Alex Murdaugh’s Net Worth Included $8.8M in Embezzled Funds—How His Family’s Murders Affected His Fortune
The fall of a litigation dynasty. As one of the most watched trials in 2023, many true crime fans might wonder what Alex Murdaugh’s net worth is.
The former South Carolinian lawyer Alex Murdaugh was a fourth-generation prosecutor in the fourteenth circuit of the South Carolina Circuit Court. Murdaugh’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all top prosecutors in the region spanning a collective family history of almost 90 years. However, it all started falling apart after several suspicious attempts and fraud charges. The central turning point in the story was when Murdaugh’s wife and son, Margaret, 52, and Paul, 22, were murdered on June 7, 2021. “I’ve been gone,” Murdaugh, his voice quivering, tells a dispatcher in a 911 call via The New York Times. “I just came back.”
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On September 4, 2021, Murdaugh was injured after he was shot in the head after a roadside accident. Two days later he resigned from his law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick. “The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret,” he said in a statement, citing his addiction to oxycodone. “I’m resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated these murders. I am immensely sorry to everyone I’ve hurt including my family, friends and colleagues. I ask for prayers as I rehabilitate myself and my relationships.” Days after the resignation, the law firm released its own statement alleging Murdaugh had misappropriated company funds and Murdaugh was arrested and charged with multiple felonies. So what is Alex Murdaugh’s net worth?
What is Alex Murdaugh’s net worth?
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What is Alex Murdaugh’s net worth? According to Exact Net Worth, Alex Murdaugh’s net worth is about $1 million. As a lawyer, the site reports that his occupation made him earn $250,000 a year.
Murdaugh was one of the owners of the law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick, which his great-grandfather Randolph Murdaugh Sr. founded his law office in Hampton County in 1910. His sons, Buster and Paul, also tried to follow in his footsteps by going to law school and attending his same alma mater, the University of Southern Carolina. Their family spent their time split a beach house, a couple of private islands, and a massive 1,772-acre estate known as Moselle — At the time of the roadside accident, the firm said that it had hired a forensic accounting firm to investigate the suspected misappropriation of funds and that it had also notified the police and the South Carolina Bar, according to the New York Times.
Days later on September 16, 2021, Alex Murdaugh surrendered to authorities and was charged with multiple felonies including insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report. He returned shortly to a drug rehabilitation center after he was granted bond and a judge ordered him to surrender his passport.
After he was released from the drug rehabilitation center in October 2021, Murdaugh was arrested and charged with two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses after an investigation into millions of dollars that went missing from a settlement involving the death of his housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. According to her heirs, they received none of the proceeds from a $4.3 million settlement they said was orchestrated in secret by Murdaugh. Her case was opened up again in June 2022 after there were suspicions that arose after her death was listed as “natural,” which a coroner has said was inconsistent with injuries sustained in a “trip and fall accident” in Mudaugh’s home.
Prosecutors looked into Murdaugh’s roadside accident a week after it happened and accused Murdaugh of hiring someone to kill him so that his surviving son, Buster, could collect on a $10m life insurance policy. Murdaugh later admitted that he had asked his distant cousin and drug dealer Curtis Edward Smith to shoot him in the head. Murdaugh’s lawyers said he had come up with a plan to make his suicide look like murder because his life insurance policy didn’t cover suicide. At the end of 2021, Murdaugh faced 48 separate charges including nine counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent, seven counts of computer crimes, four counts of money laundering and one count of forgery. In a statement of December of that year, he attributed his opiate withdrawal “My head is on straighter, I’m thinking clearer than I have in a long, long time,” Murdaugh says. “I want to deal with these charges appropriately and head-on.”
By January 21, 2022, his charges increased as he faced 71 charges involving the theft of about $8.5 million over the course of 11 years. In July of the same year, a jury ruled to indict Murdaugh for the murder of Paul and Margaret. A grand jury also indicted Murdaugh and Smith with criminal conspiracy and narcotics offenses. They are accused of conspiring to purchase and distribute oxycodone in Colleton County from October 7, 2013, to September 7, 2021.
In an opening statement to Alex Murdugh’s trial on January 25, 2023, prosecutor Creighton Waters told the jury that Margaret and Paul’s injuries were listed “as if they didn’t see a threat coming from their attacker.” He added that the injuries were “gruesome”, Waters told the jury. He also noted cellphone data that placed Murdaugh at the scene of the crime just minutes before his family’s phones would “go silent forever”. Police also found a “wadded up” raincoat inside Murdaugh’s parents’ home that was “coated in gunshot residue.” Murdaugh later took to the witness stand and admitted that he lied to the police about where he was on the night of his family’s murders. He also acknowledged that he had stolen from his law clients. He conceded that he had pocketed a check he was supposed to hand over to his law firm.
Murdaugh also confessed that he lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder. “I did lie to them,” he said, blaming his addiction to opiate painkillers. “I wasn’t thinking clearly,” he added. “I don’t think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I’m so sorry that I did.” He continued to deny responsibility for his wife and son’s murder. “I didn’t shoot my wife or my son, anytime, ever.”As of February 24, 2023, Murdaugh was charged with over 100 financial charges as well as stealing about $8.8 million from a range of victims and charges related to the murder.
If you’re interested in learning more about the family, don’t miss Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal on Netflix. The synopsis of which is as follows: “The Murdaughs were one of South Carolina’s most prominent families, but the death of teenager Mallory Beach in a drunken boating accident began the unraveling of their legacy. When Paul Murdaugh—the alleged driver of the boat—and his mother Maggie are found brutally murdered, a century of corruption, power, and cover-ups in the Low Country is brought to light. The three-part series will feature first-hand accounts from those on the boat that fateful night, many of whom have not spoken about the crash or double homicide of Maggie and Paul until now, including Paul Murdaugh’s longtime girlfriend, Morgan Doughty; Mallory Beach’s childhood friends, Miley Altman and Connor Cook; Mallory’s boyfriend, Anthony Cook; and, several others.”
Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal is available to stream now.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, help is available. Call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) for free, confidential support.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
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