RedHanded - Episode 287 – The Murdaugh Family Murders

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

The Murdaugh murders are not one story; they are a seemingly endless web of lies, entitlement, and confusion.  At the centre of the web are the bodies of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, found at their hunting lodge. But tangled in it are the tragic deaths of three other completely innocent people, dragged in by the most powerful family in South Carolina.  This week Hannah and Suruthi make sense of one of the most sprawling true crime cases out there… GET YOUR NORTH AMERICAN TOUR TICKETS: https://redhandedpodcast.com/ Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Sources available on redhandedpodcast.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti.

And welcome to quite a tense Red Handed. The North American tour looms ever closer. By the time you're listening to this, we will have but one weekend left. We will. We will be one step closer to the Mayflower of touring. The Mayflower! Which is a flight from Dublin to Seattle. Yeah. So there's a lot of suitcase logistics being discussed at the moment,

but we are desperately excited. We were actually talking about, but yesterday, how we're just about starting to feel a bit excited. Yeah. Yes, I'm very much excited. I actually think, you know, all my friends are like, oh, are you nervous? Like, are you stressed?

And I'm like, do you know what? I actually think when we get to Dublin, or like when we're on our way to Dublin, I'll be the most chilled. Because it's out of our hands. Because it's the lead up to it that's the problem. And it's not even the tour. The tour is fine. The show is banging. Everything is in hand.

It's all of the records we have to do before we leave. Yes, because we're not going to leave you high and dry. No, no, no, no. Normal programming will continue. We just have to get it all done before we go. We do. So lots of late nights, lots of furious typing in our office. Lots of fizzy cola bottles. Yes. Oh my God. So many treats are being had. Basically, we just record three days a week solid in script and do business stuff for the other two days. But that means hours and hours and hours of recording. Exactly.

And that's what we're doing today. If you do not have your tickets, hard luck unless you're in New York and LA, basically. Pretty much everywhere has gone. Dublin, actually, there are some VIP tickets still left to go. So get your hands on that. The rest of it seems to have vanished we might be doing a re-release in about a week's time we don't know yet so we're going to keep you on your toes there but we've just been talking about how busy and stressed we are

this episode we decided at the last minute to do this year we have been doing more reactive stuff like Delphi and Idaho and you guys have been loving it. So against my better judgement I voice noted through I think last week and was like, shall I just do the Murdoch murder? Shall I just do it? I think I can get it done. So that's what we've done.

That's what we're doing. She's done it. I have done it. Because I think ones like Rasputin that you just take your time with. Sometimes it's quite nice to do ones like this like Rasputin that you just like you take your time with. Sometimes it's quite nice to do ones like this that you're like, you know what, I can turn this around in a week. Oh, absolutely. So reminding ourselves of excellence. I heard this, I think it's Viola Davis. It was like sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm Viola Davis so I can be Viola Davis for everyone else.

So I'm Viola Davis and this is red handed my co-host for tonight everybody but no i'm very excited about this case hannah can we do one last name reminder yes of how to say this name yes ellick like relic even though it's about alex yes like alex yes and murdoch like sherlock okay ellick murdoch exactly got it so. Alec Murdoch. Exactly. Got it. Because a lot of the producers on our team thought that his surname was Murder. Yeah, the Murder Murders. The Murder Murders.

Good. And that's what I thought, but it's also... Alex Murder. Murder by name, murder by murder. Fuck it up. It would only be better if his name was Johnny. Johnny Murder. Johnny Murder.

People do get it wrong. But that is quite a good sign that they haven't done their research. Uh-oh. be better if his name was Johnny. Johnny Murder. Johnny Murder. People do get it wrong, podcasters are included, but that is quite a good sign that they haven't done their research. Oh, shade. Anyway, I have, so let's get on with it. This is not one story.

It's not even the five stories that we're going to tell you this episode. This case is so tangled that you can't even really call it a web. What you can call it is Hannah's wool hamper because it has so many strands wrapped around each other that there is absolutely no hope of them ever being separate ever again. So we never want to open the hamper.

It stays in the doom cupboard forever. But we can't always get what we want. So we are heading to the doom cupboard. We are opening the door to the doom cupboard and we are opening the dreaded wool hamper of the Murdoch murders by Johnny Murder. The murder murders. You asked, we listened, and we stayed up very late on the Sabbath. If you've turned on a TV recently, you'll know that there is an enormous amount of ground to cover.

And we, your humble servants, just cannot do it all. To that end, we implore you, the absolute best source out there on the Murdoch case is the Murdoch Murders podcast, sometimes referred to as MMP, created and hosted by Mandy Matney, who is the news director of Fitz News. We just can't do it all. There are pretty significant storylines I've had to leave out, including a life support machine being turned off. But if you want to find those, go find Mandy. Absolutely. Mandy is your girl because she has put over four years of her life into investigating the Murdoch family. Smashed it. And I did, there was a pause, wasn't there?

It just looks wrong. And also she spent so much time looking into all the kind of dark corners, every single like element of this case. Like Hannah said, we just can't compete. So this episode will be a summary of the story so far. If you want more detail, including 911 calls and more in-depth analysis, then go listen to Mandy. This is a red-handed episode. We are not an investigative podcast. So there are things that we have had to leave out.

MMP and Mandy, go find them wherever you listen to your podcasts and they will tell you everything you want to know. Because by the end of this episode, you will definitely be wanting to know more about Mr. Alec Murdoch. And that is a promise. A guarantee, if you will. No money back. This story, because there is so much to it, could start in any number of places. But we have decided to start with a boat because it's our show and we can do what we want. So let's begin with a boat. And this boat, like everything in this story, was and probably still is in South Carolina. And the story that this boat is at the center of is sometimes known as the Chappaquiddick of South Carolina. And the story that this boat is at the center of is sometimes known as the Chappaquiddick of South Carolina. Don't worry, I had no idea either. Yeah, I was immediately lost reading this.

And when Mandy says it in the MMP podcast, she just skates straight over it. And I was like, wait, what? I don't know what that is. Americans do know what it is. I know what it is now. Basically, you still haven't watched Succession, have you? No. So this basically happens in Succession. It's season one. Don't come for me for spoilers. Like, whatever. Basically, in 1969, Ted Kennedy,

yes, that kind of Kennedy, was driving 29-year-old Mary Jo Kopechny in his car. And he drove his car off a bridge into the water. Kennedy escaped the upturned vehicle but he left Mary Jo to drown. Her body was recovered the next morning, and as a consequence, Ted Kennedy was banished and he did not run for president.

