Original subtitles

[Anne Emerson] Gloria satterfield was the murdaugh housekeeper.

Gloria saw the murdaughs as part of her extended family

so, when Alex came up to the boys

at the funeral of their mother and said,

"I'm going to pay you through my insurance,

because your mother died on my property..."

They believed him.

They trusted him implicitly,

that he was going to do the right thing by them.

In 2019,

when the boys find out that there's a settlement

of over half a million dollars, they were shocked.

Gloria's sons know nothing about him.

[Anne Emerson] To understan the full picture here,

we have to go back in time.

In 2015, six years before the double murders of Paul and Maggie murdaugh

Alex allegedly opened a bank account

with bank of america,

and it was called, "forge."

Forge is also the name of a very legitimate group

that handles these kind of settlement claims.

[Man] Forge consulting is a settlement funding compan out of Atlanta

for people who are coming into large settlements.

It manages your money for you, in a sense,

by doling out money in small amounts over time,

rather than giving you a lump sum of money.

So, any lawyer that hears the name forge

is gonna immediately identify with forge consulting.

[Michael virzi] That made I look as though the settlemen went through forge consultin

in a legitimate, settlement funding annuity.

But instead, that was his personal bank account.

[Man] So after Gloria dies in 2018,

Alex murdaugh approaches Gloria's sons

and pitches them an idea to sue him,

so that they can get wrongful death settlement money on her behalf

and be taken care of financially.

[Virzi] Alex did, in fact, represent them

in the lawsuit against himself.

It's ethically impermissible,

but it's not physically impossible.

He did it,

with co-council Cory Fleming

they would agree to be represented by Cory and Alex

[man] But Alex did not make known to Tony satterfie

that this was someone who he had been close to

for the better part of three decades.

[Virzi] And instead of bein loyal to his clients

and making sure that Brian and Tony were taken care of,

he apparently did whatever Alex told him to do

Cory Fleming came to them and said,

"this is complicated stuff.

Let's get a business person involved.

Let's get someone else to represent

your mother's estate,"

because somebody has to go in front of the judge and say, "this is okay."

[Emerson] And the boys say, "yes, of course.

If we need to have a personal representative,

we'll have a personal representative."

So, we introduce a new character to this whole scenario,

and that's a man named Chad westendorf.

He's a vice president at palmetto state bank.

He's a very powerful man in a powerful position.

Once Chad westendorf is the personal representative

he does not have to talk to the boys anymore

about what's going on with the settlement money.

That's the last the boys hear

about where that money actually is.

So within 24 hours of Chad westendorf taking on this new role,

Cory Fleming files the first claim against Alex murdaugh

for $505,000.

But there were two insuranc settlements that happened.

[Virzi] So, the first settlement approval was the $505,000,

and then murdaugh also had another policy.

And that money is a substantial amount.

That's $3.8 million.

Both of the insurance companies pay a total of $4.3 million.

And by bringing Chad westendorf in,

they were able to keep it from the satterfields.

[Emerson] Once it's passed through Chad westendorf, Cory Fleming,

within this "forge" bank account,

it ends up in the hands of Alex murdaugh.

Chad westendorf and Cory Fleming say that they had no party

to this whole alleged scheme

to defraud the satterfields.

Each says that he's a pawn of Alex murdaugh.

[Virzi] The satterfields didn't know until years late

that there was any settlement at all.

They learned about the first part

of the settlement, the $500,000,

when it was reported by a local reporter

who was looking into the boat crash.

[Emerson] Tony and his broth get a lawyer involved

to find out what's happened to their mother's money,

the money that was supposed to come to them.

There's gonna be a paper trail when it comes to money.

There were checks, and when checks are deposite

there's ink on the back that says exactly what bank account it went to,

and those records exist,

and those records are discoverable.

Right? You can always find where the money went.

[Gregg Roman] Tony satterfield,

because of the unsolved deat of his mother,

still does not know what actually happened on that day.

The only thing he knows is he was robbed by Alex murdaugh,

an attorney who was supposed to represent his interest.

[Woman] After Maggie and pau were murdered,

when everything came out

of Alex doing what he did to Tony and Brian,

I was in disbelief.

