Maggie Murdaugh was a 52-year-old South Carolina homemaker shot to death alongside her 22-year-old son Paul at the family’s Moselle hunting property in Colleton County on the night of June 7, 2021. Her husband, prominent Lowcountry attorney Alex Murdaugh, was convicted of both murders in March 2023 and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. In May 2026, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned that conviction after finding that the county clerk of court had improperly influenced the jury, and prosecutors are now preparing to try Alex Murdaugh a second time.
Who Maggie Was
She was born Margaret Kennedy Branstetter, the daughter of Terry and Kennedy Branstetter. Her father’s career with DuPont moved the family from Nashville to Wilmington, North Carolina, and later to Unionville, Pennsylvania, where she ran track at Unionville High School in the mid-1980s.1New York Post. Life of Maggie Murdaugh, Notorious Murders’ Forgotten Victim She enrolled at the University of South Carolina, joined Kappa Delta, graduated in 1991, and met Alex Murdaugh there.2Biography. Alex Murdaugh Family
The couple married on August 14, 1993, and raised two sons, Richard Alexander “Buster” Murdaugh Jr. and Paul Terry Murdaugh, in Hampton, South Carolina. They kept a beach house on Edisto Island and eventually settled on a 1,700-acre property called Moselle in Islandton.2Biography. Alex Murdaugh Family Maggie was a full-time homemaker who once briefly ran a small gift shop on Hampton’s main street.1New York Post. Life of Maggie Murdaugh, Notorious Murders’ Forgotten Victim
She had married into one of the most powerful legal families in the South Carolina Lowcountry. For 86 consecutive years, three generations of Murdaughs held the office of 14th Circuit Solicitor, covering Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties, until Randolph Murdaugh III retired in 2005.314th Circuit Solicitor’s Office. History The family also founded the law firm where Alex practiced personal injury work for decades, now known as the Parker Law Group.4WJCL. Murdaugh Family Solicitors
The Night of June 7, 2021
Maggie traveled to Moselle that evening believing she was going to visit Alex’s ailing father, Randolph Murdaugh III, who was hospitalized at the time.5WJCL. Murdaugh Murders Timeline Evidence Phone and vehicle data showed Alex arrived at the property at 6:42 p.m. after leaving his law firm in Hampton.
At 8:44 p.m., Paul recorded a short video on his phone at the property’s dog kennels. Three voices are audible on the recording, and multiple witnesses at trial identified them as Paul, Maggie, and Alex. Within minutes, both were dead. Paul was killed with a shotgun inside the kennel feed room. Maggie was shot roughly a dozen steps away with a .300-caliber rifle.6CBS News. Alex Murdaugh Trial: Paul Murdaugh Video
Alex told investigators he had been napping at the house and found the bodies when he returned to the kennels later that night. The digital record told a different story. His phone recorded no steps between 8:09 p.m. and 9:02 p.m., and records from Maggie’s phone confirmed he placed five calls to her between 9:04 and 10:03 p.m., calls that had been manually deleted from his own phone’s call log.7ABC 7 Chicago. Alex Murdaugh Trial: Paul Snapchat Video His SUV started at approximately 9:06 p.m., and he drove away from the property.8NBC Miami. Alex Murdaugh Caught on Dog Kennel Video
Why Prosecutors Said Alex Killed Her
The state’s theory rested on money. By spring 2021, Alex Murdaugh was facing questions from his own firm about nearly $800,000 in missing fees.8NBC Miami. Alex Murdaugh Caught on Dog Kennel Video Prosecutors would later allege he had stolen more than $12 million over a decade from clients and the firm.9ABC News. Alex Murdaugh Sentenced Financial Crimes The family was also facing a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who died in a February 2019 boat crash while Paul was piloting the vessel drunk.10NPR. Murdaugh Boat Crash Mallory Beach Prosecutors argued Alex killed his wife and son to generate a crisis large enough to divert attention from the imminent exposure of his financial crimes.
Maggie herself had grown suspicious. Housekeeper Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson testified that Maggie was worried about a $30 million lawsuit and believed Alex “was not being truthful to her with regard to what was going on.”11ABC 7 Chicago. Alex Murdaugh Trial: Maggie One report, citing People Magazine, said Maggie had met with a Charleston divorce attorney about six weeks before her death and had begun reviewing the couple’s finances.12ABC News 4. Maggie Murdaugh Spoke With Charleston Divorce Lawyer A spokesperson for Alex Murdaugh disputed those reports, calling them “totally inconsistent” with text messages that he said showed a “very loving relationship.”