Black Sheep Kennedy, the would-be president. So, yeah, that's what Chappaquiddick is. And now we all know. But our story is a more modern aquatic incident. The 24th of February 2019 was date night in Hampton County, South Carolina. Mallory Beach, her boyfriend Anthony Cook and two other couples were off to an oyster roast. They were all about college age between 18 and 20. But before we continue, what on earth is an oyster roast? I will answer this question, but I will admit that I did not know.

Okay. Good. So basically, it's like a barbecue, but oysters. And I think that cooked oysters are foul. I will eat a raw oyster till I die. I love them. They are my fave. Cook them.

No gross vomit. But I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, all of you oyster roasters out there, but I Now, there are a lot of names in this story, so we are going to leave some of them out just to make things easier to follow, because otherwise you're just all going to be incredibly confused. Yeah. So do, if you notice that we have left out someone's proper name, it is intentional, but it's not because they're not important. It's just for the sake of telling the story in a way that you will be able to follow. Yeah. So I may not know much about oyster roasts, but I do know loads about underage drinking. I think we both do. So before this group headed to the oyster fiesta that they were going to,

they went to a shop to buy some white claws or like whatever else white teens drink in South Carolina. And this shop was called Parker's. Now that may seem like an unimportant piece of information, but we'll need it later on, so, you know, put it under your hat. Your oyster hat. Your oyster hat. Paul Murdoch, one of the boyfriends in the group, went into Parker's and made the illegal purchase.

He was just 19. Remember, in the US, you've got to be 21. Which just still blows my mind. Yeah, but if you want to join the army, 18, no problem. Being underage and going in to buy booze didn't faze a guy like Paul Murdoch. He had his mum Maggie's credit card and his older brother Buster's fake ID. Despite looking almost nothing like his brother, they're very different sizes. And he very definitely did not have the name Maggie Paul purchased the forbidden nectar without issue

And carried it back to his friends who were waiting in the car He carried his bounty aloft in a gesture of victory Which under US alcohol sales law Is known as a third party gesture So that's the buying of alcohol to distribute to somebody else. Oh, I thought you meant the holding it aloft. No, it is. Oh, right.

It's like a celebration thing. So he's like, I've got it and I'm giving it to you. And under the law, that's a thing. Oh, wow. Yeah, Parker's getting quite some trouble later on. Anyway, the group of mates had heard that there would be a booze checkpoint on the road that night. And with their illegal cargo taken into account, they decided that it would be better to take Paul's dad's boat to the oyster roast instead of the car. It's good to have choices. This boat was 17 feet, which might sound huge, but you can very easily find pictures of it.

It's really not. And six people in a boat like that was definitely a squeeze. And also the lights didn't work. Oh, good. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge,

but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health.

This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Nevertheless, the kids got to the oyster roast in that boat without incident. And they all had a jolly old time. So jolly that Anthony, Mallory's boyfriend, suggested that the whole gang take an Uber back to Paul Murdoch's river house. Yes, he has a river house. He has many houses. Rather than the boat.

He's a smart guy. He's like, hey, guys, you know, I was all for the boat on the way here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we've all been drinking. The lights don't work. It's dark. Let's just take an Uber. It will make no difference. We don't have any booze on us anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we've all been drinking. The lights don't work. It's dark. Let's just take an Uber. It will make no difference.

We don't have any booze on us anymore. They can't stop us. So yeah, Paul's not having any of it. He was absolutely hammered, but determined to drive the whole gang back in the boat. With no lights. With no lights, but not before making another stop at a bar

for some more shots. I think, obviously, Americans and British people drink in very different ways. We drink ourselves to death. They're not as consistent drinkers, you know. But Americans love a shot. Yeah. Like I saw. They're so big as well, the shots.

They're huge. A friend of mine who lives in Tennessee, she's doing a PhD at Vanderbilt she I saw her she was over here for a conference and I met her in a pub and it was a Sunday night and I was like

oh what do you want? She was like oh a beer and a shot and I was like I cannot go to a bar on a Sunday night and order a shot I'm sorry

I just can't do that. So different. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I was watching 90 Day Fiancé this woman's like I just need to go out and have

drink and she's out with her friends and they order shots but they come in like tumblers and i was like that's not a shot and then she shot the whole thing it was like a drink yeah of tequila it was madness yeah no shade i mean like you do you i'm just saying that we don't have very shoddy culture in this country. No, no, thank you. Paul Murdoch was a particularly obnoxious drunk. Surprise, surprise. And everyone knew it. He shouted, he spat, he took his clothes off and was just all round generally insufferable.

He's very lads, lads, lads, right? Yeah. His friends even had a nickname for drunk Paul. It was Timmy. Try harder, you know? Timmy. Uh-oh, Timmy's back. Timmy the drunk.

Only Paul, or should we say Timmy, and Connor Cook went into the bar. Connor is Anthony's cousin and another half of the final couple that were there that day. So the boys in the boat, and we do need to know all of their names, Paul Murdoch, Connor Cook, Anthony Cook. Connor and Anthony are cousins. Yes. And while they go do this, the rest of the group, including Mallory and Anthony, stay with the boat.

There is CCTV to prove this. But the thing is, they're not happy. They're tired, probably cold, and just want to go home. But Paul being Timmy... Yeah, he's the one that can't call it a night. No, he can't. And Connor seems to be all for it. Paul and Connor were the only ones to go into the bar.

The bar was called Luther's, and they were actually only in there for about nine minutes. They had two shots each before Paul started throwing chairs around. Timmy! Timmy! Timmy! And they headed back to the boat at about one o'clock in the morning. And Paul, like an utter maniac, still thought he was the only one who could possibly drive the boat.

He says things like, I know this river better than any of you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, it starts off probably terrifying, but kind of OK. He does set off quite slowly. I just love the idea of like throwing chairs, coming out, frantically arguing with everybody that you're going to drive the boat. But then just like very slowly moving along the river. I mean, good, safe. But then, in a classic Timmy move, poor Murdoch took off all of his clothes. The rest of the group didn't love this,

and we're not going to go into too much detail about what happened. If you want to know, Mandy can tell you. But basically, an argument happened, and then that argument escalated to Paul pushing, shouting, and spitting at his own girlfriend, and then rapidly accelerating. And the boat got up to 29 miles per hour, which is fast for a little boat with no lights on a narrow creek. With a drunk driver. With a drunk driver who's naked, yeah. Mallory and Anthony were so scared that they sat on the floor of the boat, clutching at each other.

