Alex Murdaugh’s bizarre fall from grace gave the public a crime story too strange to look away from, and at times, too twisted to keep up with. Even by recent standards of true crime consumption, where appetite for morbid and procedural play-by-plays has felt all but bottomless, the rapidly developing story’s many tentacles prompted a voracious true-crime feeding frenzy. Murdaugh’s murder trial, his family’s influence in their rural South Carolina county, and several deaths associated with them have prompted the release of dozens of adaptations, including at least three docuseries, a scripted Hulu show, a two-part Lifetime movie, and three Dateline episodes, as well as other TV specials, podcasts, and books, all within the past five years, since Murdaugh’s stranger-than-fiction behavior first began capturing national attention.
Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found shot to death in June 2021 on the grounds of the Murdaugh family’s hunting estate in the South Carolina lowcountry. Maggie’s husband and Paul’s father, Alex, called 911. The case went quiet for several months, but Murdaugh was charged with dozens of financial crimes in the meantime, many of which he later pleaded guilty to. He was charged with Maggie and Paul’s murders in 2022 and, following a six-week trial, convicted in March of 2023.