The 2023 Conviction
Alex Murdaugh was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during a crime. His six-week trial opened in early 2023 at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro before Judge Clifton Newman. Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson represented the state; Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin led the defense.13The State. Alex Murdaugh Murder Trial
Investigators had recovered Paul’s phone two months after the killings but could not unlock it until March 2022, when they entered Paul’s birthday as the passcode.14NBC News. Alex Murdaugh Paul Phone Video The kennel video placing Alex at the scene minutes before the shootings became the prosecution’s centerpiece. When Alex took the stand, he admitted he had lied to investigators about being at the kennels, attributing the lie to opioid addiction and paranoia. The trial judge allowed extensive testimony about the financial schemes, ruling the evidence was “so intimately connected” with the state’s case “that proof of it is essential to complete the story.”11ABC 7 Chicago. Alex Murdaugh Trial: Maggie
The defense argued that no physical evidence directly tied Alex to the shootings and criticized the forensic work of the State Law Enforcement Division. On March 2, 2023, after less than three hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on all four counts. He was sentenced the following day to two consecutive life terms.6CBS News. Alex Murdaugh Trial: Paul Murdaugh Video
Why the Conviction Was Overturned
Questions about the verdict surfaced almost immediately, and they centered on Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill. Three jurors or alternates came forward with sworn affidavits saying Hill had tried to influence them during trial. She had told jurors not to be “fooled” by Murdaugh, urged them to “watch his body language,” and warned them, “Y’all are going to hear things that will throw you all off.”15The New Yorker. How a Small-Town Clerk’s Misdeeds Upturned the Murdaugh Verdict One juror said Hill “made it seem like he was already guilty.”
Reports indicated Hill had been motivated at least in part by her desire for a guilty verdict to boost sales of her book about the trial, Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. It was published in 2023 and quickly pulled after Hill was found to have plagiarized its opening pages.15The New Yorker. How a Small-Town Clerk’s Misdeeds Upturned the Murdaugh Verdict Hill resigned in March 2024 and faced 76 ethics counts. In December 2025 she pleaded guilty to four criminal charges, including obstruction of justice, perjury for lying to a judge during a January 2024 hearing on Murdaugh’s appeal, and two counts of misconduct in office. She was sentenced to three years of probation.16CNN. Murdaugh Killings Court Clerk Prosecutors declined to charge her with jury tampering itself, which at the time would have triggered an automatic retrial.
On May 13, 2026, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously threw out Murdaugh’s murder convictions and ordered a new trial. The five justices found Hill had exerted “improper external influences” on the jury and called her conduct “breathtaking,” “disgraceful,” and “unprecedented in South Carolina.”17NPR. Alex Murdaugh Murder Timeline Trial The court noted testimony that Hill’s interference was motivated by her desire to write a book “to fund a lake house.” The opinion also offered guidance for any retrial, stating the original trial court had allowed the prosecution to go “far too long and far too deep” into Murdaugh’s financial crimes, and singling out testimony from Gloria Satterfield’s son as having “zero probative value” with an “obviously high potential for unfair prejudice.”18CNN. Alex Murdaugh Murder Appeal
Where the Case Stands Now
Attorney General Alan Wilson has said his office intends to retry Alex Murdaugh and initially aimed to do so by the end of 2026. Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian has called that timeline unrealistic and suggested a more likely date around mid-2027.19WTOC. Murdaugh Defense Outlines Next Steps Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin has been assigned to oversee the retrial.20South Carolina Public Radio. New Motions Filed in Retrial
The defense has filed motions to move the case out of the 14th Judicial Circuit, citing the area’s small and interconnected population and saturation media coverage. Defense lawyers have also asked for independent DNA testing of material found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails, arguing that previous results identified an “unknown and unrelated male” and warrant further analysis. A status conference was set for late June 2026 to fix a trial date and deadlines for discovery and motions.20South Carolina Public Radio. New Motions Filed in Retrial
Why Alex Murdaugh Stays in Prison Either Way
The retrial will determine only whether Alex Murdaugh is guilty of murdering Maggie and Paul. It will not free him. In November 2023, he pleaded guilty to 22 state counts of fraud and money laundering, covering theft from 18 victims totaling more than $12 million, and received 27 years in state prison.9ABC News. Alex Murdaugh Sentenced Financial Crimes In April 2024, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel sentenced him to 40 years in federal prison on 22 federal counts including wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering, with more than $8.7 million in restitution. The federal and state sentences run concurrently.21CNN. Alex Murdaugh Federal Sentencing Those convictions stand regardless of what happens in the retrial for Maggie’s murder.