic purchased a funeral home on behalf of someone else. Twist number two, that someone else is the father of Dion Martin, who was a teenager in 2013, when Ellic represented him in a personal injury case. And Ellic is literally facing felony charges for taking almost $600,000 from him in 2015 and in 2016. Twist number three, after not answering the subpoena or the follow-up letter, John Martin hopped to it. The day after we published the story, he contacted us at Fitznews and gave us a whole bunch of paperwork

Starting point is 00:08:21 that he said proved he and his wife had paid back Murdoch. We have a story about this posted now on Fitznews.com, where we break down what those documents showed. But soon after we received that email from Mr. Martin, the receivership team withdrew their motion. Now, twist number four, turns out the Brunswick, Georgia business is not the first time Martin's funeral home has had a secondary location. And honestly, you guys are not going to believe this, but here it is. In 2009, after years of people whispering about this, an investigation was opened and the rumors turned out to be true. Five years earlier, this man, James Hines, died at 60 years old. He died of skin cancer. He was a preacher and even a guitarist in a funk band. He lived in Allendale. So this

Starting point is 00:09:11 funeral home called Cave Funeral Services, which no longer exists, and you'll understand why in a second, handled the arrangements at the funeral. Hines body was displayed only from the chest up. He was in a regular sized casket, which was notable because Mr. Hines was a big man. He was six feet, seven inches tall. How did they get Mr. Hines to fit in his casket? An unlicensed employee who turned out to be the father of the funeral home director, used an electric saw. Yes, I'm serious. He used an electric saw to cut off Mr. Hines legs between the ankle and calf. And then he put Mr. Hines legs back in the casket with him. So it took five years, but finally the corner exhumed Mr. Hines body to verify this. And sure enough, it was real. The same year, 2009, Michael

Starting point is 00:10:12 Cave, the owner of Cave Funeral Services, was fined and he had his funeral director's license revoked by the state board. The funeral home, which was close to celebrating 50 years of business, was ordered to close. Nothing happened to his dad, though. Duffy Stone, the 14th Circuit Solicitor, declined to press charges, even though it seemed like a pretty direct case from the outside. You can't desecrate a body in South Carolina. It's illegal. Seems like sawing off a man's legs for him to fit in a casket without telling the family, without offering the option for them to buy a larger casket is a desecration. But given that Randolph Murdock and Ellick Murdock both had prosecutorial power at the time, this should not surprise us. The Hines family sued Charlie Cave and Cave Funeral

Starting point is 00:11:03 Services in 2007, two years before they had definitive proof of the leg sawing. According to the Allendale County Public Index, Russell Lafitte's cousin was one of the defense attorneys in the case. According to our sources, the Hines family was represented by a Buford attorney who likely would have associated his case with a PMPED attorney because of where the case was located. This case settled quickly in 2007. Carmen Mullen was the judge. Allendale County is years behind in its transparency, so there are no documents to view in the case. At any rate, we are very sorry that the Hines family had to go through that unimaginable ordeal. A month after Cave Funeral Services was shut down, Martin purchased the business and opened an Allendale location for his funeral home in

Starting point is 00:11:48 that same spot. He had to have the purchase approved by the state board, which they did, after telling him under no circumstances are Michael and Charlie Cave to do any day-to-day business at your funeral home. John Martin assured the board that this wouldn't happen and said that all of the embalming will occur at the Estle location. That didn't happen. Instead, Martin no longer has the Allendale location. In 2014, he was under investigation by the state board for allowing the caves to continue working at their old funeral home and for not filing a woman's death certificate despite numerous reminders to do so from the state's health department. In 2015, the state revoked his license, and though he appealed that revocation, the court

Starting point is 00:12:33 appealed it. Why then is Mr. Martin, with help from his longtime attorney, Alec Murdoch, purchasing another funeral home if he doesn't have a license? Great question. So in February 2020, the state board allowed Mr. Martin to get an apprenticeship license, which expired March 1st of this year. The apprenticeship license means he must work directly under another licensed undertaker. His license is held under that of a 70-something-year-old woman who appears to live in Charleston. There's been a lot of speculation why Alec Murdoch is involved in this in any way. If you ask Mr. Martin, he'll tell you that it's because Alec was his attorney, and he simply fronted the money and they paid it back, and that's that. Sources of

