Transcript of Episode 648: Alex Murdaugh Part I - From Randy to Buster

There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast.

On the left.

That's when the cannibalism started.

Who was that? In memory of today's episode, in celebration today. In memory.

Today's episode, die as well?

Oh, my God.

We haven't even made it yet. Now, is it dead already.

In the spirit of the ghost of this episode. Sure. I actually made a really important fat man discovery. Okay. That has changed my life in a significant way. I want to show you, Eddie, because I don't know if you know what I've done.

Oh, no. What did you do?

I have solved my falling down pants problem. What?

With. No.

Fretless belts. This is a free one. This is a free one, fretless belt. No holes in the Really? Completely threaded. You make it as actually tight as you need it to be and not have to deal with the fucking garbage industry standards. That's right. I think they call them frets.

Don't tell me where my fucking holes are.

Don't tell me how big my waist is. You're wrong. You're always wrong. It's always between the holes.

Don't fret. Get a belt that works. No frets.

This is the Robert Fripp. I am playing crimson king every day when I get up and I go to work.

King crimson. You ever, dad.

It's an end of the fucking song.

It's an end of the song, Fretless Belts.

Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks, here to keep Henry Zabrowski from embarrassing himself further with his Fretless Belts. Fretless Belts.

I don't even need to know where it is, man. Again, Robert Fripp. I remember that.

Yeah, you do. How did you remember the guitarist from King Cremson? But you don't remember the name of the fucking band.

I remember he had a frittless bass.

We have the man who actually knows that he I'm not talking about when it comes to music.

I think it's Jack-O-Pastorius.

Jack-o-pastorius. Robert Fripp is a guitarist. He played the solo of Baby's on Fire for Brian Eino. Ed Larson is also here.

I am very excited for Henry's pants to fall down because I know he can't put that belt back on while he's sitting down.

At the end of this episode, you will inevitably forget that you took your belt off. Pants will fall down on camera, and then that'll be beautiful for the home audience, hopefully.

Today, we're starting off the year with a modern true crime saga. Just like last year, we started off with Laurie Vallo and Chad Daybell. I missed them. I missed them, too. This year, we're starting off-Not dead yet. No, they're really not. This year, we are starting off with I think I would say the second largest true crime story of this century so far, Alec Mordech.

Mr. Mordech, you are being charged with the capital crime, Mordech. Mordech on a false degree. How do you plate? I plate not guilty. I'll be so excited for this. I would put this in the top. This is the 2020's first big, big, big, big, big one. Yeah, 2021, right? Yeah. Could you Before we get into the story, could you walk the audience a little bit through the voice that you were walking us through prior to this episode's recording? For Alec Murtaugh, the only way to describe him really is that he's like a flute with a bag of fat filled with oxy attached to it. Yeah, I've got a couple of them growing up.

Yeah.

He's got a very distinctive voice. Part of what caused him to be guilty in the first place is his extremely distinctive voice. But I'm trying to place it, and I know that it's somewhere between South Carolina, the classic heavy hitter, Peewee Gaskins.

It's final truth, yeah.

And Michael Jackson.

The words you used were It's strained Michael Jackson.

It's grounded Michael Jackson. He's a grounded Michael Jackson because he'd been like, I do believe you're ignorant. You're being ignorant about the facts of the case, mister. You're being ignorant about what I've done. The idea is that if Michael Jackson was in a stage play, playing himself, and he was a lawyer, and he'd go be in like, Ladies and gentlemen, I call. I find that you're being ignorant of the charges that are being brought across. It's a capital crime of murder.

It's interesting you chose the word grounded because that's what would happen to the kids that wouldn't spend the night at Jackson's house.

Actually, that was the punishment because they couldn't leave.

Well, on June seventh, 2021- Oh, my God.

Before you get started, I'm looking at Chad Daybell. He looks so much like Alex Murtaugh.

It's so crazy.

They're the same dude.

Their DNA definitely kiss us.

Yeah, There's definitely... It's the tubby white man in America. There's not a whole lot of variety there. It's just different colors of hair.

Yeah, unfortunately, we're all cut from the same cheesecloth.

No, we're not, Eddie. You and I, Eddie, we are saved by our European-ness. You and I are fully European in many ways, and these are unfortunate Americans.

On June seventh, 2021, a prominent Southern lawyer named Alec Murdick, shot and killed his wife and son outside of the dog kennels near their hunting lodge in South Carolina. Now, family annulations are unfortunately fairly common here in America, but the Murdick murders became one of the biggest crime cases of this century. What people forget, though, is that it was not known that Alec Murdick had committed these murders when the bodies were found. Instead, the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdoch captivated the nation in the beginning because of the multitude of suspicious deaths that had been surrounding this wealthy family for years beforehand.

I'm just going to say right here at the top, we here at Last Podcast on the left think Alec Murdoch is completely, utterly guilty. We're not going to remote I entertain any argument that he's not.

I already liked Harpulian speak on the subject, and you did not convince me, you, or anyone else. No.

Now, the Murdoch were a family of multi-generational South Carolina lawyers, often described as the Kennedy's of South Carolina's so-called Low Country. This family had represented power, justice, and wealth for well over 100 years in this part of America by the time Alec Murdoch brought it all crashing down. Yes, it is spelled Alex Murdaugh, but it's pronounced Alec Murdoch. Yeah.

I love his name, Is murder.

Yeah. The Murdoch legacy, however, came from both sides of the courtroom. The A Murtick personal injury firm, P-M-P-E-D, which looks like pump. No one ever calls it pump. I'm going to say pimp. Oh, wow. My first thought was pump because I'm pump. They built a reputation for being able to almost guarantee huge settlements from America's largest corporations, companies like Walmart or Firestone Tires. Cool. Yeah. But at the same time, between 1920 and 2006, a Murtick acted as solicitor of the 14th Judicial Circuit in South Carolina. Solicitor, being the special South Carolina term that most states give to the position of district attorney. What that meant, though, is that the murdics also prosecuted every crime committed in this sprawling five-county area of South Carolina for 86 years. They were feared and revered. They sent hundreds of people to prison and condemned well over a dozen men to the electric chair during their reign on the prosecutorial side of the courtroom.

I think it It should be understood that Dick Harpulian, who we'll get to in probably the third episode.

Third episode, yeah. The guy that represented Alec Murdoch in the murder trial.

Also was a solicitor with the Murdoch. Yeah. Yes, and it's just in a different county. So We've known each other for all of time. It's all so dirty and weird.

And they're all on the same team. I also find it very interesting that when we cover what we call a lot of times B-Team Illuminatis, we've said these all the time, localized, regional Illuminatis. One One thing those mistakes that those groups always make is when they want to go national. That's when they fall apart. That's always when they can do it. The reason why the Murdoch managed to concentrate power so well is because it's a small area, and they kept it small.

When the merdicks lived by the principle that if you wanted to live above the law, you had to become the law. While their family did not start out as a bunch of crooks, they are a case study in absolute power, corrupt Absolutely. Now, it really can't be overstated that for all intents and purposes, the merdicks acting as solicitors were the law in South Carolina's low country for over a century. But as civil litigators as well, they also amassed power and wealth that was passed down to each successive generation of Murdoch. By the time Alec Murdoch came of age, his patrilineal line had learned how to tamper with juries, lean on judges, and call in favors from governors to get whatever result they wanted in the courtroom. If we're being honest, since it was all happening in the boonies of South Carolina, nobody on the outside really gave a fuck what was happening down there. When was the last time you thought about South Carolina?

When I had to go there for a funeral.

It's a great place for a funeral. I always remember the time I ate into TGI Fridays when I was driving from New York to Florida with Natalie, Jackie, and her ex. We stopped at a TGI Fridays in South Carolina. I always remember seeing a father with his family. They were at a TGI Fridays, which is like, I think, cancels out. I don't think that you're not allowed to. I think that that stops the prayer from getting to God.

Too much wackiness. Too much shit on the walls.

He can't get there.

You're already thinking God, it's Friday.

God's in the title. Which also scares me now. Now I'm upset. I went to go to the bathroom and I saw that man stand up to go to the bathroom, South Carolina. Into the bathroom. I stand up to the urinal to pee. That man, that father, I recognize him from the dining room. He comes up, does the weird thing, stands right next to me, the urinal right next to me, right in an empty bathroom. He then proceeds to take his pants down entirely to his ankles and his underwear and pee, open up like a full-on, just hands on hips, pissing like he- The Butters.

Yeah.

That's South Carolina to me.

Absolutely. Yeah. Just people with their pants sitting in piss.

