The Murdaugh Murders: The South Carolina Supreme Court Weighs in on Financial Crimes

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[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_02] I'm Anya and today we're going to be delving deeper into the Murdoch Murders case, specifically the financial crimes. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder. So Kevin, today is May 25th, 2026. Recently, some pretty bombshell developments occurred in the case of the Murdoch Murders. This is kind of what is, you know, popularly called the Murdoch Murders. It is the double homicide.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_02] The suicide of Maggie and Paul Murders. Maggie or Margaret was 52 years old. Paul was 22, her son. And these two were both murdered on June 7th, 2021 at the family's hunting property, Moselle, near Eilenton in South Carolina.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_02] So what this is obviously I mean, this I think was one of the trials of kind of the modern era in in true crime when we're looking at cases that attracted a lot of attention, a lot of media. And really, when you look at the facts, it's not super hard to understand why that is. This centered around the father of Paul and the husband of Maggie, Alec Murdoch.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02] And he was a sort of disgraced attorney who came from this really powerful family in the area. And these are folks who had acted as like the county solicitor in in basically accrued a lot of power, accrued wealth over the years. But it all sort of came crashing down as the result of a series of kind of different things going on.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_02] You know, Paul Murdoch was responsible or very least appeared responsible for a boat crash that killed a young woman that was prompt that prompted lawsuits that prompted investigations. Then you had with Alec Murdoch, it came out that he had been stealing from people through his law firm. He had actually been doing financial crime. So all of this went toward the state's motive for saying, why?

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02] Why are we saying this husband and father killed these members of his own family? Why would he do that? Right, right. And what they were saying is, well, basically, he was about to be exposed for all these financial crimes.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01] And so Mr. Murdoch's team said it was unfair for some of this to be admitted into the trial. It was improper character evidence. It had too much of an impact. It was potentially prejudicial. And because of this, I deserve a new trial. Now, as we all know, Mr. Murdoch was given a new trial, but he was given a new trial because of how this Becky Hill woman improperly influenced the jury.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_01] And the highest court in South Carolina said, no, because of this, you deserve a new trial. But what didn't get as much attention in the ruling was they said, yes, he deserves a new trial for this. So we don't even need to talk about the financial stuff. They said, well, let's talk about it anyway. So in this episode, we are going to talk about the elements of their ruling that we haven't discussed so far.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01] Mainly what they said about whether or not this financial crime stuff that you talked about should have been admitted or if it was improperly prejudicial.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_02] This is going to give us a glimpse into what a new trial could look like and what limitations or lack of limitations have been put on the state as far as those financial crimes that are so important to their motive. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_02] And this is The Murdoch Murders. The South Carolina Supreme Court weighs in on financial crimes.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_01] You know, Anya, before we get into the nitty gritty of what they had to say about this evidence of financial crimes and whether or not it was properly admitted, why don't we take a minute to talk about the concept of character evidence as a whole and why generally it is frowned upon?

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_01] Because when a prosecutor files charges against someone for a crime, there's always elements of a crime you have to prove. They have to prove those individual elements. And when you look at different charges that are filed against people, an element of the crime is never this person's a bad guy.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_02] This guy's a jerk.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01] But you can imagine if, you know, our example is Anya is always being charged with stealing cereal. What if that's the charge? Anya stole cereal. But also Anya burned.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_02] This is going to be interesting. What are you going to say about me?

