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The Murdaugh Murders
A Trial for the Ages in the Lowcountry
The dogs would not stop barking. They were hunting dogs and the smell of blood was strong in the kennel. Their reaction was primal — bred into them from generation to generation. The dogs could not stop barking.
Something had been passed down from one generation to another and it had led to this night in June — to the gunshots, to the splattered blood and brain matter of a mother and son, and to the incessant barking of the dogs that had borne witness to it all.
In the Lowcountry of South Carolina, Hampton County has been the home and powerbase of the Murdaugh family for over one hundred years. Through three generations, a Murdaugh has been the solicitor for the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit and the family has accrued wealth through its law firm, P.M.P.E.D. (Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth, and Detrick), which specialized in personal injury lawsuits.
Lawsuits aren’t just big business in the Lowcountry — they are almost the only business.
The land had been ravaged by the crops grown during slavery and is only good now for growing loblolly pine trees to be used for timber. The logging and pulping trades are the primary industry in the area — an industry prone to injury — and had provided many a client (and a portion of their settlement money)…
