On June 7, 2021, about three hours after he first claimed the bodies of his murdered wife and son were found at their rural South Carolina hunting lodge, Alex Murdoff He gave his first interview to investigators.
Sitting inside a vehicle parked on the property just before 1 a.m. and accompanied by his attorney, Murdough spoke with Colleton County Sheriff’s Detective Laura Rutland and state agents. He told them how he found them His family was shot dead By the dog kennel on the property after returning from visiting his mother.
“I knew something was bad. I ran away and then it was really bad,” he told authorities in the interview, a video recording of which was played in his court on Friday. A close look at the murder case.
Both Maggie and Paul Murdoff lay in a pool of blood and brains, shot in the head. A distraught Alex described seeing his son’s brain exposed from a gunshot wound.
“I think I tried to reverse Paul at first. I tried to turn him around,” Alex said, explaining how his son’s cellphone fell out of his pocket when he did so.
“I touched them both. I tried to limit it as much as possible, but I tried to take the pulse of both of them,” Alex said.
Testifying in court Friday, Rutland said she made a mental note as she sat in the car with Alex: “He was clean,” she told the jury.
Recounting the physical effort required for Alex to move his body to check his son’s pulse, prosecutor John Meaders asked Rutland if she had seen blood on Alex’s hands, arms, shirt, shorts or shoes. Rutland said she did not. “It was clean,” Rutland testified.
“The person you describe in this courtroom as clean from head to toe?” Meaders asked.
“Yes, he is,” she replied, pointing at Alex.