And they were right to be scared, because just moments later, the boat rammed into a bridge piling on Arthur's Creek. Mallory, Anthony and Paul were all thrown from the boat. Connor remained on the boat, but he broke his jaw during the collision. There was blood everywhere. But despite his severe injury, Connor was the one to call 911.

The dispatcher wasted ages trying to figure out where he was and she actually resigned a few months later because of this yeah she was it's pretty bad you can kind of hit you know in really early Kanye when he's just out of the car crash and you can kind of hear he can't move his jaw that's what the 911 call sounds like and he's so clearly in a lot of pain terrified and the woman is just like so where are you and he's like I just I just told you oh no oh no oh no because it should have been pretty simple Arthur's Creek is not that big and they were the only boat in the water but the 911 operator just didn't seem to get it eventually Connor managed to explain that there were six of them they had been in a boat crash and that one of

them was missing 19 year old Malloryold Mallory Beach, Anthony Cook's girlfriend, never emerged from the water. Her body wasn't recovered for a week after the crash. As first responders started to show up, they treated the injured and tried to find Mallory. All of the kids on the boat were questioned. Anthony Cook stated very clearly that Paul Murdoch was driving the boat when it crashed. He also added, you know Alec Murdoch? That's his son. Good luck. Anthony Cook had lived in Hampton County, South Carolina his whole life and he ain't no dummy.

The Murdoch family ran Hampton County. They had done for over a century and they made sure everyone knew it. Paul Murdoch especially was known for saying things to the effect of, I'm a Murdoch, I can do whatever I want. Yeah. A couple of news reports I saw about this said things like Hampton County is actually called Murdoch County. Like that's how much this family ran the fucking show there. It's so like gone with the wind, old money, deep south stuff. Sure. So let's take a look at this family. They had been solicitors of Hampton County from 1920 to 2006. That's three generations of elected officials.

Elected in inverted commas. Yeah, kind of like a district attorney. Yeah, I will hold my hands up. I haven't given an enormous amount of time to understanding the South Carolina justice system, but it does seem to be different. So they have district attorneys, they have solicitors. I believe they're similar. I'm probably wrong. We don't need to know. If you want to know, Mandy knows. Yeah, it's basically they are in the upper echelons of this society for three generations. They decide who's going to jail. Sure. And Hampton County has a long-time reputation for being a really bad place to get sued.

The county almost always sides with the plaintiff and awards extraordinarily high damages and that makes the Murdoch family and their law firm PMPED. Yeah that's the name of their law firm. PMPED. Yeah pimp my lawsuit. Great that pimped pimped like a license plate for pimped is the name of your fucking... And no one comments on it. And it wasn't until I wrote it down and I was like, hold on. Pimped. Pimped, yeah. Pimped.

Obviously, like, it's just, it's a series of surnames of which Murdoch is one. But yeah, calling your PMPED. Not great. Not great, not great. But this practice of awarding extraordinarily high damages did make PMPED, the law firm, extremely powerful and very rich. And you better believe that the Murdochs have their diamond-encrusted tentacles in basically every office and in every orifice of every official in Hampton County. Especially the Sheriff's Office. Which is handy when you want to do crime. Yes. When you want to be a criminal, having a diamond-encrusted chokehold

on the local sheriff's office is very helpful. Yes. So I believe I have this correct. Sheriffs are county by county. But yes, the sheriff's office might as well be called the Murdoch office. Got it. And that sort of connection between the Murdochs and the sheriff's office is possibly why, even though none of the surviving boat kids said anything to contradict Anthony's statement that Paul had been the one driving, reports later stated that there was confusion over who had been driving the boat. And later reports even stated that it was Connor who had

been at the helm. Even though literally no one on the scene said that ever, and it was Paul Murdoch's boat, etc, etc, etc. And that's all on audio. Like, this is not speculation. Yeah, and it's not like bad notes were taken at the scene or that the notes vanished. It's like they have proof that what the people at the scene said, that Paul Murdoch was the one driving. And then they're just like, oh, no one seemed to know who was driving. Oh, actually, it was Connor who was driving.

So falsification of evidence by lots of people already. Tick one. The Murdoch dynasty looming large is probably also why, although he was so aggressive toward paramedics that he had to be strapped down, Paul Murdoch was not breathalysed at the scene of the crash. I mean, I feel like the breathalyser would have just broken. Yeah, it just exploded into alcohol-drenched flames. And it's just like, the idea that they would turn up at this scene.

He is so clearly intoxicated. He's timmying all over the place. And they don't breathalyze him. I mean... They try and breathalyze Connor and he refuses. Yeah. Smart boy. Yeah, he's got a fucking broken jaw as well.

Yeah, right. I can't do it. Paul Murdoch wasn't even treated as a suspect, even though it was his boat. He was taken off to hospital with the other four. And just to remind everybody, this is happening in 2019, not 209. I don't know. The year 209.

The year of our boat. I'm so hungover and tired. But yeah, you get what I mean. It's like 2019 and this level of corruption is just like rampant. Once Paul got to hospital, his behaviour was so erratic that doctors and nurses thought

that he might have a brain injury. No, it's just Timmy. Just Timmy. Just Timmy. I wonder how drunk I would have to be for people to think I had a brain injury. Oh, she's brain injury drunk. Anyway. So his blood's got taken because they're worried he's going to have some sort of stroke, right?

And Paul Murdoch was found to be 3.5 times over the legal driving alcohol limit. That's brain injury drunk. But had that reading never been taken, no one would ever have been able to charge Paul with driving under the influence because there would have been no evidence. My God. Even still, even though they have that 3.5 reading, it took a whole two months before Paul Murdoch

was charged with three counts of boating under the influence. A BUI. The state may have had the blood alcohol reading, but they didn't have much else to make a case against Paul Murdoch. Because funnily enough, his wallet, phone and the clothes that he'd been wearing on the night that beautiful, intelligent and just 19-year-old Mallory Beach died, had all vanished without a trace. Funny that. Hmm, yes. Seems odd, especially when there were so many officers

at the scene of the crash. And yet more sceptical scenes played out at the hospital that night when Paul's dad, Ellick Murdoch, came out of the woodwork. So Ellick was a lawyer, but he was just not quite as important as his dad Randolph, who also made an appearance at the hospital. Randolph is the big daddy, right? I'm scared of him just reading his name.