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01] Anya burned dinner last night. Anya often misplaces her cell phone or things like that. But if that sort of thing gets in front of the jury, the jury might say, well, Anya sounds like the sort of person who might steal cereal.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01] So I'm just going to go ahead and convict her anyway, even though those elements of her character have nothing whatsoever to do with the charge.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_02] I feel like the jury would be like, she sounds like a delight. Full acquittal. No, no, you're right. So, yeah. So it's like it can be inappropriate to bring that stuff in then.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, because the person is not charged with being a bad person or an irresponsible person. They're charged with a very specific offense. And no matter what mistakes that person may have made in other parts of their life, that likely doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they committed this particular offense. But there's a pretty big but there, which is that.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01] A big but. A big but. Yeah, that's why I was stopping myself.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02] No, no, no. Just move on. It's fine.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01] That's why I realized what I said there. But.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02] It's going to be character evidence against you.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01] There's a pretty big exception there, which is that this so-called character evidence can come in under a variety of different circumstances. And one is if it goes to motive.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01] In other words, if a person's bad behavior helps explain why they committed a particular crime, you can have that admitted into the trial, even if it is potentially inflammatory or prejudicial, because it helps explain what might otherwise be unexplainable.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_01] The obvious thing that comes to my mind right away is a case we've often covered on this program, the Temujin Kensu case, in which in that particular instance, Mr. Kenzu was convicted of murder, rightfully so.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01] And it came into the trial, the fact that he had previously sexually and physically assaulted the girlfriend, the fiance of the person he murdered and had previously made threats on that person's life.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01] So those prior acts of him could, in theory, be prejudicial, but they were admitted into evidence because it helped explain, oh, here's why this person committed this particular crime.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_02] They're relevant.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01] They're relevant. You're building a bridge between the bad acts and what is actually charged. You often see this in domestic violence cases, you know.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_02] Or sexual, I mean, sexually based crimes also, there can be exceptions as far as relevance if it's like this is a, you know, there's a series of rapes associated with this offender and this is part of a pattern. I mean, it can depend. And it can kind of, there can be gray areas too. What you brought up, Temujin Kensu, that's a great, he murdered a young man named Scott Macklem who was convicted of that. And there's been a lot of innocence fraud around him. So if you Google him, just be aware of that.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02] But with that, what's really interesting, and this kind of actually highlights perhaps some of the discrepancies, you know, the kind of what's in and what's out. So he, Temujin Kenzu had been stalking, harassing, threatening Scott Macklem after Scott Macklem began seeing a young woman named Crystal who Kenzu had basically like forced into, I don't want to call it a relationship. It was more like a slow rolling hostage crisis.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01] But he also was harassing and making threats against other women.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_02] Other women.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01] And those threats and that behavior did not come into the trial because it was not directly relevant to his motive in that trial.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02] And let me just, let me just say like he, he had attacked and brutalized his ex-wife, a woman we called G. And she talked to us about how he, you know, shot a BB gun at her. And, you know, today Temujin Kenzu is like, I'm not a gun guy. Well, you were shooting your ex-wife with a BB gun. So it's like there's stuff like that where it's like that wouldn't come in because it would be unfairly prejudicial. Although, in my opinion, it speaks to the pattern of this guy's behavior.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01] So that's what we're going to be discussing today is it's a very difficult balance. Just being able to say, oh, this general category of behavior is in some way relevant because it might go to motive. That doesn't give you a blank check to just put absolutely everything in that particular category into the trial.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01] There has to be limits because the person who is charged with a crime has rights. And one of their rights is if they're going to be convicted, it should be based upon the evidence that they committed that particular offense and not that they are a bad person. And if you are including character evidence or prior bad acts, it needs to be limited so that it is actually relevant.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_02] Let me give another example with Temujin. So he he was accused of stalking and killing Scott Macklem. He also stalked and attacked G's new boyfriend. Right. He followed them in a car. He cut them off and he got into a confrontation with this new boyfriend.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_02] And that could not come in because even though it sort of establishes a pattern of attacking men who he feels like, quote unquote, stole his woman because he views women as property. He that didn't come in because it had nothing to do with Macklem. Now, we all have common sense. So we all can look at that and say, well, that sounds sounds pretty bad. But a trial, it's a sensitive thing.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02] And as you said, you have the defendants rights are paramount. You want to give them as fair a trial as possible. There's no perfect trials, but you got to do a fair trial. And so what we're looking for here is what is the South Carolina Supreme Court saying about this? Did they feel like the trial court got it right? Did they feel like, yep, you did it perfectly? Did they feel like they did some things well and maybe other things need to be changed? We're going to find out.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01] And before we do, I also want to repeat, I think we mentioned this at the top of the show. Mr. Murdoch's team said, well, I need a new trial. Mr. Murdoch needs a new trial because there was this improper influence upon the jury. And also there were some things that happened in the trial about some of this evidence getting admitted that we think shouldn't have been admitted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And basically the court looked at the first thing, which was the improper jury influence. And they said, well, this is enough to get you a new trial.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_01] And since we're already giving you the new trial, it'd be a waste of time. There's no point in us going in and making a determination about whether or not other elements of the trial you received were flawed enough that you should get a second trial. But they just kind of discussed that. Here are some just advisory thoughts, basically. So they didn't make a final ruling. They're just offering thoughts, basically. Is that fair to say?

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02] That's fair to say. Kind of giving a little roadmap for the next trial.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01] Yes.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02] So I'll start reading from this portion of their order, which, again, this isn't really like an order. This is more like, hey, here's what we'd like to see. Um, quote, on March 2nd, 2023, Murdoch was convicted of the murders of his wife, Margaret Murdoch, and his son, Paul Murdoch, as well as two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The trial court, Judge Newman, sentenced him to life in prison.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02] While his direct appeal of his conviction was pending at the Court of Appeals, Murdoch filed a motion to hold the appeal in abeyance to allow him to file a motion for a new trial. The Court of Appeals granted this motion.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_01] So that's basically what we've said, which is he got his new trial on other grounds. We don't really need to talk about this. We're going to do it anyway. Let's let's talk about what they said here. Anya, can you read this part here?

