Alex Murdaugh set to surrender on insurance fraud charge

South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh plans to surrender to police after a warrant was issued for his arrest, in the latest twist in the ongoing murder mystery surrounding the family.

Murdaugh plans to voluntarily turn himself in in Hampton County on Thursday to face a charge of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, his attorney Jim Griffin told WCBD-TV.

A bond hearing in the case is set for 4.00pm at the Hampton County Magistrate Court. 

It comes a day after police alleged that Murdaugh orchestrated his own shooting in a botched assisted suicide scheme, in the hopes that his surviving son would collect a $10 million life insurance payment  

In addition to the hitman suicide plot, South Carolina police are also investigating the misallocation of millions from Murdaugh’s law firm, the ‘trip-and-fall’ death of his housekeeper in 2018, and the murder of his wife and son in June. 

Murdaugh’s other attorney Dick Hartpoolian earlier admitted his client schemed to have himself killed by a hitman in the botched life insurance plot, and said he expected his client to be charged for embezzling funds from his law firm to fuel an addiction to painkillers.

However, Hartpoolian has insisted that Murdaugh is innocent in the June 7 murder of wife Maggie and son Paul, and claimed that the identity of the true killer could be revealed as soon as this week.

Meanwhile, a new angle in the complicated case opened on Wednesday, when South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) launched a criminal investigation into the 2018 death of Murdaugh’s housekeeper Gloria Satterfield and the subsequent handling of her estate. 

Satterfield, 57, had been the Murdaugh housekeeper and nanny for around 25 years when she suffered a fatal brain injury following a mystery fall inside the Murdaugh family home. She died several weeks later on February 26, 2018.

SLED said that it had opened a criminal investigation into Satterfield’s death based on a request from the Hampton County Coroner, as well as ‘information gathered during the course of our other ongoing investigations involving Alex Murdaugh.’  

Murdaugh settled a wrongful death claim with the housekeepers family for $500,000 in 2018. 

However, Satterfield’s family sued Murdaugh on Wednesday claiming he had not paid out ‘one single dime’ of the settlement. 

The twisted family saga gained national attention when Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul were shot dead at the family’s hunting lodge on June 7. 

Three months on, their deaths remain a mystery with no arrests made and no suspects or persons of interest named.    

Then, on September 4, Murdaugh was shot in the head and rushed to hospital where he survived, in what his own attorney now admits was a botched assisted suicide scheme. 

He checked himself into rehab days later for opioid addiction and resigned from his law firm as it emerged he was being investigated for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars of funds.

Investigators alleged Tuesday Murdaugh had in fact orchestrated his own shooting, arresting Curtis Edward Smith, 61, on charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. 

Smith, from Walterboro, South Carolina, is a former client of Murdaugh, 53, who represented him in minor traffic matters as well as a 2015 lawsuit that Smith filed against a forest management company. 

According to police, Murdaugh paid him to shoot him in the head and kill him, making it look like a random, drive-by attack.  

His goal was for his surviving son Buster to receive a $10million life insurance payout, according to police. 

Murdaugh provided Smith with a gun to carry out the September 4 shooting, SLED said. But Smith appears to have botched the shooting and Murdaugh survived.

Following the incident, Smith allegedly drove to an unknown location and disposed of the gun.  

Harpootlian says that the motive for the June 7 murder of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, 52, and son, Paul, 22, was ‘personal’ and that the identity of the suspect could be revealed sometime this week.

Harpootlian told NBC’s TODAY that Murdaugh, 53, was addicted to opioids and fell into depression after the murder of his wife and son.

The lawyer says that his client hatched the hitman scheme ‘to protect his child’ – 25-year-old Buster Murdaugh. 

‘He was in a dark, dark, dark place and he wanted to help his remaining son, Buster, in any way he could,’ Harpootlian says. 

‘He thought this was the only way he could leave him with anything.’ 

‘It was an attempt on his part to do something to protect his child,’ Harpootlian says of the suicide-for-hire scheme.

‘He didn’t want law enforcement spending time on this fake crime instead of focusing on solving the murders of Maggie and Paul.’ 

Harpootlian acknowledged that Murdaugh is likely to be arrested for allegedly misappropriating millions from his own law firm.

Harpootlian told TODAY that he and another lawyer visited Murdaugh at an out-of-state detox facility on Monday. 

