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One night in early June, South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh returned home and found his son and wife shot dead near the kennel on their property in Islandton.
Recently released 911 calls reveal the heartbreaking first moments after Murdaugh discovered his 22-year-old son, Paul, and his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, in the field.
The tapes were released on Thursday, weeks after Fox News filed for a public record regarding the June 7 incident.
In rushed and frantic words, Murdaugh told the 911 dispatcher, “This is bad. He says he came home to find his wife and son shot dead, lying on the ground and not moving near a kennel on the property.
SOUTH CAROLINA MURDER VICTIM PAUL MURDAUGH HAD MORE THAN 3 TIMES LEGAL LIMIT IN FATAL BOAT CRASH IN 2019
“I need the police and an ambulance immediately,” he told the dispatcher, his voice broken. “My wife and my child were badly affected.”
At the start of the call, the dispatcher asks if the victims are breathing.
“No ma’am,” Murdaugh replies.
A vehicle is in the driveway of a house on Tuesday June 8, 2021 in rural Colleton County near Islandton, SC they made no arrests in the double homicide case. Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, were shot multiple times and their bodies were found near a kennel, Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey said. (Andrew J. Whitaker / The Post And Courier via AP)
(Andrew J. Whitaker / The Post And Courier via AP)
When asked if he had seen anyone else in the area, he gave the same answer. Was someone else supposed to be there? “No ma’am” again.
“Neither of them is moving.”
“What color is your house from the outside?” asks the dispatcher, information that might help MPs answer.
“It’s white,” Murdaugh replies. “[But] you can’t see it from the road. “
She later asks him to turn on the turn signals in her vehicle to help first responders find the kennels, then asks him not to touch the bodies.
“I already touched them to see if they were breathing,” he replies.
“Alright,” she said. “I just don’t want you to move anything just in case they can get some evidence.
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As MPs rushed to the scene, Murdaugh repeatedly asked how long they would have left. Then he told the dispatcher that he was going to call other family members while they waited for their arrival.
The Murdaugh murder mystery, involving a prominent family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry area, a coastal countryside teeming with historic landmarks near the Georgia state border, has garnered national attention.
A few days later, Alex Murdaugh’s father, Randolph Murdaugh III, 81, died of natural causes at his home in Varnville.
The tragedies have befallen the region’s largest legal family, which owns a lucrative personal injury law firm and has three generations of 14th Circuit Solicitors, the principal attorney for the four surrounding counties.
Photo by Paul Murdaugh
(South Carolina Attorney General’s Office / WTAT-TV / DT)
But Paul Murdaugh was facing a boating offense on charges of drunkenness following an accident that killed one of his friends, Mallory Beach, and injured several others in 2019. Her father is a part-time attorney in the notary’s office, who retired from the BWI Cas.
And state investigators said that upon examining the murders, they found information that led them to reopen the 2015 case of Stephen Smith, 19, who was found dead on a rural road with trauma. cranial grave near another property of Murdaugh.
His death had been officially declared a hit-and-run, although the decision proved controversial.
“There was no evidence that this was a hit-and-run, or even that a vehicle was involved,” the former South Carolina state soldier told Fox News , Todd Proctor, who led the preliminary inquiry into Smith’s death.
“It seemed like it was more staged,” he said. “Like maybe the body had been placed on the pavement.”
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This is because there were no tire marks on the road or broken car parts that could have fallen out, and Smith did not appear to have slipped on the asphalt after an impact.
Police said Smith’s car was found without gasoline and he may have started walking and been hit in the head by the rearview mirror of a passing tractor-trailer.
The link between the Murdaugh murders and Smith’s death remains unclear.
Alex Murdaugh did not respond to Fox News’ multiple requests.
Griff Jenkins of Fox News contributed to this report.
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