MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Alex Murdaugh's sordid tale is just getting started

MAUREEN CALLAHAN: A teen dead in the road… a maid’s corpse exhumed… a ‘sex worker’ claiming rape… all linked to one very powerful Southern family. Stayed tune – Alex Murdaugh’s sordid tale is just getting started

Think we’ve heard the last of Alex Murdaugh? Think again.

Yes, Murdaugh was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole for murdering his wife Maggie and his son Paul. But this case is far from over.

If anything, it’s just getting started.

At least two other deaths connected to the once-powerful Murdaughs have gone unsolved. There are currently five other criminal investigations into Murdaugh. He will also stand trial later this year for attempting to stage his own suicide to look like a murder — hiring a hitman to kill him on the side of a road, ending up with a flesh wound. It was allegedly a bizarre attempt to gift his surviving son Buster with a $10 million life insurance policy.

This is the case that keeps on giving, a Southern Gothic filled with corruption, lies, fraud, drug addiction, murder, and the generational power of a politically prominent family. The closest corollary is probably the Kennedys: A prominent family running amok, drunk, drugged, disorderly and entitled — just the worst combination — causing grievous bodily harm and in some cases death, abusing women, using their last name as sword and shield to avoid any consequences, everyone knowing but, out of fear or obeisance, keeping their mouths shut.

Consider the mysterious death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, an openly gay friend — and, as witnesses have told law enforcement, maybe more — to Alex’s lone surviving son Buster. Smith’s body was found on July 8, 2015 at 4:20 a.m., lying in the middle of a two-lane road by a passing driver.

But there was scant evidence Smith was hit by a car. Alex Murdaugh showed up at the scene; why is unclear.

Highway Patrol didn’t think Smith’s death was an accident either: His shoes, which should have flown off on impact, remained on his feet. He was laid out in a studied position. There were no skid marks on the road, no vehicle debris, no injuries caused by vehicular impact. First responders thought the blunt force trauma to Smith’s head looked like a gunshot wound.

Consider the mysterious death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith (right), an openly gay friend — and, as witnesses have told law enforcement, maybe more — to Alex’s lone surviving son Buster.

This is the case that keeps on giving, a Southern Gothic filled with corruption, lies, fraud, drug addiction, murder, and the generational power of a politically prominent family.

Smith’s car was found three miles away, the gas cap unscrewed, a detail his family found odd and uncharacteristic — Stephen, they said, would never have exited his car alone that late at night. He was a careful, methodical kid who wouldn’t have let his gas tank get so low, and even if he had, would have called for help.

Yet the coroner ruled it a hit-and-run. Smith’s family wants answers, and are so far unimpressed with SLED’s (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) current investigation. The case was reopened in June 2021, only after Murdaugh’s wife and son were killed.

‘I just don’t understand why there are not more answers out of SLED,’ family friend Suzanna Andrews told local outlet Live 5 News.’Somebody out there knows something.’

Then there’s longtime Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, found dead in February 2018 at the Murdaugh home. Satterfield, the Murdaughs said, tripped up the stairs, fell, hit her head and died.

There was no autopsy. Murdaugh told Satterfield’s sons that he would sue his own insurance company and give them the settlement money.

Of course, that never happened. Murdaugh sued his insurance company all right, but he kept the money — over $4 million. Only after her sons lawyered up was Murdaugh forced to turn it over.

Last June, with Murdaugh awaiting trial in jail, SLED announced that they were finally, formally opening a criminal investigation and would exhume Satterfield’s body.

Lindsey Edwards claims to be another victim of Alex Murdaugh. She gave a highly detailed interview to South Carolina’s FITSNews outlet seven months ago, and is now reportedly cooperating with an SLED investigation into her claims that she was forced into a sex trafficking ring and serviced Murdaugh against her will.

