SC - Paul Murdaugh, 22 and mom Margaret, 52, found shot to death, Islandton, 7 June 2021 #6

[Crosscntrymom]

That's how I'm looking at it...option 2.
Set up everything so it happens while you are visiting your terminally ill father and dementia ridden mother...cuz ur such a good son/family kind of guy.
But problem... PM shows up when he's not supposed to..so he's gotta go.

My question: why by the dog kennels? So the house is not damaged at all maybe?

Could be a psychological “tell” wanting to distance himself from the murder. MOO

 

[Elley Mae]

The call lasts a little more than 7½ minutes total.

Alex Murdaugh pleads for ambulance, help in 911 calls after discovering wife, son dead

.....

How many minutes where released? This is why I only listened to part of it yesterday to hear his voice. I just feel it doesn’t tell the whole story, like reading a novel with a chapter missing here and there.

Jmo

 

[Elley Mae]

That's how I'm looking at it...option 2.
Set up everything so it happens while you are visiting your terminally ill father and dementia ridden mother...cuz ur such a good son/family kind of guy.
But problem... PM shows up when he's not supposed to..so he's gotta go.

My question: why by the dog kennels? So the house is not damaged at all maybe?

Jmo


I think it was the main entrance or the one they used. That entrance is where the mailbox, smaller home they own is. It would make sense to do that (to me), check mail, check on dogs, and make sure everything is was in order.

 

[Warwick7]

I know nothing about guns. Is t even possible to shoot at your head and only graze yourself? Bullets travel fast?

A blank cartridge can do much damage too.

How Do Blanks Work As Compared to Regular Bullets?

 

[Cryptic]

If he started the fraud in the middle of his career, $10M would equate to approximately $800K a year.

I would say that it is viable if he was able to circumnavigate internal controls, considering other notable fraud cases like Rita Crundwell, who embezzled $54M from her employer (a city) over 22 years.

ETA: It all depends on who is monitoring the finances and how critically they are being evaluated. MOO from what I have seen in the wild as a financial statement auditor.

Wow, the Rita Crundwell case is amazing in that the fraud scheme was not very sophisticated, yet very large scale and was able to continue despite audits from an outside bank.

Perhaps AM was able to make pay outs when needed to retiring or departing partners via juggling internal funds ponzi style?

At the same time, the claimed number just seems large. "Sue'em" firms usually get 30% of the take- and can boost that percentage via creativity in pre trial expenses which are taken from the plaintiff share.

Part of that 30% is due to the attorney who handled the case. Another percentage is needed for operating expenses. Lets be very generous and say that 30% of firm's take could be salted away as future profit sharing and subject to embezzlement. This equates to 10% of the total settlement revenue.

The stated 10 million embezzled would then be based on 100 million in collected settlements. With taxes, the 100 million needed would be more. Maybe 120 million? This is based on a "30% of firm net profit" was embezzled model.

Yet, the firm was not exactly suing Boeing over 737 Max deaths. Railroad deaths due from faulty equipment / operators are rare. My bet is that mega lucrative coorperate "back hurt at work" settlements dried up generations ago. Local car wrecks and slipped at Marges cases only go so far in rural SC.

In short, most hype is based on some degree of truth. The firm is successful and embezzlement occurred. But, could reality be blurring into hype?

 

[clearskies1]

That's how I'm looking at it...option 2.
Set up everything so it happens while you are visiting your terminally ill father and dementia ridden mother...cuz ur such a good son/family kind of guy.
But problem... PM shows up when he's not supposed to..so he's gotta go.

My question: why by the dog kennels? So the house is not damaged at all maybe?

Speculation: Either option would involve luring her to a place where could have a straight long distance shot with assault rifle and be quite a distance from home where Paul would be (assuming knowledge that Paul was home). Perhaps goal was to have it occur hundreds of yards from where Paul was. JMO.

 

[geevee]

Does anyone wonder why no arrest has been made in the murders yet? Since Labor Day weekend AM has come front and center as a speculative suspect, but that doesn't change anything about the murders themselves.

SLED has had more than 3 months to investigate the murders, and a month since the solicitor recused himself - do they truly not have enough evidence of who killed PM/MM to arrest anyone?

I comprehend getting ducks in a row with a powerful family and all that, but it's been more than 3 months. Has a grand jury been impaneled to hear the evidence?

