A wealthy monther and son shot with two different guns. A housekeeper who supposedly died when she tripped and fell. A 19-year-old girl was killed in a boating accident. And a hit-and-run victim who may have actually been struck with a baseball bat. Five deaths and more crimes potentially linked to just one family. In this segment, Dr. Oz shares the latest on the shocking fall of South Carolina's powerful Murdaugh family.
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00:00 A wealthy mother and son shot with two different guns.
00:04 A housekeeper who supposedly died when she tripped and fell.
00:08 A 19-year-old girl killed in a boating accident.
00:12 And a hit-and-run victim who may have actually been struck with a baseball bat.
00:16 And then finally, a family patriarch who has now turned himself in for allegedly attempting
00:21 to stage his own murder.
00:23 Five deaths and more crimes potentially linked to just one family.
00:27 Today we have the very latest on the shocking fall of South Carolina's powerful Murdoch
00:31 family.
00:34 Personal injury lawyer Alex Murdoch hails from a prominent legal dynasty that dominated
00:39 the South Carolina low country's justice system for over 80 years.
00:44 But on September 4th, the 53-year-old was shot in the head.
00:49 He survived and told authorities he enlisted a former client, Curtis Edward Smith, to kill
00:55 him, so his only living son, Buster, could collect the $10 million insurance payout.
01:01 Smith was arrested on charges including assisted suicide and aggravated assault and battery.
01:07 The apparent staged murder attempt occurred right after Alex's law firm accused him of
01:12 stealing company money.
01:14 His law license is now suspended and he's been charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy
01:19 to commit insurance fraud, and filing a false police report.
01:23 Tragically, just three months earlier.
01:32 Alex arrived at his hunting estate in Eilington, South Carolina around 10 p.m. to find his
01:37 52-year-old wife Maggie and their youngest son Paul shot to death.
01:44 Paul who was 22 was awaiting trial for felony charges including boating under the influence,
01:50 which led to the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach in February of 2019.
01:56 No one has been arrested in the brutal June 7th double murder, but it has prompted authorities
02:01 to reopen two cases that may be linked to the powerful Murdock family.
02:06 An anonymous tip potentially connects them to the death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith,
02:11 Buster Murdock's high school classmate, who was found in the middle of a road just 10
02:16 miles from the Murdock home in 2015.
02:19 And in 2018, the Murdocks longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, died after allegedly
02:25 falling in their home.
02:27 But authorities say an autopsy was never performed.
02:32 Oh my goodness.
02:33 Nancy Grace is the host of Fox Nation's Murdock Murder Mystery with Nancy Grace.
02:37 She's been on the ground in South Carolina investigating this case and she joins us now.
02:41 Nancy, we've talked about a lot of cases.
02:42 I want you to explain to everyone watching what the Murdock name has meant in this part
02:47 of South Carolina for the past century.
02:49 Then we're going to get into the details, all these crazy twists.
02:52 Well, I'll give you a good example, Oz.
02:55 It's the same thing.
02:56 The Kennedy name means up in the Northeast.
03:00 The Murdocks had a lock on the justice system throughout the low country, as they call it
03:06 in South Carolina, because not only did the Murdocks have this extremely lucrative civil
03:12 law firm that was founded by Murdock's grandfather, but here's the kicker.
03:19 They also were the local prosecutors.
03:22 That's a lot of power to wield.
03:24 Well, there's a lot of twists and turns in this case, perhaps for that reason.
03:28 So I want everyone at home to remember these four names.
03:31 There's just four names.
03:32 Ready?
03:33 There's attorney Alex Murdock, right?
03:34 He's married to Maggie.
03:35 He's the patriarch of the family.
03:37 And Maggie and their son, Paul, he's the one to the far left.
03:41 They were murdered on June 7th.
03:44 And then their one remaining son, Buster, that's him on the right, he's still alive.
03:49 Now the shockwaves of Murdock's murders and Alex's bizarre behavior have since this all
03:55 started going down, have authorities looking back years.
03:58 And just days after Paul and Maggie were murdered, the investigation into the 2015 death of 19-year-old
04:04 Stephen Smith was reopened.
04:07 Now this stuff dates back to then, but I want you to all follow along because it is a fascinating
04:12 pathway that might connect all these different murders.
04:14 So Nancy, Stephen was found dead at 5 a.m. on July the 8th, 2015.
04:19 What else have you uncovered in your research?
04:22 Well, what family members say mean a lot to me.
04:25 And Stephen Smith's mother says that she never bought into the hit and run.
