Murdaugh Murders Podcast - MMP #6 - Who Killed Maggie & Paul? Part One

Starting point is 00:00:01 I don't know who killed Paul and Maggie Murdoch, but I'll tell you what we know about what happened on June 7, 2021. My name is Mandy Matney, and I've been investigating the Murdoch family for more than two years now. This is the Murdoch murders podcast. On the evening of June 7th, 2021, 22-year-old Paul Murdoch and his 52-year-old mother, Maggie Murdoch, were found murdered on their 1700-acre property called Mozel, which is about 60-mile. miles west of Charleston, South Carolina. Around 10.07 p.m., Paul's father and Maggie's husband, Alec Murdoch, called 911. The phone call was released by the lead investigating agency in the Murdoch murders, which is the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as SLED,

Starting point is 00:01:01 about six weeks after the murders, on July 22nd, 2021. We're not sure what exactly made the South Carolina law enforcement division release the 911 call now. But we're going to play it for you and we'll talk about what we're hearing and try to learn what we can. 41 47 Mosel Road. I think the police just answers immediately. My wife and Tom did stop badly. Okay, you said 4147 Mobleau Road in Allerton? Sir? You said 4147 Mozel Road in Arlington? Yes, sir. 41, 47, Mozel Road in Arlington? Yes, sir. 41, 47, Roselle Road. Stay on the line with me, okay?

Starting point is 00:01:55 Yes, sir. Stay on the line with me, okay? Here, okay. Call on the county communication. Collison, I have an Alex Murdoch on the line, call her from 4147 Mozel Road. He's advising that his wife and child was shot. Okay, and sir, give me the address again? It's 41-47, Mozel Road.

Starting point is 00:02:29 I've been up to it now. It's bad. 4147 Mozel Road is a property that is in Colleton County, South Carolina, just north of the Hampton County border. We're assuming that the call routed to Hampton County 911 instead of Colleton County because the location is so close to the border. No, ma'am. Okay, and you said it's your wife and your son?

Starting point is 00:02:57 My wife and my son. Are they in a vehicle? No, ma'am, they're on the ground out at my kennels. Okay. And did you see anyone? Okay. Is he breathing at all? No.

Starting point is 00:03:18 No. Is she? Sources have also told me that Paul Mardock was killed by two shotgun blast, one to the chest and another threw the arm and head. Maggie Mardock died of multiple gunshot wounds by a semi-automatic rifle, according to our sources. Two weapons were used in the double homicide, which is highly unusual. Okay. Okay.

Starting point is 00:03:39 Do you see it? No, ma'am. No, ma'am. What colors your house on the outside? It's white. You can't see it from the road. Okay. Is it a house or a mobile home? It's a house.

Starting point is 00:03:59 Okay. And what is your name? My name is Alec, Murdoch. Okay. Did you hear him? I've been gone. I just came back. Last month, a Good Morning America journalist who spoke directly to the Murdoch family

Starting point is 00:04:21 reported that Ehrlich was taking his father to the hospital on the day of the killings. After that, he was. He reportedly checked in on his mother, whose sources say has dementia before returning to the hunting lodge. But where is home to the Murdox? I really haven't been able to answer this question yet. We know that the Murdox sold their home in Hampton, South Carolina in April 2020. Maggie Murdoch's Facebook page said that she moved to Edisto, South Carolina in July

Starting point is 00:04:49 2020. Edisto is a beach town about an hour and a half southeast of the Moselle property. I know that Paul had an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina, which is the state capital, and where he went to school. But I also heard that he was known to couch surf in the months before the murders. He was often in Charleston, and he was there the weekend before the murders. Sources have also told me that Paul stayed with his uncle John Marvin often in Okedee, South Carolina, about an hour southeast of the Moselle property. They were also known to go to the family River home in Okudy, South Carolina often.

Starting point is 00:05:24 I say this because it seems like the family did not have much of a routine, and it would be difficult to ambush them. No, ma'am. Please hurry. We're getting somebody out there. It sounds like Alec is replying to a question right here, and that question might be redacted. It also sounds like Alec is moving around a lot in this 911 call. In some parts, you can clearly hear the dogs in the background, which means that you can clearly hear the dogs in the background, which means that he's close to the murder scene.

Starting point is 00:06:22 And in other parts, you can't hear the dogs. Okay. Maggie, Maggie and Paul. Maggie is her name? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And please, hurry. We're getting somebody out there to you, me asking you these questions,

Starting point is 00:06:44 don't slow them down, okay? And you sure, is he moving out? Nobody's. They're not. Neither one of them is moving. What is your? or tell us on number? And does anything look out of place?

