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The stunning downfall of Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced former South Carolina lawyer and convicted killer, was capped Friday, March 3rd when he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and youngest son. While he was on trial for his heinous crimes, Alex Murdaugh’s only surviving son Buster Murdaugh made an appearance on the witness stand. But what do we know about Buster Murdaugh and his connection to his father’s crimes?
Buster Murdaugh graduated from Wofford College in 2018, according to his Instagram bio, and appeared to be following in his family’s footsteps by enrolling at the University of South Carolina School of Law. However, by spring 2021, he had been kicked out of law school for plagiarizing, according to court documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. The Post and Courier, a local South Carolina newspaper, obtained jailhouse phone calls from Alex Murdaugh, in which he said the Murdaugh family had paid a well-connected lawyer about $60,000 to secure Buster Murdaugh’s re-admittance to the school. Jim Griffin, an attorney for Alex Murdaugh, told the Post and Courier in September 2022 the university and Buster Murdaugh had come to an agreement that he wouldn’t yet return to school.
Buster’s younger brother Paul Murdaugh was facing three felony counts of boating under the influence at the time of his death stemming from a boat crash on Feb. 23, 2019. On the night of the crash, then 19-year-old Paul Murdaugh took his family’s boat out for a night of partying on the Beaufort River. Before getting into the boat, Paul Murdaugh used his older’s ID to purchase alcohol for the night, as shown in footage played during the first episode of “Murdaugh Murders.” Paul Murdaugh was steering the boat when it crashed into a bridge, ejecting 19-year-old Mallory Beach from the vessel. The charges against Paul Murdaugh were dropped in August 2021 after the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office received his death certificate.
Alex Murdaugh made national headlines on Sept. 4, 2021, when he was found with a gunshot wound to the head in Hampton County, South Carolina. Murdaugh’s attorney Jim Griffin said his client had pulled over after his vehicle got a flat tire, and then a person inside a pickup truck passed by and opened fire. However, by Sept. 14, authorities revealed Murdaugh allegedly arranged for his former client, Curtis Edward Smith, to kill him so that Buster Murdaugh could collect on his $10 million life insurance policy. Dick Harpootlian, one of Murdaugh’s attorneys, said his client’s addiction to opioids led him to create the plot to have a Curtis kill him so Buster Murdaugh could make a claim his life insurance policy.
Buster testified in his father’s defense on Feb. 21 and spoke of their loving, “close-knit” family. He was the first witness the defense called to the stand, and said his father was barely able to speak the first time he saw him after the killings. Buster Murdaugh was seen hugging people in the courtroom after Judge Clifton Newman announced his father’s sentence of life in prison.
The story of Alex Murdaugh’s stunning downfall and the effects it had on his son, Buster Murdaugh, is a tragedy that will be remembered for years to come. While Alex Murdaugh will spend the rest of his life in prison, Buster will have to live with the legacy of his father’s crimes for the rest of his life.
