Alex Murdaugh, a disbarred lawyer and the scion of a powerful, wealthy South Carolina legal family who is on trial in the shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh and their 22-year-old son, Paul Murdaugh, has an estimated net worth of $1 million, according to Exact Net Worth.
Murdaugh, whose full name is R. Alexander Murdaugh Sr., has took to the witness stand to deny murdering his wife and son at the family’s hunting lodge “Moselle” on June 7, 2021. During his testimony, though, he admitted to a web of lies stemming from an opioid addiction.
The State newspaper described the family as representing “power, justice, and big money” for nearly a century. Vox.com reported that the Murdaugh family “has amassed power and wealth in South Carolina for over 100 years.” The saga of the wealthy South Carolina family is featured in new series on Netflix and HBO Max.
However, according to Greenville Online, Murdaugh is now facing nine civil suits. In addition to the murders, he’s accused of “schemes to defraud victims of $8,492,888.31,” the news site reported. He is facing 99 charges stemming from financial crime accusations, CNN reported.
Here’s what you need to know about Alex Murdaugh’s net worth:
1. Alex Murdaugh Made About $250,000 Per Year When He Worked as an Attorney, According to Reports
FacebookAlex Murdaugh with his family.
According to The Sun, he earned about $250,000 a year as a lawyer. Much of Murdaugh’s wealth derived from a family law firm. Alex Murdaugh, was a lawyer with the Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick Law Firm, the firm’s website said before it was deleted. The law firm has now changed its name, according to Audacy.com, and is no longer affiliated with Alex Murdaugh.
According to the firm’s LinkedIn page, which is still active, “The firm Randolph Murdaugh started as a sole practitioner in 1910 has grown to a sixteen lawyer law firm with offices in three counties. Now, more than 100 years since its inception, PMPED remains true to its roots by providing sound legal counsel for individuals, farmers, and small businesses in local communities and throughout South Carolina.”
The firm’s website says,
Over 100 years ago, Randolph Murdaugh started a general practice law firm in the small town of Hampton, South Carolina devoted to serving the legal needs of individuals and small businesses.
Since that time, PMPED’s lawyers have served the local communities as solicitor of South Carolina’s 14th Judicial Circuit for eighty-six years and, for over seventy years, represented the members of the Palmetto Electric Cooperative. By advocating for our clients we have brought about positive changes in the railroad, trucking, automotive, and agricultural industries, which have enhanced safety and helped prevent harm and injuries.
“The Murdaugh family and PMPED wish to thank everyone for the many calls and condolences in the aftermath of the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. We ask for your continued patience and prayers through this tragic time. Please contact law enforcement should you have any information that may be important,” the law firm said in a statement posted to its Facebook page before Alex Murdaugh was criminally charged. That Facebook page no longer exists.
The company’s website does not exist anymore, either. However, when it was still active, Murdaugh’s company biography said that he graduated from Hampton High School and received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of South Carolina in 1990, “a Juris Doctorate Degree in May 1994 from the University of South Carolina School of Law and was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in November 1994.”
“Alex represents injured persons in all areas of personal injury law, including trucking cases, products liability and wrongful death. He also serves as a part-time Prosecutor for the 14th Judicial Circuit,” the bio said.
According to WJCL, multiple generations of the Murdaugh family were prosecutors in the area.
“Alexander, a former Rho No. II, is a Hampton, SC attorney and serves as the Assistant Solicitor for the 14th Judicial Circuit. He completed his term as President of the South Carolina Association for Justice in 2016. Brother Murdaugh is now on the Board of the Arnold Fields Community Endowment and was Chairman of the Hampton County Democratic Party from 1996-2006,” says a short bio on the page of the Kappa Alpha Order.
According to Greenville Journal, he once helped set up a website to get motorists payment for potholes, saying, “In the long term, we hope lawmakers can set aside their political differences to pass a bill with a stable source of funding that will fix our roads once and for all. Until that happens, the ‘Payment for Potholes’ Web portal will temporarily ease the burden on drivers at no cost to them.”
2. Alex Murdaugh’s Hunting Estate Is Currently Listed for Sale at $3.9 Million & His Family Also Owns Other Properties, Including a Beach House
The Murdaugh family also had a number of property holdings. According to the Cinemaholic, the family’s properties included the “massive hunting estate” where the murders occurred and an Edisto Island beach house.
According to Vox, the family “lived in opulence, dividing their time among a beach house, a couple of private islands, and a massive 1,772-acre estate known as Moselle.”
However, the hunting estate, Moselle, is currently listed for sale at $3.9 million.
FITS News reported that a bank says Murdaugh still owed $2 million on the property.
3. Murdaugh Settled a Lawsuit Brought by the Family of Mallory Beach After She Was Killed in a Boating Crash in 2019
According to WJCL.com, proceeds from the sale of Murdaugh’s hunting estate will go to satisfy a settlement in the wrongful death case of Mallory Beach.
