The Case of Alexander MurDaugh on the Outlaw Lawyer

This week on Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I, we have a special guest in studio and we talk about Alec Murdock. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome in to the Outlaw Lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer law firms where you can find them during the week. They're the managing partners there, they're practice attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They have 46 combined years experience and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina and Gastonia. We're going to talk all kinds of legal topics today.

We do it each and every week. And if you've got your own set of questions and you need answers, we've got a number for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Or you can email your questions to the program and it's questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. And guys, welcome back. Good to see you in studio. Morgan, it's been a long time. You know, because of COVID, we've all been doing kind of a remote recording in the past.

I don't know how many weeks, lots of weeks. And today we're all, as far as we know, COVID free. And we're all in the studio at the same time. Joe, it's good to see you. Hey, Josh, it's good to see you and your actual face. Usually we're not face to face anymore. So this is pleasant. This is like doing radio, doing podcasting in the 50s now. We're like face to face. We're not at our own little remote stations.

This is the way it should be. I put better clothes on because I knew I'd see people. You showered. I showered. I did. That took two just to be safe. This is this is something I don't usually do. I put a dress shirt on and I wore a sweater over it. Yeah, I feel like that's pretty fancy.

The more the merrier for clothes on your body. This week we got another voice, which I'm sure everybody will be will be happy. We have a special guest in studio with us. We have Miss Cassandra Nicholas with us.

She is an attorney over at the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer. She unfortunately has to work with me and Joe every day, but we are happy to have her here today. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Long time listener. First time caller. Really nice to meet you, Morgan. Absolutely.

Can I ask a real quick question? What's it like working with these two? It's amazing. It's great.

Bonus thing. That's good. Morgan, you may not realize this, but she genuinely may be our biggest fan on the planet Earth. Every episode, right? It's true.

Every episode she's listened to on her own free will and volition. So well, I got to tell you, we produce a lot of podcasts around the country and we do it right out of this building. And I am the envy of all of our hosts because we are not talking finance.

We are talking legal. I like it. You know, next week we're going to focus on finance.

No. Yeah, we're we're completely shifting our going on vacation. See you. All right. So before we get into the meat of everything, you know, we're we're in the middle of January. I think we can say no one in here has has covered my new year's resolution was not to get covered.

And so far, so good, I think. But I wanted to hear everybody's resolution just to get us going. Morgan, you have a resolution this year. You know, I do live every day. I know this is going to sound like a Hallmark card, but live every day. Enjoy every day.

We're not promised tomorrow. So I do have resolutions when it comes to diet, weight, that kind of thing. I do it every single year. But, yeah, spend more time with family, quality time, put the devices down, that kind of thing. That's very noble. It's very noble. Joe, I'm going I want to spend more time on my devices.

No, I don't really know, man. You know, I like to live every day. That's good.

I think I think I want to steal that one. Obviously, be less fat. That's always one of my running goals.

Physical fitness usually start out start out pretty strong and it tails off dramatically as the year goes on. But not in time with the family. That's it. That's a good one. And and that's what I'm going to aspire to.

Cassandra. Well, Morgan already said less screen time, but that's definitely one of mine. This my career at Whitaker and Hamer has been very mind expanding this year. So when I get home from work, I melt into the couch and don't move until it's time to move to the bed. So I'm going to try to like replace that with like reading a book or something. That's something I've been really I used to be. That's one of mine, too, because I used to read all the time. You know, I used to read and I don't want to blame the kids for this.

But now with the kids, I see them when I get home. I just never read anymore. I read the news on my phone and I'll read, you know, things here or there. But I can't remember the last time I've got like five books on my nightstand and I've been reading this autobiography, autobiography, this biography of Teddy Roosevelt. I've been reading it for as an embarrassing, embarrassingly long amount of time.

I haven't gotten through with it. So I want to read more. And then I really want to be that guy that smokes pipes. Really? Like a big pipe.

OK. I think that's you know, I'm I'm getting older. I feel like that's something as you get grayer, you should have just a big pipe and I want to carry it around in my pocket and like pull it out a lot.

You know, just be like, oh, that's definitely needed in the firm's headshots for the website. Yeah, it's your thing. You have it all the time. One hundred percent of the time.

You're not seen without because there used to be when I was growing up, there's always that one guy that my parents knew at church or whatever that had the pipe. And and maybe that's not cool. No, I think it's cool. I think it's cool.

It may not be. But once you start doing it, it will be it will be cool again. Well, I will say this. The aroma of pipe tobacco. That's solid.

It's a solid thing. I think you should learn to blow smoke rings. Make that your thing, too.

You have two things. Or just nibble on it and just bring tobacco around. Don't smoke it. Just so we can smell it. Only special occasions. Yeah. When you spark that thing up, that's when you know something's going down. When I'm in deep thought.

Yes. Well, I want to do so we're going to do something different today. You know, when I talk to people about the show, folks who listen to the show, I've had a lot of people ask me, hey, how come you guys don't really dive in any kind of like true crime stories?

