I'm many pages behind so I'm not sure if this has been brought up but something came to me today while I was cleaning up my house. The whole Pau Pau thing REALLY grates me for some reason but I have some thoughts about it.
I'm wondering when Convicted Murderer AM uses the name Pau Pau in his mind he's referring to the younger version of child Paul. They might have called him by that when he was a baby or small child. The more grown-up and adult Paul is a completely different person to him. So when he says " I could never hurt Pau Pau" he's referring to the innocent baby that was his son. He could/would never hurt his baby Pau Pau. But he has no problem killing the grown up Paul... The one who has brought him all of this trouble with his confrontation about the pills, his questionable drinking behavior, the boat crash etc, etc. Paul's friends said that when Paul was drinking heavily he would turn into a completely different person.( they referred to him as " Timmy", his alter ego) So I'm wondering if Convicted Murderer Alex used that to justify his actions to himself?
Now I'm not sure if he uses this same warped way of thinking about MM? Did he really call her "Mags" instead of Maggie or Margret? I don't recall if any of the witnesses called to the stand by Convicted Murderer Alex's defense team used that term for her. So the same thing might apply. He would never hurt Mags but he had no problem killing Maggie. She was the one who wanted to move out of Mosselle?? She might have been looking into getting a divorce which would place even more stress on his financial situation. She may also have confronted him about his drug use, etc,etc.
It's just the kind of shady, slimy Murdaugh way to get around the rules and justify his behavior. He's the mild mannered, aw shucks, local, corn pone attorney by day but when THE jones comes calling he then turns into this Junkie Monster Murderer after working hours. He no longer sees Pau Pau his son or Mags his wife. No, he sees Paul and Maggie, the mean people who are out to get him and take away HIS pills, HIS money, HIS hunting property and ultimately HIS power. He wasn't going to let them get away with that so he killed them.
I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist but this is all my opinion of course.