Well, the Murdic family decided what was right and wrong in the the low country, and they made sure to constantly remind both themselves and everyone else that this was the case. As a result, each generation of Murdick was more reckless, entitled, and violent than the one that came before. As it often goes with these sorts of people in the south, people began dying as a result. Even before the shooting murders of Paul and Maggie Murdoch at Alec Murdoch's Hand, three suspicious deaths were credibly linked to the Murdoch family between just the years of 2015 and 2019. Specifically, those deaths were linked to murder victim Paul Murdoch, because when it comes to Paul, this is one of those rare true crime stories where the victim did not, quote, light up a room wherever they went.

Yeah, you never see a 48 hours about the henchmen from Nightmare Before Christmas. He's one of those.

He's really the most disgusting type of fucking Southerner dude.

He's every type of... If you up in the South or knew people from the South, he's the exact type of puffer vest wearing, Do you know who my father is, bitch, that you can possibly imagine, that was also extremely violent, misogynist, and a murderer.

Yeah, It's so weird that they're all so violent while wearing pastels.

It's just the whole. It's the whole fucking thing. All they do is murder.

It's baby wall colors. It's all the dress in, these weird soft yellows and salmon.

I know it's nice and shit, but he had bought hunting grounds. That's a vacation spot that you go to relax by killing things in. I'll just never fully understand it.

Then he killed his family by the dogs who probably enjoyed the show.

I will say it must have been fun to finally really let that fucking automatic rifle go, like full war for the first time.

Well, Paul Murdoch, the person that Alec Murdoch killed, his son, Paul was dead He was definitely responsible for the death of a close friend in a drunken boating accident. He was probably responsible for the death of his family's housekeeper, and he was likely, at least, involved in the murder of a local gay teenager named Stephen Smith. All of this occurred before Paul was even 23 years old. That's in addition to the drunken physical beating Paul doled out to his girlfriends, who all suffered the wrath of this eternally chaotic train wreck of alcohol and entitlement. All three investigations into these deaths, however, either went nowhere due to the concerted efforts of Paul's family and their connections, or they ended when Paul Murdoch was himself murdered by his own father.

Almost like that was the point.

Well, we're going to get into the theories on episode three because we have some different theories as to why Paul and Maggie were murdered. I have my own pet theories.

I'm pretty sure if Paul wasn't rich, he would have been murdered at such a young age.

Well, he would have gotten his ass. He definitely would have gotten his ass handed to him a lot more because he definitely fancied himself a real tough little hombre.

Paul, however, was not the first bad apple to fall from the Murdoch tree. Each generation of Murdoch men had been worse than the one before. Alec Murdoch was himself a crook of the highest order, besides also being a murderer. Before the murders, Alec had been skimming millions off settlements and insurance payouts from his client pool, which was made up mostly of poor locals. After stealing from the poor, would use the money to both fund his family's lavish lifestyle and his own incredible addiction to Oxycodon, which, at its height, reached 60 pills a day.

I don't even understand that.

A day. We're going to go into that, too, because there's a lot of confusion about what Oxycodone does to you. I think that that's one of those things that will come up later in the- I've lost three friends to Oxy when I was younger in high school and just in the beginning of college.

They all probably took 60 total. That's the craziest shit.

It's great stuff.

See, the thing is my boys were classless in smoking it.

I think that's where I'm with it. Yeah. He's probably popping them five at a time because the tolerance just keeps going up and up and up.

And he's a big fat man. Yes, he is. Big fat man.

Even after Alec murdered his wife and one of his two sons, he continued to try to live a life above the law by attempting to pin the double homicide on a local teenager using a convoluted plan involving his cousin, a guy named Fast Eddie. Fast Eddie was also giving him all the Oxycodon because where else are you going to get the Oxy Oxy from it.

I don't know. I mean, if he was the one selling the Oxycodon, you'd think you'd call him Slow Eddie.

I was going to say that. Actually, I was waiting for you to shut up so I could say that joke. Congratulations. Great job.

I won.

But after the murders, when the rest of the country finally got a peak at how South Carolina's low country had been run by this bizarre our collection of tubby, beady-eyed redheads for decades on end, the world that the merdicks built for themselves over a century came crashing down within just a few short months.

On the 15 years that we've been doing the show, and in my life before this, I've seen a lot of horrible, horrible things. I've poured over crime scenes over the years, pictures of the Holocaust, things going on, Auschwitz, the Unit 731. Jonestown. Jonestown. I've seen all of the footage in one of the- Balschwitz. Yes, you all get crazy. But truly, one of the worst single things I've ever seen is a picture of the Murdoch family on vacation. Them in bathing suits- Just happy. Are one of the worst single sites I've ever seen. Their bodies legally should have been covered. There should have been a Sharia law for Hampton County, for their family. Disgusting. A ginger's nipples need to be cut off. Yeah.

They look like Albino manatees. He looks like...

It's just a white belly with two piercing red eyes, like a skull with flaming coals in it.

Then they had faces. Yeah.

They got the faces. We'll get to those later.

Forefather face.

Now, for our sources on this modern true crime saga, we used two books, The Devil at His Elbow by Valeria Bauerlein and Tangled Vines by John Glatt, both of which are quite solid and provide a lot of historical context. But because this story needs historical context to be told properly, the first episode of this series is going to be a short but fascinating history on the Murdick family in South Carolina. See, if you really want to understand how Alec Murdick came to believe that he could get away with murdering his wife and son, if you want to know how he could make that an overly performative 911 call saying that they were both shot badly.

He shot my wife and child. He shot badly.

Shot badly.

Who's ever been shot well? My wife and child. They was lightly peppered.

My wife. You got to understand the Murdox in South Carolina's Low Country. Now, the Low Country, spelled in one word, smushed together for some stupid fucking reason, is a coastal region in the Southeastern stretch of South Carolina, running from the Savannah River to just north of the state's most populous city, Charleston. This story, however, does not take place in Charleston. Mostly, the Murdox saga takes place in three counties in the Low Country. First, you got Buford County. Buford is home to an affluent seaside resort town called Hilton Head Island, which could be considered South Carolina's version of, say, Martha's Vineyard. Good description. Yeah. Near Hilton Head was Murdoch Island, where the Murdochs threw parties and amassed social power amongst the South Carolina elite for decades.

You know, nothing ever happens badly when a bunch of rich people own an island. Never.

Especially when it's named after the rich people that own it. It's never bad. Yeah. Well, as far as where else the Murdoch played in the low country, the Murdoch had their hunting lodge in nearby Culloden County. This is where the Murdoch reign would end, where Alec would murder his wife and son, and where their housekeeper would suffer a suspicious fatal injury. But when it came to where the Murdoch were truly king, the center of the Murdoch's world was Hampton County. Rural, inland, and incredibly poor, Hampton County had been founded after the Civil War as a place where people could pretend like the south never lost.

Oh, nice. Good for them.

The Whites of Hampton could keep living the way they'd always lived, where the poor Whites were kept under the boot heel of the Rich, and the Black citizens lived second class at best.

I love how their Hamptons suck.

All this could happen away from the scrutiny of the outside world. That's very important. This is very isolated. To ensure this lifestyle was maintained, the local government built a literal fence around the entire county in the 1890s, as if, according to one historian, they were trying to literally fence the oncoming 20th century. Because of this deliberate isolation, no one ever left Hampton County, but no one moved to Hampton County either.

That's because I was reading the grimoire I found that African Wizards are afraid of gates. Yes, the African Wizard can be kept in bay with several planks of wood.

I I'm glad they put the fence on, personally.

Yeah, you're like, Yeah, you stay over there.

Take it. Now, one of the families who I'm sure approved of that fence around the county was the Murdoch family, who had moved to Hampton County in the 1870s to join the ruling class of the Confederate Old Guard about a decade after the Civil War ended. But while the Murdochs were indeed an influential family in the early days of Hampton County, their outsized influence on the low country did not truly begin until 1910, when the first Murdoch graduated from law school. That year, Randolph Murdoch, Alec Murdoch's great grandfather, he earned a degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law..

The Cox.

Yeah, the Game Cox, right? Yeah. Well, after moving back to Hampton County, Randolph set up across the street from the county courthouse where he soon established himself as one of South Carolina's most gifted young lawyers.

I know it I know it was harder to live then, but it is amazing how you could have just been a Supreme Court judge if you just built a house in the right place by the right building. Sure. You know what I mean? It's like one of those things where when the country was beginning, you just had to be there. Yeah.

I mean, this is 1910. We'd been around for a while.

I'm not saying it at that time, but I'm just saying- I don't know what you're saying.

I don't know.

All I know is I'm looking at this family vacation picture. Not one lip out of the four of them. I I bet her vagina lips are even small.