I know it's a very popular genre of of podcast and we just haven't really done it until today. We've kind of been saving this one. And that's one of the reasons Cassandra's here today, because she is she has been following the story of South Carolina, I guess, former attorney now, Alec Murdoch. And so this story is unbelievable when you sit down and look at how it's unfolded over the past year. It sounds like there's still layers we're going to be figuring out later. But this is one heck of a tale.

Absolutely. So I've been I don't know why this one really like has gripped me, but I've been following it for months. It came into like kind of national attention this past summer. Alec Murdoch, he's an attorney in South Carolina or wasn't an attorney in South Carolina.

His family, they've been prosecutors, which are called solicitors in South Carolina. I saw that. That surprised me. I had to think of it as a pretty cool name.

Absolutely. Very fancy. So for generations, they've got a lot of family wealth, big, big names in the area. So this made local news there really quickly when his wife and son were murdered on their property this past June. A lot of people getting murdered during the saga. And we're going to spend some time. I was confused about it. I had been hearing all these stories and it's not something I had followed closely.

And so I sat down earlier this week to kind of go through the timeline. And I was shocked at how much stuff was going on and how many different people were involved. And really just have all the makings of a movie, which probably is why it's so riveting to to folks. Yeah, I'm sure there will be several movies that come from this.

There's already an oxygen special. Oh, wow. Is Alyssa Milano in it or Baxter Bernie, who's you guys. You're too young for family ties. Was that was family ties. Mom's name.

Baxter Bernie. Meredith Baxter burning that her name. Does she do a lot of oxygen specials? She did. She did it doing a lot of the Hallmark and the do. Do we put those on the same level? The Hallmark movies and oxygen specials? I think they're I think that's. Yeah. Well, the fact the fact that Melissa Milano is the first name that came out of your mouth. That says a lot about where.

And then you went Baxter Bernie for four. In my mind, this is like a C level movie. And so that's the first thing that comes up. OK. All right. So we're going to spend some time talking about that. I also wanted to spend some time talking about, you know, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about.

I don't know whose mandate you want to call it, but the the current mandate that if you're a private employer with more than 100 employees, you got to get your employers vaxxed or you get fined. And there's, you know, that's been stalled. And the two emergency cases got it to the Supreme Court. So there were some pretty entertaining oral arguments. I want to spend time talking about that. And if we have time after that, we really got to get back to our movie attorney, our legal movie tournament and get that cranked. That's going to be our running thing every week. We're getting back to that movie turn and then we'll just never do it.

But I believe today could be the day. You know, it wasn't a legal movie, but you know what I saw over the holidays. I don't have the answer to that question. You want me to get give me a hint. And I was a Spider-Man movie. Oh, yeah. OK. That was good. We should put that one in there.

Give me a hint, man. That's not all. Is that a legal movie?

Everything can be a legal movie. Yeah. I mean, I guess if we looked at it, how'd you like the Spider-Man? It was I enjoyed it. I thought it was going to be better than it was. I had built it up in my in my head to be really good.

You can't do that. And but it was still entertaining. We're talking about the latest one.

Yeah. Everybody I've talked to, I haven't seen it yet. Everybody's saying it's like it's it. It's like the best one.

It's really good. Josh has only seen nine total movies in his life and then eight thousand Simpsons episodes. I was going to say there's if there's no Simpson involved, there's less interest. All right. So we're up against a break.

So we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we are going to figure out who this Alec Murdoch guy is. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firms, where you can find him, 46 combined years experience. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and the managing partners of the firm. Our special guest today is Cassandra Nicholas.

I'm looking forward to the discussion on today's program. If you've got a legal issue of your own, I've got a number for you. Here it is. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Just leave your name, contact information. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Welcome into the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host, Whitaker and Hamer law firms, where you can find the managing partners there. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience. Again, offices pretty much everywhere.

Kind of like Starbucks, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And we have a guest in studio today, Cassandra Nicholas. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Josh, take it away. All right. So we're going to tell the story of Alec Murdoch, or at least what we at least what we know so far.

I got confused here because I made a note on the pronunciation of Alex name and I wrote Merdork and it really confused me. And it reminded me as I was looking at this, he has a real is a real punchable face. This guy. And in fact, he had a bond hearing this week and he appeared with a black eye and bloody knuckles.

And nobody said a thing about it. So I, I just need to know more. Josh, you have a nose for punchable faces because it does sound like, in fact, he has been punched in the face. I don't know how you could be, you know, God forbid, you know, I haven't I haven't been incarcerated and I hope I never am. But if I was incarcerated and in my new cellmate was this Alec guy, I, I feel like we wouldn't get along personally. Just looking at him just by the face. You're very sociable.

I'm sure you guys would find some common ground. No, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Now that we're here and we're on this topic, what did you do to get into a room with this attorney? Oh, yeah, I don't know. Something acts. It was an accident. It was an accident. But it was a grossly negligent accident to the point where they were like, we're locking this guy.

You're gonna have to do some hard time for this accident. Yeah. So getting on track, I think I think it's important before we talk about Alec Murdoch to talk about Richard Alexander Murdoch senior.

