Episode 8: Alexander Murbaugh: The Murders of Margaret and Paul Murbaugh

This week Dominika and Chris Gordon talk about the trial of Alex Murdaugh. He is on trial for the murders of his wife Margaret Murdaugh and his son Paul. 

Episode 8 Notes:

Alex Murdaugh is on trial for the murder of his wife Margaret Murdaugh, 52 and his son Paul Murdaugh, 22. This case has everything, an old Southern family legal dynasty, corruption, embezzlement, drug abuse and murder. The case is currently on day 8 and has taken over all the court tv channels. But it’s convoluted with byzantine twists and turns. We’re going to try to make sense of it all but always with the victim. But which one. In this case there are five separate murders and one attempted murder-suicide. I mean really? We are going to start with Margaret Murdaugh, wife to Alex Murdaugh and the case Alex is currently on trial for. 

Who was Margaret Murdaugh?

Margaret “Maggie” Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh was born on September 15, 1968 to Terry and Kennedy Branstetter in Nashville, Tennessee but soon her dad’s job with Dupont moved to family first to Wilmington, NC and then to Unionville, Pa. The Branstetter family lived there until 1987. Maggie lived in a loving and supportive household. She had a sister Marian and ran track at Unionville high school in Pennsylvania. A Nypost article researched who Maggie was and spoke to some of her high school friends. 

Lisa lineman-Moore was quoted as saying: “We had our little cliques and we ran after boys and did a little partying and drinking. But I think her dreams were what she was taught. She was from the South, and the Southern dream for a girl at that time was to finish college, maybe, but more importantly find a husband, get married and have kids.”

Terry’s job at Dupont moved him to Cooper River, South Carolina and Maggie soon enrolled in the University of South Carolina. She was a member of the Kappa Delta Sorority. She met her future husband, Alex “Alec” Murdaugh there. He was a year ahead of her and a friend of hers mentioned that Alec was her first boyfriend. I’m going to quote the New York Post article by Dana Kennedy:

“He said she’d have to move to Hampton with him,” the friend said of the bleak, rural town where the Murdaughs have ruled as both local prosecutors and civil attorneys since 1910 but where there isn’t so much as a Walmart.

I think that sums up this part of South Carolina known as the lowlands pretty well. 

Extended Members of the Murdaugh family have come out to say how Maggie was all about her kids. She was down to earth and had a dry sense of humor. She was known to roll her eyes when one of her kids was doing something supremely stupid. But her life was always about her kids. She was a stay at home mom and looks like her boys got whatever they wanted. 

She was also kind, going to see Gloria Satterfield, the family housekeeper, in the hospital from her fall at one of their properties. 

There has been speculation that Maggie and Alec were growing apart and there are some reports stating that she had gone to see divorce attorneys in the six weeks leading up to her murder but other sources flatly state that never happened. Reporters have been searching for those divorce attorneys but no one has found them yet. 

State Senator Dick Harpootlian, one of Alex Murdaugh’s attorney’s vehemently opposes talk of of divorce. He had been Paul Murdaugh (Maggie’s other son) attorney during the deadly boat crash (yes there is a deadly boat crash in this story) and he’d seen them holding hands and being affection with one another in the 18 month period. 

However, there are multiple sources saying that Maggie was living alone at their Adisto Beach Home in the weeks before the night of her death. The gossip goes is that Alex was having an affair with another attorney and Maggie didn’t know where to turn due to Alex’s deep ties with the legal community. How deep were these ties?