The Murdaugh Murders: How Alex Murdaugh Was Convicted — and Why He Now Faces a New Trial

In March 2023, a South Carolina jury convicted disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh of murdering his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and their 22-year-old son, Paul Murdaugh, and he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole. On May 13, 2026, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned those murder convictions and ordered a new trial, citing jury interference by a county court clerk. Murdaugh remains in prison on separate financial-crimes convictions while the state prepares to retry him for the killings.

This is what is known, what was proven at the first trial, and where the case stands now.

What happened

On the night of June 7, 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were shot to death near the dog kennels at Moselle, the family’s sprawling property straddling Colleton and Hampton counties in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Both were killed with firearms. Alex Murdaugh — then a prominent attorney from a family that had supplied the region’s elected prosecutors for three generations — called 911 that night and told investigators he had found the bodies after returning from a visit to his ailing mother.

For more than a year, no one was charged. Alex Murdaugh was arrested for the murders in July 2022. He maintained, and continues to maintain, that he is innocent.

The case drew national attention not only for the killings but for the web of alleged deception around them: millions of dollars Murdaugh was later proven to have stolen from clients, a botched scheme to have himself shot, and earlier deaths connected to the family. But at the center of it are two people who should not be reduced to a storyline.

The victims

Maggie Murdaugh was 52 — a wife and mother of two sons, Buster and Paul. Those who knew her remembered her devotion to her family and to the life they had built at Moselle, the family’s Lowcountry property. Paul Murdaugh was 22 — a legal adult, a young man with his own life, friends, and future. He was facing legal troubles of his own at the time of his death stemming from a 2019 boat crash, but he was a victim here, not a footnote.

It matters how they are remembered. The story is frequently told as the “downfall of a dynasty,” a frame that risks turning Maggie and Paul into props in someone else’s spectacle. They were the people who were killed. Everything else — the wealth, the name, the fraud — is context, not the point.

The financial crimes that ran alongside the murder case produced other victims too, and they deserve naming: the families and injured clients Murdaugh stole settlement money from, and the family of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper, whose 2018 death became part of the financial fraud described below.

Timeline of key events

• June 7, 2021 — Maggie and Paul Murdaugh are shot to death at the Moselle kennels. Alex Murdaugh calls 911 that night.
• September 2021 — Murdaugh is involved in a roadside shooting later described by authorities as a failed scheme to have himself killed so his surviving son could collect life insurance. He enters drug rehabilitation; his law firm reports discovering missing funds.
• Late 2021–2022 — South Carolina prosecutors file dozens of financial-crime indictments alleging Murdaugh stole millions from clients and his firm.
• July 2022 — Murdaugh is indicted for the murders of Maggie and Paul.
• January–March 2023 — The murder trial is held in Colleton County. On March 2, 2023, the jury convicts him on both murder counts and related weapons charges. He is sentenced the next day to two consecutive life sentences.
• November 2023 — Murdaugh pleads guilty in state court to financial crimes and is sentenced to 27 years.
• April 2024 — A federal judge sentences Murdaugh to 40 years for federal financial crimes, to run concurrently with the state sentence.
• December 2025 — Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill pleads guilty to charges connected to her conduct during the trial and is sentenced to three years of probation.
• May 13, 2026 — The South Carolina Supreme Court overturns the murder convictions and orders a new trial.

The investigation and key evidence

The first trial turned heavily on forensic and digital evidence rather than eyewitnesses. Three threads did the most work for the prosecution.

The kennel video

The single most consequential piece of evidence was a short Snapchat video found on Paul Murdaugh’s phone. Paul recorded it at the dog kennels at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021 — by the prosecution’s timeline, roughly five minutes before the killings. Paul had been trying to help a friend, Rogan Gibson, check on Gibson’s dog, Cash, which was staying in the Murdaugh kennels.

In the background of that video, prosecutors said, a third voice can be heard along with Maggie’s and Paul’s — a voice they identified as Alex Murdaugh’s, calling to a family dog. The significance was direct: Murdaugh had repeatedly told investigators he was never at the kennels that night and was elsewhere on the property. The video placed him at the scene minutes before the shootings, undercutting his alibi. At trial, several witnesses who knew the family testified that the third voice was his. Murdaugh, taking the stand in his own defense, eventually acknowledged he had been at the kennels — and had lied to police about it — but insisted he was not the killer.

Cellphone and vehicle data

Prosecutors built a minute-by-minute timeline from digital records: the activity (and sudden inactivity) on the victims’ phones, the data on Alex Murdaugh’s own phone, and GPS and telematics data from his vehicle. The argument was that the electronic record of his movements that night did not match the account he had given investigators.

Forensics at the scene

Investigators presented evidence about the firearms, shell casings, and the physical scene at the kennels. The defense challenged the forensic interpretation and noted that the murder weapons were never recovered. The prosecution’s broader theory leaned less on a single “smoking gun” forensic finding than on the combination of the kennel video, the phone and vehicle data, and Murdaugh’s shifting statements.