He said it was the first time he and the other lawyer, Jim Griffin, spoke to Murdaugh ‘when he wasn’t on opioids or Oxy (oxycodone).’

Harpootlian says that his client used ‘the vast majority’ of the funds that he is alleged to have embezzled from his law firm ‘to buy drugs.’ 

‘He clearly knew that what he had done was wrong,’ Harpootlian told TODAY  on Wednesday.

The attorney said that Murdaugh had masterminded the assisted suicide hitman plot out of the mistaken belief that his life insurance police would not pay out for a death by suicide.  

‘Suicide exclusions are only good for two years, and he didn’t realize that. So he arranged to have this guy shoot him.’ 

It was Alex Murdaugh who discovered his wife and son’s bodies near dog kennels on the property and called 911 shortly after 10pm on the evening of June 7.  

Alex Murdaugh immediately identified himself on the 911 call and told the operator his ‘wife and child have been shot’ near dog kennels on his property.

‘I’ve been up to it now. It’s bad,’ Murdaugh said.

During the 911 call, dogs could be heard barking in the background and Murdaugh sounded deeply upset and agitated.

He told the operator several times that neither his son or wife was breathing.

According to investigators mother and son were killed between 9 and 9.30pm. 

Paul suffered fatal shotgun wounds to the head and torso. His mother was killed with a semi-automatic rifle.

Murdaugh was visiting his sick father in hospital on the night of the shooting – Randolph Murdaugh III died three days later after a long battle with cancer.

What little information has emerged since, has only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the events on the Islandton estate in June. 

At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was awaiting trial on a charge of boating under the influence causing death in a February 2019 crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach. 

Mallory died when Paul, ‘intoxicated’ and ‘belligerent’ ploughed his father’s boat into a piling in Archers Creek after an afternoon of drinking at an oyster roast.  

Paul was one of six teenagers described by police as ‘grossly intoxicated’ that night. 

He was awaiting trial on three felony counts of boating under the influence, including boating under the influence resulting in death, a charge which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

He had been released on a $50,000 bond pending his trial. All charges were dismissed two months after his death but the wrongful death suit being brought by Mallory’s mother, Renee, is still being pursued.

Buster is named in the suit as it was his license that Paul used to purchase the alcohol that night – a practice which, lawyers for Beach allege, was both common and done with Buster’s knowledge. 

Whether local law enforcement agencies tried to obstruct the investigation into the boating death is also being reviewed by state officials. 

No arrests have been made in the double murder of Paul and Maggie.

Harpootlian said ‘the murder of his wife and son 90 days ago took a tremendous toll on’ Murdaugh, fueling his spiral into drug addiction and the desperation that led to his botched suicide scheme. 

The lawyer denied that Alex Murdaugh had anything to do with the deaths of his wife and son.

‘He did not murder them. He is totally distraught about their deaths,’ Harpootlian tells NBC’s TODAY.

READ RELATED: My teenage son shows no interest in school

The lawyer says that in the time he has spent with the family, they were ‘affectionate’ with each other and that there was no indication Alex Murdaugh wanted to do them harm.

Harpootlian also claims that he and Griffin are pursuing leads and have gathered information that may implicate a suspect in the June killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

The attorney says that he and Griffin have zeroed in on ‘an individual or individuals we believe – may – have some culpability’ or had carried out the murder.

‘We think we’ll know this week whether the one suspect we’re looking at bears further scrutiny and we’ll make that information available to law enforcement,’ Harpootlian says. 

When asked what motive this individual may have had in killing Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, Harpootlian says: ‘Well, that would reveal who that person is, but it’s personal.’

‘The motive would be personal.’

Murdaugh’s surviving son, 25-year-old Richard Alexander ‘Buster’ Murdaugh Jr, was spotted by DailyMail.com on Monday at the family’s Edisto Island property in South Carolina.

Buster, the sole surviving heir to his father’s South Carolina legal dynasty, was apparently supposed to receive the insurance payout from his father’s death in the botched assisted suicide scheme alleged by investigators. 

Buster refused to answer DailyMail.com’s questions when approached but did acknowledge that he had spoken to his father in recent days.

He would not say when he saw his father last, what he thought would happen next or answer any questions about Murdaugh’s injuries or recovery.

He said, ‘I have no interest in commenting on any of y’all’s questions.’ 

Source: Daily Mail