He's always been like family...

And I just couldn't belie that he did this to these boys.

To this day, I still can't believe it.

[Virzi] Seeing that name, "forge," and realizing what he had done,

the first thing some of us thought was,

"this can't be the first time, right?

Is there more?

Are there more victims out here?"

[Virzi] You can hide financial crimes for a while

but you get that one drop of sugar in the glass, and...

The evidence is gonna be there to make the rest of it fall to the bottom.

[Woman] When you start tracing money and you get in people's financials,

and you know who they're paying money to

the books are open.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

You better go ahead and just fess up and tell the truth.

[Drew Tripp] All this troubl with Alex murdaugh,

once that all starts snowballing,

there is mounting evidence

he was potentially involved in more criminal behavior

than what was presently known.

It appears that he had spent years and years defrauding people.

And so, we're starting to se a lot of these people

starting to come out of the woodwork.

One of the more heartbreaking cases to emerge

after the revelations of the satterfields

was lieutenant Tommy Moore...

A state highway patrol trooper for south Carolina

who was involved in a terrible accident on the job.

This was three years before the murders

of Maggie and Paul murdaugh

the accident happened during what we called "snowmageddon" down here.

It probably snows once in a blue moon.

A major snowstorm, for us..

In January 2018.

[Man] The road was iced over in most places,

and we had wrecks galore.

I was parked completely off the road with my blue lights on.

The next thing I knew, I just felt a big jolt,

and my seat broke and threw me backwards.

Trooper Moore said that when that car slammed into the back of him,

he knew something was very wrong.

[Lt. Thomas Moore] I had an extreme amount of pain in my neck,

and it basically felt like I was being shocked with electric current.

[Emerson] After the accident

the doctors diagnosed him with a sprained neck.

So he gets treated for that

but the pain never really goes away,

and workman's comp is just diagnose and treating a sprained neck.

[Lt. Moore] Things were not getting better.

They were getting worse.

It just felt like a hopeless situation.

[Emerson] Trooper Moore had to do something,

so he paid out of pocket and went and saw a doctor for himself.

And what he discovers is tha it's not just a sprained nec

[lt. Moore] I had some fractures, um, and that I needed surgery,

basically, now.

The workman's comp denied my claims,

and that they were not paying for surgery.

And so I knew, you know,

at that point, somebody's got to pay the bills.

Nobody's gonna do it for fre

trooper Moore could not afford

to just take on that kind of expense.

He needed a lawyer,

and he says that a friend of his

pointed him toward Alex murdaugh.

[Lt. Moore] He was confiden I had a case.

He was confident that everything would be okay in the end.

[Emerson] One of the things that trooper Moore said to m

was that he trusted Alex murdaugh implicitly.

There was never any doubt in his mind, he said,

that Alex murdaugh would do the right thing.

[Lt. Moore] I had neck surgery after that.

It was well over $250,000, to my understanding.

[Emerson] Meanwhile, Alex murdaugh is filing clai on behalf of trooper Moore

with the insurance companies, trying to get a settlement.

My insurance was $100,000 coverage, and that's what they paid out.

[Emerson] That is money that is delivered to trooper Moore,

but before he deposits that check

in his own bank account,

he gets specific instructions from Alex murdaugh.

[Lt. Moore] When he asked m to bring him the check,

I had no qualms about it.

I gave it to him because I w told that's how it work.

He told me that it would have to be endorsed by me

and would have to be in some kind of frozen account.

[Emerson] Moore says that Alex says,

"we're gonna put it into an account

that can't be touched

until all of the litigation surrounding your accident

is finished."

Months go by.

He hears nothing about where his money is.

He was running up debt and credit card bills.

He would call and ask and was told the same story

that he just needed to wait

trooper Moore never stopped waiting.

Trooper Moore never got that money.

That $100,000 check, it didn go into a protected account

it went into the forge account.

That money went into the same account

that Alex allegedly used

for the Gloria satterfield money.

It's unethical to deceive people,

and when you start thinking you can get away with things,

and you start getting away with things,

you start trying to get away with more things.

[Emerson] Pmped says that they found out

that there were some irregularities going on in their law firm.