That's just the same gentleman. This is not because this is a long this is a whole family of prominent individuals that has a lineage of, you know, being prominent in attorneys and wealthy and status. And I think that plays into the story, does it not?

Absolutely. So the prominence of the family in the area, I think, plays into a lot of areas of this story because all of this came out just this past summer. But the incidents surrounding this family go back years. And I think those would have come to light much sooner if it were not for the prominence of this family in the area.

So they were able to kind of push some things under the rug. Yeah, it's weird how when you have these prominent families, it seems like generationally and this may be an outlier here, but the faces become more punchable with every succeeding generation. But yeah, so very prominent family. I see in the notes here we got high society, wealth, real property, boats.

They seem like you got a pretty good life to me, man. That's all sounds pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. So let's let's do this.

Let's establish who our immediate family members are, because all these all these folks are going to come into play later. So Richard Alexander Murdoch senior is Alec. Yes.

All right. And he was a practicing attorney at a law firm when all this started to go down in South Carolina. Yes. And it's a family law firm as well.

So it's it's other relatives in this law firm with him. All right. So we've got to how many he has two sons. Yes. OK, so we had two sons in one still alive.

One is all right. So Paul is the son that is still alive. There's a Richard Alexander Murdoch junior known as Buster. So it's actually Buster that's still alive. All right.

All right. So that's that's kind of the family. And so what's the first how does this first come to light?

Cassandra, what's the first thing that happens here? So it first came to light this past summer in June when his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, were murdered at their seventeen hundred acre complex. It wasn't even their main house.

This was their like hunting lodge. Sure. You know. Well, I mean, we all have those. Yeah.

You don't have a hunting. Exactly. So Alec went home and found them there. And so I've listened to many episodes of many podcasts, but one local reporter there, Mandy Matney, with Fitz News, she has a podcast called The Murdoch Murders. So a lot of this is really just crib from her.

Thank you, Mandy. But her podcast goes into great depth and plays the full 911 calls for all incidents related to the Murdoch family, including the one where Alec calls regarding his wife and son this past June. And it was really convincing to me. I do not know.

No one knows who murdered his wife, Maggie, and his son, Paul. But I don't think it was him. Yeah, it was. And if I'm not mistaken, I listened.

I agree. I listen to the 911 call and it did sound convincing. He sounds panicked. You know, there were some strange nuances to it where they were, you know, the the if I'm not mistaken, the dispatcher was telling him not to touch the bodies for for evidentiary purposes. And he was basically like, I've already touched the bodies, you know, which is reasonable.

You know, that's not unreasonable. But it sounded like the conclusion was that there were multiple shooters that were involved here because he had one person shot with I think it was an automatic weapon and the other one. It was a shotgun. So, yeah, it sounds that's a lot of steps you're going through if if he was the person committing committing these crimes. So this is the that's the event that kind of brought it to the national stage. And so during this investigation of this of this double murder of his wife, Maggie, and his son, which son, Paul, Paul, I don't know why it's confusing me so bad. So a lot of other stuff starts starts starts coming out. And, you know, it's kind of revealed that his family probably has some enemies. But but yeah, for the large part, still, you know, almost six, eight months later, it doesn't sound like we're any closer to knowing who killed those two individuals. Exactly.

There's been nothing released, at least that suggests they have any idea any leads for who killed Paul and Maggie. And and I mean, you got it, you got to assume getting something like this taking place on a 1700 acre hunting lodge. I mean, I'm going to assume that's a that's a pretty remote location that not just anybody's going to roll up on. So you would have to think there's there's some kind of connection, be it to to Alec or be it to the son, the wife there. You almost have to think that this was a targeted event in some fashion.

Yeah, you would have to you'd have to think that people knew one where it was on some on acreage that big where people would be and that they would even be there since it's not their their primary residence. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a situation.

Who knows? There are so many different directions. I'm pulled every direction in this story. So going back to they had enemies, you know, it seems like, again, I'm not the most well versed on the entire all of the circumstances surrounding all of these events. But from what I could pick up, you know, listening to other people, especially local folks kind of discussing the situation. There was a perception that this whole family was kind of above the law. You know, they come from great privilege. And a lot of times when you have families like that, they are naturally going to have a lot of people who aren't overly fond of them.

And and, you know, don't necessarily wish them well. So is that a fair commentary on the general consensus of the public in that local area? Yes, my expert knowledge on South Carolina local politics.

So man, there's just so much here to dig into. So right now, I guess it would be nice to start out saying what what he's actually been charged with because we know Alec Murdoch is in custody. He's been as far as I can tell, denied bond. But what I think is important here, Cassandra, what you pointed out earlier is that he's not currently charged for any kind of murder.

No, he's not. He does have he's indicted on dozens of charges, but they're all financial crimes, primarily really relating to embezzling from his law firm and from clients. Don't mess with those trust accounts. No, no, that's the that's the big thing with law firms. Trust accounts are very important.