You'll be even more scared when you know what his real name is. Randolph Murdoch III. So he was a solicitor, right? But he's old now, he's old as shit. So his daddy and his granddaddy were all solicitors, right? But he's old now. He's old as shit. So his daddy and his granddaddy were all solicitors, right? So that's... He's like evil Atticus. Yes. Yes, exactly that. And he's the one with the big swinging dick, right? So Elick, I get the feeling, is a bit of a disappointment. But also, Elick has a brother called Randy, who I would assume

is Randolph the Fourth. But he doesn't go on to be solicitor. They pick someone else. So there is some sort of succession bullshit going on. Anyway, we're not going to spend too much time on that because we have not the time to do it. But yeah, Randolph is very old, but also very important. Yes. Set the scene. They're at the hospital. And you've got Paul's dad, Ellick, basically wandering from room to room,

trying to talk to the kids who have all been involved in the crash, especially Paul's girlfriend, which does look quite a lot like he was there telling them what to say. A security guard even overheard Ellick on the phone saying, quote, she's gone, don't worry about her. One can only assume that he was talking about poor, dead Mallory Beach. So the Big Daddy, former solicitor Randolph Murdoch III, spent most of his time at the hospital,

telling his moronic grandson, Paul slash Timmy, to keep his stupid mouth shut. You know who he reminds me of? You know in the Dropout, the TV series? He reminds me of the, like, warout the tv series he reminds me of the like war general that elizabeth holmes had on her board okay it's very that like sure sure sure very powerful maddox mad maddox yes or whatever his name is just very um very calm but like like words that sure sure sure got it anyway, back to this. Randolph's there threatening Paul, and Ellick is there threatening the kids. And in May 2019, Paul was actually charged.

But unusually, he wasn't jailed. He had no mugshot taken, and he was never even handcuffed. He was also never ordered to wear an alcohol monitor. All of these things in a DUI case in South Carolina, we've been led to believe, are quite unusual. Like, those things would happen, so it's unusual that they're not happening here. And Paul would never get his day in court for drunk driving either, because just one year and 11 months later, Paul Murdoch would be dead.

Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun. Thunderclap. Pow! later, Paul Murdoch would be dead. But before we get to Paul Murdoch's demise, we have a lot more mystery Murdoch meters to cover. The death of Mallory Beach is not the only death that has been associated with the Murdoch family in recent years. There are quite a few more. The next one that we're going to cover is the death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith in 2015, so that's four years before the boating accident. The Murdoch connections to the death of Mallory Beach and Stephen Smith were brought to the attention of superstar journalists like Mandy Matney due to the widespread use of the hashtag

justice for Mallory and Stephen. And Mandy's like, I know who Mallory is, but who's Stephen? I'm going to tell you who Stephen Smith is. He was a nursing student with aspirations to move abroad and help those in need. And he was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County on the 8th of July 2015. Stephen's head was totally misshapen from some kind of blunt force trauma. There was a seven-inch gash in the side of his forehead, but there were very few injuries to the rest of his body,

spare a few scratches, a dislocated shoulder and grazed knuckles. On the day Stephen died, a passer-by made a 911 call, saying there was a kid lying in the middle of the road. Stephen was fully clothed and still had his shoes on when the authorities found him. His death was initially classified as a homicide, but remained in the hands of the Highway Patrol rather than the Sheriff's Department. Do Highway Patrol deal with homicides now? No. Yeah. So the highway patrol obviously don't investigate that. My question was rhetorical. Keep up. All they do is recreate

accidents. Not saying that's not important, but it's not a murder investigation. They're not the sheriff's department. Nah. So by the time Stephen made it to a forensic pathologist, who in the state of South Carolina have the final say on stuff like this, it was decided that Stephen had not been killed with a gun or a bat. Rather, he had been hit by the wing mirror of a truck whilst walking along the road, and therefore his death was not a homicide, it was a hit and run. Which you can probably tell from the tone of Saru's voice, we don't believe for several reasons. One, there were no tyre marks on the road. Two, there was no vehicular debris at the scene. Three, Stephen's shoes were still on. One

of the most common things that happens when you're hit by a truck is that your shoes come off. It's like a force and friction thing. Wow, that's really interesting. I didn't know that. But like the first two, yeah, Like how is there nothing? If he hit a wing mirror that hard, where the fuck is the wing mirror? Yeah. And also presumably if somebody hit him, they then swerved or did something or tried to break after they felt the impact. Even if they didn't see him before. Yeah.

And if there are no skid marks, no tyre marks, that didn't happen. Absolutely. Four. This is the real kicker for me. There were no car paint fragments found on Stephen's clothes until a bag of his clothes were left unattended in the funeral home where he was laid to rest. Fuck off.

It's like also there would have been paint fragments in the wound as well. Surely, surely if you got hit by a fucking wing mirror, there's going to be something of that wing mirror in your wound. And these, I'm not talking about like paint chips, I'm talking like microscopic paint flecks are not there. Equally, there was no chain of custody recorded with Stephen's phone. So God knows where that ended up. I mean, it probably ended up with the gunshot residue report that was never heard of again and also the rape kit that was performed on Stephen's body that has also mysteriously disappeared and never resurfaced.

Stephen's family have always insisted that he never would have walked along a rural road at night alone. And his autopsy showed that he was completely sober. Stephen was buried on 11 July 2015. His family left his casket open, so all the attendees were confronted with what had been done to their boy. It has always been Stephen's family's firm belief that he was murdered for being openly gay. And just days after Stephen died, there were rumours reported to the Highway Patrol,

who again are not supposed to be investigating homicides, but these rumours were that the Murdoch brothers, Paul and Buster, were behind the death of Stephen Smith. Why? Because Buster had been intimately linked with Stephen. We have audio recordings of these conversations, but not a sniff of the Murdoch name made it into the official report notes on Stephen's death. Investigators called Buster a grand total of once.

He didn't pick up and his voicemail was full, so they left no message and never called again. And pretty quickly, the case went cold, which is what will happen when you ignore tips. Stephen's mother, Sandy, made an appeal to the FBI for help. But since Stephen's death was not federal in nature, they didn't really do anything. They can't, apparently. So unless they're invited in. Yes, they have to be invited in. Unless it happens on federal property or there's very specific factors. Or cross country.

Yes, right. Sorry, cross state lines to commit a felony. And even then, often the actual crime will take precedence over the fact that they're crossing lines. But yes, from watching my many years of Criminal Minds, I know they have to be called in. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs.