At the time of the murders, Alex Murdaugh’s son, Paul Murdaugh, was facing pending felony charges in the boating death of Mallory Beach, 19, according to Greenville Online. Beach died in a boating crash near Beaufort, South Carolina, in 2019, and, according to The State, two teens were “suspected of driving the boat while drunk.” One of them was Paul Murdaugh, according to The State.
According to The State, the Triton boat owned by Alex Murdaugh rammed into a bridge, ejecting six passengers ages 19 and 20. Only Beach died. Police said the survivors were “grossly intoxicated,” The State reported.
According to The Island Packet, Renee Beach, Mallory’s mom, filed a lawsuit against former solicitor Randolph Murdaugh III, his son Richard Alexander Murdaugh, and his grandson Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr. — Paul’s older brother Buster. The suit accused Buster Murdaugh of allowing Paul Murdaugh, to use his ID to buy alcohol. Paul Murdaugh was not named in the lawsuit, according to the newspaper.
A judge approved a settlement in the case, dropping the names of Maggie and Buster Murdaugh from it, in January 2023 according to WTOC.com, which reported that Beach’s family members “will eventually be awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars.” The Beach family’s attorney told WTOC that the settlement was likely to be about $700,000 but would depend on the final sale of the Murdaugh family property, proceeds of which will be used to fund it.
4. Alex Murdaugh, Accused of Stealing More Than $8.7 Million From Clients, Admitted to Financial Crimes While Testifying in His Own Defense at the Murder Trial
Murdaugh admitted to financial crimes during his testimony at the double murder trial of his wife and son, telling the prosecutor Creighton Waters, “I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it. I hate the fact that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed for my son. I’m embarassed for my family. And I don’t dispute that I did it.”
Along with the murder case, Murdaugh faces 19 indictments and 99 charges related to financial crimes, including tax evasion, money laundering, forgery, insurance fraud and more, according to WCSC. He is accused of stealing more than $8.7 million, according to prosecutors.
Ronnie Richter, an attorney representing some of the victims in the financial fraud cases, told the news station, “Alex’s financial crimes are nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, and all Ponzi schemes work in the same way — I have to continue to steal from new people to replace the money I’ve stolen from old people. All Ponzi schemes end the same way. Sooner or later it’s like musical chairs: the music stops and someone is without a chair. And that’s exactly what happened with Alex. The music stopped, he ran out of places to get money and all of his financial crimes were exposed.”
While cross-examining Murdaugh at his murder trial about the clients he is accused of stealing from, Waters asked, “Every single one of these you had to sit down and look somebody in the eye and convince them that you were on their side when you were not, correct?” Murdaugh replied, “that may or not be true.”
He then added, “What I admit is that I misled them. I did wrong and that I stole their money. … You have charged me with murdering my wife and my son. And I have sat here for all these weeks listening to all this financial stuff that I did wrong. That I’m embarassed by. I’m happy to talk to you about as much of that as you want to talk about. I’m required to talk about it as much as you want to talk about it. But the fact is that I cannot specifically remember sitting down, the details that you’re asking me for, I can’t tell you. But what I can tell you is that in all these financial situations, I stole money that was not my money. I misled people that I shouldn’t have misled. And I did wrong. I can tell you that.”
Murdaugh added, “In some situations, they may have just trusted me to do it. That’s my point. I misled them. There’s no question of that. But did I sit down in each particular instance? Like you’re breaking it down? I can’t say that. I can say I did wrong. I stole money that wasn’t my money and I shouldn’t have done it. And it was terrible what I did.”
5. Alex Murdaugh Left His Law Firm to Enter Rehab to Deal With an Addiction to Opioids, He Said, While Admitting to Taking Hundreds of Pills Per Day During the Heigh of His Addiction
According to Fox News, on September 6, 2021, Murdaugh announced he was leaving his law firm and entering rehab because of a “long battle that has been exacerbated these murders.”
The statement sent to Fox read, “The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret. I’m resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated these murders. I am immensely sorry to everyone I’ve hurt including my family, friends and colleagues. I ask for prayers as I rehabilitate myself and my relationships.”
Sources told FITS News that Murdaugh was struggling with an opioid addiction, which he has admitted on the witness stand. When asked by Waters, the prosecutor, what his daily pill intake was in January 2021, Murdaugh responded, “I think at that time most of what I was purchasing was 30-milligram pills, instant release oxycodone. Probably mixed in with some Oxycontin, which is made of oxycodone.” He said he was taking between 1,000 milligrams up to more than 2,000 milligrams per day of the painkiller.
“If I had 30-milligram pills, I figure 100 pills would be 3,000 milligrams,” Murdaugh testified during the cross-examination. He said from January to June 2021 he was taking dozens of pills a day, sometimes as many as 60 per day.
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