They're not they're not your money. And so when you hear a story like this, where an attorney has embezzled trust funds from his law firm, he hasn't really stolen from the law firm so much as he's stolen from his own clients. And so those are always terrible news stories when when they happen. But you hear about it from time to time, where an attorney has a lot of money and trust. And that that's kind of how they they go down. They've got some problem like whatever Alec was up against, I guess, maybe just greed.

We don't know. It's like a big onion and they just keep peeling these layers off as they do more and more research. You know what you never hear about is attorneys stealing from their trust accounts and getting away with it. That's generally you're universally going to get caught. That was the big thing in law school. You know, I came from the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell when it was still in Buies Creek.

And that's one of the big things they do in law school is they they have attorneys come in who have run afoul of the bar requirements have been disbarred, have been suspended. And they tell you, you know, this is this is what I did. This is why I did it.

You never it's never going to work out for you. Brave folks. I would never stand in front of a class of law students like this is what I did wrong. It made it made it.

Yeah, I can't imagine doing either. And those and I wish I remember their names. I wish there was some way I could I could thank them because I think at a law school, you know, we we learned about the law, met a lot of good friends and a lot of good professors. But one of the things that stand out the most to me from my experience at law school was like every two weeks, we'd have a guy come in and said, you know, I I developed a drinking problem. I put my clients and work over my family and and I finally had to get help or, you know, I ran into financial straits and I thought I was borrowing this money. But I know now that I was embezzling and but just to hear all these stories did a world of good for me. It's a super effective technique. It's dare. Back in the day, you have the person who had the drunk driving accident. They come in or they took the drugs and then they thought they were a dragon.

They scare you. It's a fantastic teaching tool. And anyways, we kind of got off track there. But yeah, it's you. You can understand the motivation behind someone doing I mean, just because it's a it's not hard to understand the motivation. But of all things, man, your trust account is so heavily regulated.

It's subject to random audit. That's something that you're just you can't cover it up and get away with it. So it's it's you have to be truly desperate. And I think the point in our discussion of this is I think it speaks to the desperation of of this individual. And it's crazy, too, because you're looking at someone who's who's already greatly privileged.

We have to assume very wealthy and still is willing to dip into his trust account to embezzle funds. Is it desperation or is it arrogance? No, I think it's I think if and again, if I'm not mistaken, I think he had a drug problem and I think that's really the key. I think I think drugs will push you to do and I think it's arrogance as well. I mean, I'm sure it's a it's a confluence of everything, but I think the drug piece is a huge factor in that. And I don't think you make great decisions when you are addicted to an expensive opioid drug. And and I think no matter how much money you have, you can probably blow through that pretty easily with with a bad enough drug habit. And that's got to be my assumption as to what's what's kind of going on there. And his law school class must not have had anyone come in to speak to him about the importance of trust accounts and not messing with.

Yeah, let's get him an opioid guy to to come speak to him. Let's go ahead and kill two birds with one stone there. I say that's that's one thing I knew coming out of law school, the North Carolina bar that regulates, you know, the bar regulates attorneys. And that's the one thing, you know, you and you, you misappropriate you embezzle. You you take trust account money that is not yours and you're you're done. You're just you're done and someone's going to figure it out. Yeah. Oh yeah. They're going to figure it out.

They may it may not be figured out in 30 days or 30 months or but at some point someone's going to figure out and that's it. And there's just no there's no coming back from that. No, there's no slap on the wrist for that. You're done. All right. So we've kind of laid out who Alec Murdoch is, who his family is coming up next. We're going to start talking about some of the other folks who have become involved in this investigation. All right.

Interesting stuff, guys. The outlaw lawyer going to be right back. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Forty six combined years experiencing in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And again, our special guest today, Cassandra Nicholas. Looking forward to more discussion on this case.

And we'll be back right after this. The outlaw liars on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are the managing partners and they're also practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

They have forty six combined years experience between them. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. You may have a legal question of your own and you can certainly get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the program and we'll use them on future shows.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and always go check the website out the outlaw lawyer dot com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and our special guest today, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. Cassandra Nicholas is in studio. Josh. All right, Morgan. So right now we know who Alec Murdoch is. You've established who Alec Murdoch is, the kind of life he was leading. We know there's been a double murder. He is not a he's not been charged with anything. But as the authorities start looking in to Alec Murdoch's life and career and finances, we're going to find a lot of questionable circumstances and deaths that kind of surround his family that are being kind of given a new light, being investigated a different way.

And so Cassandra, what's the what's the first one that kind of comes up? So in 2015, a young man named Stephen Smith died in what at the time was ruled to be a hit and run accident. Stephen was a classmate of Alec's son Buster. At the time, there were really no questions really about what happened. It was it was ruled a hit and run and everyone moved on, essentially. However, after Paul and Maggie's deaths during that investigation, the Stephen Smith's death investigation was reopened based on something they found at the hunting complex. We don't know what that is, though. So that's an open investigation.

They're not going to share a lot of that information with the with the general public. But I'm assuming whatever they found in their search was a pretty damning evidence for them to open up a four or five, six year old investigation and kind of and kind of look at it again. Yeah, that that's got to be the assumption, you know, and you know, there was a lot of it brings me back to some of the things I heard listening to some of the 911 calls associated with this.