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The good news is, in June 2022, so just last year, SLED, who are essentially the South Carolina Super Police, reopened the investigation into Stephen's death based on evidence that we will go through later on. But first, we have another mystery to get through before we get to the much less mysterious and just plain baffling section of today's episode. But did you hear about the housekeeper? An ominous sentence that flew around Hampton County in the wake of Mallory Beach's death. Oh yeah, the Murdochs have even more blood on their hands and this one predates the boat crash wake of Mallory Beach's death. Oh yeah, the Murdochs have even more

blood on their hands and this one predates the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach. Gloria Satterfield was the Murdochs' housekeeper for two decades. She as good as raised Paul and Buster and she had two boys of her own as well. And then one day in February 2018, the 57-year-old Gloria fell down the stairs at a Murdoch property and died a few weeks later. It is believed, not by me, but by some, that dogs belonging to the Murdoch family tripped her and then Gloria tumbled to her eventual death. She's 57? Mm-hmm. Not 87?

Yeah, right. However, no documentation pertaining to the exact cause of her fall can be found anywhere. We don't know who called 911. We don't even know who took her to hospital. All we know was that she was in intensive care with a traumatic brain injury for weeks

before she died. But according to her autopsy, she died of natural causes. Is a brain trauma from falling down the stairs a natural cause? No. That's bonkers to me. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I have misunderstood that, but it just seems odd.

I mean, it's very similar to the staircase situation, which I'm not going to spoil here, because I actually didn't know that case very well. We don't actually tend to often know the really big cases in that much detail until we cover them, I always find. But in that, there is an accusation of like somebody who I won't say who, it's not Kathleen, falling down some stairs. But she fell because a brain aneurysm happened. So they're like, oh, my God, the brain aneurysm happens. And then that's what causes her to fall.

And so she actually dies of natural causes because that's what would have killed her anyway. So maybe they're saying something like that. But that's a fucking stretch. So we also know that the Murdoch boys didn't visit Gloria in hospital. And the richest family in Hampton County, for whom she had been a maid for 20 years, didn't even pay for this woman's funeral. That is outrageous. Especially, she died in your fucking house. So naturally, this led to a lot of speculation about the real cause of Gloria's death. At Gloria's funeral, Alex Murdoch approached her sons and basically said the following. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Your mum died on my property and you should absolutely receive compensation. I can make that happen for you. Sue me, get your money. And I happen to know just the guy to help you. But you obviously can't tell anyone I told you to do this because I could get in a lot of trouble. So Gloria's boys, stricken with grief and knowing no better, went to one of the Murdoch's henchmen attorneys to represent them.

And they filed what they believed to be a $500,000 wrongful death lawsuit against the Murdoch family. Alec Murdoch does a lot of fucked up stuff. This makes me sick. He orchestrates this whole thing. In reality, the lawsuit wasn't worth $500,000. It was worth millions. And Elick Murdoch settled it.

And through a web of false companies, lined pockets, greased palms, and secret whisperings between good old boys, Gloria's sons have not seen a penny of that settlement. We don't know how he did it, exactly because all of the records of the suit have mysteriously disappeared. A little easter egg of some good news that I'm speckling throughout this episode. This particular shafting did catch up with Alec Murdoch.

He was arrested on two felony fraud charges in relation to Gloria Satterfield. And he was arrested for them in Orange County, Florida where he was allegedly in rehab for a $50,000 a week opioid addiction. I'm trying to think

of the OC sound. That is it! I was like, why are you doing Phantom Planet? Well done, that is it yeah i was like why are you doing phantom planet that well done that is it always on the run i can't remember the words driving in the sun driving down the 101 california here we go california there we go which we we will be driving down the 101 in just a few weeks. Let's keep going. They catch up with him in Florida. Ellick is charged with obtaining property under false pretenses and misappropriating settlement funds. It is understood that through his tangled financial web, he received $3.5 million in relation to the wrongful death of Gloria Satterfield. So Ellick was denied bond for the first time in Murdoch history and sent for a psychiatric evaluation, which is bad news for sure. Particularly for Ellick. I don't love any

of them. I mean, but there's something specific about him and Paul. I think him and Paul are very similar. Buster's a bit of an outlier. So eventually Ellick signed a confession, admitting that he had stolen $4.3 million from Gloria's family, which meant that eventually he would have to reveal his financial situation. More extremely bad news. That's what he's terrified of, because as soon as he gets to any sort of hearing about this Gloria Satterfield case,

he is going to have to expose all of his finances, which basically will bring down his entire family. Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing, isn't it? It's just like a little murder here and there. Doesn't matter. You cannot let the family secrets about the money and the way we do business get out. Exactly. Because that's how they'll fucking get you. That's how they'll get you all. So Sled agreed to exhume Gloria's body. And to be honest, the news just kept getting worse and worse for the Murdochs. Especially if you happen to be Paul and or Maggie Murdoch, who is of course his mum. Because on the 7th of June 2021, Maggie and Paul were found shot dead on the family's 1,700-acre hunting estate

called Mosel. Mosel. Mosel. So no, it's not the capital of ISIS. It's Mosel. It's very, like, bucket bouquet. Your hunting estate is called Mosel? It's Mosel.

Fuck it up. So, with his wife and son found dead in Mosel, Elick Murdoch was the one to call in emergency services, and he placed this call at 10.07pm. He told the operator that he had been out and returned home after visiting his elderly mother, how very wholesome, to find his wife and youngest son murdered out in the open air by the dog kennels on Moselle. 22-year-old Paul Murdoch had been shot twice with a blackout rifle and his mother Maggie, 52, had been shot

with a semi-automatic shotgun. Now this crime scene was an absolute mess. Both Paul and Maggie had been shot several times. There was nothing clean about it. And this was certainly not the work of a professional. Still though, SLED took over the crime scene pretty quickly as it was very obvious that it was way beyond what the Sheriff's Department were equipped to handle. And also, everyone knew that the Murdoch family

wore the Hampton County Sheriff's Department like a sock puppet. Naturally, as the one who found the bodies, and also the spouse slash parent, Ellick Murdoch was at the very front of the person of interest queue. He was not impressed with this. He told Sled that he had an ironclad alibi. He said he had been visiting his dying father and then he went to visit his mother who was suffering with late-stage dementia and he just so happened to have done both of those things at the time that the murders took place and the visit to the mother was verified by her caregiver.

But wouldn't the caregiver of Mummy Murdoch be exactly the kind of person who would be scared to rat out a Murdoch because her literal livelihood depended on it? Yeah, that kind of feels like a connection that should be made. And we will find out later on that Alec Murdoch is absolutely no stranger to intimidating witnesses. It was determined at autopsy that Maggie and Paul had both been killed between 9 and 9.30pm. There were two weapons involved, like we said, but that doesn't necessarily mean two shooters. Both firearms were identified to belong to the Murdoch family. But again, Moselle is a literal

hunting lodge. It's the hunting estate for this family. But again, Moselle is a literal hunting lodge. It's the hunting estate for this family. There were guns everywhere. There was even a gun room. So by the same token, the guns belonging to the family didn't mean that a Murdoch must have shot them. Anyone who knew the property could have got hold of them. I don't think they did, but let's not get sidetracked here yet.