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02] Sure. Quote, at the time of the trial, Murdoch had been accused of and indicted for numerous financial crimes. During his testimony before the jury, Murdoch admitted he committed the financial crimes, although he had not at the time been convicted of anything. After trial, he pled guilty to the financial crimes in both the state and federal court. He was sentenced to a concurrent 27 years in state prison and 40 years in federal prison. End quote.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01] So let's stop there and make an obvious point, which is just because a person is guilty of financial crimes taken outside of the context of this case, just because a person is guilty of financial crimes does not necessarily make them more or less likely to have committed murder. That they're two completely different crimes.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01] But I think we can imagine in theory that if a jury heard, oh, this person who is on trial for murder also committed these other crimes, it might prejudice them against that person.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02] That's right.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01] So, like, you're making a very important point here, which I think is worth stressing, which is that there's very specific rules used in court to bend over backwards as far as possible to give defendants the benefit of the doubt. We who are not participants in the trial of these people, we're not bound by those.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_02] No, we're not the jury. Like, sorry. And nor nor, you know, like, I don't think you should. I'm just saying that, like, when it's like sometimes this stuff, I think, can be frustrating for people because they see it and they're like, well, why wouldn't that come in that does seem kind of relevant or, you know, kind of tells us about this person's character. And I think it's important that we can, like, we can apply that common sense in our own views.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02] But I do think it is important for trial courts to really be very, very prudent, very thoughtful and very selective about what they allow in because you don't want someone getting convicted just because they're a jerk.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. You can have your opinion based on the full spectrum of evidence that's available to you. But I think we would all agree that if we are going to send someone away for life or potentially even execute them, the standard should be higher than just what somebody thinks about on a podcast.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02] Exactly. And so and, you know, and that's why that's why there's so much pretrial stuff around what evidence even comes into trial. This is why, you know, this is why this is the state and the defense are fighting over that for like months or even years before trial even occurs.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_01] So, I mean, we all agree that just outside of the context, there doesn't appear to be a connection between this negative evidence of his financial crimes and the murders. So what was the state's argument to want to bring it in? Why don't you read that?

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02] OK, so, quote, the state sought to admit evidence of these financial crimes during Murdoch's murder trial for the purpose of showing his motive for committing the murders. The state filed a pretrial motion in which it argued the evidence demonstrated Murdoch accrued substantial debts over a period of years. And to cover those debts began engaging in illicit financial crimes involving the theft and misappropriation of the money from his clients and his own firm.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_02] The state emphasized that several series of events unfolding in the weeks and days leading up to the murders threatened to expose Murdoch's financial crimes. The state wrote in its motion, all of these factors started to converge on June 7th, 2021, the date of the murders. The state explained its motive theory. The murders served as Murdoch's means to shift the focus away from himself and buy himself some additional time to try and prevent his financial crimes from being uncovered.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02] The state also stressed that Murdoch's attempts to cover his financial misdeeds after the murders to support its theory of motive, end quote.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_01] So I think that's, pardon me, I think that's plausible. There's our connection or our bridge or whatever you want to call it. Here is the reason why we want this stuff to be admitted. It's because it explains why this man committed these murders. He was under a lot of pressure. In Kinsu, the character evidence was admitted in because it explained why he did it,

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01] because of the threats he was making, because of the violence he was exhibiting. In here, we're saying this character evidence should be admitted because it explains why he did this, because otherwise it would be hard for the jury to understand that.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02] And I think that's plausible. It's very plausible, covering up his misdeeds. And people might wonder, well, why take out your wife and son? And I think it's actually a pretty common facet of family annihilation cases where the father, who's usually a perpetrator, not always, but usually, is freaking out about some money-related thing and basically views his family members as extensions of himself, has sort of a narcissistic view of them,

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02] and eliminates them rather than either have them, you know, realize that he's been lying this whole time or, like, their misdeeds are coming out. And you see this, and it's like they just, you know, they almost discard these family members. And it's hard for us to imagine because hopefully none of us are in that mindset. But it's something that does happen. It kind of fits into this. Now, he didn't quite annihilate his whole family. He had an older son named Buster, who he did not kill.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_02] But I think it is fair to say that, like, yeah, when you see this, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, it's that kind of thing. And, you know, it makes sense. Obviously, the state has to prove it. But it's something that I think makes logical sense as far as, like, why would the financial stuff prompt murder?

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So the defense, Mr. Murdoch's team, objected to this under a variety of different rules. And I think basically, correct me if I'm wrong, Anya, it boils down to them saying whatever value this might have is outweighed by the fact that it's prejudicial.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. And I want to be specific because basically the Supreme Court breaks it all down based on the rule number. So they said they should be excluded. The defense said all this should be excluded under rules 402, 403, and 404B under South Carolina rules of evidence.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01] So basically it's prejudicial.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01] The jury is going to hear this. They're going to give the idea this is a bad guy and they're going to dislike him so much because of that it's going to make them more likely to convict him, even though the defense would say we don't think there's evidence that he did it. They're still going to convict him just because they think he's a bad fellow, a bad chap.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_02] Precisely. So I think next they kind of get into what actually happened at trial.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01] So tell us, Anya, what did the trial court – how did the trial courts sort all this out?