Starting point is 00:07:26 Ma'am, not particularly, really, no ma'am. Okay. So no one knows how they would react to a situation so horrifying is this. But at no point does Alec Murdoch ever mention that he's afraid of a killer being around. Granted, sometimes in situations like this, people feel so hopeless to the point that they don't care if someone else takes their life. And also, this is a redacted 911 call, and we're not sure what parts the police took out. So in this part of the 911 call, you'll hear a lot of clicks and beeps, but that's pretty normal for a 911 call, and we're keeping them in so you can hear everything that was provided to us. Okay.

Starting point is 00:08:25 All right, I'm going back down there. Close, ma'am. Where the kennels are? Right here, the dispatcher asked Elyke Murdoch to turn on his flashers, but from what we've heard, he's not in his car yet. So we can assume here that at some point, Alec tells the dispatcher that he's in his car, in that part, for whatever reason, was redacted.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Looking at the property, the dog canals are about four football fields away from the main house. I've already touched them trying to get a, to see if they were breathing. I want you to move anything just in case they can get any kind of evidence, okay? I'm going to call.

Starting point is 00:10:52 need to call some of my family. Favor for me whenever you see the officer or the medics, because they're all coming to you. Absolutely. Here, the dispatcher asks Alec a favor, but something is redacted, and we don't know what it is. According to the Colleton County dispatch log, the dispatcher advised Alec to put, and there's a three-letter word that's redacted, and then it says up, when law enforcement arrives on scene. We don't know what that three-letter word is, and we're not going to speculate. Okay.

Starting point is 00:11:46 How old is it? 22. Okay. 19 minutes after Alec called 911, Deputy Daniel Green, was the first to arrive on scene at 10.26 p.m. Within less than a minute, he determined that the scene was secure, clearing the way for fire and rescue to enter. A minute later, Colleton County Fire Rescue requested the coroner. So they arrived on scene of a gruesome double homicide, and they were able to quickly determine that the scene was secure enough for other first responders to join them. At 1028 p.m., just 20 minutes after the 911 call was placed, SLED was contacted by the Colleton County Sheriff's Office.

Starting point is 00:12:46 At this time, Sledd's assistance was requested. Soon after the Colleton County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene at Moselle, SLED took over the case. SLED took over the case for two reasons. One, the complexity of the case was beyond what the Colleton County Sheriff's Office resources could handle. And two, the Colleton County Sheriff's Office had too many ties to the Murdoch family and rightfully recused itself from the case. According to the autopsy report, Maggie and Paul Murdoch died between 9 and 9.30 p.m. That's a short window of time and we're not really sure how they came up with it. The next day, South Carolina Media woke up to the biggest murder investigation and it,

Starting point is 00:13:26 least the last decade. A flurry of South Carolina insiders were texting each other news of the double homicide throughout the night. Soon after the story, broke law enforcement quickly went on the record to say that there was no danger to the public. But here we are seven weeks later, and no arrests have been made in connection with the case, nor have any suspects been identified. Prior to the publication of the 911 call, nothing of substance has been released to the public regarding the direction or status of the ongoing investigation. In fact, SLED has been working very aggressively to plug any leaks related to this investigation. So what do we know?

Starting point is 00:14:07 There has been a lot of speculation raised since reports were released last week, and those reports indicated that another person might be on the crime scene at the time of the murders. A lot of Webb's sleuths pointed at Buster Murdoch and speculated that he was the other party at the scene that night. So what about Buster? He's been a big question in this investigation. This week, I confirmed with one of my sources that Buster Murdoch was in the Rock Hill, Charlotte area at the time of the murders. From there, we can conclude that Buster was not the other person blocked out from the investigation file. Elic Murdoch was identified by sources very early on in the investigation as a person of interest, although he reportedly provided police,

Starting point is 00:14:54 with a quote-unquote iron-clad alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the killings. But we haven't heard directly from Alec what that ironclad alibi was. He hasn't talked to any media since the time of the killings. We also haven't heard much from the Murdoch family since the time of the murders. During the Good Morning America interview, Paul's uncle John Marvin Murdoch, so that his nephew Paul had been receiving threats from strangers since the fatal boc crash. However, John Marvin Murdoch told reporters he didn't think the threats were credible, and he said that the family didn't try to identify the people behind them. I have to note here that

Starting point is 00:15:39 all of the boat crash survivors and Mallory Beach's family members voluntarily submitted to questioning and volunteered to provide their DNA as a part of the double homicide investigation. A source close to the situation told me that the beaches and the boat crash survivors have not been questioned again since providing their statements in DNA. During the interview, John Marvin and Randy Murdoch said their family is misunderstood by the public. I see words like dynasty used and power. And I don't know exactly how people use those words, but we're just regular people and we're hurting just like they would be hurting if this had happened to them. No one is doubting that the Murdox are hurting right now, but many are doubting that they are just regular people.