Let's stick with Ellick for now. What motive could he possibly have had for killing his son and his wife? Well, we don't really have much more than rumour at the moment. The word on the country lane was that Maggie and Ellick's marriage was on the rocks. Some people seem to think that Maggie had actually been to see a divorce lawyer, although we haven't been able to find any conclusive evidence that that actually happened. But I also think, like, just because someone hasn't physically gone to see a divorce lawyer doesn't mean that they're not thinking about divorce, you know?

Anyway, there was quite a lot of speculation that Maggie wasn't particularly happy in her marriage, but she loved being a Murdoch. The next piece of evidence I want to get your thoughts on. So there's, people make the point that the day before Maggie died, she's selling shoes on Poshmark for $28. And they're like, why would she be doing that? She must be, you know, trying to collect as much money as she can so she can run off into the sunset.

Bullshit, that's what rich people do. They're tight as fuck. Oh, yeah. People don't stay rich by frittering their money away. No. People don't stay rich by frittering their money away. No! You don't get wealthy by frittering your money away. You can be rich and fritter your money away because you can lose rich, like, fucking with a solid opioid addiction.

Wealthy is you don't fuck your money away. No, exactly. So I think that is such a classic, like, rich old lady thing to be doing. She probably doesn't buy branded orange juice. Do you know what I mean? It's like that kind of rich. For sure. So I don't put too much stock in the Poshmark thing. But anyway,

it does seem like Ellick and Maggie were living at different properties at the time of the double homicide. But I suspect that's actually a lot more to do with the fact that she was renovating one of their properties at the time. And I feel like rich people sleep in separate bedrooms, you know? I think it's just rich people stuff, stuff you know let's say that ellick did want to get rid of his wife to stop her from divorcing him why would he kill paul too that's a very good question i don't know the answer to it why would you kill your progeny because your wife is threatening to leave and they're not children they're not children it's not like he does it in a, you know, fuck you, you were trying to take my child away from me as well.

I'm going to kill you and I'm going to kill him because, you know, if I can't have him, whatever, or kill him first to punish her. He's an adult. It doesn't really fit that pattern. No, exactly. And also Buster was nowhere near Moselle that night. So this isn't a family annihilation.

Sure. It's specific and it's targeted. Yeah. It was widely and it's targeted. Yeah. It was widely known that Paul had learned absolutely nothing from the boat crash and was just as entitled and obnoxious as he had always been. So maybe Ella could just had enough of him. And maybe he thought he could just get away with it. Yeah.

Interestingly, Maggie did not have a life insurance policy. Very unusual for a rich woman. She did have an estate to the tune of about five million. And it's all tied up in trusts and bonds and blah, blah, blah. Sure. Naturally, life insurance policies don't pay out if you murder your wife. No, they don't. Famously, they don't. But estates.

Oh. Estates can be fucked with a lot more. And Ellick knew that. Look at what he did to Gloria Satterfield. But estates. Oh. Estates can be fucked with a lot more. And Ellick knew that. Look at what he did to Gloria Satterfield. Remember that. It's going to come back. Okay.

But let's entertain for the briefest of moments what motives any outsiders from the Murdoch clan may have had for killing Maggie and Paul. Apart from the fact that literally everyone hated the Murdochs. Everyone hates them, but everyone's terrified of them too. Yeah, you don't just be like, I hate that incredibly powerful family. I'm going to try break into their hunting estate and murder the matriarch and one of the sons. One group of people under suspicion were Mallory Beach's family. They had filed a civil suit going after the shop,

which is Parker's that we told you about at the start of the episode. That's the shop that sold Paul Murdoch, the White Claws, etc. and an Alec Murdoch specifically for normalising underage drinking in his family. Yeah, the Beechers, they can't get what they want. So what they're trying to do is settle the case by going after Parkers and being like, he had fake ID, he had his mum's credit card, he did the third party gesture and you didn't stop him. And then also it's very widely accepted that the Murdoch boys were drinking from like 14. It was encouraged by the family, blah, blah, blah.

So that's why they're suing both Ellick and Parkers at the same time. So you could say maybe the Beechers wanted to get back at Ellick, kill one of his kids as revenge, and maybe Maggie, the mum, just got in the way. Paul did claim that he had received threats since the crash. But props not, because every single one of Mallory Beecher's family cooperated totally with the police, even submitting DNA samples in the wake of the Moselle murders,

without question. So that one doesn't really work for us. Yeah, I don't think Mallory Beecher's family were anywhere fucking near it. I don't think they would have had the nerve to do that. Like, it's terrifying. And people who insinuate that the Beechers might be behind it or the Satterfields or something, the argument that is made, which is a very weak one in my opinion,

is that, like, oh, they hired a hitman to take them out. With what money, firstly? And also it doesn't look like a hit at all. Exactly. So that one doesn't work. Actually, quite a few things don't work for us or maybe just don't quite sit right. Firstly, there are no initial requests from the Murdoch family

to the public for information for weeks after Paula Maggi died. Until eventually a couple of other Murdochs, notably not Ellick, went on Good Morning America and offered a $100,000 reward for any information that led to an arrest in connection to the double homicide. Fine, you might be thinking. What is not fine is that this reward money had a time limit. All tips had to be submitted before the 30th of September 2021. To be in with a chance of winning that tax-free cash. Yeah, exactly. I've never seen that before.

It's crazy. I mean, you know, it's like I love my family, but only within this time window. Only until the 30th of September and then I'm out of here, baby. But it actually turned out that Ellick himself could have used that 100k. In the midst of the Gloria Satterfield investigation and the Mallory Beach suit, all of his assets were frozen. On top of that, his own brother sued him for embezzling money from their family law firm, which, if you need reminding, is called PMPED. So, Ellick Murdoch, murderer or not, was running out of options.

Eventually, he was going to have to untangle the financial web he had spun in the cold light of day and under the eyes of the law. Probably in a different county where he would be in real trouble. He really, really, really did not want to do that. That is his house of cards down, like that is game over. And it's double game over because just three days after Paul and Maggie were shot dead, the Logan Roy of our piece, Randolph Murdoch III, died. So Daddy wasn't around to protect Ellick anymore.

