Buster Murdaugh says his dad Alex is innocent: Trial 'a tilted table' from the start
The Murdaugh family of Hampton, South Carolina, has always been clannish ― three generations of prosecuting attorneys holding the same office for 85-plus years while running a sometimes notorious family law firm — but few clans have ever held such an intensely loyal dynamic as the family of convicted killer and disgraced attorney Richard Alexander "Alex" Murdaugh.
For six weeks during Murdaugh's double murder trial in Walterboro, his son, Richard "Buster" Murdaugh Jr. listened to gory mountains of evidence and testimony on how his father brutally murdered the mother of the family, Maggie, and the youngest child, Paul, with weapons designed to take down mammoth wild hogs, then made a mad, hi-speed dash away from the crime scene, leaving behind a trail of lies and false alibis.
Surrounded by other Murdaugh family members, shock, grief and disbelief were often evident on their faces, but their visages held no clue as to exactly what they thought, felt or believed during that televised and highly publicized trial.
Now, "Buster," the only member of that immediate family not dead or incarcerated, tells documentary makers that his father's murder trial was not fair and he steadfastly believes Alex Murdaugh is innocent of family bloodshed.
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Buster Murdaugh speaks out on Fox Nation documentary Aug. 31
As Murdaugh mania reignites for viewers this fall, Fox Nation, Fox News Media’s subscription-based streaming service, will present a new docuseries, "The Fall of the House of Murdaugh," on Thursday, Aug. 31, announced Fox Nation President Jason Klarman. The series will air earlier than its original mid-September air date due to "increased viewer demand," says the network.
Hosted by Martha MacCallum, the three-part limited series features exclusive access to Alex Murdaugh's surviving son, "Buster," as well as other family members, friends, media and his defense team.
During the series, MacCallum, a Fox News Channel anchor and executive editor of The Story, conducts the first television interview with "Buster" since his family was thrust into the spotlight back in 2019 and again in 2021.
During the Fox interviews, Murdaugh Jr. "Buster" discussed the basic family dynamic ― how his parents never picked favorites, but he also felt closer to his mother ― as well as how his family rallied together to support his brother Paul after a fatal 2019 boat crash that exposed his family to negative publicity and lawsuits.
But the bombshells occur when he is asked about the June 7, 2021, killings of his mother and little brother and the 2023 double murder trial that followed.
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Buster believes father Alex Murdaugh not guilty of murder
Millions of viewers around the world heard testimony that family weapons and family ammunition likely killed Maggie and Paul Murdaugh at their own home in Colleton County, Moselle. They watched and gasped when a tell-tale video put Alex Murdaugh in the kill zone and crime scene just minutes before the triggers were pulled - exposing lies that the accused father had admittedly repeated for two years.
But when asked during the Fox Nation interviews if it was possible that his father actually committed those murders by his own hand, "Buster" told MacCallum, "No, because I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed."
But the only surviving son of the convicted killer admits that his father is a "thief," a "liar" and a "manipulator."
"In those regards, I am nothing like him," said "Buster," "but, in other regards, I believe that I do hold some of his more admirable traits, which I am quite proud of."
Buster Murdaugh discredits police, trial, judge and jury
"Buster" Murdaugh shared a lot of strong opinions with Fox Nation, often discrediting the work of the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, trial judge Clifton Newman, and the Colleton County jury that found his father guilty. He adds that he did not believe the trial was a fair and balanced one.
The younger Murdaugh claimed that state police were on a lot of pressure to come up with a suspect in this high-profile homicide investigation, and "rushed to judgment."
Exchanges from the Fox Nation interview
MacCallum: You said that you thought they rushed to judgment because the person who found the bodies was the easiest person to charge. Why would they want to do that to your dad?
Buster Murdaugh: I think it's one of those things where you have to do something. And I think that it was - and that's the option and the route that they decided to go with … My biggest thing that I want people to realize, that there are always two sides of the story. Now, they can pick which one they want to believe. But I think there's a heck of a lot that still needs to be answered about what happened on June the 7th.
MacCallum: When you look back at this trial, they didn't find a murder weapon. They didn't find any bloody clothing. There were no witnesses. A lot of digital evidence.
Buster: Yes, crappy motive.
MacCallum: You think it was a crappy motive? And yet 12 jurors all agreed that your dad killed your mom and Paul.
Buster: That's right. I do not believe it was fair.
MacCallum: Why?
Buster: I was there for six weeks studying it, and I think it was a tilted table from the beginning … And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the jurors felt that way prior to when they had to deliberate. It was predetermined in their minds prior to when they ever heard any shred of evidence that was given in that room… I think that people get overwhelmed, and I think that they believe everything that they read. And I think it took advantage of a jury pool in a very small town in a very small county.
"Buster" even criticized the presiding judge, Judge Newman, who sentenced Murdaugh to two life sentences for the killings and now oversees all of his father's more than 100 state criminal cases.
MacCallum: For the sentencing, Judge Newman spoke and he said that: "I'm sure Maggie and Paul visit you every night when you're trying to go to sleep." And your dad said: "Every day and every night." Did you think the judge was going too far?
Buster: Yes, I think that's just another one of his clever little lines to suggest that he agrees with the guilty verdict. I think he was very straightforward about that. And I think it was just a kind of a cruel analogy to be throwing out amongst a ― just an overly public trial.
More about Fox Nation's 'The Fall of the House of Murdaugh' docuseries
According to a Fox Nation press release, the three-hour series will "offer a one-of-a-kind look into the trial, crimes and complicated life of Alex Murdaugh," and viewers will gain exclusive access to his defense team, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, behind-the-scenes footage before and during the trial, never-before-seen home movies, as well as intimate prison revelations from Alex himself.
"The Fall of the House of Murdaugh" features a comprehensive look inside the case that many have tried to tackle since the day the difficult story unfolded," stated Fox Nation President Jason Klarman. "Through a firsthand account from Buster Murdaugh and access to key players, including friends and family, this series puts forward several missing elements that have not been brought to light.”
Producers also say the show will take viewers "behind the veil of the Murdaugh’s legal strategy as it happened in real time and will be interwoven with sit-down interviews with the same legal team," as well as the lead prosecutor on the case, Creighton Waters, and Attorney General Alan Wilson, who discuss their current strategy.
The series also aims to "dive into the fraught life of Alex, Maggie, Paul and Buster and their own scandals as a family, including a string of crimes, deaths and mysteries that continued to weave the Murdaugh’s tangled web."
Additional interviews throughout the series include Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill, who read the guilty verdict, local attorney Joe McCulloch, Moselle dog kennel manager Roger Dale Davis Jr., Walterboro Mayor William T. Young Jr., the prosecution’s forensic expert Dr. Kenneth Kinsey and more.