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02] Well, first they had a very lengthy pretrial hearing and they did not come to a ruling at that point. They didn't rule on the admissibility. So they kind of like heard everyone out, it sounds like, and then sort of was like, OK, we're going to think about this. Then the following happened. Quote, so then trial proceeds and then this is what the Supreme Court says happened.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02] Quote, during various breaks in the course of the trial, the state presented the testimony of eight witnesses regarding Murdoch's financial crimes outside the presence of the jury. After hearing this testimony and the arguments of both sides, the trial court found all evidence of financial crimes that may have likely led to a motive or lend itself to a motive for the crime committed were admissible.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_02] The trial court stated the jury was entitled to consider whether the apparent desperation of Mr. Murdoch because of his dire financial situation, threat of being exposed for committing the crimes for which he was later charged with, resulted in the commission of the alleged crimes. The trial court also found this evidence of other crimes is admissible and its non propensity as it does not suggest to the jury that the defendant has a tendency to commit murder.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02] I specifically find that these other crimes will not lure the jury into declaring guilt on a different ground than the specific charge. The trial court found the evidence had sufficient probative value that was not substantially outweighed by any danger or unfair prejudice. The trial court issued a written order setting forth its ruling. So basically the state won. This stuff came in and they did it during trial, but outside the presence of the jury.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02] Obviously, if you're going to be like weighing whether something even comes in, you're going to want to do it. What do you hear where it's not? The jury is not sitting there being like, wait, financial crimes.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, you want to do it outside the presence of the jury.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02] What? Yeah. So that's that's it. So, I mean, and like, listen, I mean. Just from what we're understanding about the nature of these financial crimes and the sort of nexus of the temporal nexus of of all of this coming together around the time of the murder. It's certainly I can certainly very much understand. And perhaps I can just say I agree with the judge saying, yeah, let's hear him out.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01] I think this does explain the motive and it makes it easier to understand the case. It makes it easier to understand the case against Mr. Murdoch and why he committed this heinous crime.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_02] Because, like, if the jury doesn't hear that and there's no, like, overt fighting in the family, then they're just gonna be like, well, why would this guy just kill his family?

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly. But at the same time, I recognize this sort of thing does have the potential to be prejudicial. So I understand the arguments being made by Mr. Murdoch's team. So, Anya, you've been talking. You've been talking about financial crimes. What are these financial crimes with which you speak?

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. What did he do? What did he do? You tell me. OK, so we we basically hear from a bunch of witnesses. And this is I'll get I'll break the witnesses down to give you a sense of what they're all testifying to. So this is what the Supreme Court wrote. The state then presented testimony to the jury from the eight witnesses who testified earlier, along with two additional witnesses.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_02] The eight witnesses who testified outside the jury's presence were Jeanne Seckinger, the chief financial officer of Murdoch's law firm, Michael Gunn, a principal in Forge Consulting, LLC. Attorney Chris Wilson, Murdoch's friend and his co-counsel in several cases. Jan Malinowski, who succeeded Russell Lafitte, Murdoch's co-defendant and co-conspirator in the financial crimes as president of Palmetto State Bank.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_02] Michael Tony Satterfield, the son of Murdoch's former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. Carson Burney, a forensic accountant in the attorney general's office. Attorney Mark Tinsley, Murdoch's former friend and opposing counsel in a civil lawsuit involving a 2019 boat wreck in which Murdoch was personally named as a defendant. Attorney Ronnie Crosby, Murdoch's former law partner.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02] The additional witnesses were Annette Griswold, Murdoch's former paralegal and Natasha Moody, a consumer relation resolution associate at Bank of America. I apologize if I pronounced anyone's name wrong.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_01] What did he do?

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02] So those are the people who are saying here's what he did. And then this is what the state used those witnesses to prove. Quote, through these witnesses, the state proved Murdoch committed wide ranging financial crimes over numerous years in several general categories, including the following. One, Murdoch stole money from his clients by billing personal expenses to them under the guise of those expenses being costs associated with their cases.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_02] Two, Murdoch stole money from his law firm by instructing law firm employees to make checks payable to Palmetto State Bank, whose then chief executive officer, Russell Lafitte, enabled Murdoch to convert the funds for his personal use. Three, Murdoch stole money from his clients and his law firm by instructing law firm employees to make checks payable to Forge, a fake account Murdoch created to imitate the legitimate Forge consulting LLC firm that Murdoch then deposited and used for personal expenses.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02] Four, Murdoch stole money from Tony Satterfield by filing an insurance claim in relation to his mother Gloria Satterfield's death and collecting the insurance proceeds for personal use instead of providing the proceeds to Tony and Gloria's other son. End quote. So he's doing a lot of really, really shady and dishonest financial self-dealing.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01] And he admitted all this.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. Yes. And he's like, you know, what this speaks to to me is somebody who's just created this web of lies and is going to ultimately betray and let down his clients, his colleagues. You know, it's it's like it's really it speaks to like it's not just, oh, I did one bad thing. It's getting exposed. It's like my entire operation.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_02] The way I've accrued my wealth is just so inherently dishonest that I'm going to go to prison.