And this is kind of jumping ahead. But, you know, you get into some of these incidents that that involve this family and something that stuck with me as one of the callers there, they're reporting what happened. And and they state, you know, who was responsible, which was this one of the members of this Murdoch family. And that caller's statement was basically good luck, you know, good luck holding them accountable for anything.

Good luck, you know, making them be responsible for what they've done. And it almost makes you wonder if if maybe and again, this is all wild speculation, but I think that's the point of what we're doing. But but maybe there was something that that was potentially even known at the time and things kind of get swept under the rug. And then when when things start coming to light, you know, people kind of backtrack on who knows, you know, or like you said, maybe something incredibly damning is found at the hunting lodge. Well, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the Ahmaud Arbery case and how and that was another South Carolina case, but how so many people in the in the chain of command recuse themselves, refuse to prosecute, refuse to investigate.

And some of those folks have been criminally charged at this point. What it kind of same thing here, this family so well connected, so wealthy, so known in the area until recently, it's just been maybe hard to to make things stick. Yeah. And I guess that's the thing, man, you get into this pattern and you get all this. Well, you amassed this wealth and this power and and maybe there is some degree of protection in that until, you know, there's just too much smoke, you know, to to to keep it under wraps. And then, you know, like we've kind of seen in this case, everything starts coming out. You know, you start seeing just you start looking back to past events with with different scrutiny.

And it kind of sounds like that's what's that's kind of what's going on here. All right. So Stephen Smith was the first again. He is he is a victim. He was a murder victim.

And so his unsolved case is being reopened. But to me, that's not the most disturbing one. The most disturbing, disturbing one is the is Miss Gloria Satterfield.

Yeah. Miss Gloria Satterfield was the maid and nanny for the Murdoch family for 20 years. So she was essentially a part of the family.

She spent holidays with them, raised Alec Murdoch's children, essentially, for the better part of their lives. And in 2018, she died in a tragic accident at the Murdoch house. Yeah, I read that it was a it was a fall and I haven't been following it too closely. But do we have any any more information on what the tragic accident was? So she was apparently cleaning at the top of the stairs and some of the Murdoch's dogs ran behind her and she fell over the dogs and I believe down the stairs. And she actually survived in a like kind of a an unconscious state for around 20 days after the fall, leaving behind two sons once she did pass.

So they're dealing with the fallout of this situation now in a very public spotlight. I hope I never go that way. I hope I hope if I ever fall down the stairs like I can survive it. That's tough, man, because you what you don't think about walking down the stairs as being a dangerous thing.

You do it every day, but it happens, man. People, you know, that that's something that can get you. Who was the guy who was the famous guy who kept pushing his wife's down the stairs or allegedly was that his name? Was that guy?

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. It wasn't it wasn't Beretta, was it? It's your lawyers.

Make sure you get this right. It's that guy. Let's just go with that guy.

It was a thing. Robert Durst. Is that whoever it was?

There was a guy that was doing a lot of stair pushing. Durst just passed away this week. Oh, that's right. I saw that. But anyway, so Miss Satterfield is is is dies.

Tragic accident. And I saw where Alec Murdoch, at least to the to Miss Satterfield's family, kind of feels responsible in some way and and and offers to. I didn't really understand this from what I read being and being an attorney, but he was going to. He was going to allow himself to be sued so that the insurance that he had at the house that would cover the incident would be available to the heirs. Yeah, he reached out right away to her sons to essentially admit liability, which his insurance company couldn't roll back at that point. So the Miss Satterfield's sons did sue him and his insurance company using that it was a relative of Mr. Murdoch that volunteered to represent Miss Satterfield's sons in this case.

And that that in and of itself, how is that possible? That just doesn't make a ton of sense. You know, ethically, it's a conflict of interest, but it's very strange that they should have had they should have had counsel who was not not related. And the other thing that that doesn't make any sense is you're talking about a person who is an attorney immediately on record admitting liability for a wrongful death, like nothing really adds up.

And I mean, I guess you could look at it and and through like a very naive lens and just say this is a very altruistic individual who's trying to help these folks and, you know, feels bad. And maybe that's the who knows. Maybe that's the case. It doesn't add up, though.

It just makes no sense. Well, and what's come out since then leads us to believe that that may not have been the case. The sons did win their case.

They want a four point three million dollar settlement against this insurance company and they haven't seen any of it. And they were. And so I'm assuming they had to be part of the trial process. There was some discovery. So they knew what was going on and they knew there was a settlement. They just never got it. Yeah. They've they've been waiting on it. They've been checking on it.

Miss Satterfield died in two thousand eighteen. And I don't know when the settlement actually like went through. But since that time, the sons haven't received anything. And that is part of the charges against Paul or Alec Murdoch.

Yes. Also, Miss Satterfield's heirs, her estate, her heirs, they sued a lot of people because of this, because obviously Alec Murdoch and his firm were sued. But it looks like they all or at least the allegation was Alec Murdoch, his maybe his banker. I know there was like a Bank of America banker involved and another attorney. I think the theory was they all colluded so that none of this money got to the got to the clients. But again, what I don't understand from a practical standpoint is how are you going to get away with that?