He was on his own. The house of cards is coming down. So the SLED investigation into the Murdoch murders continued and led to, although we don't know yet why, a renewed investigation into the death of Stephen Smith.

That would start from the total beginning. Literally all we know is that SLED have announced that they have come across evidence in the investigation of the double homicide that has led them to believe it is worth reopening the death of Stephen Smith, which is huge. Yes, absolutely.

But things are about to go from somewhat affirming to utterly batshit. Because on the 4th of September 2021, Elick Murdoch called 911, claiming that he too had been shot. At 1.34 he called emergency services and said that he had pulled over to change a flat tyre on his car on a rural road, seven miles from Moselle. He was driving to his hunting lodge from Charleston. Red flag number one, the road he was on was not a direct route

from Charleston to Moselle. But anyway, Elick told the 911 operator that a man had pulled up behind him as he was changing his tyre, shot him in the head, and then driven off. He also gave a description of the man who had shot him.

He said that he was white, he had really short hair and he was much younger than Ellick himself. This is all delivered in a very calm manner for a man who had been shot in the head. And again, you can go listen to the 911 calls on Mandy's podcast. What Ellick Murdoch didn't know was that the emergency services were simultaneously on the phone with a couple who had just driven past him on the rural road.

This couple told the operator that they'd just driven past a man who was waving his arms and covered in blood. They wanted to ring it in just in case, but they hadn't stopped because they thought the whole situation smelled like a set-up. And the operator told the couple that she didn't blame them. Red flag number two. Meanwhile, on the other line, Elick Murdoch told his operator that some people showed up in a white Nissan, and they were going to drive him to a hospital in Charleston.

But he also asked her to send an ambulance. The white Nissan probably never existed. Elick Murdoch was airlifted by a medical helicopter to a different hospital in Savannah, Georgia. Red flag number three because, get this, the helicopter was chartered before Elick Murdoch called 911. Firstly, by the fuck who? Secondly, why wouldn't he tell the operator that a helicopter was coming for him? And three, why would he tell the operator

that he was headed to a hospital in Charleston when he was going to a different state? It's not far, I'll give him that, but, like, they're in opposite directions. I mean, that is probably one of the most confusing parts of this story, this incident on the roadside. And it all went from weird to bonkers when 13 days later alec murdoch appeared at a bond hearing without a single scratch on him even a superficial head wound from having been shot in the head would

have left behind something but after not even weeks, he's there without a scratch. Fucking hell, Alec. It makes zero sense. So here is another much more likely version of events. An old client of Alec Murdoch, called Eddie Smith, either happened across Alec on the side of the road, or he was sent to find him by someone else or possibly by Ellick himself. Eddie Smith is also the exact opposite of the man that Ellick

describes on the phone. Sure, yeah, because Eddie was a logger. He'd also injured his lower back which left him unable to log. So he did odd jobs including for for the Murdochs, and he was actually on his way to a Murdoch property when he came across Ellick on the side of the road. And Eddie told Sled that Ellick was in an incredibly agitated state when he found him, and he'd asked Eddie to shoot him in the head. Eddie refused, so Ellick threatened to shoot himself. So a struggle ensued in which the gun was fired. So they're like tussling with it when he's telling him to shoot him and Eddie's like, no, the gun goes off. And then Eddie left, sure that Ellick was not hurt.

And as he put it, if I had wanted to shoot Ellick, he wouldn't have had a superficial head injury. He would have been dead. Yeah. The Murdoch camp had their own story. That Ellick was a drug addict. And that he had a $50,000 a week drug problem. And that the loss of his father, his wife, his son,

and all of this legal and money trouble he was going through had all pushed him over the edge. So the Murdoch camp say that Ellick hired Eddie Smith to kill him so that he could escape it all and leave his son Buster a decent trust fund behind but that wouldn't happen if he killed himself

someone else has to kill him right that's their argument there was also a bit of a feeble attempt to make it look like drug traffickers were after Ellick because he owed them money and also Mosel appeared

to have been purchased from a drug trafficker but like they're literally just like look over there do you know what I mean and it's a distraction it doesn't last very long also if I was owed money by Ellick Murdoch and I knew his family do have money maybe not liquid but they've got assets I wouldn't fucking kill him I would take him hostage and I would torture him until I got all the money yeah I don't know how much Eddie Smith knew I don't know if he really did just drive past him.

I don't know if he was sent there. Because he's on the way to a Murdoch property, right? So I don't know if they're like, oh, come this specific way, and then you'll see him on the... I don't know. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think Eddie Smith is a hitman. It did seem pretty obvious that Eddie Smith was not a hitman when the knife found at the

scene that was used to slash Ellick's tyres turned out to belong to him. And also when Sled discovered that Ellick's car didn't have a spare tyre in it in the first place. And all the while, Ellick is racking up more fraud charges from a plethora of different cases by the day.

So the shooting story is a load of nonsense and clearly SLED were pretty certain of that too. By the time it happened, Ellick already had 84 criminal charges and 11 lawsuits to worry about. I think that would probably give me a 50k a week drug addiction. I mean, quite. But on the 14th of July 2022, the grand jury had a few more problems to throw onto Alec Murdoch's worry pile. They indicted him for the murder of his wife and son, 13 months after they died. Naturally, never one to go down without a fight, Murdoch pleaded not guilty. Now before we get onto the trial, which I know you're all gagging to get to, we have to remind ourselves of the lesser discussed Murdoch.

Where the fuck is Buster in all of this? An excellent question, and I'm going to try and answer it. He's kind of everywhere and nowhere. He's like the Eggman. He is, you know, inextricably involved because if his dad goes down, he's the last one left. So all of the civil suits against his father will become his problem because he inherits the estate, right? But how is he going to settle any of these lawsuits when his dad has allegedly spent all of his embezzled millions on opioids?

So Buster, even though he was nowhere near Moselle on the night his brother and his mum died, is left holding the baby if the baby was made of debt and ruin. And drug addiction. Exactly. I, as I said, not a fan of any Murdoch. Buster doesn't seem to be a stand-up guy. He was extremely happy to be a Murdoch.

He did throw his weight around. He actually tended to wear a monogrammed cummerbund, for example, which makes me want to vomit. But it does seem, from what I have gathered, that Buster wasn't great, but he wasn't quite as obnoxious as Paul was. And what else is interesting is, remember Maggie's lack of life insurance? Well, she had named Ellick as the executor of her estate. Nothing weird about that. That's what most people do, leave everything to their partner. But what is weird is that Ellick Murdoch renounced his rights to Maggie's estate. Why would you do that? Exactly.