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_01] And so, again, there's no question he did these things with the question is, was it fair for these things to be mentioned in the murder trial? And the state, as we've said, their argument was, and we find it to be a plausible argument, is that these things are necessary because they go to motive. Quote, the state presented evidence to the jury that Murdoch's years of stealing money in these ways was about to be exposed.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01] For example, law firm employees testified they asked Murdoch on at least two occasions in the weeks leading up to the murders about discrepancies in his financial disbursement documents in individual cases. Jeannie Seconder, the firm's chief financial officer, testified she confronted Murdoch on the morning of the murder, stating, I have reason to believe that you received attorney's fees in a certain case directly to you, and you need to prove to me that you did not.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_01] Other evidence indicated Seconder was referring to $792,000 in missing attorney's fees the firm was supposed to receive from Murdoch's co-counsel, Chris Wilson. The state also presented evidence that Mark Tinsley, the attorney representing the family of the young woman who died in the boat wreck,

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_01] had scheduled a motion hearing for three days after the murders in which Tinsley sought to compel Murdoch to disclose his detailed financial records, end quote. So basically, it's a house of cards. It's coming down. And as it is in the process of coming down, these murders occur.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, and I think it's important to note that, yeah, there is this, like, it's coming down. Like, this is falling apart because if he's doing all these crimes and getting away with it and things are going fine on the financial crimes front, then why kill anybody? You know, unless you could argue, like, if the state can have evidence of, like, oh, well, one of his family members was confronting him about it, then that's one thing.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_02] But if there's no evidence of it, then, you know, that doesn't really go to motive. But this does, because literally around the time of the murders, people are basically coming to call. And, like, what really set, I think, a lot of this stuff off from what I can read is Paul Murdoch's responsibility within, you know, a couple years earlier in 2019, February 24th, 2019,

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02] where he and some friends are on archers, are kind of boating around and kind of crash into the Archer's Creek Bridge. And a young woman, 19-year-old Mallory Beach, is thrown from the boat and killed. And this sets off all kinds of civil litigation against the family. You know, there's a lot of indications that Paul Murdoch was drunk when piloting the boat.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02] There's indications he was piloting the boat, so he's at fault. So it's like that really feels, in my view, like that was the beginning of the end because it just kind of embroiled them in this, you know, something that's like a lawsuit. It's financially costly. And then the people, you know, on the other opposing counsel are like, hey, like what's going on with your finances? And it's just it's calming down. And then the people within the law firm are starting to ask, where's this money that, you know, like you were supposed to have?

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02] And it puts like a ticking time bomb in all this stuff. And for someone who's kind of maybe predisposed to kind of being, I don't know, like having having a murderous intent, you know, that kind of thing, I think, starts to become, you know, it's like, oh, feel bad for me. My family died. Don't be asking me about the money.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01] So, again, Mr. Murdoch's team said this is prejudicial. This isn't relevant. And the state says, no, it is relevant. In fact, quote, as to Murdoch's relevance objection, the state argues that because Murdoch was charged with murdering his wife and son, seemingly inexplicable conduct when standing alone, it was important to offer evidence to explain why he did it.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01] The state also argues Murdoch himself placed the issue of motive front and center through his own actions by suggesting to officers who arrived at Moselle on June 7th that the killer's motive stemmed from the boat wreck, end quote. So, again, the state's argument is this is relevant because otherwise it's difficult to understand why these murders even happen.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_02] And he brought it into the whole thing by saying that to the police officers responding. And what he's saying, what Murdoch was seemingly trying to spin it as is like, oh, people are so mad at my family because of this boat wreck that like people associated with that side of things are coming and they've killed my family members. They've gotten revenge. But in reality, the boat wreck may have had to do with it.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_02] But on the opposite end, you know, and I do want to just for the sake of clarity, like I mentioned before, what are what are the rules that Murdoch was using to challenge and what are those rules say? Because I think that can help us all kind of weigh this ourselves and say, OK, well, does this fulfill what they're what the rules are?

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_02] So rule one 401 was, quote, relevant evidence means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. 402 is, quote, all relevant evidence is admissible except as otherwise provided. 403, although relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_02] And 404B is evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible to show motive.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01] So, Anya, how did the Supreme Court sort all this out? What do they say?