All of their shins. We're looking at the Murdoch standing on a boat. Their shins should be illegal. Those legs should have been removed. The knees, the worst. Diabetes should have been applied to this family to cause them to lose that extra parts of them.

Yeah, money, can't buy a class, can't buy a chin either. No. Now, as opposed to the total greed-obsessed sociopathic slime balls that the Murdoch eventually actually became Randy Murdoch Senior, the first one to become a lawyer in the Murdoch family, he was still highly unethical, yes, but he also represented anyone and everyone who sought justice. He soon built a reputation and a fortune as a man who defended the working class. He established his firm by taking on personal injury cases against extremely powerful railroad companies at a time when one in 37 railroad workers were guaranteed to be killed on the job. Damn.

It's great for fucking a depressed dude. Yeah, that's where I'll go.

Now, where is that on the chimney sweep scale?

Chimney sweep still high above railroad workers, but I'd say podcaster is still below. Randy also represented the families of people who were hit and killed by trains, of which there were many, because in the early 20th century, very few railroads had even clear crossing. Wings, much less cross arms or warning lights. But that's all to say that suing railroads on behalf of the working man, that made the Murdochs, and they were able to ride that reputation for defending those less fortunate than themselves for decades after. Now, it was still legal for lawyers to both practice civil cases and act as government prosecutors in South Carolina until the 1980s. God damn. So Randy Murdoch senior was able to run for 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor a. K. A. District attorney without giving up his lucrative personal injury firm. Once elected in 1920, Randy senior became the chief lawman for 100 miles, standing in rank above sheriffs, deputies, jailers, and constables across five counties. He was also chief detective across the low country, personally charged with investigating murders, an elected official investigating murder.

I mean, It was just one guy.

It's America. Yeah. But since this was the era before forensics, most of Randy's job as chief detective was vetting alibis and assessing credibility, meaning that if Randy senior had a feeling that someone was guilty, he could make a conviction happen if he had a good enough line of bullshit. It also helped if he got the right jury, which he usually did. In Hampton County, jurors were chosen by a child who pulled names from box filled with paper slips. But Randy senior made sure that the box was filled only with the names of men who could be relied upon to give him the verdict he wanted.

It's more that you unpack it. It's more like, oh, it's like all he did was corruption in a way. But because it was so localized and he knew everybody, it seemed to be fine at the time.

I think what's important with the Murdochs to remember is that they were always unethical. But that's the thing. It also doesn't make them that much different than prosecutors across America. He's been a lawyer.

Being a lawyer means this is what you do.

He's been a lawyer. But there's always this veneer of ethics that Randy senior puts it. He tries to at least pretend. There's a pretense of ethics. But with each generation, that pretense just falls a little bit more and a little bit more.

No, we keep about how much we miss Dick Janie and somebody who actually cared about this goddamn country. You look like him now.

You're slowly turning into him. Why did they use a child to pick the names out of the box? It's because their hands were smaller and they split.

They're innocent.

Yeah, they're innocent. They just liked it.

They can't be corrupted.

Yeah. But while all of this is certainly a recipe for rampant corruption- Wait a second. Randy senior had a reputation for being a man who gave everyone a clean deal, a man who stood above influence or intimidation. Randy Randy senior indicted police officers, bankers, preachers, politicians, back when such things were seen by the public as noble pursuits. Randy senior even once prosecuted the governor of South Carolina himself and made the man who was technically his boss stand in the prisoner's block while Randy read out the indictments. This, of course, while it was good press, it was really in service to the Murdochs establishing that they were the law in the low country. Not the cops, not the and definitely not the governor.

Man, there's so many names I don't trust out of this family. Randy Buster. It's like every name that's just a fucking red flag. Speaking of which, so is their face.

Now, like all the Murdochs who came after, Randy senior was a showman in the courtroom. The janitors at the courthouse who regularly watched his performances called him Fire and brimstone because Randy projected like a preacher. But once the Great Depression came around, Randy senior started cutting corners, and he did so in a classically Southern racist way. There were rumors, for example, that Randy senior had collaborated with a local sheriff to extra judiciously kill a Black man accused of murder instead of arresting said man and taking him to trial. Randy senior's reason was that he wanted to spare Hampton County the cost of jailing and trying the accused because we got this depression on.

Yeah, it's a saving money thing. It's a saving money thing.

Yeah, what else am I supposed to do with this cross? Not burn it?

I don't know. It's made out of wood.

It said that Randy and this Sheriff took the accused on a fishing trip on the Savannah River themselves and shoved the man into alligator infested waters. Now, there's no proof that this happened, but the people of Hampton County believe that it was true. Trust me, I know from growing up in rural Texas, the damn near every Southern county has some version of this story. It's often told by the Black population with a great amount of understandable fear, but it's simultaneously told by the Whites, the ones that are rich and the ones who are poor, with no small amount of pride and even a little bit of awe.

Don't give gators a bad name like that. Just admit to killing the man yourself.

Yeah, but they were like, The gators did it. No.

You shot them in the back of the head. They smelled A blood on the head of a corpse.

My favorite gator, Willy, looked skinny, and I wanted him to have some genuine low country buffet.

Well, in the south, Whites often look up to law enforcement officials who take the law into their own hands, men like Randy Murdoch senior. And so the Murdochs learned early on that murdering someone, if it was for the so-called greater good, this not only be forgiven, but respected.

But it's supposed to be outside the family, Marcus.

Ah, yes, of course. Now, along with making sure that the poor of the low country knew that they could be killed without trial if he deemed it necessary, Randy senior also made sure to let the other high-ranking members of low country society know that they could do whatever they wanted without consequence. For example, when the richest man in Hampton County shot and killed a construction foreman after the foreman told this unnamed rich man that he couldn't drive down a road that was being paved, the murderer donated a large sum of money to Randy senior's re-election campaign for solicitor. Now, the rich man did stand trial for the murder, but he was acquitted after just five hours of deliberation. After he walked free, nine out of the twelve jurors just happened to all build new houses. In this corruption established by the Murdoch family, this became the norm in South Carolina's low country.

Why is he unnamed?

We just didn't get his name. Oh, okay. I wish we got his name, but we didn't get it.

It's a court case.

We could dig and look for it.

You know, there's a weekly grind on this shit. I didn't realize. I'm sorry. There's only so much time that we have to look into things.

I want to take all these motherfuckers down.

He's been dead. God, he's probably been dead for so long.

Like a hundred years. He's got a grandson that we can kick.

Can I actually ask a question about this mentality? The idea of going into this scenario, in some way, they have to validate it to themselves. Yes, we talk about you're doing it for the greater good, and on that's one side of it. But they really did feel in many ways, at this time period, that they were helping everyone. This idea that if you let one guy off, we'll give you guys, it evens out. It's just this idea of a fake version of, We're going to create our own morality.

Sure. Well, I think part of what it comes from is that they almost think of themselves as kings, like the divine right of kings, where whatever the king does must be good because the king is a part of God's will. The king is an extension of God's will. I think these people think much the same way. I got to be right. Not me. No, because all these people are descended from Brits and Scots and so on and so forth.

Yeah, the dregs. The fucking runoff.

As far as his personal life went, Randy senior was married three times, but not because he was a philanderer. Instead, Randy was one of those early 20th century men who His wives just kept dying for one reason or another. Murder, murder, murder. A little bit of murder. His first wife died of sepsis. She was full of shit. After a bout with the flu. His second wife died during pregnancy from preeclampsia. But Randy had already met his third wife on a cruise to Cuba by the time wife number two died. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Number three was the daughter of a state senator, and she married Randy just four days after number two's death.

A couple of dulce de leches, they really get the ball rolling.

Yeah. You know what I also think, too, is that back in the day, marriage is different. It's very practical. No one kissed.

Yeah, well, he probably just wanted someone to take care of his kids. Yeah. Well, death of wife number two, was apparently a distressing event for Randy senior, and it only exacerbated what was quickly becoming the Murdoch family curse. Murdochs, you see, were extreme alcoholics. After Randy's second wife died, his drinking only got worse. By the age of 53, Randy had poisoned his kidneys completely and was diagnosed with late-stage renal failure. Since this was prior to dialysis or organ transplants, the only thing Randy senior could do was wait for the slow buildup of waste in his blood to deliver an agonizing death.

Now, come here, son. Now, come here, son. I want to show you something, son. Now, as you could see, waste is building up inside of me, right?

Large amounts of waste.

Yeah. Now, I think it's important to address the cord of my veins and say I accuse my veins of the capital crime of giving up on me. I will put together a jury of my peels in order to bring my veins and to the proper...