Yeah. Like they knew they had a settlement. They knew that at some point they would get money and you just took their four point three million dollars. Like at some point, like this is very reckless. I don't I think we have a pattern of callous, reckless behavior and maybe not the best criminal planning going into effect here.

And that other people were willing to go along with this, like multiple attorneys are willing to do this is just mind blowing to me. What county is this in? I don't know. And so I never want to go to the worst county ever.

Literally ever. It seems like all these people involved, somebody would have been like, hey, you know what? This doesn't sound right. This isn't good. I'm going to ask somebody about this.

All right. So that was that was the Satterfield death. And that's again why Alec Murdoch is in jail now.

He's been charged with all kinds of crimes out of this. But there's still another one to look at. There is there is a third death related to the Murdoch family. That's Mallory Beach. She was a classmate of Paul's. Paul is the son that was murdered this past June. In 2019, Paul and his friends went out kind of partying on a boat.

They were able to purchase alcohol at a convenience store. He used his older brother's ID for that. And on the way back from their excursion on the boat, Paul, he had an alter ego. When he got drunk, they called him Timmy. And the reports of from the witnesses after the fact say that Timmy came out and was driving the boat and crashed the boat. And Mallory and one other passenger were thrown from the boat. And Mallory was not recovered. Mallory did die as a result of Paul's driving the boat under the influence. Right.

Right. Timmy's driving the boat. Timmy's driving the boat.

I want to joke about the Timmy alter ego, but unfortunately a death result. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like it's it's it's unfortunate and it's terrible.

I had the same thought. You know, I listen. This is this is I listen to the 911 calls related to this incident. And this was some of the most, you know, telling. Yeah, absolutely. Because you've got very upset people, you know, that that care about these friends and listening to them.

This is the one I was referring to where they're like, hey, do you know who this guy is? Good luck. Good luck charging them with anything.

Good luck holding them responsible. And if I'm not mistaken, there was a you hear this whoever the caller is just going nuts because I guess that Timmy, whoever whoever this is, Paul Timmy is laughing and kind of, you know, cracking up at the scene. And this person is just like apoplectic going crazy, Adam.

And it just. Yeah. And that's Mallory's boyfriend who was also injured in the accident. His some of that 911 call is a little bit hard to understand. His jaw was broken while he was making the call. Yeah.

It was a terrible accident. I understood him. I think it's just being from the south. And he's got a very thick southern accent of these North Dakota. Yeah.

I could translate for you. So so we got a lot of we got a lot of stuff going on with Alec Murdoch. You know, he's in prison. I don't think he has what they say in that bond hearing. Did he actually get a bond or does it still denied? Do you know?

I actually don't know. They didn't rule at the hearing. So I'm not sure if the judge has already ruled. So as a as of date of recording, I don't think he's got bond. All his assets have been frozen. But there's still there's still more to the story.

And we'll we'll tackle that next. You are listening to the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Forty six combined years experience. Again, offices everywhere you turn. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina.

And now in Gastonia. If you've got your own legal question and you need some answers, here's a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And just leave your contact information and a little bit about what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. You can also email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

Please visit the Web site again. The outlaw lawyer dot com. The outlaw lives were back from the break. We've got a lot to talk about to finish up the program.

Couple more segments for you. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners there. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience between these two.

And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. Our special guest in studio, Cassandra Nicholas. And we are talking a very interesting case. And I think we're going to wrap it all up right here.

Right, Morgan. So we've been talking about Alec Murdoch. We've kind of laid out who he is, where he's from, some of the sordid affairs that his family has been, at least involved in over the past five years or so that are all coming to light. And so this guy is again, like I said before the break, he's in jail. He has no bond. His assets have been frozen. Several of his family members are dead. He's in a he's in a bad spot. Not to feel sorry for him.

He's he's gotten himself there. It sounds like. But before he was charged, before he was arrested, all that was taking a toll on him because we have a weird what would you call that, Cassandra? What would you call what happened?

Is there a word for this? It's a bot. I'm going to someone to go with botched set up suicide failure. Yeah, I think that's the best way to put it, Joe. Cassandra can tell us what happened.

Yeah. So later this past summer, summer 2021, a couple of months after his wife and son had been found murdered, there was what was initially reported to be an attempt on his life that someone shot him in the head. However, while he was trying to change his tire on the side of the road, however, he did survive. It just grazed him. He was air flighted from the scene. And it came out over the next couple of days that he actually had hired someone to shoot him in order to defraud his life insurance so that his surviving son would get the money. That did not work out in his favor. Yeah, that's not good. You know, in a life insurance policy, I know a lot of our listeners probably have life insurance, but usually in most life insurance policies, at least newer policies. If you were to take your own life, you're you're not able to collect your your you know, you're not able to have life insurance benefits if you if you take your own life. Right.

So your heirs wouldn't get any money under a lot of life insurance policies if that were to happen. So here it looks like or at least it's being alleged that he hired a gentleman. I'm sure a past client. Yeah. Oh, is that who it was?

