Alex Murdaugh tells story of farmhand claiming to kill Black Panthers in police interview on night of murders

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Alex Murdaugh recounted a wild story about a farmhand claiming to “kill radical Black Panthers” when he was interviewed by law enforcement on the night of the double murder of his wife and son.

During the second day of testimony at the legal scion’s murder trial on Friday, jurors were shown footage of Mr Murdaugh’s first police interview after he claimed to have found the victims shot dead on the family estate in Islandton, South Carolina.

In the footage, Mr Murdaugh is asked by an officer if there is anyone he suspects could be responsible for gunning down his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22.

The 54-year-old tells the officer there is no one he is “overly suspicious” of but suggests law enforcement speak to a farmhand he had recently hired to work at the 1,700-acre estate.

Mr Murdaugh claims that the man had told Paul a “really weird” story just one week before the murders.

“He told Paul a story the other day of how when he was in high school he got in a fight with some Black guys and an FBI undercover teams observed him fighting those guys,” he says.

“And they put him on an undercover team with three Navy Seals and their job was to kill radical Black Panthers.”

He adds: “Paul was so taken aback by it that he recorded it on his phone”.

Mr Murdaugh tells the officers that Paul had “been working with him a lot” and the story was “really weird”.

However, he says he doesn’t believe the man could be behind the murders, saying that it’s “such a stupid” that he was “embarrassed” to even bring it up.

“Now I really don’t think this guy is probably the person,” he says.

Mr Murdaugh says that he had spoken on the phone to the man not long before finding his wife and son’s bodies and that he had behaved as normal.

“I can’t tell you anybody that I’m overly suspicious of off the top of my head,” he tells law enforcement.

During the interview, Mr Murdaugh also tells officers his son had faced a lot of “threats” over a fatal 2019 boat crash.

Most of the trouble, he says, came from people he believes his son didn’t know.

“He went out in Charleston couple months ago. And he got a black eye,” he says.

At the time of Paul’s death, he was awaiting trial over the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach.

Paul was allegedly drunk driving a boat of his friends including Beach in 2019 when it crashed and they were thrown overboard. The rest of the group survived but Beach’s body washed up days later.

Paul was charged with boating under the influence and faced up to 25 years in prison. He was killed before the trial could proceed.

During testimony on Thursday, Colleton County Sheriff’s Sgt Daniel Greene told the court that Mr Murdaugh “immediately” suggested that his wife and son had been murdered because of the boat crash as soon as he arrived on the scene.

“This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck,” Mr Murdaugh is heard telling the officer in the bodycam footage played to the court. “I know that’s what this is.”

He also mentioned the boat crash in the 911 call alerting law enforcement to the grisly scene.

Mr Murdaugh, the 54-year-old heir to a prominent legal dynasty, is accused of gunning down his wife and son in an attempt to distract from a string of other scandals encircling him.

He is facing life in prison on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Mr Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

At the time of the murders, Mr Murdaugh was believed to be facing financial ruin from a 20-year opioid addiction and – one day earlier – had been confronted by his law firm PMPED over an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud scheme.

Now, Mr Murdaugh is charged with more than 100 counts from multiple indictments alleging he stole nearly $8.5m from clients at his law firm in fraud schemes going back a decade.

The attorney, who has since been disbarred, allegedly represented the clients in wrongful death settlements before pocketing the money for himself.

Alleged victims include family members of Gloria Satterfield family, the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper who died in a mysterious trip and fall accident at the family home in 2018.

At the time, her death was regarded as an accidental fall – though the investigation was reopened after Maggie and Paul’s murders.

Three months on from the murders – on 4 September 2021 – Mr Murdaugh allegedly conspired to pay a hitman to shoot him dead so that Buster would inherit a $10m life insurance windfall.

The now-disbarred attorney initially claimed he was ambushed in a drive-by shooting while changing a tyre on his vehicle, but his story quickly unravelled and he confessed to orchestrating the plot.

Mr Murdaugh and his alleged co-conspirator Curtis Smith were arrested and charged over the incident.

As well as the deaths of Beach and Satterfield, questions have also surfaced about other mystery deaths surrounding the Murdaughs.

Stephen Smith, 19, was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County, South Carolina. The openly gay teenager had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But the victim’s family have long doubted this version of events, with the Murdaugh name cropping up in several police tips and community rumours.

An investigation was reopened into his death after Maggie and Paul’s murders.