A spokesperson forAlex Murdaughis refuting claims that the prominent South Carolina attorney and his wife Maggiewere having marital issuesbefore she wasmurderedon the grounds of their family’s 1,770-acre hunting lodge in June.
PEOPLE has spoken to several sources who know the Murdaugh family who say there was recent friction in the couple’s marriage, including a law enforcement source who alleges that Maggievisited a Charleston-area divorce attorneyin late April and was counseled to begin looking at the family finances.
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Police have not alleged that possible marital issues had anything to do with Maggie’s death. She and her younger son, Paul, were fatally shot outside the family home on June 7. Alex returned to the family property shortly after 10 p.m. and called 911 to report discovering the bodies.
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Alex and Maggie Murdaugh.
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The deaths of the mother and son shined a spotlight on a string of mysterious deaths surrounding the family, including a “slip and fall” death of the family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, a 2015 hit and run of local teenager Stephen Smith and a 2019 boat crash that killed Paul Murdaugh’s friend, Mallory Beach.
Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh.
But things got worse for Alex Murdaugh.
On September 4 — just three months after Paul and Maggie were found dead — hewas shot in the headin rural Hampton County, South Carolina. He received only superficial injuries — and police later said he had orchestrated the shooting in an attempt to collect a $10 million life insurance policy for his surviving son, Buster. Alex’s own lawyers corroborated the allegation.
Shortly after the shooting, he issued a statement saying that he would resign from his family’s law firm — which now alleges that he misappropriated millions of dollars. He said he would enter substance abuse treatment.
While police are investigating the cases, Alex Murdaugh’s spokesperson asks that the focus remains on the Murdaugh murders.
“It is our hope that the media will continue to focus on covering the investigation of the person or people responsible for the murder of Maggie and Paul,” the spokesperson writes, “and not reporting salacious stories with no credible sources connected to the Murdaugh family.”
source: people.com