Starting point is 00:16:32 The Murdoch family has loomed large and low country law for more than a century, with three generations of its members serving as a solicitor, which is South Carolina's version of a district attorney, between 1920 and 2007. They also own one of the most prominent law firms in the state of South Carolina. So three weeks after the murders, Amanda Loveday, who is chief operating officer at a Columbia, South Carolina-based public relations firm called NP Strategy, released a statement about the Murdoch's having a $100,000 reward offered by the family in connection with the murders. The statement said that Alec and Buster Murdoch offered the reward. For a person to get this reward, they must provide information that leads to an arrest. But what's interesting about this one is that tips must be submitted before September 30th. So there is a deadline to this reward. So now I want to talk about the evidence or lack thereof that we know about in this case. So we know that Maggie Murdoch's cell phone was found along a rural South Carolina Road just outside of the family's 1,700-acre

Starting point is 00:17:54 hunting lodge the day after the murder. Sources have also told me that multiple guns were removed from the property the night of the murders. Considering the crime scene was at a hunting lodge, this is not at all surprising, and it does not mean that the murder weapons were taken from there. We also know that law enforcement impounded a 2021 Chevy Suburban registered to the Murdoch law firm from the scene. We also know that on June 16th, sled agents were collecting evidence in a second.

Starting point is 00:18:24 a swampy area, approximately two miles south of Mosel, and we have no idea what they were doing there. Elick and Buster Murdoch were facing a massive wrongful death lawsuit, which their insurance company was refusing to cover them for in the death of Mallory Beach. A hearing in that lawsuit was scheduled for June 10th, three days after the murders. That hearing included a number of motions, requiring Ehrlich and Buster Murdoch to fully respond to previous requests to disclose. their financial documents, and asking the judge to have the case move from Hampton County to Beaufort County. That hearing could have also meant that Paul and Maggie Murdoch would be added to the lawsuit. So all of this means that Alec must have been under immense pressure with the lawsuit

Starting point is 00:19:13 looming, combined with the fact that his father was dying of cancer. Randolph-Mirlock III died at his home on June 10, 2021, the day the hearing was supposed to take place. And we know that the fact that that SLED has asked for patience and that a judge recently ruled that SLED did not break the law in this case by being selective of the information they've released. We have to wait on law enforcement. We have to give them time and it's still early to judge in this case. So on that note, we need more time too. I made this podcast for one reason to expose the truth on another platform, but it brought on way more work and way more pressure than I ever imagined. Turns out, spending 99% of your free time working on a murder investigation is not great for your mental health.

Starting point is 00:20:08 I can feel myself getting close to burnout and I cannot afford to get there. So I need to prioritize my mental space and I need to take a step back. We will still be doing podcasts but they won't be every week because it's just been absolutely grueling on David and I. We will be back with more episodes, but we need some time until then. And my name is David Moses. Fiancé, producer extraordinaire, and I may be a little biased here, but I believe that Mandy Matney is the most knowledgeable investigative journalist covering this saga and others in South Carolina.

Starting point is 00:20:45 If you believe in her reporting like I do, if you believe in our mission to expose the truth wherever it leads, please follow and subscribe to the podcast. so you get an alert when we publish the next episode. Until we return, we want to hear from you. Email us at info at Murdochmurterspodcast.com any questions you want answered. What do you want to know about Mandy's reporting? Are you curious about advertising or sponsoring the podcast?

Starting point is 00:21:12 Drop us a line to info at Murdochmurterspodcast.com. That's info at M-U-R-D-A-U-G-H Murders Podcast. com. And thank you to all of you supporters out there that are leaving five-star reviews, leaving positive comments. It really does keep us going. Stay tuned to the Murdoch Murders Podcast for the latest updates in the case. Or follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com slash Mandy M-A-N-D-Y-M-A-T-N-E-Y. And don't forget to leave a five-star review unless you're going to be nasty. and talk about my vocal fry.

Starting point is 00:21:56 The Mardock Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Produced by Luna Shark Productions.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - MMP #6 - Who Killed Maggie & Paul? Part One

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