Alex Murdaugh, the suspended South Carolina attorney accused of financial wrongdoing and setting up a suicidal insurance fraud scheme, was charged with 23 more crimes in four new indictments returned by a grand jury, the state attorney general said Friday.
Three months after the gruesome discoveries of his wife and son on the family estate, Alex Murdaugh allegedly hitched a suicide-for-hire plot to have himself shot and killed on another rural Hampton County road so that his surviving son Buster could collect on a $10 million life insurance policy.
Mr Murdaugh's attorney Jim Griffin previously said his client was a person of interest in his wife and son's deaths “from the get go” but insisted that he didn't think “in any form or fashion” the will was a motive for their deaths.
Murdaugh does not have seven million dollars or anything close to that amount," according to a motion filed Tuesday in the state grand jury system by Murdaugh's attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, The Island Packet first reported. "Mr. Murdaugh is a man who cannot pay his phone bill."
The failed shooter, 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith of Walterboro, has since been arrested and issued a $55,000 total bond. Overnight, an arrest was made in the shooting of prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, an attack authorities now say Murdaugh actually planned himself. @CatieBeckNBC reports.
Beach died Feb. 24, 2019 in a Beaufort County boat crash involving Alex Murdaugh's boat. The boat was allegedly driven by his younger son, Paul, who was indicted on three felony boating under the influence charges and awaiting trial at the time of his death.
In November, a series of five indictments charged Murdaugh with 27 counts of financial crimes between 2015 and 2021. The charges allege he stole a total of $4.8 million from clients and his law firm, laundering the money through a personal bank account.
Murdaugh has not been charged in the murders of his 22-year-old son or 52-year-old wife. Griffin, however, says he does not believe Murdaugh killed Maggie and Paul.
Murdaugh, 53, was suspended from practicing law on Sept. 8, 2021. He remains detained in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County on a $7 million bond.
Paul Murdaugh was released on his own recognizance and for nearly two years, his case dragged on as he awaited trial. Then in June of 2021, Paul Murdaugh and his mother Maggie Murdaugh were found fatally shot outside their family home.
Murdaugh has been indicted on charges he engineered a scheme to collect $4.3 million in liability insurance proceeds that were supposed to go to the Satterfield family.
Paul Murdaugh was the son of prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh and came from three generations of elected prosecutors in Hampton County. (Pictured from left to right) Connor Cook pictured with Miley Altman, Anthony Cook pictured with Mallory Beach and Paul Murdaugh pictured with Morgan Doughty.