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02] OK, well, let's talk about 401 and 402 first. This is what the South Carolina Supreme Court said, quote, we agree with the state that the evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes made the state's theory of motive more probable. And they cite a case, State v. White, quote, the test for relevancy is not stringent and its standard is not difficult to vault.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_02] Indeed, evidence that carries the probative weight of a feather tips a balanced scale and assists the jury in arriving at the truth of an issue, end quote. Quote, thus, we find the trial court acted within its discretion in finding the financial crimes evidence was relevant under Rule 401 and admissible under Rule 402. So broadly speaking, what I'm taking them to say here is, OK, yeah, you can definitely let in financial crimes because it seems pretty relevant.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_02] Right. Right. Right. Now, now things get a little more complicated. So we talked about 401 and 402, you know, that defines what relevant evidence means, 401. And then 402 is, you know, hey, if it's relevant, it's admissible. But what about the other two rules, 404B and 403? This is what they have to say about that.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_02] Quote, the more difficult question is whether the trial court should have excluded all or some of the financial crimes evident pursuant to Rule 404B or Rule 403. We address this question as two distinct categories of issues. The first of these categories, whether the trial court should have excluded all of the financial crimes evidence, is a point on which not all members of the court would have ruled the same way had we been the trial court.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_01] Let's stop there. Let's just stop there for a second, because I think that is an important point to make. Sometimes when I talk to people, they get the idea that there is some sort of ultimate judicial truth that is come to by our fine legal scholars.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_02] What are you, like a postmodernist all of a sudden?

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_01] But there's not. Different judges have different opinions and would rule in different ways, maybe different ways on different days. So it's...

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_02] What is truth? What is truth? It's meaningless. Well, I mean, I don't know.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_01] So just like we argue about things on this show, judges argue about things.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02] Well, what you're talking about isn't so much as like, let's just do whatever we want. It's more like the judges have discretion and they don't need to be in lockstep on every...

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01] And these judges say we would have ruled... Some of us would have ruled differently than others.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_02] And that's okay. Like that's... The point is that that's okay. Judges might handle different things differently and they're allowed to.

[00:37:49] So...

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_02] So that was the first point. So, quote, we... But here's where the judges... Here's where all the judges do agree. Quote, we each agree, however, this was a decision within the discretion of the trial court under the facts and circumstances that existed in Murdoch's murder trial. As to the second category, we will address whether the trial court should have restricted the extent to which the state was allowed to present this evidence.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_02] That is, whether the trial court should have excluded some of the evidence, we unanimously hold the trial court allowed the state to go too far. I'm sorry. Allowed the state to go far too long and far too deep into aspects of Murdoch's financial crimes that were not probative of the state's theory of murder, which gave rise to considerable danger of unfair prejudice and therefore should have been excluded. End quote.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_02] So here's where they're taking issue with how the trial court handled things. They're saying, yeah, let the financial crimes in. Go ahead. But you're getting way too in the weeds on this one. I mean, like, you... Like, it's going on too long. It's going in the weeds. It's going far too deep. And at some point, it goes from... It's almost like swimming deep, right? Like swimming deep in the ocean.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02] At some point, colors start to fade because just the way the light works within the water, right? And they're saying basically, like, you've swam from the sunny shallows down deep into the water and you're starting to lose what was important.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01] Let's talk about one of the examples they gave. They have a small excerpt from some trial testimony, the direct examination of a man named Tony Satterfield. Anya, why don't you be Mr. Satterfield and I will be the state? This is just a second. And this is an example of something they say went too far. You ready? Mm-hmm. Quote, why were you the personal representative and not your brother?

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_02] Because my brother is a vulnerable adult and he has a disability.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01] Can you repeat those words for me?

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_02] That my brother, he's a vulnerable adult and he's not able to function as a normal human being to deal with stuff like that.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_01] He's a vulnerable adult?