The trial and verdict

The trial ran roughly six weeks in Colleton County in early 2023. Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from, or buy time on, the financial frauds that were closing in on him — a motive theory the defense disputed and that became one of the most contested parts of the case. The trial judge allowed extensive testimony about Murdaugh’s financial misconduct as evidence of motive, a decision the defense argued unfairly prejudiced the jury.

On March 2, 2023, the jury found Murdaugh guilty of two counts of murder and related weapons charges. The following day he was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The financial crimes and other deaths

Running parallel to the murders was a second, sprawling case: years of financial theft. Murdaugh ultimately admitted to stealing roughly $12 million from clients and from his own law firm — siphoning settlement funds that were meant for injured and grieving people.

One of those thefts involved Gloria Satterfield, the family’s longtime housekeeper who died in 2018 after a fall at the Murdaugh home. Murdaugh steered an insurance settlement that should have gone to her sons and kept the money — a betrayal that became part of the criminal case against him.

These crimes were resolved by guilty plea, not by the disputed murder trial, and the sentences are substantial and independent:

• A state sentence of 27 years (entered November 2023) after he pleaded guilty to financial crimes.
• A federal sentence of 40 years (entered April 2024) for 22 federal counts including wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the 40-year term, which runs concurrently with the state sentence.

Because Murdaugh pleaded guilty to these crimes, they are not affected by the murder appeal.

Where things stand now (appeals)

On May 13, 2026, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned Murdaugh’s murder convictions and ordered a new trial. The court did not find him innocent and did not reweigh the kennel video or the forensic evidence. Instead, it ruled that his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury had been compromised by misconduct from the Colleton County Clerk of Court, Rebecca “Becky” Hill.

The justices wrote that Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice.” Jurors alleged that Hill made comments suggesting they should watch Murdaugh closely and not be “fooled” by the defense — comments that, the court concluded, could have improperly influenced deliberations. Hill, who had also written a book about the trial, pleaded guilty in December 2025 to charges connected to her conduct, including obstruction and misconduct in office, and was sentenced to three years of probation.

Several things follow from the 2026 ruling:

• Murdaugh stays in prison. His separate financial-crimes convictions — the 40-year federal sentence and the 27-year state sentence — were obtained by guilty plea and remain fully in force. The reversal applies only to the murders.
• The state intends to retry him. South Carolina’s Attorney General’s office has said it will seek to retry Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul, with the hope of bringing the case back to trial by the end of the year. As of this writing, no new trial date has been set.
• A retrial would likely look different. The Supreme Court signaled that prosecutors should sharply limit how much of Murdaugh’s financial misconduct they put before a new jury. A retrial would also face the practical challenge of seating impartial jurors in a case this widely publicized.

For readers who followed the case as a sealed verdict, this is the essential update: the murder question is, legally, open again.

Frequently asked questions

Was Alex Murdaugh found innocent in 2026? No. The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned his murder convictions on the grounds that jury interference denied him a fair trial. That is a procedural ruling about how the trial was conducted — not a finding that he did not commit the murders. The state plans to retry him.

Is Alex Murdaugh out of prison? No. He remains incarcerated on his financial-crimes convictions: a 40-year federal sentence and a concurrent 27-year state sentence, both obtained by guilty plea and unaffected by the murder appeal.

What was the kennel video, and why did it matter? It was a Snapchat video Paul Murdaugh recorded at the dog kennels at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021. Prosecutors said Alex Murdaugh’s voice could be heard in the background — placing him at the scene minutes before the killings and contradicting his statements to police that he was never there that night.

Who is Becky Hill, and what did she do? Rebecca “Becky” Hill was the Colleton County Clerk of Court during the trial. The Supreme Court found she improperly influenced jurors, and she pleaded guilty in December 2025 to charges connected to her conduct, receiving three years of probation. Her misconduct is the legal basis for the new trial.

What were the financial crimes about? Murdaugh admitted to stealing roughly $12 million from clients and his law firm over a period of years, including misdirecting an insurance settlement owed to the sons of his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. He pleaded guilty in both state and federal court.

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The Murdaugh case is frequently consumed as a saga of a fallen family — a frame that echoes through other heavily covered cases, from the Chris Watts family killings in Colorado to the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case in Idaho. But at the center of this one are Maggie Murdaugh and her son Paul, whose lives ended on a June night in 2021. Whatever a future jury decides, they remain the reason this case matters. They deserve to be remembered as people, not as the backdrop to someone else’s story.

Readers coping with the loss of a loved one to violent crime can find support through victim-services organizations such as the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children (POMC). In a crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Justice — Alex Murdaugh Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Federal Financial Crimes
• CNN — Court overturns Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and orders new trial
• CBS News — Alex Murdaugh murder convictions overturned, new trial ordered
• NPR — Convicted of killing wife and son, Alex Murdaugh gets new trial due to jury tampering
• The Post and Courier — [Alex Murdaugh’s prison time to continue despite