 

[Countem]

Wow, the Rita Crundwell case is amazing in that the fraud scheme was not very sophisticated, yet very large scale and was able to continue despite audits from an outside bank.

Perhaps AM was able to make pay outs when needed to retiring or departing partners via juggling internal funds ponzi style?

At the same time, the claimed number just seems large. "Sue'em" firms usually get 30% of the take- and can boost that percentage via creativity in pre trial expenses which are taken from the plaintiff share.

Part of that 30% is due to the attorney who handled the case. Another percentage is needed for operating expenses. Lets be very generous and say that 30% of firm's take could be salted away as future profit sharing and subject to embezzlement. This equates to 10% of the total settlement revenue.

The stated 10 million embezzled would then be based on 100 million in collected settlements. With taxes, the 100 million needed would be more. Maybe 120 million? This is based on a "30% of firm net profit" was embezzled model.

Yet, the firm was not exactly suing Boeing over 737 Max deaths. Railroad deaths due from faulty equipment / operators are rare. My bet is that mega lucrative coorperate "back hurt at work" settlements dried up generations ago. Local car wrecks and slipped at Marges cases only go so far in rural SC.

In short, most hype is based on some degree of truth. The firm is successful and embezzlement occurred. But, could reality be blurring into hype?

Very true! Though these calculations assume that AM’s attorney’s claim that AM had only “divert[ed] lawyer fees from the firm” is accurate.

South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was ‘pushed out’ of law firm over ‘misappropriated’ money, days before shooting: report

While that may be what AM has communicated to his lawyer, AM could have also diverted money from trust accounts held for clients, which would definitely allow for larger scale misappropriations. As long as he ensured that the accounts held enough money to make their required scheduled distributions, the clients would not be any the wiser, and it would be up to the firm to catch the misappropriation.

An attorney (not from PMPED) is quoted in the following article on how a partner could establish off-the-books “trust” accounts in a firm with lax controls and misappropriate those funds.

“Here’s how you could get around that — a lawyer could have gotten a settlement, and he could have just told the insurance company, ‘Just send that to a trust account I have set up’,” said the attorney, who didn’t want his name used because he is not authorized to speak publicly about his firm’s internal finances.

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article254046963.html

 

[sunshineray]

It occurs to me that if he tried to commit real or faux suicide, he would have residue on his hands and head, and would have temporarily deafened himself from the sound. It seems also that the gun would have been on the ground nearby or would have been found.
And, if he had been shot at by someone in a passing truck he is the luckiest man on the planet and he wouldn't have gunshot residue on him or be deafened by the sound. If the hospital received him as a gunshot victim they would have had procedures in place to answer these questions. MOO MOO MOO

But you see all that the hospital can do as far as collecting residue would have been compromised by the victim hitching a ride with some randoms. M lawyer had said first two Good Samaritans picked him up AND they were interviewed by SLED. Then it changed to one Good Samaritan.

So was it one or two? It makes a difference if two picked him up but only one met up with the ambulance "farther down the road", dropping AM off.

If it was an aborted suicide that AM didn't want known, did the gun wind up in this car with those persons and then one gets out before meeting up with the ambulance, taking evidence with them? I guess it's possible.

Did the person or persons in that car help clean AM up? We don't know. The chain of possession of the "victim" never occured...to talk to, to swab...without the unknown actions in that car and with that person, those person(s) now having to be factored into it.

Then he was flown away to another state, put into a hospital that was in covid phase rules, cleaned up well and good I'm sure (bio-evidence saved, thrown out, mingled with others in a bin?). Then he's released, gives a not so great description of the "shooter" he talked to (first M lawyer said SLED and AM not happy with the resulting sketch, now same lawyer saying SLED wasn't satisfied with the sketch) and then he's released to a rehab where he'll be unavailable until his first phase of detox is done, saying that's when he'll talk to LE.

I don't think AM was swabbed until after he'd cleaned up or if at all. AJMO

 

[raja]

So if in fact AM did make the statement about PM being involved in something he would have to had told LE what he meant. I am sure they asked him pronto. JMHO

 

[Crimescenetape]

A blank cartridge can do much damage too.

How Do Blanks Work As Compared to Regular Bullets?

It is said this is how actor Jon-Erik Hexum (Oct 1984) died. He held a prop gun with a blank cartridge to his head causing a lethal head wound.