Starting point is 00:13:19 ours who are familiar with the situation, however, believe that this arrangement, if Alec was still involved with it of course, existed to help bring more wrongful death cases Alec's way. If that's the case, then wow. Anyone who helps someone buy a funeral home in the hopes of generating leads for future thefts, alleged future thefts, would probably be considered a genius, albeit an evil one. Worth noting is that a certain alleged co-conspirator of Alec, named Mr. Corey Howardton Fleming, is currently fighting hard, like to an epic degree, to keep his law license in Georgia. Our Dear Corey episode goes into all the details about that. We're not sure if that's in any way connected, but it is interesting. The other theories as to why Alec might have gotten involved

Starting point is 00:14:04 with the funeral home deal are much darker and not so enterprising. The last thing we'll say about the Georgia funeral home, one thing is for certain, when you follow Alec Murdoch's money, it will take you to some really odd places. And we'll be right back. So, as we follow the money in this case, we found something else super disturbing. Remember back in March when we reported on Palmetto State Bank Vice President Chad Westendorf's shocking deposition in the Gloria Satterfield case? The one where he couldn't remember what the term fiduciary meant? Well, Chad mentioned a little bombshell in that deposition that we didn't

Starting point is 00:14:50 get to on the first go around. But trust us, this is important. Westendorf testified that his bank routinely issued something called lawyer loans to his clients of Alec Murdoch and Murdoch's former law firm, PMPED. According to bank documents and correspondence obtained by Fitznews, the loans were given to Murdoch's clients for personal expenses while they were awaiting the outcomes of their cases. These were short term high interest loans that in some cases were nearly double by the time they could be paid off with that settlement money, usually well past the expected payoff date. Sources close to the situation say that Murdoch in some instances suggested these loans to clients and sent his clients to the bank for what he called help. Though the loans were technically

Starting point is 00:15:42 unsecured, they were in essence backed by Murdoch's signature and the signatures of his associates on the PMPED letterhead. The loans were set up in a way that guaranteed the bank would receive additional funds and interest as well as penalties. The thing to note here is that lawyers in South Carolina cannot loan their clients money or guarantee any loans that they take out while awaiting their case to settle or go to trial. Ultimately, these loans are an important piece of the puzzle because they show how close the relationship was between PMPED and Palmetto State Bank and how the lines might have been blurred as a result. The loans are also an example of how Ellick Murdoch and the bank might have been using vulnerable people to further enrich themselves.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Now remember, Russell Lafitte, whose family has owned the bank for generations, is connected to several cases in which Murdoch's clients allegedly had money stolen. He was fired by the board in January, just hours after Fitznews published a story on Lafitte's involvement with the Pinkney case and speaking of the Pinkney case. This week, Attorney and State Representative Justin Bamberg, who is representing Hakim Pinkney's family, obtained a paper trail of checks that tell us more about where the stolen funds were going and who Ellick Murdoch's associates were. If you remember, Hakim Pinkney was paralyzed in a catastrophic car accident before his mysterious death in 2011. Hakim's mother Pamela and his cousin Natasha were also severely injured in the crash.

Starting point is 00:17:23 As Fitznews previously reported, Ellick Murdoch and his alleged co-conspirators apparently worked together in a fashion similar to the glorious Satterfield scheme. To defraud the Pinkney family of funds gained from a lawsuit they filed on Hakim's behalf in 2010. The same players were involved in this case, Corey Fleming, Ellick Murdoch and Palmetto State Bank. Ellick and Corey have been indicted for this case while former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Lafitte has not been charged. Lafitte was apparently paid unusually high fees to manage the Pinkney's finances. So we already know all of that, but what we didn't know about the Pinkney case was what happened to the money and apparently who benefited from the theft. And here's Justin Bamberg.

