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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Netflix’s Murdaugh documentary series: 4 takeaways

By Ben Brasch Washington Post

The still-evolving saga of the Murdaugh family in South Carolina has reached a crucial point: a Netflix true-crime documentary.

Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” premiered in the United States on Feb. 22 during the trial of Alex Murdaugh, who is currently facing homicide charges for the fatal shooting of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. He has maintained his innocence.

The three-part series delves into the pair’s slayings but also other deaths surrounding the Murdaugh family.

Here are some key takeaways from the program:

A lot of smoke,

but no convictions

The series links five bodies over six years to the Murdaughs: Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, Mallory Beach, Gloria Satterfield and Stephen Smith. But no one has been convicted in any of those deaths.

Maggie and Paul were shot to death on the family’s 1,772-acre hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021. Mallory Beach, 19, died after Paul, while allegedly drunk, crashed a boat into a bridge in 2019. Gloria Satterfield helped keep up the family’s home for two decades before she allegedly fatally tripped over the Murdaugh’s dogs and fell on stairs. Stephen Smith died in 2015 and, the docuseries alleges, may have had a relationship with Alex Murdaugh’s other son Buster.

A constant throughout the series is the power dynamic at play and how authorities, whether explicitly instructed or not, know that messing with the Murdaughs is complicated. The last three generations of Murdaughs were elected head prosecutors in the Lowcountry.

“The Murdaughs were law and order here in the 14th Circuit,” said Michael Dewitt Jr., editor of the The Hampton County Guardian. “They ran both sides of the legal ledger.”

Prosecutors during the trial showed the jury that the Murdaughs were so close to law enforcement that Alex Murdaugh had been given a badge and had blue lights installed in his vehicle.

Everyone shown thinks Murdaugh committed

at least one criminal act

The series, despite reaching out to family members who didn’t comment, didn’t show one person who thinks Alex Murdaugh is totally innocent.

Murdaugh himself at trial admitted to financial crimes, saying he stole from clients at his law practice.

The trial has not concluded, and no verdict has been rendered.

People in the Lowcountry are still reckoning with all this

The directors Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst – the same minds behind docuseries successes “LuLaRich” and “Fyre Fraud” – quickly and consistently show the pain and trauma that many are still processing in this area of South Carolina.

Tears flowed when friends and family remembered Beach, the 19-year-old woman who died in the drunken boating accident a couple years earlier. The series shows many people who say that, even at the hospital, Alex Murdaugh was trying to blame another person on the boat, Connor Cook, for piloting it.

His father, Marty Cook, said his son was worried that the Murdaughs would kill the young man.

“I don’t think the story’s even close to being over, and, yes, I’m a little nervous about sitting here and doing this now,” Marty Cook said to the camera.

People love

the true-crime genre

True-crime content is nothing new, but a glut of streaming juggernauts all in a war to be the next breakout series has created an endless supply of people sitting down and reminiscing about the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them.

The series is getting a massive amount of attention and quickly became one of Netflix’s top 10 programs.

With investigations reopening and the chance of an appeal in the ongoing trial, the series certainly doesn’t have to be over.