Episode 275: The Murdaugh Family, Part 1

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

Society & Culture, News, True Crime

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On February 24, 2019, a 19-year-old woman and her friends are on a private boat ride in the very early hours of the morning near Beaufort, South Carolina. The carefree night turns ugly when the 19-year-old skipper crashes the boat into a bridge, killing the young woman. The saga that follows is something, few people could have predicted. Two more people close to the case end up losing their lives in a brutal double slaying, before other previous deaths in the community soon become linked to a prominent local family at the center of the investigation. In episode 275, Jac and Alexis detail the tragic deaths of Gloria Satterfield, Stephen Smith, and Mallory Beach, followed by the shocking murders of Paul Murdaugh and his mother Maggie, the latter two orchestrated by their husband and father, local attorney Alex. This is a story about how all the power, prestige, and privilege in the world don’t make us untouchable when it comes to the law, and what happens when someone is brought to account by those whose job it is to expose the truth, no matter the risk.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's a degree.
0:02.0	First degree.
0:04.0	First degree.
0:05.0	First degree.
0:06.0	First degree.
0:07.0	The first degree.
0:08.0	The first degree.
0:09.0	You see it on the news.
0:10.0	You see it on the paper.
0:11.0	You see it on Facebook.
0:12.0	These things are supposed to happen in movies. See it on a paper, you see it on Facebook.
0:13.0	These things are supposed to happen in movies, not in real life.
0:16.0	It's a horrible thing to actually believe that a man can murder his wife and son and
0:27.6	cold blood like that, but all signs were pointing in that direction.
0:31.6	My big light bulb moment, and I talk about this in the book was we
0:35.3	FOIAed for his jailhouse phone calls in 2022 and we listened to hundreds of them and I don't remember him one time asking about the
0:47.6	investigation and he did not seem to be concerned or sad about Maggie and Paul's loss and listening to those phone
0:55.2	calls and listening to what a narcissist he is manipulating the situation all the time.
1:00.7	I had a moment that was like, oh my God, I think he absolutely did it.
1:06.6	We realized that this book is about Mandy's journey and it's about the power of local journalism and what it looks like to really make an
1:16.6	impact in that way and what it looks like to get to know and really respect your
1:21.7	sources and give time to victims to help them share their story
	...

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