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy As many stubborn and powerful men often do, Randy senior decided on June 19th, 1940, to leave this world on his own terms, choosing appropriately and deliberately to die by train. At 1: 00 AM that night, Randy left a friend's poker party, heavily intoxicated, and parked his car in the railroad tracks.

You know he did the thing, Slip, fellows, I got to catch a train.

You know he kissed one on the mouth, and I never talked about it.

According to the engineer driving the westbound to Charleston, Randolph Murdoch senior waved to the train as if saying hello to an old friend.

The ensuing crash sent Randy senior's body flying from the car.

Where it landed broken and mangled 50 yards away.

That's a hell of a punt. That's a huge punt.

Honestly, it's just also what a stupid, we can say, way to kill yourself.

Dead by train. Many people die by train suicide.

I know, but it just feel bad because you made the dude kill you.

I know. No, it's an awful way to do it. He doesn't give a fuck.

Of course not. He made so much money off of trains. It was only right to give it back.

Wait, wait, wait.

Yes, Yes. Now, even though this crash saw the end of the first Murdoch to establish himself as a lawyer in the low country, Randy senior had already set his legacy in motion years before. See, by the time Randy's drink had gotten out of control, Randy's son was already taken over his father's duties in court when Randy senior was too drunk or too sick to practice. Just a month after Randy died by train, his son Buster Murdoch, the first Buster, was officially elected as the 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor, making him the second Murdoch to take that spot after his father had held it for 20 years.

Is this what's going to happen after Jesus Pratt is born and when Jesus Pratt is then the new Han Solo and he's President?

Yeah, that will happen. We're just going to have to deal with that forever.

When he's the Lord of us all, when Chris Pratt's son runs our world in the theocracy.

Because we thought that maybe it was going to be the Hank's line that was going to take it, but no.

Colin Week. Colin's weak. Colin's weak.

Colin's fucking week. And Chet's too free.

Yeah, he can't be governed.

He's on island time.

He's the Billy Carter of actor sons. Born in 1915, Buster Murdoch would not just serve as both the 14th Circuit solicitor and as a senior partner in the Murdoch personal injury law firm. In addition, Buster would also run the biggest moonshine bootlegging ring in all of South Carolina.

That's a big ass bootlegging ring.

No, the biggest in South Carolina, you got to be good to get that. Buster, so named by his football coach because he always, quote, busted the opponent. Yeah, I bet he did.

Jerking them off. Get him down there. He's never at the game, though. There's always that day after-party.

Well, if you jerk him off before the game, it slows him down, gets him too relaxed.

That's the thing.

Some say that Bustin made him feel good.

I got a voice.

He began the long Murdoch tradition of playing both sides of the law for his personal benefit. While Randy senior was willing to bend, break, and manipulate the law to get the verdicts or the results he wanted, Buster was a straight-up gangster. Like his grandson, Alec Murdoch, would later do, Buster was more than willing to break the law to get the life he wanted, and his personality loomed over the county so largely that he had a second nickname, for a criminal. Locally, Buster was known as Big Daddy.

Oh, Big Daddy. We better check with Big Daddy.

Big Daddy is always something you name someone who you know can kill He's a criminal.

It's never a- No, it's a criminal's name. It's a criminal's name.

Even if it's a judge, he's a criminal. It is.

It's never Big Daddy. Big Daddy is never positive. He's never happy.

Blanche's father in Golden Girls was named Big Daddy, but There was always something going on with him anyway.

God knows what else he did before that. But now I open… Again, there's a pattern here because in doing bootlegging, there is a man of the people, hoi polloi aspect to it. There's a thing where no one really likes Prohibition. No. It is, again, not a victimless crime because they're going to do a lot of other things to support that criminal industry. But still, it helps that it's It's a fun industry.

It's the American folk hero type thing where you could be a bootlegger and you're fighting against the revenues. I mean, hell, isn't that what Duke's Hazard is? Oh, yeah.

I ran- Smoky and the Bandit, all that shit. Me and my older sister's first husband, I once went with him where I did not know he was bringing alcohol into a dry county in Georgia. That was a lot of fun.

I bet.

God forbid it be weed, though. They'd all flip out if it was fucking weed.

Well, we'll get to that here in a second. Now, it's believed that Randy's senior suicide was actually a part of a fraudulent scheme laid out for Buster to pick up. Since Buster knew how his father thought, he knew exactly what his job was after his father's death. A few months after Randy Senior's death by train, Buster sued the railway company for the wrongful death of his father for the modern equivalent of $2 million. Damn.

It's really not that much.

I mean, it's not that much.

A high-powered lawyer to die in a- Dude, that's free ass money, though. It is free ass money.

It's free ass money. They knew. The Murdoch knew what that magical number was. They knew how much to ask for. Buster claimed that the train had been going too fast. It hadn't signaled its approach with a whistle, and the company hadn't properly maintained the crossing.

It's almost like they knew how to sue train companies. That's how smart he was.

That's how smart Big Daddy, not Big Daddy, older Big Daddy was, was the fact that he knew we can make all this money back.

Yeah, Randy Senior knew that he could add an extra insurance policy if he committed suicide in the right way. God, that's awesome. Even though the engineer stated that Andy senior had casually waved at the train as it was coming, the railway company knew better than to tangle with the Murdochs. It was a given that a Hampton County jury would come down on the Murdox side, just like a Hampton County jury would come down in almost any civil case that the Murdox brought to court. The railway company, therefore, settled for an unknown sum. The Murdox once again learned that they could simply force the system to give them whatever they wanted, even in death.

Marcus said something really interesting here that I think is important for our audience to key on. They knew the right things to say. They knew the right things to ask for. These are the things that and these types of industries teach, the secret languages of how these things actually work. Once you get into that back room, honestly, lots of stuff opens up for you because you figure out how the world really works.

It's like, what's the number that this railroad would give us in order to not go to college?

Yes, to not go all the way. What's too much? That's a secret knowledge, which is why, honestly, we talk about nepotism and all these things because it's the That's the true secret things that are handed down.

Now, on the solicitor side of things, Buster was just as, if not more than willing to cut legal corners to win cases as a prosecutor. By the mid-1940s, Buster had a suspiciously high conviction rate of 95%. It shouldn't be that high.

That's all you should be proud of either.

No, it's not. No.

I hate this whole thing. You're telling me only 5% of the people who got caught were guilty?

Yes. No, 5% were innocent. Or were innocent. Yeah, 95%. That's insane. 95%. Yeah, that's an insane conviction rate.

I mean, if that is true, you live amongst a horrible community. Yeah.

Also, your prosecutor is Batman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's insane. Buster Murdoch also developed a legendary legal persona by using his booming voice to act out murders and in front of the jury. While this might sound ridiculous, Buster had an insane talent for captivating a jury. In one murder case, he drew an imaginary box with his finger on the floor in front of the jury, said, That's where the victim lay today.

You can even hear the wrestling of the rats scrambling around. You can hear the vines slowly but surely coming into the gasket. The bones, they crumble down over time.

That's the kuju that slowly… Sque the light.

You will have to never rise again.

I declare.

I declare. This image stayed in the jury's mind so strongly that when they came back with the guilty verdict, following the closing arguments and deliberations, all of them avoided stepping on the imaginary grave that Buster had drawn when they left the jury box. There. They saw it there, and they actually revered it as if someone was truly buried there. That's how much Buster knew. That's how well Buster could hold on to an audience.

Imagine if they would have just put these fucker Murdoch people through theater school. It would have been so much better.

No, they'd become President. They could have just been acting. No, that's the problem. No, they had enough encouragement. There's a thing also, the idea of all of these giant corporations that we're witnessing right now, what they are really trying to do across all these apps, all these various things, is gain information about us. It's interesting. This is an extremely small microcosm of that, of he knows the data set all the way back and forth. He knows the analytics of his county so well that he knows exactly how to do it. This is literally in a very small way why information is one of the most important things to political control.

He knows the audience, and he knows how to tailor his message specifically to his audience.

Because all you got to do is convince that jury. Then reality is written.

Yeah, and he's also manipulating the choosing of the jury at the same time. Absolutely.

Also, just paying them off, apparently. Yes.

That's easy. It's fun to do. Buster was known to quote, unquote, joke around and say, Boy, that case, that one cost me about $10,000. But they were like, Buster, you're so funny. I was like, No, probably was paying off whenever he needed it.

Man, being funny is great. I get away with so much shit.

Buster had a reputation for being brash and folksy, the type of man who'd chew a big water red man tobacco during trials while also smoking a cigar at the same time. Very Chapelle-coated. Yeah. The judge did once reprimand Buster for constantly spitting out his tobacco juice during a trial, but instead of spitting out his chew, Buster just took his papers and left. Since Buster was the only solicitor in the low country, the trial came to a halt, and the judge was forced to let Buster continue his disgusting habit if that judge wanted to get a verdict.