Yeah. A past client hired a past client to to murder him. And then the assumption here is that it just failed. The guy basically just missed, which is insane to me, man. Like, I mean, I guess staging your own suicide is insane in and of itself.

But then somehow failing at staging your own suicide was real close. But still, how do you how do you blow shooting someone in the head that is literally like, hey, shoot me in the head. Like, I'm going to stay in here. I'm not ducking and dodging like I don't I just it makes very little sense.

Well, I just to jump in and just make a comment from, you know, the back row. I mean, if you're in that situation and someone wants you to shoot them, think about that. You're about to take a human life. Yeah. Oh, it's a lot.

It would be hard. You think he's going to pick his worst client, though, like the murdery client? Like, you know, that's what you someone with some experience. Here's here's my here's my uninformed assumption of what happens. He's like, all right, man, I want you to shoot me in the head. And the guy like Cox. And he's like, wait, he ducks.

And that's what that's that's got to be it. You know, who knows? He had a second thought. It fails, though. So he actually calls 911, does he not, for his own headshot? Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. He says that he's been shot in the head and they come airlift him out. It didn't come out that he had essentially created this plot until a few days later. The very next day it's announced he announces that he has a drug problem and he's going to rehab. And it seemed so quick after this suicide or this this attempt on his life that we don't yet know at that point is a suicide attempt.

And then later that same day, his family law firm puts out a public statement that he's been embezzling and is firing him. It's a lot. It's a lot.

That's a lot of it's like an avalanche all at once. You know, tough, man. Tough to have a drug problem after a headshot wound.

I would feel like that's if there's ever a time that you will need painkillers. That's the time. You know, and we were going to talk about this earlier in the year, but so many so much stuff just kept coming out and coming out. And I'm sure there's still more stuff to come out. But right now, that's kind of that's kind of where it stands. That is the sordid story of Alec Murdoch. And like Joe said, South Carolina just had a bad South Carolina had a bad year for these kind of things and a lot more questions than answers. All right.

Well, we're up against a break up next. I want to spend some time talking about some Supreme Court oral arguments that happened this past week. If you've got your own set of legal questions and you need some answers, I've got a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer law firm again.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email your questions to the show and we'll answer them on a future program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And as always, you can visit the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. The outlaw liars back on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. The managing partners, also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience in offices. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And as always, we talk about these legal topics each and every week.

You may have your own situation and maybe you need some answers. Here's a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer again.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your name and contact information a little bit about what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the program. We'll use them in a future show and answer them.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Fellas, guys, there's one more thing I wanted to talk. Well, there's a couple of things I want to talk about. But one, I don't know if there's been an issue over the past couple of years that has kind of separated folks into two into two camps as fast as this vaccination issue. So it's it's it's big news. And the Biden administration through OSHA handed down earlier this I guess it had been late last year since we're in twenty twenty two.

That's going to throw me for a while. But there was there was a mandate of sorts passed passed down through OSHA saying that if you are a private employer with more than one hundred employees, it was going to be up to you to make sure everybody got vaccinated. And if they didn't within a certain time frame and they weren't released, let go. There'd be if there was a system of fines in place and things like that. But guys, I think that was basically what the mandate was.

Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I just want to say I'm glad we're finally talking about covid and vaccines, you know, something we've never covered on the show. We we ducked it for a long time. We went like a few weeks without it.

Man, that's like a world record for us. But now we're back just like covid in full effect. The so. So, yeah.

So this was it was good. You know, the Supreme Court, for whatever reason, there was a lot of state mandates, federal mandates about vaccination with with students and things like that. And the Supreme Court had these matters come to them via emergency petition, but but just declined to hear them for the most part. And so there are two cases in the in the facts aren't super important, but there are two cases that got this mandate to the US Supreme Court. And they had oral arguments, I believe, a Friday ago, but they were really, really interesting.

Yeah. And just as a brief summary, you've got the NFIB versus OSHA, which which basically arose from challenges filed by, you know, employers and states against OSHA vaccine or test mandate. So that's you know, that's the first. And again, we talked about that. And we actually in the previous episode talked about the mandate in general and kind of made some predictions as to how we thought it would go. And then you also have Biden versus Missouri, which involves state filed lawsuits that sought to to block the vaccine seen mandate issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Medicare and Medicaid laws for workers at health care facilities.

I think when we talked about it, Joseph, I think when we talked about it, we said this sounds like a tough one. You know, if you want to work for the federal government, the federal government has a right to require certain things, but to require a private employers is something we haven't really seen before. Maybe we weren't we weren't so sure OSHA had the authority to do something like that. I think that's one of the theories is maybe the Biden administration knew that Congress wasn't going to go for this. They did it this way, even though the law, the legality behind it maybe wasn't the most solid.

They just saw it as something needed to be done and wanted to get it done. And the court, it's very interesting to listen to this court that is kind of divided, but listen to this court talk about things. But you definitely saw the justices that get to find more conservative kind of asking, hey, what's the what's the law here?