It was money that had been misappropriated, they said,

from clients' accounts, as well as their own.

[Lt. Moore] The murdaugh law firm called me and said

"look, Tommy. There's a problem.

Your money's been taken...

And it's going to be replaced.

We're putting it back in the account,

but it was taken.

It was taken by Mr. Murdaugh

and we're not gonna hang you out to dry."

[Tripp] Is this something that Alex murdaugh

had been doing for years?

Did he come up with this on his own,

or was this something that was taught him?

Was he brought into this,

or was he the mastermind behind?

[Roman] Alex murdaugh, someone who's seen

as the protector of Hampton county,

who's now become the swindler in chief

of Hampton county.

He stole from people he was supposed to protect.

It's hard to imagine a clearer and more obvious case

of a lawyer's breach of duty to his client.

He stole money.

I wonder how much of any of this

Maggie knew or suspected

before Paul and Maggie being murdered.

She purportedly had seen an attorney for a divorce earlier.

Um, it wasn't because of things like this

[Tripp] Alex murdaugh's attorneys have denied

that Maggie had been seeing a divorce attorney,

but this is really kicking into high gear

around labor day, about three months after the murders.

[Emerson] What was happenin behind the scenes

was enormous in Alex murdaugh's life.

Partners of the pmped law firm,

that's Alex murdaugh's law firm,

the family law firm...

They discovered that there was money missing

they says that there is a suspicious check

that shows up on his desk,

and that money has been taken out of clients'

and the firm's own accounts

and his brother and his fellow law partners confront him.

[Tripp] Alex met with his brother, Randy,

and another partner at the pmped law firm.

[Emerson] They confronted Alex murdaugh about embezzlement.

"What have you been doing?

What's going on here?"

[Roman] Everything starts to fall apart.

You lie and you lie and you lie and you lie,

and you expect your narrative...

To somehow be the truth?

And then, what happens is something

that no one else could've ever predicted.

[Tripp] Pmped forces Alex to resign from his position

with his own family's law firm,

based on his apparent embezzlement of funds from the law firm

and stealing of settlement money from clients.

This is a law firm that goes back more than a century.

His own great-grandfather had actually founded this law firm.

[Tripp] Alex now exposed misdeeds of stealing from clients

and stealing from his law firm.

He says his world was caving in that day,

the same way it had three months earlier

when his wife and son had been killed.

[D'Michelle dupre] This is massive fall from grace, devastation.

Alex has certainly never been in this position before.

The family has never been in this position before.

All of the sudden, everything has basically turned upside down.

[Emerson] There is so much happening at the same time

coming to a head for Alex murdaugh in his life.

Not only is he dealing with the double murders,

he's dealing with lawsuits from the fatal boat crash.

He's dealing with accusation of embezzlement

from his own law firm.

The state law enforcement division's

looking into the death of Stephen Smith,

based on information that they gathered

during the investigation of Paul and Maggie murdaugh's murders,

and they're looking into Gloria satterfield's death.

To fall this hard and this fast for Alex murdaugh

was an incredible amount of pressure.

[Phone ringing]

[Emerson] He was on his way to Charleston.

He was driving his late wife's Mercedes,

and he gets a low pressure alert on the car's dashboard.

So 911 dispatches, of course, emergency personnel,

um, and law enforcement, as well.

[Emerson] This is labor day weekend,

and in the middle of this day,

we get an alert that Alex murdaugh has been shot.

And I got on the phone with Jim Griffin,

who was Alex murdaugh's lawyer,

and said, "Mr. Griffin, what's happened?

What's happened? He's been shot."

"Yes, he's been shot. He was on the side of the road.

They're trying to get him to a hospital right now.

I just got off the phone with his brother, Randy."

I said, "is he alive?"

"Yes, he's alive. We don't know what condition

my initial reaction was, "maybe one of the people

that he had wronged finally came back and dealt with him."

They were an older since of justice.

[Emerson] We were told right after the double murde

that the community wasn't in danger.

There was a huge concern that something was going on,

uh, that someone was taking a hit out on the murdaughs at this point.

[Tripp] It's just flooring.

And it sends your mind into overdrive, like, "whoa."