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_02] Yes.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01] End quote. Here's what the court said. End quote. This particular testimony had zero probative value as to Murdoch's motive for the murders and obviously high potential for unfair prejudice as it portrays Murdoch as a man who preys on vulnerable victims. End quote.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_01] So they're saying you can set up the fact and explain that he had all this house of cards falling down on him, but you don't need to go so far into the weeds and talk about how he's preying on vulnerable adults. That's going a bit too far and it gets to the point where it is more prejudicial than it is helpful.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_02] Because you don't need to have him preying on vulnerable adults to have done the murders. What's really truly important is the timing and the threat of exposure and all these house of cards falling down, not the fact that he was going after this specific family and this specific vulnerable adult. I'm not going to lie. This really pisses me off because if I were in the jury and I heard this, I would be pissed off.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_02] I'd be like, you went after a vulnerable disabled adult who, you know, can't defend themselves from the financial predator like yourself. And it certainly wouldn't make me not like the guy. Now, would it make me vote guilty on murder? I would hope not. I would hope that I would be like looking at did the state prove that it's the different elements of the crime. But it would make me pissed off and it would certainly make me see him as very predatory.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_02] Now, to a certain extent, all the financial crimes would. But this, I'm just telling you personally, I would be mad if I, you know, I'd be like, like, that's not, you know, that's evil.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_01] And that's the danger because I think most people would be upset by this. Most people would say, oh, a guy who does this.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_02] Would do anything.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, including murdering his family.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_02] How you can take a disabled, vulnerable adult and be like, ah, let me profit off of them, you know, like to the and hurt their family. It's like, you know, it's just that's that's soulless.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_01] And so it's like what we said about in the Kinzu case. You can bring in some stuff, but that's not a blank check to kitchen sink and bringing absolutely everything to make the person look as bad as possible.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_02] Now, like, for me, it's like I'd say it's like I get that legally on a personal level. I'm kind of like, let the state cook, you know, like kitchen sink away. This guy's a dirt bag. But then, like, on the rational side of like, you do have to just you have to do things fairly and you have to do things correctly.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01] And it could be difficult to know where that line is.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_02] I don't blame the state for this because I do think it is hard to know where the line is. And it's like, you know, it's like, OK, like, this is part of it. This is part of what he was doing. Let's show the jury what he was doing. Like, so I get where the South Carolina Supreme Court is coming from here. But personally, I'm just kind of like, I don't know.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_01] And also, again, it's interesting where the court says we would have some of us may have ruled differently, but we all believe the judge acted within his discretion to allow this. But we all agree it went too far. So that means if you're the prosecutor and whether you agree with this ruling or not, you know, well, if I do this the exact same way, this guy will get a third trial.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I can't. They're giving a warning flair to the state of like, hey, don't do it again. You know, like kind of reel it back. And and I think maybe what the state can be looking for is like what what like how can we hone this to eliminate stuff like that where it's really, truly whether or not, you know, Mr. Satterfield was disabled or not. You know, the brother that was exploited here. That really doesn't have anything to do with the murder.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02] It certainly has to do with this guy being an utter scumbag, Mr. You know, Murdoch. But it's it doesn't have anything to do with like, oh, and that prompted then him to go kill his family. They have to keep it to like threat of exposure. It's all happening now. Oh, like things are about I'm going to go to prison, you know, and I think I do want to get into a little bit more about the 404B and 403 just to kind of like break down how they broke it down. And. And they said that.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02] Basically. As to whether the trial court should have excluded all evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes under rules for three or four for four B, we have discussed the principles applicable when a trial court is asked to exclude evidence of other crimes in numerous cases and no further elaboration of those principles is necessary here. So they're saying, yeah, basically, like you can let that in. And then with 404B, they say the quote, the difficulty lies in the application of these principles to the facts and circumstances of any individual case.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_02] They start out by praising the trial court, saying, quote, here, the trial court correctly understand understood the applicable principles of law and thoughtfully applied those principles to the facts and circumstances before it. The trial court explained its view of the logical connection between the financial crimes and Murdoch's motive. The state's argument that it presented a valid theory of motive and Murdoch's response that the fabricated motive theory is illogical, implausible and not supported by the evidence was not a dispute for the trial court to resolve by making this evidentiary ruling.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_02] That was for the jury. The trial court's job was to determine in its discretion whether the state's theory of motive was reasonable, plausible, and if so, where the evidence the state presented could reasonably support the theory. We agree with the state that under the facts and circumstances in existence in Murdoch's first trial, the trial court acted within its discretion in deciding not to exclude the evidence under rule 404B.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_02] As to rule 403, the trial court balanced the probative value of the evidence against its potential for unfair prejudice and concluded the probative value was not substantially outweighed by any unfair prejudice. The trial court specifically found Murdoch's commission of the trial court does not suggest to the jury that the defendant has a tendency to commit murder. As we will discuss below, we find considerable unfair prejudice in allowing the state to go as far and as deep into detail as it did.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_02] However, we hold the trial court acted within its discretion in admitting some evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes. Yeah. So what they're saying is everything was good, but you went too far. Like. Like. Like we just reel it back next time, basically.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_01] And they said 10 days of trial in the state spent 12 and a half hours on testimony relating to the financial crimes. And that's too much.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Do you agree with it or.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I. I am hesitant to like sit down and say, here is exactly where the line is. But I'm thinking 12 and a half hours in a 10 day trial. With dwelling on details about vulnerable adults. That feels like a bit much.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_02] I think they could probably call back a lot of the same witnesses. And, you know, what's important is, you know, breaking down like he did these crimes and. You know, that's it. Like, you know, he did these crimes. It was all unraveling. And it doesn't necessarily need to go as deep. You know, I get it, though. Like, you know, he did a lot of horrible stuff. I mean, it is hard to know exactly where that line is.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02] I wonder if they would have granted him a new trial if the if the Becky Hill incidents had not happened. Like, I wonder if this would have been enough to make them be like. Yeah, you went too far new trial or if it would have been like. I mean, obviously, we can never know. But I mean, do you have do you have a thought based on reading this?