04:31 Stephen Smith, this teen boy, was found dead near the roadway.
04:36 But interestingly, that night, state troopers on the scene noticed there were no skid marks,
04:43 there was no debris, nothing was there.
04:47 At that time, troopers said it was a homicide.
04:50 And listen to this.
04:51 I've consulted with local medical examiners from South Carolina, and they find it very
04:56 odd that there was a hit to the head.
04:59 When you're hit by a car, you usually take a hit to the torso, from the chest down, because
05:04 that is the height of the front bumper.
05:08 That's what hits you.
05:09 But he was hit to the head.
05:12 It was later discussed, his connection to the Murdoch family.
05:16 He was a friend of the surviving Murdoch, Buster Murdoch, the one that was supposed
05:22 to get $10 million, and it has been discussed.
05:26 And a big query was the death, the homicide of Stephen Smith, a hate crime, because he
05:34 was openly gay.
05:35 That's important to note that neither Paul nor Buster Murdoch has ever been named as
05:40 a suspect in this case.
05:42 But the question about whether it was even a car accident, was it really a baseball bat
05:47 to the head, that's the bigger issue that raises suspicions that something else went
05:51 down.
05:52 Let's move forward to February 26, 2018.
05:54 The Murdoch family's 57-year-old housekeeper dies, allegedly as a result of injuries sustained
06:01 in a trip and fall accident.
06:04 You can't make this stuff up.
06:05 I don't know how many of you guys have walked through houses and tripped and fall.
06:07 Most people don't die when that happens.
06:09 So why has this new investigation been opened into Gloria Satterfield's death?
06:13 Gloria Satterfield had been working in that home for about 20 years when she had a trip
06:20 and fall in the Murdoch home.
06:24 Now here's the kicker.
06:26 Fast forward to right now, the Satterfields are just now finding out there has been a
06:31 half a million dollar settlement.
06:33 And legal analysis reveals the Satterfield family was due about $2.7 million out of this.
06:42 And they've gotten zero.
06:44 And they've got a pretty good idea where the money went.
06:47 All right.
06:49 So the plot thickens.
06:50 About a year, almost exactly after Gloria's death, 19-year-old Mallory Beach, this beautiful
06:55 young woman, is killed in a boat crash on February 24, 2019.
07:00 Nancy actually got onto a boat to investigate this crime scene herself, which we'll go to
07:05 in a second.
07:06 But first, authorities say that the now murdered Paul Murdoch, the son, was driving the boat
07:11 that night.
07:13 So what led to Mallory's crash?
07:14 And what do you know about what Paul allegedly had to do with it and this alter ego that
07:19 he apparently had?
07:20 Oz, I've got to tell you, this one is very, very upsetting because Mallory reminds me
07:25 so much of my little girl Lucy.
07:28 That night, they were all, Paul, Murdoch, Mallory, and some other friends had been in
07:34 the oyster bay.
07:35 Everybody got drunk.
07:37 They were all on the boat.
07:39 Murdoch was driving.
07:42 They begged him to slow down.
07:44 He was going so fast, the boat reared up in the air like that.
07:49 And he crashed into some big pilings.
07:54 Mallory flew off the boat and her body was in the water five days, just bloating until
08:03 they found her dead.
08:05 That's terrible.
08:06 Now, Paul had pleaded not guilty to the charges and was awaiting trial.
08:10 But then on June the 7th of this year, he and his mother, Maggie, they're discovered
08:15 murdered in their hunting lodge.
08:17 So what do you know about these deaths so far?
08:20 Well, I can tell you what, that is some pretty coincidental timing, right?
08:26 Paul Murdoch is going to trial the following week on the death by boating.
08:32 It's like a DUI except BUI, boating under the influence.
08:36 He was snickered out of his mind.
08:38 Just before he goes to trial and may have to answer up on these charges, he ends up
08:43 dead.
08:44 Sources saying that at least one of the weapons used is connected to the Murdoch family.
08:49 Well, the plot thickens.
08:50 Coming up, Nancy's taking us to the scene of Mallory Beach's death and we have shocking
08:55 new insights from one of the first rescuers in the water.
08:58 That was Nancy Grace at the scene of 19-year-old Mallory Beach's death for her new Fox station
09:03 special Murdoch Murder Mystery with Nancy Grace.
09:06 A 22-year-old Paul Murdoch was awaiting trial for allegedly killing Mallory until he and
09:11 his mother were murdered earlier this year.