Starting point is 00:18:13 What we found was very disturbing. Quite frankly, leads us to kind of wondering, again, how did no one catch this? I mean, it's somewhat of a version of a Ponzi scheme or something like that. And what we see is there's actually a disbursement sheet, which is the disbursement of client funds, you know, how everyone gets paid, how the client gets paid. And one of the disbursement sheets appears to have a signature on it that it's for Russell Lafitte. And it was very odd because there was this $309,000 in change that on the disbursement page indicated that it was being paid to Palmetto State Bank. Again, Palmetto State Bank wasn't the client. Hakeem Pinkney and his family, that was the client. So as we're looking through the checks and, you know, everyone

Starting point is 00:19:08 wanted to know, where did the money go? Where did the money go? Well, now we know the answer. The money stolen, misappropriated from the Pinkney family was used, for example, $100,000 of it went to Charlie Lafitte Jr. And there's a check payable to Charlie Lafitte Jr. I believe that's Russell Lafitte's father for $100,000. Okay, so I'm going to have to repeat that because it is a bombshell. Justin is talking about a check that allegedly shows how $100,000 of Hakeem Pinkney's settlement money went to Charles Lafitte Jr., who is Russell Lafitte's father, who was CEO of the bank at the time. That is a big deal. That money was stolen just two months after Hakeem suddenly died in October 2011. That lawsuit, the one that ultimately

Starting point is 00:20:06 allowed Murdoch and his co-conspirators to allegedly steal around a million dollars from Hakeem's family, settled on October 7th, 2011, according to court documents. Just four days later, Hakeem's ventilator was apparently unplugged for 30 minutes before Pruitt Health, North August employees noticed he died suddenly on October 11, 2011. He was 21 years old. This is horrific, although not horrific enough to stop Ellick Murdoch from pillaging Hakeem's estate and rewarding his friends and his family, allegedly. But of all the things that we saw, one of the most disheartening, we actually came across a money order payable to Randolph Murdoch III. And the amount is astronomical. It was $329,500. And this is a bank money order drawn

Starting point is 00:21:06 on Palmetto State Bank. I will repeat that. What Justin is saying here is one of the checks stolen from the Pinkney family just two months after they lost Hakeem was written to former solicitor, the late Randolph Murdoch III, who was still working as an assistant solicitor at the time for Duffy Stone's office. Also, what does that mean for the legitimacy of Randolph Murdoch's trust in these checks that Justin is referring to? $100,000 to Charles Lafitte, for example, and $10,000 to Maggie Murdoch. Yes, I said that Maggie Murdoch also got a $10,000 check. We're written on December 21, 2011. These checks were allegedly stolen from the Pinkney family just four days before they were about to go through their first Christmas without Hakeem.

Starting point is 00:22:02 Blood money is what it is. What's floating around is blood money. Pamela Pinkney and Acosta Thomas, Hakeem Pinkney, they bled to receive that compensation. And this blood money is floating around the CEO of the bank. The chair of the board gets $100,000 of it. And the thing about those who received that blood money, they all should have been asking questions about where it was coming from and why. There are rumors, obviously, and Alec obviously owed a lot of people money. But unfortunately, until I see promissory notes, until I see real loan paperwork, I don't view those as legitimate loans. If for some reason Randolph Murdoch III had made, for whatever reason, a $300,000 plus loan to Alec, unless there's paperwork,

Starting point is 00:22:57 that ain't no loan in my book. If Charlie Lafitte Jr. had made a loan to Alec or Alec owed the bank money, unless there's paperwork proving that, based on everything that we've seen, based on the callousness of how these clients, these living, breaking people who trusted a lawyer and trusted a bank, and trusted a conservator who was a banker, I don't see it. People need to speak up, and if their name is on these money orders, if their name is signed to check, if they were responsible for monitoring the bank account, or monitoring the audit books, or hey, monitoring Russell Lafitte, they need to speak up and answer, why did you get my client's money? When Hakeem is sitting in the nursing home as a quadriplegic who can't hear, and he ends on

Starting point is 00:23:51 a vent, he can't talk, and he suffocates in his own body and tuned in his own mind, why did you get his money? What explanation did Alec Murdoch, if Alec has to borrow money from you to the tune of $300,000 or $100,000, if he has to borrow money from the bank to put a mortgage on his house, or to support this Murdoch Charter or whatever, if he's got to borrow that kind of money, and if he's late on payments or not making payments, did no one care to ask Alec where the hell did you get half a million dollars from overnight? These are very legitimate questions that if everything was on the up and up should be really easy to answer, and we're waiting on those answers. And then there are some mind-boggling checks in here, checks that raise a lot of questions,

