Murdaugh: Death in the Family: Who Is Alex Murdaugh, Explained
Once the face of a powerful South Carolina legal dynasty, Alex Murdaugh is now serving two life sentences for the 2021 murders of his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22. His live-televised 2023 trial gripped the nation and laid bare decades of financial fraud and the collapse of a family empire.
Hulu just rolled out a dramatization of the Alex Murdaugh saga, which means a lot of people are about to relive one of the wildest criminal cases the internet ever watched in real time. If you missed the actual trial, here is the short version: a powerful South Carolina lawyer killed his wife and son, lied about it, and the proof that unraveled everything was hiding in a casual cellphone video.
The case that swallowed a dynasty
Richard Alexander 'Alex' Murdaugh came from one of South Carolina's most entrenched legal families. He is now serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering his wife, Maggie (52), and their son, Paul (22), on June 7, 2021. The 2023 trial became appointment viewing thanks to wall-to-wall livestreams and, along the way, dragged into the light nearly $8.7 million in financial fraud that had been festering for years.
What actually cracked the case
The trial kicked off January 25, 2023, in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina. Prosecutors Creighton Waters and John Meadors squared off against defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin before Judge Clifton Newman. The turning point was not a dramatic confession or a stray fingerprint. It was a video.
At 8:44 p.m. on the night of the killings, Paul recorded a short clip at the family dog kennels. Multiple witnesses told the jury they were 100% certain the third voice in that video belonged to Alex, placing him at the scene minutes before the murders. That mattered because Alex had told police he was visiting his mother, who has dementia, during the window when the shootings happened.
At 10:06 p.m., Alex called 911 to report finding Maggie and Paul dead. He told authorities Maggie had been shot five times and Paul twice. Investigators later said both weapons were from the Murdaugh household. Cellphone data, car telemetry, and cell tower records were stitched together to show a timeline that prosecutors argued left Alex boxed in by his own story.
The money motive the jury heard
On February 6, 2023, Judge Newman ruled that jurors could hear about Alex's financial crimes to help explain motive. That opened the door to a parade of witnesses and documents about missing funds and client theft, which did not exactly help the defense's credibility play.
Alex takes the stand, and the lie collapses
On February 23, 2023, Alex testified. He denied killing his family but admitted he had lied about being at the kennels that night, blaming years of opioid addiction for his deception.
'I lied about being down there.'
Less than three hours after getting the case on March 2, 2023, the jury came back with guilty verdicts on all counts. The next day, Judge Newman handed down two life sentences, to be served back to back.
And then the rest of it came crashing down
The murder convictions were just the start. In November 2023, Alex received 27 years in state prison for the financial crimes. In April 2024, he was hit with 40 more years for federal fraud. Those extra sentences run at the same time, not on top of the life terms.
About Hulu's 'Murdaugh: Death in the Family'
The eight-episode miniseries premiered October 15, 2025, on Hulu. The first three episodes dropped day one, with new episodes arriving weekly through November 19, 2025. Created by Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, the show leans on reporting from Mandy Matney's 'Murdaugh Murders Podcast' (more than 90 episodes and counting). Brittany Snow plays Matney on screen, and Matney is also an executive producer.
Jason Clarke plays Alex Murdaugh and Patricia Arquette plays Maggie; both also serve as executive producers. The series starts with the 2019 boat crash that blew open the family facade: Paul allegedly slammed the family boat into a bridge while drunk, killing Mallory Beach. His blood alcohol content was .24, roughly three times the legal limit. The Beach family reached a $15 million settlement in July 2023.
Cast roll call
- Jason Clarke as Alex Murdaugh
- Patricia Arquette as Maggie Murdaugh
- Johnny Berchtold as Paul Murdaugh
- Will Harrison as Buster Murdaugh
- Noah Emmerich as Randy Murdaugh
- Gerald McRaney as Randolph Murdaugh III
- Jim O'Heir as Dick Harpootlian
- Madeline Popovich as Mallory Beach
- Brittany Snow as Mandy Matney
Production and reception
Filming kicked off in Atlanta in March 2025. Early response has been mixed: the show sits at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, which feels about right for a true-crime retelling that is still this raw and this recent. Hulu clearly expects people to binge the opening trio and then ride the weekly rollout, and given how the real trial played like prestige TV in the first place, they probably will.
Why this story will not go away
Between the family pedigree, the cold-blooded violence, and the avalanche of financial deceit, the Murdaugh case has everything that makes a true-crime story stick. Media branded it the state's 'trial of the century' for a reason. The kennel video made the prosecution feel inevitable; the money crimes made the motive make sense; the verdict came fast. Now the dramatization is here to walk everyone back through it, one episode at a time.