The murders have attracted intense attention over the past year and a half because of the Murdaugh family’s long and prominent history in the region. Mr. Murdaugh’s great-grandfather was the first elected prosecutor for a broad swath of the South Carolina Lowcountry, handing the job down to Mr. Murdaugh’s grandfather and then his father, and also founded a storied law firm.
That legal dynasty came crashing down in the months after the murders as Mr. Murdaugh was charged with a series of financial crimes and forced to resign from the law firm. Three months after the murders, he was also charged with insurance fraud in a bizarre case in which the police say he asked a distant cousin to fatally shoot him so that Buster Murdaugh could collect on his life insurance policy, but he survived the shooting.
Mr. Murdaugh, who has since been disbarred, has been held in jail since October 2021, when he was charged with stealing money from the family of his former housekeeper, who died after a fall on the steps of the Murdaugh family home. Her death is being reinvestigated following the filing of the financial charges against Mr. Murdaugh.