Lights, camera, trial: All eyes on Alex Murdaugh as a small South Carolina city prepares for a 'circus'
The saga surrounding the Murdaugh family spawned attention as an unsolved double homicide, but soon unraveled into wider allegations of financial fraud, a hired hitman plot and drug addiction.
WALTERBORO, S.C. — Hotel rooms have been booked for weeks in this small South Carolina city, about 50 miles west of Charleston, where some residents have advertised their homes on Airbnb for hundreds of dollars a night.
In a parking lot across from the Colleton County Courthouse, food trucks will be catering to an anticipated throng of legal teams, law enforcement, news outlets and members of the public, from true crime enthusiasts to curious gawkers, all converging for what one local newspaper has headlined “the trial of the century.”
That trial — of Alex Murdaugh, the scion of a well-connected legal family who stands accused of murdering his wife, Margaret, and their son, Paul, with a shotgun and rifle — is slated to begin Monday with jury selection. The frenzy of the trial could potentially last a few weeks, and Court TV is promoting “gavel-to-gavel coverage.”
Alex Murdaugh sits in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., as his attorneys discuss motions in front of Judge Clifton Newman on Dec. 9, 2022.Tracy Glantz / The State via Getty Images fileSince the evening of June 7, 2021, when Murdaugh frantically called 911 to say he had found his wife and son fatally shot near the dog kennels at their Colleton County estate, the saga spawned attention as an unsolved double homicide, but it soon unraveled into wider allegations of financial fraud, a hired hit man plot and drug addiction, and revived scrutiny into other curious deaths linked to the prominent family.
Few trials in recent memory have riveted this region of South Carolina, known as the Lowcountry, where for nearly a century, fathers of three generations of Murdaughs wielded power as top prosecutors for a cluster of counties. But the perceived spectacle means that not only will Murdaugh be on display — so will the county seat of Walterboro, population 5,460.
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