[Roman] There are so many questions as it relates to the events

between the beginning of June when Alex murdaugh's family members are killed

and September 4th, 2021 when he was shot in the head.

[Dupre] The car that Alex was driving at the time

can go 50 miles with a flat tire

before ever being changed.

The road that he was on,

supposedly going, I think he said, to Charleston,

is not the road that locals would take to go to Charleston.

We have been taken on so many twists and turns in this story

and we're still finding out what the details are.

Every single day we wake up to check the press,

to check the newspapers,

to be looking at what's going to happen next.

Now, the bizarre chain of violence surrounding

a prominent south Carolina legal family.

Attorney Alex murdaugh is expected to survive

after being shot in the head yesterday.

It seems that the members of their family are being targeted by someone.

Who that is remains to be seen.

[Brian foley] Certainly, the shooter has got to be

concerned that the victim has survived,

uh, a gunshot to the head.

[Reporter] There's so much mystery surrounding this family,

it's hard to imagine that this is random.

Right after Alex murdaugh has been in this roadside shooting,

information starts tumbling out that it's not just that straightforward.

Pmepd says that they found o that there were some

irregularities going on in their law firm.

And they confronted Alex murdaugh about it.

[Reporter] Alex's bother ran issued a statement on the situation saying,

[reading]

"In stealing by manipulating his most trusted relationships."

[Emerson] Randy murdaugh says that his brother has do

some things that he needs to be accountable for.

That was a devastating momen in that murdaugh dynasty.

There are also several sled investigations going on.

And the unsolved double murders.

At that point, Alex makes a decision that

he's going to come clean.

[Tripp] That's the time tha the apparent opioid addictio

is first put out there by Alex's attorneys.

[Reporter] In a statement tonight, Alex murdaugh writes in part, quote,

"the murders of my wife and son have caused

an incredibly difficult time in my life.

I have made a lot of decisio that I truly regret.

[Reading]

Alex murdaugh is now checked in to a rehabilitation facility

and is recovering after being shot this past weekend.

It was at least another week before Alex murdaugh

told law enforcement another version of what happened

on old salkehatchie road.

Basically, in rehab, he told officers that

he hired a man named Curtis Edward Smith

to help him commit suicide

so it would look like somebody else shot him.

[Tripp] He had just a schem to have himself killed

so that his son, buster, will get a $10 million

life insurance policy settlement upon Alex's death

Alex believing that if he committed suicide himself

the policy would not pay out.

According to Alex's attorneys,

that's the only way out that he saw.

[Reporter] South Carolina lawyer, Alex murdaugh turned himself in

after being accused of arranging his own death

for $10 million in insuranc money that his son would get

everyone was shocked by the, sort of fake,

suicide-for-hire thing that happened,

so yeah, there's no telling what's going to happen next.

[Tripp] Alex and Curtis edd Smith are arrested.

Both on charges of insurance fraud

related to the failed assisted suicide attempt.

Agents with the south Carolina law enforcement division

have arrested 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith

of colleton county.

State authorities say Smith planned the shooting with Alex murdaugh

so that murdaugh's surviving son could collect

a $10 million life insurance policy.

After shooting murdaugh in the head,

investigators say Smith drov to an unknown location

where he disposed of the weapon.

[Emerson] Curtis Edward Smith's nickname is cousin eddy.

He's not a close familial relationship,

to Alex murdaugh, but he's certainly part of the clan.

Alex's lawyers called eddy Smith Alex's long time drug dealer.

That is not what eddy Smith described himself as to me.

Eddy Smith described himself as a buddy,

a brother, to Alex murdaugh.

[Emerson] According to eddy Smith,

he said he couldn't believe

when he was arrested on these charges.

Because he said what happene was very different that day

he says that he went to old salkehatchie road

after Alex murdaugh called him and said,

"can you please come?" And he did.

And he saw his friend in a l of distress and very upset.

When Alex pulled out the gun

they grappled and the gun did go off.

And it did graze the back of Alex's head,

but he was fine, to the point where he drove off.

He wasn't going there to kill Alex murdaugh,

according to eddy's lawyers

he was going there to save him.

Everyone around this guy seems to die except him

when, coincidentally, he wants to die.

