Among the avenues law enforcement investigators are pursuing in this week’s killings of two members of a prominent Lowcountry legal family is the likelihood that Paul Murdaugh, 22, was targeted, while his mother was killed because she was there by happenstance, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Paul Murdaugh of Hampton was shot in the head and upper body with a shotgun, while Maggie Murdaugh, 52, was killed with what appears to be an assault rifle, sources familiar with the investigation said. Casings were recovered at the scene, they said. Their bodies were found outside and separated from one another, the sources said.
But on Thursday afternoon, three days after the fatal shootings, authorities have said nothing publicly about possible suspects or leads in the case. Police have remained tightlipped as some details have begun to emerge.
So far, information released by authorities provides only a rough sketch of what occurred the night of the killings, leading to broad theories over potential suspects, motives — whether the shootings are connected to the fatal 2019 boat crash — and questions over how justice might be served in a town quietly grappling with the tragedy and the looming presence of a powerful family.
The shootings happened at a sprawling rural estate in Colleton County, not far from the Hampton County line.
Maggie Murdaugh was the wife of prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh, a senior member of the South Carolina powerhouse Murdaugh law firm, which is headquartered in Hampton. Paul Murdaugh was Alex and Maggie Murdaugh’s son and a student at the University of South Carolina.
Paul Murdaugh was facing three felony counts of boating under the influence. The charges are tied to a boat crash near Parris Island in February 2019 that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach, also of Hampton, and injured others on board.