Could this have been in an attempt to make himself look less guilty? After all, your wife turns up dead, suddenly you inherit all of her money. Maybe if you say, I don't want that, I'm going to gonna renounce all of that maybe it makes you look less like you have a motive whether that will do him any good or not in this trial remains to be seen because obviously the trial is still ongoing we are like not anywhere near the end of it by the looks of things because as we speak 64 year old ellick murdoch is still very much standing trial for the murders of his wife and son. We are not going to give you a play-by-play of the trial that's Mandy Matney's job. We also can't give you a resolution for this story because the trial is unfolding right now and it could continue to unfold for months to come. What we're going to

give you is a very brief rundown of the cases presented by the prosecution and the case for the defence. This is the timeline that the prosecution give of the night that Maggie and Paul died. Maggie didn't really want to be at Mosel that night, but Elick asked her to go, so she went and she got there at about 8.15pm. Paul was already there. Buster, as we know, was out of town. Maggie and Paul had dinner together and that's backed up by the fact that they were both found to have similar stomach contents at autopsy. And then we know that at half past eight, Maggie and Paul headed down to the dog kennels, which are about a quarter mile from the main house. It's a 45 second drive and the dog kennels are very visible from the main house.

And we know that they were there because of Paul's mobile phone activity. Once at the kennels, Paul was looking at one of the dogs that actually belonged to a friend of his, and he thought the dog was wagging funny, so he took a video of the dog on his phone to send to his owner. And in the background of that video, Maggie and Ellick can be heard speaking to each other. Which is odd, considering that Ellick told police that he had not been down to the dog kennels that night, at all. And it's more odd when you learn that just three minutes after that dog video was taken,

Paul stopped interacting with his phone. Forever. It was never unlocked again. And neither was his mum's. So Alec's phone tells tales on him too. There is absolutely no activity on his phone between 8.09 and 9.02. And we know from autopsy that Maggie and Paul died between 9 and 9.30. At 9.04, Aleick calls Maggie's phone.

There's no answer. Funny that, she's dead. Mm-hmm. Then he calls his dad, Randolph. No answer. At 9.06, he called Maggie again. Then he texts her, saying that he was going to go check on his mum. How very convenient.

But strangely, he chose not to drive past the dog kennels on his way out of the estate. Because you see, Moselle has two driveways, one that goes past the kennels, which is the one that everyone uses, and it's like where the postbox is, etc. But Alec didn't take that one that night. If he couldn't get hold of his wife, why wouldn't he check the kennels on his way out? Like, you can see it from the house. He would have been able to see if they were down there. And if he's trying to get hold of her, you would just drive that way out. Even if you couldn't see them, you would just check on your way past, wouldn't you?

And it's also the route that everybody always takes out of the estate. Yeah, it's like, it's unusual to take the other drive. Yeah. And although Ellick was wearing totally clean clothes, a white T-shirt to be precise, when the police showed up, there was gunshot residue on his car seatbelt and Maggie's blood was found on the steering wheel.

Apparently a lot of people forget about seatbelts. And they forget to clean them. You would. And his housekeeper had already told the court that Ellick was wearing a different T-shirt when he left in the morning and that she had felt pressured by him to say differently. So to say that he was wearing the white shirt that he was found in by the police. And interestingly, there was no DNA on him from Maggie or Paul,

even though he had insisted that he had turned Paul over and checked if both of them were breathing. This is the thing, sometimes the absence of evidence looks really, really suspicious. Like when your own wife's DNA is not anywhere on you. Yeah, exactly. Additionally, neither Maggie nor Paul had any defensive wounds and they were shot at from extremely close range, indicating that they had no idea that they were shot at from extremely close range indicating that they had

no idea that they were under threat murdoch's defense team unsurprisingly were two things old and expensive very boys club basically their argument is that ellick could not have got from the main house down to the dog kennels back up to the house cleaned all the blood off him and got changed in the 10 minutes that his phone was inactive. Which of course he could, it's a 45 second drive. Yeah. And the fact that there is gunshot residue on the seatbelt shows that he probably did drive back from the kennels to the main house. And also the other thing about it seeming like it was somebody they knew is they're in the middle of an estate, right? They're at the dog kennels there's no running their bodies aren't found like in two different places because there's been a chase there's been like a pursuit by this hitman who has been hired by somebody who doesn't like the

murdoch family it's like we're all down at the dog kennels bang bang it's like they like you said they never saw it coming because they were with somebody that they knew. I agree. But the defence, granted, they don't have too much to go on and they don't really seem to make that much sense, but they argue that SLED had no idea what was going on with the case, they couldn't solve it, so they decided to put it all on Ehrlich, even though they have no evidence and no motive, which, like Side-Eye, they have both of those things. Basically, they're like, well, it took 13 months to arrest him,

so they can't have had that much evidence, which, like, well, it took 13 months to arrest him, so they can't have had that much evidence, which, like, that's just not how that works. The fact that they arrested a Murdoch within 13 months of a murder says that they probably

have a shitload of evidence. And also, they're reopening the Stephen Smith case because of other evidence they've discovered. How are you going to say they have no evidence?

And as for motive, you don't have to show motive. The prosecution does not have to show motive at court. And also, murdering your spouse, like, I'm not trying to show motive. The prosecution does not have to show motive at court. And also, murdering your spouse, like, I'm not trying to sound like someone's mum on Facebook. That's motive enough, because that's who kills you.

Exactly. So, by the time you hear this, the trial of Alec Murdoch will be in its sixth week. And God knows what will have happened in the time that we record this and the time it releases. At the moment we know that Buster has taken the stand and that the prosecution rests. We have absolutely no idea what will happen next but we do know that this is not the end and that is a big deal which is Mandy Matneyney sign off she does sound like a superhero comic journalist yeah i'm mandy matney with fitz news here to tell you about the murder johnny murders

johnny murder murders but no that is it and i think basically we're obviously going to go on the road very very soon we're doing under the duvets from the road and yeah probably like we'll have to come back to this i think as as a full case but maybe we can do updates while we're out there yeah I think we will obviously as I said there are things that I have left out specifically because I think they will be easier to tackle in a part two but this trial could go on for a bajillion years so we really don't know but I promise that when it is concluded we will come back absolutely so I think keep your eyes and ears peeled for updates from us, hopefully this year, on Idaho, on Delphi, and on the Murdoch case,

because all three of them are pending trials or currently in trial. So let's see. So have fun. Do nice things. Go find Mandy. Yes. And we'll see you next time. Yes.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years.

I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

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