Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty is a three-part docuseries that delves into the shocking case of a powerful lawyer being accused of murdering his wife and son, opening up a series of other unsolved crimes surrounding the family in the process.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot Summary
On a foggy night in February 2019, in the low country of South Carolina, six teenagers head out for a party on a boat.
Connor and his girlfriend Miley; Anthony (Connor’s cousin) and his girlfriend Mallory Beach; Paul Murdaugh and his girlfriend Morgan all went to an oyster roast at a mutual friend’s house party.
Despite being underaged, the six youngsters had consumed alcohol, the most concerning part of which was Paul, who was driving the boat despite being heavily drunk.
Amid a row of a verbal and physical spat between them, Paul hit the throttle and rammed the boat into the Archers Creek Bridge.
While all of them suffered injuries ranging from significant to severe, Mallory Beach suffered the worst fate of all, disappearing into the waters due to the crash and eventually dying due to drowning.
Despite all the other friends testifying that it was Paul’s fault that led to the casualty, the Murdaugh family’s judicial influence and power delayed the proper proceedings.
Alex’s grandfather Randolph Murdaugh III and father Alex Murdaugh came under the media and others’ ire for using their powers to get rid of the blame from their son, and thereby, their family.
However, a court hearing was finally placed and hopes for justice were rejuvenated, only for the case to take an unprecedented and utterly shocking turn.
On June 7, 2021, Alex called 911 to report that his wife Maggie Murdaugh and son Alex Murdaugh have been shot dead.
They were shot with different guns and in the absence of a sure-fire suspect, Alex Murdaugh became the prime suspect in this double-murder case.
Amid all the abrupt and shocking twists to the case involving the boating crime accused Paul Murdaugh, a new connection to an old case surfaced, linking the family to another homicide case.
This was Stephen Smith, a talented young man who wished to become a doctor who was killed in the middle of a road in 2015, and the investigations pointed to Alex and his brother Buster Murdaugh but eventually, the case went cold.
Paul and Maggie’s death made way for South Carolina Law Enforcement Department to reopen Smith’s case, along with several other criminal cases related to the family.
Low Country ends with the curtain being pulled off Alex Murdaugh’s corrupt and allegedly homicidal record. In the end, Murdaugh ends up in prison with a slate of charges.
Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty explained in detail:
What happened to Mallory Beach?
Mallory Beach was one of the friends who all fell victim to the boat crash at Archers Creek Bridge, suffering the worst fate of all and dying as a result of blunt force trauma and drowning.
After the crash jolted everyone on the boat, Mallory was thrown out of the boat due to the impact. Even amid all the chaos and confusion, as well as the survivors’ screams of agony, Anthony was dying to know his girlfriend’s whereabouts.
Even after the help arrived, Anthony was occupied with looking for his missing girlfriend, while also cursing Paul, the perpetrator behind the crash as he was allegedly smiling in the aftermath.
Mallory’s family waited for their beloved for days, holding out for the hope that she might have survived the accident somehow, until March 3, 2019, when Mallory’s tragic fate was confirmed and her corpse was discovered five miles from the accident site.
Who killed Stephen Smith?
Stephen Smith was one of the victims to have died because of a murder unresolved to this day. A murder that was also pinned on the Murdaughs by several persons.
According to the Low Country, some of Stephen’s friends said in the police interviews that they heard rumours going around about Stephen’s murderers and the name that they heard floating around as the prime suspect was Buster Murdaugh, Paul’s older brother.
However, Paul was mentioned in the rumours too. In fact, according to the docuseries, a prevalent buzz was that Paul was the one who swung the bat and dealt Stephen the brutal and fatal blow.
Additionally, some friends also claimed to have heard that Buster and Stephen were in a relationship. However, all these unsubstantiated claims and the Murdaughs’ influence allegedly turned the case cold over time.
That is until Paul and Maggie’s death made SLED reopen the case but even after all was said and done, Stephen Smith’s murder remains unsolved the truth about his murderer remains buried beneath the corruption and malicious powers.
According to Low Country, SLED is currently following multiple leads, with Buster not having been named a suspect or person of interest. There are no identified suspects in the case as of yet either.
Who killed Paul and Maggie?
One of the biggest suspects in Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s murders remains Alex Murdaugh himself. It was three days before Paul’s court hearing that his father called 911 to report that his son and wife had been shot dead.
The peculiarities of this case were that there were two different guns that were used to shoot the two individuals and no suspicious man was spotted fleeing out of the area.
Eventually, Alex became a person of interest himself, amid unsubstantiated rumours that his marriage with Maggie was going through a rough patch before the latter’s murder.
However, Alex’s lawyers vehemently denied the claims and challenged anyone to present evidence to support these claims, adding that their marriage was going great.
Furthermore, an interviewee claiming to have been close to the family also supports the lawyers’ claims, adding that she can’t see Alex hiring someone for a hit on his wife.
Meanwhile, another prevalent theory is that a member outside of the community may have murdered the mother and son as a form of revenge. To this day, no one has been charged with the murder of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.
Where is Alex Murdaugh now?
Low Country reveals how Alex Murdaugh had been embezzling and absconding with his client’s money for a long while. One of the prominent cases of his fraud was related to his son’s caretaker and housekeeper Gloria Satterfield.
Gloria’s death also surrounded similar rumours as the other murders related to the family; many believed Paul to have been involved in some capacity, although all the rumours again were unsubstantiated and led nowhere.
However, what was not unsubstantiated was Alex’s sleazy and extremely immoral fraud he committed with the Satterfields’ insurance money he duped them out of.
After admitting to his financial crimes against the Satterfield estate, a snowball effect of other allegations and lawsuits hit Alex, and he was eventually handcuffed and sent to jail after a psychological evaluation.
He was later charged with a total of 75 felony counts and faces a total of 731 years in prison if convicted.
The judge set his bond for $7 million — an amount his lawyers claimed he’s not able to pay, resulting in him remaining in jail to this day.
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