Starting point is 00:24:44 checks that appear like Alec was robbing Peter to pay Paul, and why? We see checks, money orders made payable to other conservatorships. For example, Russell Lafitte was conservator of ex-client's conservatorship, and it looks like Mr. Lafitte would loan money to Alec's Murdoch from this conservatorship only for another case where Russell Lafitte is also conservator. Money from that client used to pay back the client that conservative money was just floated on, and these are not small amounts either. There's a money order payable to another client's conservatorship for over $53,000. There were other money orders payable for astronomical amounts. Some of this money was just converted to straight cash, and we had no idea who received

Starting point is 00:25:42 that cash. The paper trail of evidence raises a lot of questions about the entire institution of Palmetto State Bank. Supporters of the bank have claimed Russell was just one bad egg in a good family in a good institution. But how is it that no one else at the bank ever caught this? And what about federal regulators? This shows a complete failure across the board. Well, people have to remember when Russell Lafitte was initially suspended and terminated from his position at the bank, he had a certain title today. We're talking about 11 years ago. Russell Lafitte was not the owner of the bank. The bank was owned by the board, the family members, and things like that. Russell Lafitte wasn't CEO of the bank back then. Russell

Starting point is 00:26:31 Lafitte was basically an employee of the bank. I believe he was the branch manager for the Hampton branch of the bank. But how is someone who's not the CEO doing all of this, and no one knows? How is it that Charlie Lafitte Jr., who was the CEO of the bank, up until the range got passed to Russell in 2020, how was it that Charlie Lafitte Jr., the CEO of the bank, the chair of the Palmetto State Bank, forward, how did he get $100,000 of my client's money? And the person in the center of it isn't even like the person in charge in charge. Like there are people above him, there are people you supposed to be answering to 11 years ago, and no one still caught it. You know, I could see if he's the CEO at the time,

Starting point is 00:27:26 you know, he's the president at the time, and he's beyond question because he's the boss. That's not the situation we were dealing with. He wasn't the president. He wasn't the CEO. He wasn't the boss. He may have been a branch manager in some other leadership position. Who the heck was checking behind him? So who is checking this now to make sure everything is operating legitimately at Palmetto State Bank? The bank is still open. It's still doing business. It's been about six months since we've known about the problems involving the bank, and yet there hasn't been any meaningful declaration to the public by law enforcement or regulators that someone has customers backs and that in assessing the damage, the bank doesn't have the opportunity to rewrite history

Starting point is 00:28:14 and that the clients who are allegedly harmed by ELEC and the bank are not being harmed further by hasty deals that only serve to benefit the alleged perpetrators. You know, we said some episodes ago that something in the milk wasn't clean. And at this point, I'd go a step further and say something in the milk is rotten. And when I see this kind of money being taken, when Russell Lafitte had a fiduciary duty to these people, and Alec Murdoch and the farm had a fiduciary duty to these people, and then I see checks life changing money for the painting family, and I see money orders. I see checks drawn on Palmetto State Bank payable to Palmetto State Bank. I see money orders of money that should have gone to these people for their pain and suffering

Starting point is 00:29:04 and what they lived through and what I came died for being made payable to Lafitte family members and Murdoch family members and Murdoch businesses. And Ms. Pinkney is a woman of faith and God and like she said, she forgives Alec's because that's her Christian duty. I'm a Christian too, and I'm not forgiving anybody right now. But in fact, I'm pretty pissed to see this because I truly understand what they went through. Ms. Pinkney had over 10 surgeries to try to fix her leg, what Hakeem lived through. Natasha is blind in one eye because of the accident she was in, and I see all of these uber wealthy people, uber wealthy institutions, the bank, the firm, uber wealthy families who've enjoyed immense wealth for 100 years, getting wealthier on the pain of

Starting point is 00:30:09 innocent people. Maybe Ms. Pinkney needs to pray for me because I'm not there yet, and I don't know that I ever will get there, to be honest with you, as an attorney, as a professional, as somebody who tries to live and be a good person, I don't understand how people did this. And we'll be right back. We wanted to share some exciting, sort of personal news that broke in the last week. As Deadline first reported, a drama series based off the Murdoch Murders podcast is in development at UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group. I can't believe I'm saying these words, but I will be an executive producer on the show. We wanted to thank all of you for your support, but more so, we wanted to share a little bit more about why we chose to pursue

