Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh was sentenced in federal court to 40 years in prison for nearly two dozen financial crimes, the Associated Press reported Monday, 13 months after the former attorney was found guilty of killing his wife and son.
Those stolen settlements were meant for clients that include a quadriplegic man’s family and the family of the housekeeper who helped raise Murdaugh’s children. He signed a plea deal admitting to state financial crimes in November, adding 27 years to his life sentence.
Murdaugh said during his live-streamed murder trial that bad land deals and his addiction to opiate pills created a decade-long cycle of borrowing and spending that left the family on a bad financial footing.
Three generations of Murdaugh men served as elected prosecutors in South Carolina’s Lowcountry — a jurisdiction that came to be known to locals as “Murdaugh Country” — and created a legal dynasty that afforded them a charmed life.
Murdaugh was convicted last year of killing wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and son Paul Murdaugh, 22. They were shot June 7, 2021, on the family’s 1,772-acre rural Islandton hunting estate known in the Lowcountry as “Moselle.” The property is about 50 miles from Charleston. (Murdaugh’s defense attorneys said at the murder trial’s start that no physical evidence tied him to the shootings, and he maintains his innocence in the slayings.)
The case of the Murdaugh family was widely publicized through not only news coverage but a Netflix series and podcasts in early 2023. The story was seemingly made to capture attention: the downfall of a wealthy and powerful Southern family that also had the true-crime elements that engage a seemingly insatiable audience.