That's a proper asshole.

Now, after that, Buster made sure that every courtroom in the 14th Circuit had a brass spittoon by the solicitor's table, and each spittoon was surrounded by an eternally brown, spit-stained carpet. Nauseous. It is. Again, the Murdochs had learned that they could bend the world their will. While the spittoon thing doesn't seem like a big deal, these types of stories were told over and over again to all the Murdochs who came after with the message that Murdochs did what they liked.

Chewing is meant to be outside. Spit tobacco, take it outside. I don't care if there's no fucking smoke. It's more disgusting you filling up your Pepsi bottle or your spittoon in front of fucking everybody. Take it outside like the fucking You're a pig, you are.

Oh, yeah, dude. Believe me, I watched the both police car interrogations, the both the convenient little police interrogations they did to Alec Murdoch, and he also loves to chew. He's also doing the thing we're in the middle of it where he's spitting in between his legs. It's so disgusting.

He used to put his Oxy in there and just jam it all in his mouth. It's disgusting. That fucking...

It's awful. Awful. Now, part of the reason why people let the Murdochs get away with as much as they did was because the Murdochs were well-liked, they were funny, and above all, they entertaining, which goes a long way in a place like the low country of South Carolina. Buster Murdoch's trials were spectacles, shows almost, complete with performances. For example, Buster indicted a farmer named Wyman Hyatt in April of 1949. Wyman had apparently poisoned his elderly sister with rat poison before burying her in a pig pen while she was still alive. Buster had gotten the confession from the farmer himself. The farmer admitted to killing his invalid sister because she, quote, messed the bed so many times. But since Buster had gotten the confession, he actually acted it out during the subsequent trial by adopting the rural farmer's hick accents and mannerisms. According to court reporting, Murdoch said to the jury in the farmer's voice.

Well, I went back to her bedroom, picked her up and placed her in the grave, covering her with blankets and paper and dirt. At that time, she was breathing a little. What to do about it? I don't know. That's so fucking inappropriate.

Not you, Henry. You're actually oddly appropriate right now.

Ondly appropriate. But imagine we're talking about a murder trial here.

We back to that little bit. That was my farmer's call. I back there.

In another In this case, Buster prosecuted a 43-year-old storekeeper with a long history of severe mental illness, a man named John Bowers.

They probably called him like, Cookey John, or like, DingDong John.

Bowers had beaten his wife and two young children to death with a baseball bat in December of 1948. This is Cookie. Yeah, it's wacky. After Bowers confessed to Buster, the press gave the killer the awkward nickname of the Estle Baseball Bat Slayer. Playing off this, Murdoch repeated He immediately brandished the baseball bat used in the murder.

Now I'd like to bring this baseball bat into evidence. Now, you watch it out, bitch. You watch it, bitch. That's what he would have said. If he was going to strike you with the baseball bat. He was going to hit you right in the desk with your baseball bat. But he doesn't because he's a lawyer.

Yeah, he used it during the trial to dramatize the killings. Waving it in front of the jury. Yeah.

Look at the fucking untouchable.

That's a great scene, dude.

He would vow that Bowers would no doubt kill again if he were ever released. Of course, he got the death penalty for Bowers. He got the death penalty again and again and again. Wow. There was another case where he took a rubber hose that had been used to strangle a woman to death before she had been stabbed. He had one of the people who was present at the murder wrapped the hose around his neck, and then he left the hose on his neck during his argument, be like, We're going to come back to this hose a time or two, so I'm just going to leave it on now.

I'm going to leave it on because honestly, also looks cool. I actually think I'm looking funky.

He's got different hose for different area codes.

That he does.

Well, that's if you're killing prostitutes over the state. Normally, I would drive them across state lines. All right.

But while Buster's theatrics did wonders for his popularity locally, the state supreme court frowned upon his shenanigans and eventually reversed several of his convictions on the grounds that his theatricality had swayed the jury.

Oh, good. So he actually ended up letting murderers free.

Yeah. Eventually, yeah. Now, Buster had come under fire with the state supreme court for his egregious jury arguments, which had raised eyebrows after he'd sent no less than 14 men to death row with his theatrics.

He killed 14 men.

Fourteen 14 men to the electric chair. By 1956, Buster had gained the attention of the new governor who had been elected on a vow to root out corruption across the state. Now, Buster was indeed corrupt. As far back as 1949, clients were accusing him of defrauding them out of large sums of money, and even the IRS couldn't get a handle on Buster's finances. But out of all of Buster's dodges, no victory was greater than when he beat the federal government on dozens of criminal charges related to bootlegging.

Again, I'm not a fan of anybody in this family, but nothing's like beating the government on charges of bootlegging. That's truly one of the most wonderful things. Of course, it's going to give him a reputation. Everybody's going to love him.

Yeah, it's his most likable aspect. Yeah.

Well, after the new governor took power in 1956, he passed a set of laws saying that any government officials under criminal investigation had to resign. When the laws passed, the governor set his sights on Buster Murdoch. It was alleged that Buster had masterminded the so-called Culloden Whisky Conspiracy, which involved 32 moonshine stills pumping out 45,000 gallons of illegal liquor per year. And so when Buster was charged with bootlegging in federal court, where the Murdoch name held no sway, he was forced to resign as solicitor. But while Buster said in his resignation letter that he was the victim of a conspiracy- Mine. The only conspiracy was the one that he was running. Yeah, that's not fair. That was mine. It was mine. It was mine. It was me. He operated several moonshine operations, going back to Prohibition. He'd been doing it for three decades. Jesus Christ. By the time he was busted in the '50s, he built what amounted to a gang comprised mostly of local cops.

You know what makes you look like a guilty bootlegger? Always having a spatoon at your feet.

Mandating that every room you go in has to have a spatoon. That makes you look like a bootlegger.

You're an asshole.

Now, Buster may have escaped even prosecution if it hadn't been for the bravery, the vengeance, and the stubbornness of a woman named Edith Thigpen-Freeman. In an out-of-the-way location called Jackass Pond- Why isn't that in town? Yeah. Edith and her husband, Doc Freeman, ran an illegal moonshine still that paid protection money to Buster's operation. Edith, however, discovered that Buster's men were charging her husband, Doc, double the protection money by taking advantage of Doc's illiteracy. To add insult to injury, the feds raided Jackass Pond looking for Buster's men, but instead shot Doc in the stomach. The final indignity came when one of Buster's men stuck in the Doc's hospital room after he'd been shot in the stomach and stole his life savings that had been sown into the pocket of his coat.

Never do that. No. Spread it out. Two coats. Yeah.

Maybe there's some shorts.

Yeah. A shoe, put some in a hat.

No one's looking in shorts for money.

No, never. It's actually a really good tip. Hide it in gym shorts.

Edith, however, had documented every deal she'd made with Buster Murdoch, and she'd written down the names of every one of his goons and everything that they'd done, just in case. Using Edith's notes on the criminal conspiracy, federal prosecutors charged 30 individuals, including Buster Murdoch, on 80 criminal counts, and it seemed like a Murdoch was finally going to face a consequence. One of the local deputy sheriffs even testified in Murdoch's trial, saying that he had personally witnessed Buster split a payoff with the sheriff that arranged for a lighter sentence for a bootlegger. The deputy also testified that Murdoch himself staged fake raids, where Murdoch would pay the fines of the busted bootleggers. That's so smart. He said, I don't care what you got to do. Just tell them I'm coming. I'll pay. I'll pay for it. I don't give a shit. Just make it happen.

That's a great business, man.

Yeah, it really is. But even though it was a federal case, Buster Murdoch found a way to bulldoze justice like every Murdoch before and after. He intimidated and threatened witnesses, and ironically, he beat the bribery charges by making more bribes. As a result, the former solicitor was acquitted on all charges, making him the only one of the 30 defendants to go free without consequence. After just a six-month hiatus, Buster Murdoch was former solicitor no more, and he was reelected to the 14th Judicial Circuit, where he continued abusing his power in any way he saw fit. He was known that if Buster liked you or if you did something for him, he'd help in any way he could in the most intense way possible. For example, he once told a fellow lawyer who'd help Buster's son beat drunk driving charges that, quote, If you ever need anybody killed, you send them on down to Hampton County. That's a joke.

Now, you remember that's a joke, except for a fact. I'm in it, all right? I will do it. Wink, wink, wink, saying it out loud for the radio.