09:14 Let me show you all the part of South Carolina where this boating tragedy occurred.
09:17 It's a place called Buford and Buford is sort of halfway from Charleston and Savannah, down
09:23 the Atlantic coastline.
09:24 It's called the Low Country.
09:26 So Buford halfway in between.
09:27 I'm going to take you into a close up here because I want you to look at what authorities
09:32 say happened at 1.13 a.m.
09:36 At that time, the kids were up in Buford.
09:38 There were adults there as well apparently.
09:40 Paul Mallory and the other four passengers on his boat left Buford after a long night
09:45 out.
09:46 They likely were headed back to the Murdoch River house over here.
09:50 That's where they started the night.
09:52 Now the crash occurred at Archer's Creek about halfway in between.
09:56 And it happened around 2.20 a.m.
09:57 Notice there are small little streams here, little canals.
10:00 So it's not a big wide river.
10:01 It's these little canals connecting one place to the next.
10:05 Now skipper Clay Eminger from the Buford Water Search and Rescue Team was one of the first
10:09 on the scene when the Murdoch boat crashed and ejected Mallory into the water.
10:13 And I know with all your work, sir, it keeps you very busy.
10:16 I really appreciate you making time for us.
10:18 I know you're on the road.
10:19 And I want to talk about this case because you were the first one there.
10:22 Now according to your team, the driver's side of the boat split wide open from the nose
10:27 all the way to the back.
10:28 You can see the image there.
10:29 There was a six foot gash where the boat actually came apart at the seam.
10:34 So Clay, how horrific was the actual crime scene?
10:39 When we got there, everyone had been evacuated off the boat.
10:43 So the boat was there up on the bank on the shoreline.
10:48 It was quite alarming as to the damage of that vessel.
10:51 So Clay, your team spent several painful days searching the waters in this area for Mallory
10:56 and her body was found, I understand, about a week later, five miles away at Broad River
11:02 boat landing.
11:03 And the Buford Water Rescue Search and Rescue Team, I should point out, is an all volunteer
11:07 nonprofit organization.
11:09 So you guys are trying to do this with everything else in your lives.
11:11 How hard was it when you know you have a victim in the water for that long?
11:16 It begins to wear on you.
11:18 You know, at first it's go, go, go, doing everything you can to possibly find that individual
11:24 and find them safely and return them.
11:26 Unfortunately, as the hours and the days wear on, then obviously it turns from a rescue
11:31 mission to a recovery operation.
11:33 And at that point, you know, it obviously wears down on you mentally.
11:37 And at that point you want to find her again.
11:39 You want to find that person, you know, the best you can to get them to the family, to
11:42 get closure.
11:43 And that was our goal to do that.
11:44 Well, Clay, Godspeed in all your other work.
11:46 Thanks for joining us today.
11:47 Nancy, let me go back to you for a sec.
11:48 So Clay took you to the actual crime scene, the exact place where this all happened.
11:53 As a mother, how hard was it to learn about Mallory Beach's final moments alive?
11:59 It was awful, Oz.
12:01 And I got to tell you something.
12:02 When I was out there, I was looking at those pylons and he was going so fast with the boat
12:08 reared up like I told you.
12:10 And they were all screaming, stop, stop, stop, stop.
12:13 And he was so drunk out of his mind.
12:17 His alter ego, Timmy, had taken over.
12:20 He gets drunk so often.
12:22 They have a nickname for him when he's drunk.
12:25 His other personality, Timmy, who's evil and drunk and belligerent, he would only leave
12:31 the steering wheel long enough.
12:33 He went and slapped one girl and reportedly spit on somebody, went back to the wheel,
12:38 floored it.
12:39 The boat goes up in the air, hits those pylons and the boat goes flying.
12:46 And then the boat goes up on this rocky outcropping and Mallory flies into the water.
12:52 Well, there's still more.
12:54 The survivors of the crash, including the alleged driver, Paul Murdoch, were taken to
12:58 the hospital and were met there by Paul's powerful attorney, Father Alex, who according
13:03 to a lawsuit may have begun influencing the investigation to protect his son, even in
13:07 the emergency room.
13:08 Coming up, from the alleged coverup to a staged murder attempt, we have the latest on the
13:12 accusations against Alex Murdoch.
13:14 I'm back with Nancy Grace bringing you the very latest in the string of shocking deaths
13:18 potentially tied to South Carolina's powerful Murdoch family.
