Shortcut: The Murdaugh Murders - ATC International
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This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Laurie. Our guest today is Kayla Brantley. She's a crime correspondent with the Daily Mail based in New York City. For the last couple of years, though, Kayla and her team have been focused on South Carolina and the scandalous case of the Murdoch murders. With a guilty verdict recently overturned, Kayla joins us to talk about all the shocking details. But we begin with life as a New York City crime reporter.
Who is Kayla Brantley and why is she covering the Murdaugh case?
This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
So I host a weekly podcast called The Trial USA. This is the US branch of our wider trial podcast where we tackle trials per season. So last year we did the trial of Diddy. That was the first season of our US version of the trial. And this case has really gripped the nation. There have been documentaries on it since it's happened. And this just happened in 2021. So within five years, there's been multiple documentaries. There was even a TV show with Patricia Arquette playing Alex Murdoch's wife, Maggie. Which I love. By the way, I love that show.
Do you love it?
Oh, yeah.
Patricia Arquette, she's incredible. I love anything she's in.
Same.
How would you describe it sort of in a nutshell? Because a lot of our listeners will be like me and you, fascinated by it, will have been following every moment, have watched all the TV shows, but some others may not be really sure what we're talking about. So it's so complicated, but how would you describe this story in a nutshell?
Okay, I will try my best, but essentially, Alex Murdoch, he is a South Carolina attorney. He was born into this prominent legal family and he honestly appeared to have it all. He had a family, a booming business, sons and a beautiful wife and very wealthy family. Then back on June 7th, 2021, about a little over five years ago, Everything just imploded when his wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son, Paul, were shot dead at the dog kennels on the family's estate. That's their Moselle estate in South Carolina. This double murder, it then sparked a chain reaction that ultimately exposed and uncovered Alex Murdoch's scandal-plagued double life, essentially. After the murders, we find out that he allegedly orchestrates a bizarre botched murder-for-hire plot on himself.
Then we uncover that there were all these mysterious deaths tied to the family that included a death of the family's maid and another teen girl who was killed in a And then this all culminates when Alex Murdoch was convicted for the murders of his wife and son back in 2023. And just when we thought things were over back in May, that ruling was completely overturned. That conviction was overturned and he will be granted a retrial thanks to the court clerk who was found to have influenced the jury. So this is where we are at now.
Unbelievable. Uh, So just where do you start? I suppose we can start with the other element, which some people call a motive, which is that Alec Murdoch had been apparently had stolen about $19 million from his clients. And of course, that would come to light if a divorce case was brought against him, which apparently Maggie was seriously considering at the time of her death.
Yeah.
Yeah, so the motive that the authorities have put forward was that he did this murder to try to cover up and distract from his mounting financial crimes that were about to be exposed. And that, you know, he is also, while he did get convicted of murder, that's now overturned. He will never get out of prison again. He has so many other cases and so many other financial crimes, and there's so much still mounted against him that no matter what, whether this conviction is overturned and then goes to trial, and if he's found to be not guilty, he will never get out of prison.
Which brings us to why attempt to have his murder convictions overturned, because doesn't he stand to get the death penalty, possibly?
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