Wink, wink, wink. As author Valerie Bauerlein put it, Buster proved that if your name was Murdoch, you could fix juries, corrupt sheriffs judges, steal from clients, play both sides of the law, and define justice however you chose. You especially proved it to everyone else whose last name was Murdoch.

But you could never make a woman orgasmed. That's the only thing they couldn't figure out.

He kept using his wife as a spatuit. Now open up.

Now open up. How did you actually hear that? Hitting the cervix.

Now, Busta, you really make a pop a pussy, bro.

Yeah, you're welcome. Now, that's genuine, Carolina, tobacco.

You see, the thing is, while he's paying off all these people, I think it's important to remember how big and scary he is. It's like, if you don't take the bribe, you're also just scared of the man. He's a scary guy.

He's got all these goons that are police officers.

Yeah. The Murdochs are all fucking huge.

Yeah. I think it's important to remember that everyone who took a bribe wasn't necessarily a a bad person. They could have just been very terrified. Yeah. Fly from your grave.

Now Buster strengthened his grip on the low country by hosting lavish parties on Murdoch Island, where South Carolina's Rich and Powerful came to play, and I'm sure nothing bad ever happened. Not once.

I can't even imagine they'd tie up a bunch of Black people and make them dance with a gun. I can't even imagine they would do a bunch of group sex with children while eating cornbread. I can't even. I wouldn't even say Look at those words. Buster's a latent homosexual. Fucking homicidal, homosexual Buster Murdoch.

You would never say that.

I never say that.

You never say that. Never. There, Buster Murdaugh Mardoch consolidated power and established himself as an influential political figure as well. Because the Mardoch, they were all old-school Democrats. They were Democrats from back in the days when Democrats were pro-slavery, but they really held on to the Democrat power long afterwards. They even gave to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Well, they always do, man. It makes them look. You know who else gave? Epstein. It's a reason they gave. Donald Trump. And Harvey Weinstein. It's like bad people hide in plain sight.

It's weird. Or they become very public.

Yes. And so by the 1970s, the Murdochs were well-established as a part of the Good Old Boy Network that ran throughout South Carolina. Buster had begun his reign as 14th Judicial Circuit Solicitor in 1940, and it stubbornly held on to power through ill health and old age. By the mid-1980s, he'd gone from being known as Buster to being known as Big Daddy to simply being known as Old Buster.

Oh, not Old Buster. Oh, God. I can't even wait to I have to put my Old Buster inside my old wife when we were in our '80s, and how that's going to have to be. Here comes Old Buster. It's going to be every time I pull my penis out and I have to get the pump and do all this, I'm like, Come on, Old Buster.

Old Buster sounds like a nickname for a guy who does tricks with his penis. Yeah.

I call it Old Buster because it don't work anymore. But as you can see, Abraham Lincoln. As you could see, here's a couple of sparrows.

You ever seen a 90-year-old man come in a spatoon?

Well, Buster only left office when state legislators passed a law seemingly pointed directly at Buster Murdoch, which said that solicitors had to step down by the age of 72 or forfeit their retirement benefits. Buster Murdoch begrudgingly stepped down, but just like his father before him, he'd already set up his legacy. When old Buster left office, his son, Randolph Murdoch III, stepped up to complete the term.

God, just from Randy to Buster to Randy Randy the Buster is a basket of horrors.

From Randy to Buster, Randy to Buster, it just sounds like we're at a snowball party and everybody's just got Mother Bird and cum into each other's mouth. God, I love South Carolina.

For Randy the Buster, it sounds like a collection of Yolotango B-sides.

Why does it work? I don't know.

It just does. By the time of Randy III's birth, it had already been established that if your last name was Murdoch, it was your fate to become a lawyer. As such, Randy III had been exposed to the family business of prosecuting grizzly murders at far too young of an age. During the investigation to the forementioned murder in which the pig farmer poisoned his sister and buried her alive, Randy III had accompanied his father to the farm to look for the body at the age of nine, and Lil Randy had been the one who'd found the obviously disturbed patch of ground where the old woman had been buried alive. Daddy, Daddy, I think the body's over here.

Here's your candy. That is just what a lucky kid. That is a lucky kid. That's fun as hell.

I wasn't finding bodies until I was 12. Yeah, dude.

At his father's insistence, Randy III was even present when the pig farmer confessed to killing his sister with rat poison. He was in the room. Since Randy had discovered the patch where the body was buried, he was to take the day off, fourth grade, to testify. That's awesome.

I'll do anything to get out of school.

Yeah, of course.

Consequently, Randy III's childhood testimony helped send that farmer to the electric chair. I hope that that man fries in a chair until his eyes pop out.

There ain't nothing that delights me more than to imagine his his bones dancing to the current. I love watching. I hope his last words are miserable. I hope the families get to watch him do it. I hope he gets to dance with the devil.

I'm going to be a lawyer. Randy III had just as much theatrical flair as his father and his grandfather in the courtroom, adopting the same fire and brimstone voice. He would also, however, weep in front of juries on cue. This was a new trick for the Murdoch family, and this, in my opinion, betrayed a hollowness that was starting to show in the Murdoch men as the generations passed. While Randy senior had ostensibly started his career as an idealist dedicated to defending the working man, and Buster Murdoch had spent his career bending the law or breaking the law to fit his own personal will, all Randy III seemed to be concerned with was being a Murdoch, being powerful, being rich, being able to do whatever the fuck he wanted. Every generation was less concerned with the pretense of ethics than the one before and more concerned with doing whatever they wanted. They could justify their behavior, however, through the work they did with their personal injury firm, PMPED. See, while Randy III and his father Buster had jointly prosecuted dozens of criminal cases going back to the mid-1960s. They had also made millions filing and arguing personal injury suits targeted at large corporations on behalf of poor low country locals.

It's another connecting to the people.

Yeah. Well, there's this South Carolina loophole that says that if a business does... A business can be sued in any county where it does business, which is why they really jumped on the railroads. Because if a railroad goes through Hampton County, that means that anything that happens in South Carolina can be litigated in Hampton County. Yeah. Small corporations- They were so good at being They were incredibly good at being corrupt because- It's like they had a hundred years practice.

That's amazing. Good work on them. At some level, we have to say congrats, right?

Well, I mean, they worked out how to Fuck up America.

Man, Alec really fucked it all up.

He really did.

It just shows if you pick a really horrible place like Hampton County, no one's really going to care to look.

Yeah, you just got to reign in hell. That's what I learned.

Now, small corporations, especially local corporations run by other rich white men, they didn't really come into the Murdoch's crosshairs. But if you were a national corporation, you were open season for PMPED. The Murdoch firm had a reputation for getting massively inflated settlements because even corporations knew that they could not beat a Hampton County jury. Because of the South Carolina loophole, anything that happened in South Carolina could be brought back to Hampton County. Because of the Murdoch's overly litigious nature, large corporations and even smaller businesses learned that it was best to keep every inch of your business far away from Hampton County. The Murdoch even fought and beat Walmart. You know how hard it is to beat Walmart in the south? They forced Walmart to not only abandon plans to build a store in the low country, but they also... Walmart donated the land they purchased back to the town. You might say this is a good thing. You might say Murdoch kept corporations from taking over. But really, this was just about the Murdoch's maintaining control, and the people of the low country, they did not benefit in any way whatsoever.

When Walmart arrives, the rest of the country will start paying attention to Hampton County. When that corporation starts coming in, it becomes logged on to the national attention sphere because the corporations are paying attention to Hampton County. That is the reason why they don't like them in there. It's because they don't want anybody looking at any single thing that they are doing in there.

Walmart wouldn't have worked there because the entire population is just greeters.

You got to be a little older to really get that one. Remember a time.

Can you just imagine the rascal parking in that fucking? What that one would be like? The rascal purchase also would be like, God.

Yeah, you know, shoe sales would be done. Oh, yeah.

He got a lot of those sliding shoes. Like, no hand shoes.

Well, the Murdox could force the illusion that they were fighting for those in their neighborhood who had nothing, those in the county who had nothing. But in reality, the legal chokehold deprived people of jobs. It kept doctors from opening practices in the low country out of malpractice fears, and it raised property taxes. The Murdox thrived while most everyone around them stayed in poverty. I think it was some 27% of Hampton County was below the poverty line, which is insane.

That's what they like because those are the That's their... Would they view as their chattel?

It's their little... Their fiefdom. It's their little people. Yeah, their own little kingdom.

Those little people pay enough taxes to help them, and then they can just... They administer the little people, but they have to say super little.

Yeah, they do.

I can't believe that Walmart doesn't have greeters anymore.

No, they stopped doing it because you'd be surprised how aggressive some of these greeters would get. They get a lot of bias.

I want to shake your hand. I want to shake your hand.

