South Carolina’s most famous and disgraced former attorney, Alex Murdaugh, was recently convicted of killing his wife and son, and so will, according to officials, serve a life sentence in protective custody.
Apparently, a board composed of mental health and prison experts reviewed Murdaugh’s case and determined that he needs to be kept in protective custody, so he will spend the remainder of his life in a maximum security prison under protective custody. The unit to which he was transferred has only 28 inmates.
Announcing the decision and move in a news release, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said:
Inmate Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s reception and evaluation process is complete,
and he has been moved to the statewide protective custody unit of a South Carolina maximum-security
prison.
SCDC’s Protective Custody Review Board met Thursday and made a recommendation of statewide
protective custody classification for inmate Murdaugh. The four-member board includes SCDC security,
mental health and classification experts.
Inmates in this unit have validated protective concerns and are placed in a specialized unit to separate
them from the general population. Their location is not disclosed for safety and security reasons. This
unit has 28 inmates currently.
Murdaugh will be in a single eight by ten cell that contains a bed, toilet and sink. Inmates in this unit
receive all privileges afforded those in the general population inside this self-contained unit.
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Murdaugh was convicted of killing both his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son, Paul. CNN, reporting on the conviction, said:
The murder convictions, which Murdaugh has appealed, came almost two years after he called police to report he had found his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and his grown son, Paul Murdaugh, shot dead at their rural estate. Murdaugh said he found the bodies after returning from a visit to his mother.
But the deaths weren’t the only ones to which the Murdaugh family name was tied. And as yearslong mysteries surrounding the family are garnering fresh attention, so are several other deaths.
[…]Murdaugh denied involvement in their killings, even as he was buried under an avalanche of charges related to alleged financial crimes. But he was eventually indicted in July 2022 with two counts of murder and two weapons charges – to which he pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from and delay investigations into his alleged misdeeds, which included stealing millions of dollars from his clients and his law firm – crimes Murdaugh generally admitted to when he took the stand to testify in his own defense.
So, there’s finally justice for those killings, though it seems like the death penalty would be a more fiscally responsible and just manner of holding Murdaugh accountable for the murders that shocked the nation and held it in rapt attention. Now that Murdaugh has been convicted, the eye of law enforcement has turned to his son Buster, also suspected in connection with suspicious deaths.