 

[LaborDayRN]

That's how I'm looking at it...option 2.
Set up everything so it happens while you are visiting your terminally ill father and dementia ridden mother...cuz ur such a good son/family kind of guy.
But problem... PM shows up when he's not supposed to..so he's gotta go.

My question: why by the dog kennels? So the house is not damaged at all maybe?

There may have been security cameras on the house.

 

[otto]

I didn’t follow this case for weeks so sorry I missed this - what is the evidence for MM contemplating divorce? And there was a forensic audit that she initiated?? Tia!!

Although I can't be sure, it seems like the divorce theory came from speculation about the property transfer to Alex's wife in late 2016.

We know that Alex was embezzling money from the law firm. We don't know whether this was over one year, or more. That tells us that he needed more money than he earned. Perhaps he had a conversation with his wife and sons about cutting back on spending shortly before Alex's wife requested the audit. Perhaps Alex knew that there would be an audit at the law firm when his father died - which was imminent due to illness. Perhaps he hoped to replace the money before it was discovered missing.

We don't know, but it seems like a good idea for Alex to ask his family to cut back on spending since he is embezzling for one or more years to make ends meet, and he still can't get ahead of the expenses. His wife may have requested an audit so she had a better understanding of the family finances. Perhaps she didn't really believe that they were living beyond their means or that they had to reduce spending.

We know now that an audit on personal finances is the last thing that Alex needed, as it risked exposing the embezzlement - especially since more money was being spent than was coming in legally. If Alex's wife died, the personal finance audit should be terminated. If Paul died, that stops the criminal investigation, but not the civil lawsuit. If Paul and Alex's wife died on their property, it could be viewed as revenge killing related to the boat accident - Alex's wife in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Wild guess, but I think money troubles started a few years ago, and that money is at the core of the murders.

 

[drama_farmer]

Earlier in the thread, the possibility of AM having a gambling problem was brought up, but one type of high stakes gambling that I didn't see mentioned was the stock market or Bitcoin-like exchanges.

With online trading very accessible, you can win and lose a fortune from the comfort of your own smart phone.
Imo

 

[otto]

That's how I'm looking at it...option 2.
Set up everything so it happens while you are visiting your terminally ill father and dementia ridden mother...cuz ur such a good son/family kind of guy.
But problem... PM shows up when he's not supposed to..so he's gotta go.

My question: why by the dog kennels? So the house is not damaged at all maybe?

I'm very curious why Alex's wife and son were at the dog kennel at 9 PM. Something must have happened to draw them from the house to the kennel.

 

[JaimeInLA]

A new episode of the Mandy Matney podcast just dropped. It’s the longest episode of all of them so far!

 

[otto]

Earlier in the thread, the possibility of AM having a gambling problem was brought up, but one type of high stakes gambling that I didn't see mentioned was the stock market or Bitcoin-like exchanges.

With online trading very accessible, you can win and lose a fortune from the comfort of your own smart phone.
Imo

There has been a lot of speculation about the reasons that Alex resorted to embezzlement, but the simple answer is that he and/or his family spent more money than he earned. That doesn't mean gambling, poor investments, drug business, blackmail payouts or any other illegal activities. It could be as simple has supporting the expensive lifestyles of four adults on one income.

 

[MerryB]

I'm very curious why Alex's wife and son were at the dog kennel at 9 PM. Something must have happened to draw them from the house to the kennel.

View attachment 312261

Do we know they came from the main house to the kennels? Or were they returning to Moselle & stopped at the kennels on the way in to feed the dogs or let them out one last time before going up to the main house for the night? Was Paul perhaps not supposed to be with Maggie? MOO

 

[Elley Mae]

IIRC AM had not worked since 2019, and was only assisting his father.

Jmo

 

[Data Sleuth]

Does anyone wonder why no arrest has been made in the murders yet? Since Labor Day weekend AM has come front and center as a speculative suspect, but that doesn't change anything about the murders themselves.

SLED has had more than 3 months to investigate the murders, and a month since the solicitor recused himself - do they truly not have enough evidence of who killed PM/MM to arrest anyone?

I comprehend getting ducks in a row with a powerful family and all that, but it's been more than 3 months. Has a grand jury been impaneled to hear the evidence?

If it was a hired hit that led to the deaths of PM and MM, LE may not know whom the killers are. IF AM possibly hired a hit it may have been arranged offline, and paid for with cash, there would be no way to prove AM was involved (if he was, he is presumed innocent until evidence is uncovered).
All of this is just my opinion.