Come here.

Have you ever been bear-gripped by a down syndrome, man, where you want eggs? The Randy III was a criminal just like his father. But by the time he came into power in the 1980s, Bootlegging had been replaced by drug smuggling because the hundreds of remote islands off the South Carolina Coast were perfect for harboring small planes full of weed or shrimp boats carrying cocaine.

God, weed and shrimp.

Oh, yeah.

Now I'm starting to like these guys.

But I don't like coke and shrimp.

Cocaine and shrimp?

Yeah, cocaine and shrimp is weird. Can you imagine doing lines of coke and eating shrimp?

When I did cocaine, I didn't eat a lot. Cocaine is not an eating drug.

No, but you will buy a bunch of shrimp and have it in front of you.

There's some great shrimp. I actually got some great shrimp.

That looks great. I might want that later.

Also, I will say the Murdochs are the color of shrimp.

Wow, they really are. They got a Flamingo's diet. He does have a Flamingo-like aspect.

Yeah, that's why they like that.

I mean, I like shrimp, too, but I ain't getting that. I guess you're pink. Maybe that is why I'm getting so pink.

It is. Yeah. Randy III prosecuted drug smugglers, but his inside track enabled him to also warn drug traffickers when raids were imminent or to know where to place bribes to prevent the raids from ever happening in the first place.

Rob, get the family off the fucking monitor. I can't look at the Murdoch like this. I can't watch. They're all just staring at me. I just keep looking up and I see the eight fucking beady eyes of the Murdoch staring at me like a bunch of haunted dolls.

I'm just sad Brian Dennehy isn't alive to play him. Oh, yeah.

Wow, dude. Because the guy who's playing him in the show is- Jason Clarke. I like him. I like him, but it's bad for the... It doesn't add anything.

He did a great job. He was also Ted Kennedy, which I find hilarious.

Wow, he's playing every broad-face thought.

That kills someone in the water. Right. He's already in the water.

Randy III, this is Alex's father. He was also fond of sex workers, which was a world he was introduced to when a strip club opened up locally.

Now, I'm going to check out this new establishment just to make sure that all the legalities are covered. Oh, my great googly moogly.

Hospitude.

Inside you.

No, at the 30th, he did actually tell his constituents, Don't worry, I'm going to keep a close eye on this. I'm going to watch you. I'm going to make you known on to our house.

Don't worry. I'll make sure from the inside of the establishment that no such crime can be occurring. I will not allow the solicitation of a prostitute in Hampton County.

Well, Randy became so fond of the ladies that he began spending quite a bit of time away away from his family in a condo that he regularly filled with strippers and sex workers.

My constituent, and what's super important about this scenario is that I cannot be convicted of soliciting a prostitute if my time with the prostitute does not end because I'm now in a roommate-like situation with these prostitutes. We are now in a business arrangement that goes beyond the erotic arts.

No condoms, though.

No, no, no. That's gross. Are you going to be gay? Are you going to come in a lamb.

He had his own little sex condo. The amount of time that he spent there, it bordered on abandonment. His wife got so tired of his antics that she published her own obituary in the local newspaper to try to flush him out with guilt.

I got to tell you something, my wife died.

I'm like, You're making an ax? I'm just so happy I didn't have to write this myself.

Yeah, because honestly, they were going to have to edit it.

But eventually, Randy III's own mother went to his sex condo herself and dragged him back to his family. He's a middle-aged man, and his mother's showing up and dragging him out of his sex condo.

Do you think all the strippers are just like, Oh. It's a sweet. Oh, Randy.

What are we going to do for money?

We're Randy III's mother made it clear to both Randy III and his wife that the two of them had to stay together no matter what because, and this is important, Murdochs don't divorce.

Because they're religious.

This is something... Yeah, because God wouldn't like it. Yeah.

It's just never... I mean, yeah, divorce is one of the worst things you can do.

Divorce is really awful. It's really bad. Now, by the early '90s, certain low country citizens were getting tired of the Murdoch reign. In August of 1991, a group of angry protesters picketed the Buford County Courthouse, protesting Randy III's deliberate refusal to prosecute certain crimes and even certain homicides for political and/or personal reasons. Randy III's youngest son, for example, he'd been throwing a party on Murdoch Island one night when some of the partygoers got into a drunken boat accident because apparently that was quite common amongst the Murdochs, and pretty common actually in this area of the world. There's a lot of rivers, there's a lot of boat accidents, a lot of drinking.

But it's also just this idea that people really do believe that once you get on a boat, then all laws go away. You could be drunk, you could be a child, you could be anything and just drive a boat. You can just have a boat, do whatever you want.

No, it's not true.

No, it's not, but it feels like it.

It does feel like it. Because you're on a boat. It's about the floatiness.

Yeah, you don't see things around me.

Ain't no law on the water now.

There is.

Again, Much like Randy discovered, it's when you leave the water. So again, stay on the water, no crimes.

There's no courts on the water. No.

That's right. They're difficult to get a judge out there. They don't like water.

The robes, they weigh them down to the bottom. Yes, and the wings.

Well, one passenger in this drunken boat accident was severely injured, but every partygoer testified that the passenger had been hurt because of hazardous weather despite calm and clear skies. No mention whatsoever, of course, about drinking. The Murdoch had sabotaged the investigation, as they had done many times before and would do many times after. The people of Hampton County were sick of it, but there really wasn't much that they could do about it. No Murdoch would sabotage the entire Murdoch legacy further than Randy's third son, Richard Alec Murdoch.

It's like they had a playbook for what would happen later. Yeah.

It's almost like they, which is interesting because they did have a playbook, and he didn't follow the playbook.

Yeah, he didn't. Now, it's said that even as a little boy, there was something missing behind Alec Murdoch's beady black eyes, that something sinister lay in that disgusting mouth, a mouth that always looks like it's full of rusted metal.

Good adjectives.

His thin lips always look like... He looks like his mouth is filled with blood, and that blood is just leaking out of the lips.

And there's His lips are so thin that his gums are receding.

Yeah, he's just too Scottish to be here.

Yeah. He makes Charlie Kirk look voluptuous in the mouth.

I want him to go back. We should send him back to Scotland.

Yeah, let them deal with it. Oh, yeah. From accounts, Alec Murdoch was a textbook sociopath, extremely charming, able to win over anyone in a conversation, and totally lacking in empathy. While he did eventually become a bloated corpse of a man in middle age, Alec was a strikingly handsome redhead when he was younger, well over 6 feet tall, had a shock of red hair that earned him the nickname Big Red in college.

Ginger scared me. I don't like them.

That's why you married one, right?

She's not a ginger.

She's got red hair. You've got red hair.

I've got sure a blonde hair. You're a ginger. You scared yourself. I'm not a ginger. You're not? No.

No.

Sound like a self-hating ginger to me. No.

I'm distinctly… This is how you could tell I'm not a ginger is my body hair. Oh, interesting. Because the body hair gets fucking red and gross. You look like fucking Clifford. I like this.

With a penis. Yes, gingers have a bad reputation, but there are some good- Which one?

Name one.

The ones that don't have sixes behind their ears. Name one.

I have never seen it.

My wife. All right, my fucking wife.

Is she a ginger? I guess so. No, I don't think she's a ginger.

I'll talk to her about it.

Yeah, let her know. Well, in high school, Alec Murdoch had been little more than a bully. He had attended public school like his father and his grandfather before. This had always been a way for the Murdochs to establish themselves as so-called men of the people. They go to public school, not fancy private school. But really, all it meant for Alec was that he had easy access to poor kids that he could abuse. As one classmate put it, Alec His overall attitude was, I could do what I want to because my daddy's a solicitor and my granddaddy was, too. Another classmate said Alec had always gotten out of things because of his father and grandfather's reputations. Every decision that Alec made was informed by that reality. Further removing responsibility was his own mother, the same woman who had published her own obituary to shame her phalandering husband. Alec's mother sat on the school board, which ensured that Alec was never punished or even reprimanded by his teachers. Additionally, Alec Murdoch was a teenage booshound who started drinking at parties thrown by his father at an early age. Randy III encouraged Alec's drinking because Owen, to their past as bootleggers, the Murdochs wore their alcoholism like a badge of honor.

I knew so many dudes like this growing up.

Oh, yeah. It is so hacky. It's such a template for an asshole that is so recurring. It's this thing of, Yeah, we party. We drink. We're a drinking family. This idea that you identify as a bunch of drinkers and you identify as this thing because guess what it does? It creates a really unhealthy environment Yeah. Because it seems to fuck up everybody's life.

Yeah, it's because you never remembered or apologize for the things you don't remember doing.