Starting point is 00:31:09 this course, and how it aligns with their missions to expose the truth, get the story straight, and give voice to the victims. There have been a number of organizations and people shopping the story around in an attempt to make it into documentaries, movies, and shows. I unfortunately have the displeasure of encountering many of these people who clearly wanted to fleece victims of their agency and reap benefits without a greater calling than just selling the story for a paycheck. That is until I met two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker Aaron Lee Carr and writer-producer Michael D. Fuller. You might recognize Aaron's name from her documentaries such as At the Heart of Gold, which honestly made me cry. It exposed the deep trauma inflicted by Larry Nasser and USA

Starting point is 00:32:02 gymnastics officials. Or you might remember I Love You Now Die, another one of Aaron's amazing documentaries, which focused on the tragic teen texting suicide case and was recently made into The Girl from Plainville, a popular show on Hulu. Or you'll remember Mommy, Dad, and Dearest, the shocking documentary telling Gypsy Rose's story. Aaron is also an author of All That You Leave Behind, a memoir that focuses on her relationship with her late father, David Carr, who was a celebrated journalist. I immediately connected with Aaron when we first met in August 2021. Aaron has a wealth of knowledge in this field, and before we met I was already a huge fan of hers, particularly I admired the way she told victim stories with such empathy and detail.

Starting point is 00:32:52 This week we spoke with Aaron and Michael Fuller about this exciting project and we wanted to share this exclusive info with our MMP listeners. First of all, I asked Aaron how her experience would help craft the story into a scripted project. I've made my life and dedicated my life to telling crime stories, but told in a new and intense and empathic way. And I think that throughout the years of making it, I'm on my seventh or eighth or ninth project right now and it's leading from a place of studying the human condition and really trying to understand morality and when people take over and make these bad decisions. And so, you know, whether it be thought crimes or Mommy dead and Dearest or I Love You Now Die or a gymnastics film at the heart of Gold and then now

Starting point is 00:33:43 working on Girl from Plainville, you know, I feel in a way that I feel like I'm ready to take on something like this. You're never actually ready and that's why I get to work with the best of the biz like Michael and Alex and Nick. But I think that it's been a lot of hard work and a lot of investigating and it's bringing me to this moment of working with these people that really, really do this for a living and do it really well. Aaron's style is as poetic as it is critically acclaimed. Having worked on the adaptation of a number of tragically real stories, we asked Aaron how she believes this story might be delivered in a scripted series. I mean, it's an American tragedy. I think that when you have these types of generations that are

Starting point is 00:34:30 built together in the South, such as the Murdoch family, you know, I think that there's a lot of things that have happened to make them powerful. And when you look at the have and have nots of Hampton County, I think that it's important to take this, this sort of case and understand it, not just as like a, you know, grizzly case, but as what you do in your podcast, which is really explore and rectify the imbalances. One, it was a crime that I really wanted to know what happened because there are a lot of victims, but I've not seen justice. But two, I think that there's a lot of societal reckoning that can come from a case like this. In fact, Aaron, Michael, Liz, David and I all share that common belief that monumental and

Starting point is 00:35:14 necessary changes in our judicial system can and should result from exposing a case like this. I mean, I also think it's like the mystery revealing itself, like while we're making it, and the sort of things that are a play and factor, but also like the justice of it, will we see justice for the lives that have been taken? And I think that in ways like you would think that that was typically for a written piece or for a documentary, but I think in working with you guys, there is this sort of process of you guys reporting it out on the podcast and we're able to continue and sort of write it in. And so the unfolding element while tricky is just, it's one of the biggest news stories of the entire year last year and this year. And so I just think

Starting point is 00:36:07 that, yeah, like more is yet to come. Aaron has the unique ability to honor the humanity of people while exposing some of the most inhumane actions. We asked Aaron, what elements of this story really drew her in? You know, I'm excited to jump in and really three dimensionalize the women of the story. I think that I mostly make things about women. Obviously, this is going to be male and female focus. It's, I'm, you know, really interested in studying this and understanding, you know, Michael has made, you know, career out of working on things like that. So I've been really kind of most excited to see how he works with it and kind of adding to that. Michael D. Fuller is a Columbia, South

