CHARLESTON, S.C. (CN) — Dogs bayed as gunfire crackled the night a mother and son were brutally murdered at their hunting estate nestled among the ramrod pines and foggy swamps of the Lowcountry.
Alex Murdaugh, the esteemed attorney and family patriarch, stood alone when authorities first arrived upon a tragedy that would expose decades-old machinations and raise concerns about the prominent family’s powerful grip on the region.
Murdaugh was convicted this month for the gruesome slayings. It took the jury in Walterboro, South Carolina, about an hour to decide the 54-year-old defendant was “blowing snot” from the witness stand when he claimed he would never kill those closest to him, one juror told ABC News.
It ended, for some, a bedeviling mystery that haunted the rural community, but exposed still more questions as jurors learned about the ex-attorney’s sprawling financial schemes.
Murdaugh admitted on the witness stand he stole $8.7 million from his former clients, as well as the family’s century-old law firm, before his wife, Maggie, and son Paul were gunned down on June 7, 2023, at the Moselle estate.
Some fraud victims were crippled in car crashes. Others grieved dead loved ones. He stole from the sons of the housekeeper who helped raise his children and an injured state highway patrolman, he confessed.
Authorities spent more than a year untangling Murdaugh’s money. So far, the paper trail has led to nearly a half-dozen arrests, from a prominent local banker to a convicted drug dealer.
Robert Kittle, a spokesman for the South Carolina Attorney General's Office, said he could not comment on whether the financial investigation continues or if more people may face charges in the conspiracy.
No trials dates are set in the financial case, "but we will be looking at the calendar with the courts to schedule them," he said.
Despite receiving two consecutive life sentences for the murders, Murdaugh will be prosecuted in the financial case, Kittle said.
"Those crimes have victims, and they deserve justice too," he said.
The generous banker
Russell Laffitte was the CEO of Palmetto State Bank, a Lowcountry institution nearly as old as the Murdaugh family’s law firm, before his relationship with the defendant came under scrutiny.
In July, Laffitte became the first defendant to face federal charges in the Murdaugh case when a grand jury indicted him for bank fraud and other charges.
The banker was a generous friend to the cash-poor attorney, authorities say. When Murdaugh’s bank accounts went red, Laffitte readily offered more money in loans sometimes kept off the bank’s books. With the banker’s help, settlement checks intended for Murdaugh’s clients were instead diverted into Murdaugh’s bank accounts or the accounts of his debtholders.
Laffitte testified at his trial in the fall he was an unwitting pawn in the client’s schemes. The jury deliberated for several hours before two members asked to be removed — one so she could take some medication and another because of intense anxiety during deliberations.
As the Thanksgiving holiday loomed, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, a Barack Obama appointee, granted the requests and filled the seats with alternates. The reconstituted jury took less than an hour to reach guilty verdicts on all counts.
Laffitte hired new attorneys who have filed two motions for retrials. Gergel dismissed the first motion, which raised issue with the 11th-hour juror swap. On March 9, the defense attorneys requested a new trial based on Murdaugh’s testimony in the murder case that Laffitte “never conspired” with him to steal money.
Murdaugh invoked his right against self-incrimination at Laffitte’s trial.
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