There's also just a distinct difference. Because we're learning as adults, there's a distinct difference to just drinking and hanging out and what these guys were doing. Because what these guys were doing, including Alec, until the end, was this frat boy fucking horse shit.

Oh, yeah. Well, generational alcoholism fucks up families horribly.

This type of just... Being proud of it. They're morning drinkers. It's the Southern eliteness of it that makes me angry. Yeah.

By the time Alec got to college at the University of South Carolina, like his daddy and his daddy before him, he was blatantly telling his fellow frat boys that they could all do whatever they wanted because they would not get into trouble. In this, he was absolutely correct. Just a few months into his freshman year, Alec led police on a drunken high-speed car chase through campus that only ended when Alec abandoned in his Jeep in front of a dormitory and fled into the night. He was called to the police station for questioning the next day, but as soon as police realized that this was Randy Murdoch's son, they just let him go. This is a college. In Columbia. But still, that's how far the Murdoch name reached.

I mean, it's all of South Carolina. It's a good big small town, that fucking place.

Now, Alex started at the USC School of Law in 1991 in preparation for joining his family's law firm. And there, he met a sorority girl named Margaret, whose lower middle class background made Alec Murdoch's social standing seem far more impressive than it really was.

What an amazing love story.

They were soon married, and she would come to be known as Maggie Murdoch. By 1994, Maggie and Alec had moved to Buford, where Alec became an assistant solicitor under Randy III, prosecuting simple drug possession cases while he was also still doing quite a few drugs himself, although the Oxy had not yet come into play. That's more of a mid-2000s thing. Alec and his wife were actually happy in Buford, and it was thought that Alec was going to take over as 14th judicial circuit solicitor one day. He was gregarious and charismatic, and his sociopathy meant that he could easily fool people into thinking he cared. In other words, natural politician.

Yeah, and he's in Buford County. Everybody he talks to is somebody he likes and respects because they're all the rich and they're all the fancies. They're all the people that he would be nice to.

If he wasn't in prison right now, he'd probably be running as a Democrat for Congress. Yeah, dude.

I actually know. I guess he was a Democrat to the end. I don't know if he was. He was, yeah.

No, he was. He was Chair of the Local Democratic Party.

Good for him.

But when Buster Murdoch finally died at the age of 84, Alec decided to move from the cushy environments of Buford to the far poorer county of Hampton, where the Murdoch name held more power. I think this is around 1996, '97.

Part of me also believes that they did this move because he was in his mind doing this back to rural I'm a real countryman. Sure. Because Paul fancied himself as a little like... Because Buster was the yuppie. Paul was the thing that he took a shine to him. Alec took a shine to him because he saw himself Paul. Paul was the same where he would pretend to be low country, but be very rich.

Like the cosplay.

Yeah.

Let's not get people too confused on the names here because I know it's- It's all over the place. It's a lot of Busters because Alec had a son also named Buster, and named after his grandfather Buster.

That's the one who's still a lawyer?

Homosexual homicidal man is gay and evil.

You would never say that.

No, I wouldn't say it. I don't say that.

But maybe he wanted to move back more because Big Buster is finally dead, and you get Murdoch Island back, and you get to start your family there.

Yeah, you get it now. You get all the stuff.

Well, there's a power vacuum now that Buster's dead, especially in the firm. The firm is where Alec Murdoch sees his future. His future is not in Solister. His future is in private practice. He wants to make money. Yeah, he wants to make money, and he wants to make a lot of it, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to make that money. But once they moved back to Hampton, things began falling apart for Maggie and Alex in every way possible. Maggie Murdoch fucking hated Hampton, and she was quite vocal about telling anyone who would listen that she was too good to live there. Things got even more difficult for Alex and Maggie after the birth of their second child. See, the birth of their first son, Richard Alexander Murdoch Jr, had been in Buford, and had seemingly gone well. That's Buster. That's the Buster that everyone knows. When you say Buster Murdoch, this is the Buster you're talking about.

Evil homicidal homosexual.

He would never say that. No.

He did. That would be, that would be, that would be slander.

Yeah, he busted right out of his mother.

He did. But in April of 1999, Maggie gave birth to their second son, Paul. The birth was difficult. Maggie suffered from postpartum depression, and she therefore had very few maternal instincts towards either of her sons, or so it was said. A person close to the family further claimed that Paul was basically ignored after his birth, and that negligence in his first few months on this Earth is why Paul came to be the way he was, which the way Paul was was a total fucking psychopath.

Yes, that is true. He's the red-headed bully from the Christmas story. Yes. Yes.

And so since Maggie was checked out, Alec hired the sister of one of his high school friends, a woman named Gloria Satterfield, to be their housekeeper and the boy's nanny soon after Paul was born. Even though Gloria had two sons of her own, she dedicated her life six days a week to raising Buster and Paul Murdoch. For her service, though, Gloria Satterfield would end up in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of a set of brick stairs with a cracked skull, 19 years later. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for Alec Murdoch Part Two, where we'll cover the two mysterious deaths surrounding the family and the drunken boating accident that brought the entire Murdoch legacy to ruins. Yay!

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Fuck each and every one of these goddamn shitheads.

I am so happy to finally be doing this. I've watched the entire court case. I went back. I'm watching all the interviews, and God, it feels good to hate this fucker. God, I hate him. I hate his face.

The picture we're looking at right now, they're all wearing bow ties. They're human bow ties.

I just want to strangle them to death with it. I just want to grab both ends of the bow tie and I just want to fucking pull it to his eye. I a little beady little eyes pop out of his big fat pink skull. But it's fine because he's in jail. Obviously, what's very interesting is while our series is running, his appeal may begin anytime. We know that they're working on that. I don't know. He lost quite a bit of weight, shaved his head, looks like Lex Luther. Oh, good for him. Yeah, he looks gross. He looks bad.

Yeah, he should not have shaved his head. He looks really terrible with his shave head.

He's trying to look weak. He's trying to look like I'm sick.

That's what they all do, man.

I remember Harvey Weinstein came out with the fucking the Walker and all the fucking shit. Oh, yeah.

For the way he was acting, he should be dead already.

Yeah, well, we'll get him. One day, somebody will get him. Patreon. Com/lifest. Com. Last podcast on the left. Thank you for giving us money when you can. If you do, you get to see many things. We got ad-free episodes. We also have our exclusive live last stream on the left. You can go and see that every Tuesday at 6: 00 PM, PSD, only on the Patreon. But you can then join and yell at us before we put it on YouTube.

Yeah. Don't forget to go check out all of our socials at Last Podcast on the left. Lp on the left. Lp on the left. Tiktok and Instagram. Don't get to come see us out on We're going to be doing all kinds of dates this next year, in 2026. That's right.

It is 2026, and we are coming in hard to Philadelphia. Yeah, I am. I'm going to be hard. I hope so. At the Met on January 31st, and then February 28th. We're going to be in Austin, Texas, at the Paramount Theater. March 13th, Indianapolis, Indiana, the Egyptian Room at the Old National Center. Saturday, April 25th, Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft Theater. Friday, May 29th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Music Hall. Saturday, June 27th, Grand Rapids, Michigan, live at 20 Monroe, July 17th, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Keynes Ballroom, July 18th, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at the Tower Theater. And next week on Wednesday, Henry and I got a bunch of Side Story's dates coming out for sale. Keep your fucking eyeballs glued for that.

I remember the last time we did The Egyptian in Indianapolis, we were sharing the bill with a music You recall the Grinch who stole Christmas, and the Grinch got the bigger room.

It did. And then Almeria The Grinch had it. And then that was when the follow-up that night, I believe that was when Stacey Abrams was performing the night after us.

That was in Norfolk. I'm sorry. It was really funny.

She's hilarious. Her shit's fucking sick. Have you ever seen Stacey Abrams live, dude? You'll throw up. Bring a poncho. Have you ever seen Stacey Abrams live, dude? Those first couple of rows, she squirts. She gets down on She's Gallagher, yeah. She fully sticks it in. She squirts nine feet into the front road in the orchestra.

What she's squirtting? Blood. Yeah. Yeah, like a horn toad. You can tell by the taste.

Yeah, Stacey up top, Gallagher on the bottom.

Well, fail sitting, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the show.

Again, thank you so much.

Hale, Renee Nicole Good.

Oh, really nice. Yes. Very nice. Hale, Renee Good. And best everything to all of our people out in Minnesota right now. We love you. We love you very much.

And not to be too antifa about it, but ice can go fuck itself.

Ice can go fuck itself.

Go fuck yourself, every one of you. I heard a lot of them are committing suicide, so they should all try that. Enjoy.

Enjoy. It's a good way to not get in the heaven. In the heaven.