How where's the statute where it gives OSHA the power to to do this? And you saw a lot of the liberal justices are more liberal justice kind of argue facts like, hey, this just needs to be done. What was Justice Sotomayor had this quote about all the kids?

I can't remember exactly what it was, but but said, you know, this is an epidemic. You have to do this, but not a lot of law being argued on that side. So I'm going to be really interested to see what what happens. The Supreme Court is not as of the date we're in studio has not ruled on this. But I'm very excited to see this ruling. Very excited to see this ruling. We get geeked up for the Supreme Court rulings.

We're going to we'll do the old fashioned Supreme Court ruling tailgate party that we like to do with Bojangles. What's the what's the beverage of choice there? I just drink two full gallons of sweet tea and then I just shake really hard. I had to cut down on my sweet tea, man.

I felt real bad. I used to make fun of like the southerners who would only take half a glass of sweet tea and then do balance it with like unsweet tea. Yeah, half and half, man. But you can order that at restaurants. Awesome. It seems like a crime.

Seems like something Alec Murdoch would do. That's how he takes his sweet tea. But the sweet tea gets to me now, man. I like I was like you, man. When I was growing up, I could drink just gallons and gallons of it. You could you could put an IV in me right now and just pump it.

And I'd feel good, man. I feel I drink touch. I drink too much.

Too much, man. You know, my wife's from western New York and sweet tea is not a not a big thing up in western New York. And I'll go up there and I'll pick up. They said they got tea, you know, and I'll pick it up. And it's unsweet tea. It's like the most disgusting thing. It's like toilet water or like super lemony tea. It's like Ted Lasso, you know, when he's offered the tea. Yeah.

Warm brown water. Yeah. No.

Yeah. Who wants that, man? Come on. Give me 17 cups of sugar.

And yeah, that's what I want, man. Cassandra, you know, you're originally from North Dakota. I am. What what flies up there for tea? We don't have tea. No tea. No tea. What is the beverage of choice?

What is the sounds like a tough life? You guys live outside of water. What else do you order? What the milk? Whole milk. OK, I can get behind the milk, lots of alcohol. Yeah.

And alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, like milk. Let's put those two things together. Oh, you guys have that. All right. Well, the last thing I wanted to do today is we've we've we've been building up our legal movie tournament.

Right. So we decided we'd take 16 of what we think are the best movies that involve the law, the legal process. And we have a NCAA style 16 team bracket. And so we've been building this up for a while. And then we got we got away from it over the past couple of weeks, over the holidays. But just to bring everybody up to speed, we had four brackets in this thing. All right.

And so we've already revealed three of the four brackets. But just by way of review, we had our black and white pod, which featured To Kill a Mockingbird. Twelve Angry Men, which I still haven't seen. Miracle on 34th Street, which I have seen. And Inherit the Wind, which I don't want to see. We still haven't seen that one.

All right. We next we had our comedy bracket, which has My Cousin Vinny, Legally Blonde, Liar Liar. And then we made a substitution on this one. We had we had a movie in there that we had some people really hate. We had jury duty. Is that we had jury duty. And it got a violent reaction from almost everybody we talked to about it. So we have since substituted a delightful movie, Big Daddy in its place.

Adam, Adam. Jury duty. Jury duty is in the covid protocol.

We're subbing in another qualified team. So. All right. And then we had our we had our thriller bracket, which included The Devil's Advocate, which I recently rewatched. Primal Fear, Mississippi Burning, which I owned on VHS, but never finished watching.

And movie A Time to Kill, which Joseph assures me is a very good movie that I have not seen. All right. Now, trumpet sounding. We're revealing the drama bracket.

Go. So we're going to start at the top. We're going to start at the top with a very popular award winning film. Aaron Brockovich.

Home run hitter right there. And we're going to transition from Aaron Brockovich down the list. We have and Justice for All. Very, very classic film. We've got a few good men, two very quotable films. You can't handle. And then we're going we're going Tom Hanks and we're going Denzel. We're going Philadelphia.

What was Injustice for All? That's a that's a Pacino. Yeah, that's Al Pacino. What do you do with your time? You're older.

You should know these. Get off The Simpsons. Yeah.

When I hear Injustice for All, I just think Metallica. I was like, oh, yeah, no, it's a movie. It's a yeah. Come on, man.

A few good men made me really want to be a drag attorney. Yeah. See, but you didn't do that. I went to the summer seminar at the Naval Academy and they kicked my butt.

I am not doing this with my life. All right. So we'll we'll be putting those up for a vote here. We finally got the whole bracket revealed. So that was a that was good.

All right. Well, guys, another great show. Big thank you to our special guest, Cassandra Nicholas, attorney at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

And she has to put up with Josh and Joe on a daily basis at the firm. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, your host. You are listening to the Outlaw Liars. And folks, if you've got your own set of legal questions and you just can't find the answers, we've got a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And you will be in touch with the Whitaker and Hamer law firm and they will get back with you shortly. Also, you can email questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We'll use them in future programs. But thank you for listening and we'll see you on the radio next week. Lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.