Here’s what Edwards says she told her madam about Murdaugh, who she claims choked her during their first encounter:

‘I was like, ‘I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this. He’s going to hurt me again . . . I don’t feel safe doing this. I don’t want to die.’

Her madam was unmoved. And so Edwards said she was sent alone into a hotel room where Murdaugh, she said, ‘ripped chunks of hair out of my head’ and violently penetrated her. ‘

Then there’s longtime Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield (above), found dead in February 2018 at the Murdaugh home. Satterfield, the Murdaughs said, tripped up the stairs, fell, hit her head and died.

There was no autopsy. Murdaugh told Satterfield’s sons that he would sue his own insurance company and give them the settlement money. (Above) Michael Satterfield points out Alex Murdaugh at trial

When informed of a third forced encounter, Edwards tried to flee. Her punishment? Murdaugh ‘was even more pissed and violent than before. I got hair-pulling and choking, and if he wasn’t choking me I had a washrag stuffed in my mouth and I was being slapped across my face violently for 20 to 30 minutes.’

Edwards compared her madam’s client list to ‘Epstein’s black book’ — full of powerful men.

Her claims, of course, are just that — for now. But you have to wonder: What was South Carolina law enforcement doing all this time? What we know of Alex Murdaugh’s criminal history thus far is exhausting. The sheer fear he struck in almost everyone he knew, the darkness, the drugs, the lies, the thefts, the string of deaths in his proximity — that’s not normal. If you think small-town corruption is a thing of the past, you may be wise to think again.

Alex Murdaugh is currently facing 71 other charges, including stealing $1 million from a deaf teenager left quadriplegic in a roadside accident. He’s a convicted family annihilator. Are we supposed to believe that no one in law enforcement had an inkling of what this guy was capable of? Even the smartest criminals can’t keep the mask from slipping, and Alex Murdaugh, it’s clear, is a sadistic psychopath.

Yet another case, this one involving the needless death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, killed when she was ejected from the speeding boat that Murdaugh’s son Paul was drunk-driving.

It took eight days to find her remains.

Lindsey Edwards claims to be another victim of Alex Murdaugh. She is now reportedly cooperating with an SLED investigation into her claims that she was forced into a sex trafficking ring and serviced Murdaugh against her will.

What we know of Alex Murdaugh’s criminal history thus far is exhausting. The sheer fear he struck in almost everyone he knew, the darkness, the drugs, the lies, the thefts, the string of deaths in his proximity — that’s not normal. 

Two other teenagers were seriously injured in that crash, and in the excellent Netflix docuseries ‘Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,’ they recount Alex Murdaugh and his father Randolph stalking the hospital hallways, looking for survivors, keeping law enforcement from interviewing a blind-drunk Paul, and claiming to be the legal guardian of victim Morgan Doughty — who was also Paul’s girlfriend of several years.

Doughty, on camera, said Paul abused her physically and emotionally and mocked her working-class family — and wow, does that give us more Murdaugh ugliness, judging people by their bank accounts. Doughty said she saw Alex Murdaugh outside the room where her fingers, skin stripped back, were being stitched up.

‘While I was having my surgery on my hand,’ she said, ‘Randolph just kind of came in and he just kind of stared at me. We heard another knock. Alex Murdaugh was, like, tapping on the glass door and he’s like, ‘I need to get in there. I represent her.’

Doughty’s mom Diane: ‘Before I even got there, Alex turned around and said he was [Morgan’s] representation and her acting guardian.’

Morgan: ‘I looked at the head nurse and I was like, ‘Ma’am, please keep that man out of my room.’

It’s one of the most chilling moments of the entire series. This was a young woman who knew the Murdaughs, had spent time in their home, and saw how fearful everyone was around the patriarchs. Surrounded by medical professionals with scalpels, police and other parents in the hallway, Morgan Doughty was still afraid of Alex Murdaugh. Very afraid.

This is what we know now. How many other victims are out there? What is the true carnage left in Alex Murdaugh’s wake?

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