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, we can speculate. They sound just the fact that. Just the fact that they took the time to go into this subject. Yeah. Even though they knew there was really no reason to because he's already getting a new trial. That indicates they take it pretty seriously.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02] So, like, they might they might have given him a new trial. Like, maybe they might. Maybe not definitively, but like possibly.

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. They say this was, quote, unfairly prejudicial. To the extent many similar details may have had minimal probative value. That value is substantially outweighed by the unfairly prejudicial sympathy. The jury was likely to feel towards this victim, end quote. And when you have high courts using terms like unfairly prejudicial. If I'm a prosecutor, I start getting nervous.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I would say so. So what does this mean for the next trial? If there is one.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_01] I think the prosecution team is going to be very careful about how they address and use this particular evidence.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_02] This is what. Oh, you got it.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_02] This is what the South Carolina Supreme Court recommended. Quote. By holding the trial court in this case acted within its discretion in admitting some evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes. We certainly do not intend to require the evidence to be admitted on retrial. As is often the case, the facts and circumstances on retrial may be materially different from those presented to the initial court. Thus, the trial court must remand on remand must do as the trial court did here.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_02] Carefully and thoughtfully apply correct principles of law to the facts and circumstances before it. We do intend to require, however, that if the trial court decides to admit evidence of Murdoch's financial crimes on retrial. State must complete its introduction of that evidence efficiently without the lengthy presentation of inflammatory details and with little to no probative value that was permitted in the first trial.

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_02] So, like, you know, like, like, it's stupid, but it's like they're like, you've been warned, you know, like, like, like, you better, you know, wrap it up. Keep it tighter.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_01] Because we don't want to give this guy a third trial.

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_02] Nice and brisk. None of the emotions. Just get the facts in that are relevant to why he committed murder, not why he's a jerk or a bad person and wrap it up. Yeah, I understand what they're saying here. It kind of does shine a light of like there was a possibility that this conviction was not as secure. As I mean, to me, it's like there's a mountain of evidence against the guy. Like, it's a good it's a good case. I mean, it's it's a good case for the state.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_02] I guess there's just you know, there can be something where some of this stuff can slip. Too far down the prejudicial slope. And that would definitely put a trial at risk for being overturned. Maybe they wouldn't have. Maybe they would say, yeah, this wasn't great, but we're not going to it's not quite enough to get a new trial like that can happen, too. Right. So it's not like I'm saying, oh, it would have been they would have been in jeopardy anyway. But certainly. Yeah.

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_02] The fact that these guys sat down, the fact that these justices or these judges sat down and were like, yeah, we're going to give them a little checklist.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_01] The prejudicial slope, you said.

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_02] What? On Prejudice Mountain. I lost my love on Prejudice Mountain. I don't know. I think. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Again, on a personal like a civilian level, I'm kind of like, I don't know. I want to know all this stuff. I'm nosy. I'm a reporter. I'm like, yeah, tell me all the weird bad stuff he did. Like, that's what I like. But I'm also, you know, I understand from like a legal perspective. You got to got to clean it up.

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_01] But because it's entirely possible that just because a person committed one crime doesn't make them more likely to have committed another crime.

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. This this this Murdoch case. I mean, this guy, though, I mean, just the amount of stuff he was doing. You know, you could absolutely see someone doing this.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_01] But, you know, Anya, it sounds like you're skiing down prejudicial slope.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_02] No, I don't even know how to ski.

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_01] And I think you should climb up Reasoned Judgment Mountain.

[00:52:25] [SPEAKER_02] No. Oh, no.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_01] And careful analysis hill.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_02] The geography of this. We need to make like one of those like, you know how they always have maps in front of fantasy books where it's like, oh, here's the realm. We have like all the. The sensationalist swamp. That's where we don't want to go.

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I think we're getting to the point where we need to wrap up. Yeah. Sorry. Apologies. But before we do, I wanted to mention we are trying to beef up some of our premium content, which we are offering on not only on Patreon, but on Apple. I think you get the exact same content either way. It's ad free. There's going to be extra shows right now. We're doing a couple of lives a month. We're going to add some stuff to that.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. It's a premium episode.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. And now, I mean, now we're forcing ourselves into it. Yes. We don't want to be liars. So, you know.

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_01] I don't want to cause our listeners to go down disappointment slope.

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_02] Oh. How many slopes? Is this like a fully mountainous region or the valleys?

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_01] Because we are going to climb up Kept Promise Mountains.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_02] That just sounds so. You're such an odd man. I just say something and then suddenly. Okay. Well, listen, thank you all so much for listening. We always appreciate it. And I guess we'll hopefully talk to you soon.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_02] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_01] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_02] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.