That's the big question, Lawrence.

How does a guy, that you hire to kill you, misses?

How does he fail at that? That's the lead to me.

[Tripp] So, Alex's bond hearing is in mid-September

related to the assisted suicide attempt

and insurance fraud scheme.

He was driven straight from rehab to the Hampton county courthouse.

[Emerson] It was a reversal of fortune for Alex murdaugh

this was a very powerful, well-respected lawyer

who had graced these courtrooms many, many times before.

He was in handcuffs. He was wearing prison garb.

So, where was the gunshot wound?

Is what everybody wanted to know.

When people are staring at a back of a head

and you can't find a wound,

it was incredibly hard for people to understand

what really happened to him that day.

[Roman] Alex murdaugh has been so cold

and so calculating and so deliberate,

and every single action in his life

from the time that he became a lawyer

to the time that he allegedly tried to engineer his own death.

[Emerson] After this hearing, he is allowed

to leave the state of south Carolina

and go to rehab down in Florida.

That's when the state starts preparing its case against him.

There are several allegations

that they've been looking into.

Multiple investigations tha they are still working on.

[Tripp] The state police announce they're investigati

Alex murdaugh for financial crimes.

Potential theft of funds from clients, his law firm.

[Emerson] As Alex is sitting in rehab,

this money that he allegedly misappropriated,

starts coming to light.

Now, the state is ready to charge him again.

[Tripp] He's indicted again in October

on criminal charges related to the death of Gloria satterfield

after it's revealed Alex murdaugh stole

roughly $4.3 million from Gloria satterfield's estate

State police in Florida are there, waiting on him

to pick him up as he walks out of the rehab facility.

And they're preparing to extradite him back

to south Carolina to face charges.

[Emerson] When this bond hearing happens,

it is literally a packed courtroom.

In just a period of a few months,

it has turned into an international media circus.

And there are literally stations from all over the country.

You can feel the pressure and the tension

of what's going on with the prosecutors and the lawyers.

The courtroom's also filled with the satterfields.

The sons of Gloria satterfield.

[Indistinct]

Your honor, we're here, uh, today in the case of

state verses Richard Alexander murdaugh

and he is here for a bond setting on two county arrest warrants.

We expected that the satterfield's lawyer

would be making a speech saying, you know,

"these are terrible crimes against the satterfields."

Your honor, my partner and I have been doing legal malpractice for 30 years.

And we have never seen such a breach of trust.

A man who stole money, from the very family

of the housekeeper that helped raise his kids.

He had all that money. He absconded with that money.

He transferred it to his personal accounts.

And he used it for his own personal use.

[Emerson] What we didn't expect was when

the prosecution came forwar and said that,

"we believe that there are multiple crimes

that allegedly were committed by this man."

[Creighton waters] Um, your honor, this is an ongoing investigation.

Your honor, this is the tip of the iceberg.

Um, it is, uh, this is an ongoing investigation

and I think there is going to be four more that

we will reveal as we review these records.

[Emerson] The judge wanted to know why they though that

so, there was a sled agent there.

And, for a sled agent to com forward and talk to the judg

it was an incredibly tense moment.

You could literally feel this packed courtroom lean in.

The south Carolina law enforcement division, we are

we are investigating multiple different allegations

or investigations at this point in time

to include the Stephen Smith death, which you're aware of,

um, the actual cause of Mrs. Satterfield's death,

um, we are looking into that.

Um, the financial case that you're here with today

and numerous other financial investigations dealing with,

with fraud or possible other criminal actions.

That's not to say that there won't be additional charges brought forth in the future.

[Emerson] The judge issued no bond.

And when he said "no bond,"

you could hear the gasp in the courtroom.

There was no way we could have expected the judge to,

literally, say that Alex murdaugh was gonna remain behind bars.

[Eric bland] I think it's a good day for justice.

We're pleased. We thought that Alex is a danger to,

not only our clients, but society.

We think it's a good decision and it's just a good day,

uh, for justice in our country.

[Roman] Alex murdaugh faces charges against him

for a muloo of different alleged crimes.

For insurance fraud to swindling to theft.

Not to mention lawsuits whic are knocking on his door.