Starting point is 00:36:50 Carolina native in College of Charleston graduate recognized for producing and writing work on Cinemax's Quarry, the Peabody Award winning rectify and most recently lock and key on Netflix. Michael is a multi-generational South Carolinian with deep knowledge of the systems in South Carolina and a keen interest in exposing how that network has calcified and organized cast of haves and have nots in this region. I asked him why he was first interested in diving deeper into the Murdoch story. What drew me to it is I am a South Carolina native born and raised and my family goes back multiple generations and, you know, so that would set the hook for me for this out the gate. But then really the thing that I responded to the most and as I'm sure so many

Starting point is 00:37:41 people who've been exposed to this story was Mandy via your, you know, dogged reporting on this and not letting the good old boy network and system pull their normal levers of power to make all of these things go away. And I think, you know, having seen the way that firsthand growing up there, the way that that network and that system keeps the haves having and have nots not having, you know, it's just a fascinating study when all of that generational privilege, they couldn't, you know, pull those levers that they had at their disposal as easily as they used to be able to and large part thanks to you putting the victims forward in your reporting and your investigation. I think that's by a large one really, really drew me in personally.

Starting point is 00:38:21 Michael's works often strike deep into the heart of the struggles between big money and those left behind. Stories where the justice system airs and the regular folks have to pick up the pieces. We asked Michael how he will approach writing about the victims in this saga. Maggie is a fascinating study because of how little is we sort of still know about her because she's both a Murdoch, obviously, but then also a victim and hasn't really had the chance to tell her story. I think Mallory is another one who's, you know, just getting to know her. She feels like so many, you know, girls that I grew up with or cousins of mine that I'm very close to and, you know, just hearing about her life and how it was just so tragically cut short. So I think

Starting point is 00:39:03 there's, as you guys know, having lived in this chapter and verse for years now, there's just so many fascinating pockets of this thing and just when you think you found the most intriguing and vivid, then you turn around and there's a whole other one that's presented itself. And honestly, when I think about what is most important to me when working on this project is my duty to the victims, to not sensationalize the truth for entertainment value and to not revictimize individuals who have undergone an incredible amount of trauma. I can promise everyone listening to this podcast that I would have never agreed to this if Aaron and Michael weren't on the exact same page. The thing that's going to do what they want is going to be the thing that we want,

Starting point is 00:39:49 which is for, you know, this to be well received and part of that is going to be respecting and honoring the victims. You know, finding that balance is going to be a main priority of ours, but I think, you know, that's where we can emphasize both the work that you guys have done and your sort of mission statement as it were in terms of leading with that and that also being, you know, key to what we want to accomplish creatively. And if you've seen any of Aaron Lee Carr's documentaries, you would know that she not only has remarkable storytelling skills, as you watch, you can feel that Aaron genuinely cares for the people in her films about their lives, about their journeys and about how each story can impact those watching for the better.

Starting point is 00:40:34 Yeah, I think true crime right now is it's all about the crime. What are the grisly elements? What are the circumstances? What's the evidence? Where was the body? What did it look like? And I think that there's this, you know, very intense Americana obsession with the crime. But the ways that I do it is what happened all the days that came before that and what are all the days that came after that because all, you know, these lives have to intersect at this very specific moment for something like this to happen. I try to not denote victims as victims, right? They have these huge big lives before they were killed on that very one day. And so I think that it's all about trying to add complexity and character and really three dimensional vantage points of people's lives

Starting point is 00:41:25 so that it's like it's not just, you know, Mallory Beach got killed on this night of what she was hoping for, who she was dating, what she had loved, what was her family like, what did she look like in pictures, you know, was there, you know, what did she really love and care about? And so I think that I'm the same with Steven and the same with Gloria and like, you know, I think that it's the sort of the lives of these people and not just the perpetrator, right? The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Manny Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell, produced by Luna Shark Productions.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - How Many People Will Go Down For This? Part Two (S01E43)

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