13:22 Now, in 2019, Paul Murdoch, who has since been murdered, was charged with felony boating
13:28 under the influence, resulting in death for allegedly killing his friend Mallory Beach
13:32 in a late night crash.
13:33 So Nancy, what have you learned about Paul's dad, Alex Murdoch's behavior at the hospital
13:38 the night of the crash, where the four surviving kids are brought into the emergency room?
13:43 Well, I've got to tell you, as a lawyer, I'm embarrassed.
13:46 And I'm embarrassed for him because he obviously doesn't know what he did was horribly wrong.
13:52 The night Mallory Beach, 19-year-old girl, is killed off of his boat, he goes to the
14:00 hospital and he goes room to room.
14:03 I'm talking about Alex Murdoch, the one that just got shot in the head and lived to tell
14:08 the tale.
14:09 He goes room to room to every person that survived that was on the boat that night and
14:13 told them to, quote, "keep your mouth shut," including Connor Cook, another teen boy that
14:20 was on the boat who had a fractured jaw.
14:23 All of this is part of a so-called whisper campaign to point to Connor Cook as driving
14:29 the boat that night.
14:31 So let's fast forward to today, because there's obviously a pattern arising here.
14:35 Alex Murdoch's son, Paul, and wife Maggie are now victims of an unsolved murder.
14:40 Alex is facing charges that he attempted to have himself killed so that one of his remaining
14:44 sons, his only remaining son, could get $10 million in insurance money.
14:49 There's so much to unpack in this case.
14:51 So I thought I'd bring in our show legal contributor, Joey Jackson.
14:53 Thanks for being here, Joey.
14:55 So Alex's lawyer is now saying that the client, the former client that he hired to shoot him,
14:59 took advantage of his addiction struggles and his mental illness.
15:02 I'm just like stunned.
15:04 How is that strategy going to play in court?
15:06 You're blaming the hitman that you hired.
15:08 So this is very unusual to me, I'll tell you why.
15:11 Unusual, my goodness.
15:12 We have his attorney on national TV admitting to every element of the offense.
15:17 The strategy seems to be that we're going to go to what we call as lawyers, mitigation.
15:22 What does that mean?
15:23 Mitigation means, Dr. Oz, I'm guilty, but now I'm going to explain the rationale as
15:28 to why I behave this way.
15:30 What does that do?
15:32 What that does is potentially get you sympathy.
15:34 Potentially say, you know what, you have an opioid addiction?
15:37 Really?
15:38 You have all this tragedy in your life?
15:40 Really?
15:41 And so what that may do, in effect, is lessen the punishment, but it certainly doesn't excuse
15:45 or explain the underlying conduct.
15:47 So unusual indeed.
15:48 So Alex, to be clear, has been accused of manipulating the aftermath of the deaths of
15:52 his housekeeper and Mallory Beach, that young girl that was killed in the boating accident.
15:55 He's accused of misappropriating funds from his law firm.
15:59 He's admitted to this murder for hire suicide plot that Joy just outlined for us, hoping
16:03 maybe mitigate the circumstances.
16:05 The 2015 death of Stephen Smith near his home is now being reinvestigated for good reason,
16:10 and the murders of his wife and son are still unsolved.
16:13 Nancy, you've got a lot of sources now in South Carolina's low country.
16:17 Are we going to see even more twists in this case soon?
16:19 Your prediction?
16:20 No doubt in my mind.
16:22 In the middle of the night, my phone starts buzzing.
16:25 South Carolina witnesses, locals that I met when I was down there investigating, and I
16:32 got to make you look at one thing.
16:35 Money.
16:36 Money in the Satterfield case.
16:38 Money in the Mallory Beach case, because if that case had gone to trial, they were going
16:43 to delve into the Murdoch's finances.
16:46 Money as it relates to his fake assassination attempt out on a rural road.
16:51 I'm curious.
16:52 Who would have benefited money-wise from Maggie and Paul's death?
16:57 Just curious.
16:58 I'm sure they're asking.
17:00 Joy, thanks as well.
17:01 Nancy, as always, I appreciate your support.
17:02 I want to remind everyone, no suspect has been named in the murders of Paul and Maggie
17:06 Murdoch, and no one in the Murdoch family has been implicated in their killings or named
17:10 as a suspect in the deaths of Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield.
17:13 For even more on this case, be sure to watch Nancy's wonderful program, Murdoch Murder
17:17 Mystery with Nancy Grace.
17:19 It's streaming now on Fox.
17:20 It's superbly done, like everything she touches.
17:21 Thank you for watching.
17:22 Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live