[Emerson] What we were told when he was

lead out of the courtroom in handcuffs

was that he was going to go under

a psychological evaluation

to see what kind of state he was really in.

So, immediately we were thinking, how long would this actually hold?

How long would they hold Alex murdaugh in jail?

I don't know if I've ever seen a life unravel faster than Alex murdaugh's.

[Reporter] Murdaugh is facing new charges, now,

for scamming millions of dollars, allegedly.

Not only did he now have the double murders

hanging over everything.

He was also still dealing wi this fatal boat crash

and being sued by Mallory beach's mother.

As one case is uncovered, another one is uncovered.

And these are financial crimes.

All kinds of new information coming out

practically by the week.

Investigations that are now circling the murdaugh family.

Now the charges start snowballing for Alex murdaug

his family founded this firm that he was tangled with.

And apparently he was stealing money, as well.

[Linda hiers] You think you know a person.

But then you turn around an see him as this person here

I don't know what went wrong or what happened.

But, you know, he's not the person that I grew up with.

[Brant] This is a pandora's box that's already open.

I think the best thing to do

is for everyone to tell everything they know.

Just put it out there and let the chips fall.

[Tripp] Several more indictments from the state grand jury come down

on more financial crime charges.

And this time the judge did set bond.

[Reporter] The judge set his bond at $7 million.

Judge Lee did site concerns about murdaugh's flight risk

[Emerson] That number, $7 million, was allegedly

the amount of money that was stolen from various clients of Alex murdaugh.

Murdaugh's lawyers say setting it that high is basically

the same as not granting bond at all.

[Emerson] The fall from grace for Alex murdaugh has been substantial.

His brother's suing him and he sits in jail.

He has been suspended indefinitely as a lawyer

in the state of south Carolina.

His name is no longer on the family law firm.

Even though it was Peters murdaugh Parker eltzroth and detrick's,

it was known as the murdaugh firm.

So, removing that name is significant.

[Tripp] All those years of well-earned cache and clout

now thrown away by the actions of one partner.

Suspended attorney Alex murdaugh has confessed

to wrongdoing for the first time since facing a mountai of legal troubles.

He agreed that he owes $4 million to the family of his former housekeeper.

There are new victims in the murdaugh money mess.

Twenty-seven new charges related to money fraud.

Wire fraud, there's bank fraud, there's mail fraud, there's conspiracy.

Facing more than a dozen new indictments.

Now facing 21 additional charges...

Five new indictments. Money laundering, forgery,

breach of trust, and computer crime charges.

Now facing more than 70 charges.

[Reporter] And murdaugh faces 75 total charges

and stands accused of defrauding victims out of more than $8 million.

[Roman] While it was despicable what Paul murdaug

did the evening Mallory beach was killed,

Alex murdaugh was 100 times more evil.

He stole from people he was supposed to protect.

He crashed his family's four-generation legal dynasty.

And now he faces dozens of criminal acts

because the people he was supposed to help

he has cursed and he has ruined.

[Virzi] People with power start believing they can get away with things.

Right? They can get away with things

because their family's been running this listers office for generations.

To me, these are the kind of people we should be more suspicious about.

[Emerson] There's just so many investigations that we' still waiting for answers on

every time we turn over one rock,

we just find another rock to turn over.

[Roman] The murdaugh family saga

started with the death of Mallory beach.

The boat crash was the kindle, the tinder, and the fuel

that exposed the corruption and nefariousness

of the Alex murdaugh empire

[Dupre] Paul was driving the boat.

Paul was with Gloria satterfield and then Paul was killed.

The murders of Maggie and Paul were the catalyst for

the investigation into Stephen Smith.

[Brant] My heart breaks for Sandy Smith because

Sandy doesn't know at who's hand her son died.

And she deserves to know.

So I hope somebody can find it in their heart

to tell the truth.

Just, just tell the truth.

Honestly? I don't know.

I don't know what happened to Gloria.

Tony and Brian, they had lost their mom.

I don't care how much money is involved.

It's not going to bring their mom back.

[Emerson] The breadth and the width of the scandal

and the deaths that surround it...

This is a case that I don't think we're ever going to see

anything like it again.