Waves of books headed your way on Murdaugh murder saga, dynasty’s downfall

The Murdaugh murder saga and its brutal twists have been covered just about daily for more than two years in thousands of newspaper and television news stories, in podcasts and documentaries.

Alex Murdaugh, the wealthy good ol’ boy lawyer whose life was a lie and who murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul, is now in prison for life.

But the media frenzy will not die.

Eight books — almost enough to make a bookshelf buckle and bend — are being written about the sensational ruination of the 100-year Murdaugh bloodline by writers with solid non-fiction credentials or by insiders with unique viewpoints. Most of the writers were at Murdaugh’s murder trial in Colleton County earlier this year. A few other quickie books are already available.

Works in progress have titles like “Swamp Kings,” “Fall of the House of Murdaugh” and “A Family Man.” They deal in detail with the collapse of the Murdaugh dynasty in South Carolina’s legendary Lowcountry and the story’s macabre themes of violence, corruption, blood ties, family dysfunction, power, lies, class differences, deception and wealth.

The Murdaugh epic is “fertile ground for all kinds of deep dives,” says University of South Carolina American history professor Lauren Sklaroff, an expert in American cultural history.

There’s not only a public fascination with figures like Alex Murdaugh and his alter ego — dynastic elements á la Game of Thrones — but it’s also a detective story with “lots of loose ends, lots of really wacky things and unexpected things going on..... and it involves a wealthy family,” Sklaroff said.

The South itself is a kind of character, she said. “There’s the Gothic South, the Mythic South, this fits into that as well, which might explain why there are so many books being authored on this. It’s different than anywhere else. People are never tired of that,” she said.

Murdaugh Book Writers

▪ Valerie Bauerlein. The 52-year-old former reporter at The State and longtime national reporter for The Wall Street Journal won a contract from Ballantine/Penguin Random House in the fall of 2021 after writing an in-depth front-page article, full of flavor and facts, for the Journal on the Murdaugh saga. She’s been on book leave for more than a year, prowling the Lowcountry and intermittently returning to her Raleigh home for spells of writing. She hasn’t chosen a title. Publication date is sometime next year.

▪ Michael M. DeWitt Jr. The 51-year-old editor of the Hampton Guardian — the newspaper of Hampton County, the epicenter of the Murdaugh dynasty — has already published “Wicked Hampton County” — a backstory book about the county’s colorful goings-on over the years. “It paints the historical landscape of where these crimes took place.” His upcoming book about Alex Murdaugh, to be called “Fall of the House of Murdaugh,” is scheduled for publication in November by Evening Post Books in Charleston.

DeWitt, a multi-generational “born and raised” Hampton native, said, “It’s an epic history that starts at the end of the Civil War and goes all the way to the murder trial and even the aftermath of the trial — a couple of hundred years and four or five generations of the Murdaugh clan.”

▪ Jason Ryan. A former reporter for The State and Beaufort Gazette newspapers, Ryan, 41, is the author of “Jackpot,” a book about a South Carolina marijuana smuggling empire in the 1980s, and two other books. His Murdaugh book, “Swamp Kings,” is to be published by Pegasus Books on April 2.

“The Murdaugh saga gripped me from the beginning, like most people. I felt myself drawn to the story and, I felt, uniquely positioned to dig as deeply as possible,” said Ryan, who lives in Charleston and has conducted numerous interviews and spent hours looking at newspaper microfilm in county libraries. “I’ve just been in awe of the Murdaugh family’s ability to manage affairs in this part of the Lowcountry, and it’s high time we get a deeper appreciation for the role they’ve played..”

▪ Rebecca “Becky” Hill. As Colleton County clerk of court, Hill, 55, was at the center of the courtroom action during Alex Murdaugh’s six-week murder trial. New to writing nonfiction, Hill teamed up with Augusta, Ga.,-based reporter Neil Gordon, 59, to write ”Behind the Doors of Justice,” billed as an inside look at the trial. The book was self-published in July with a first press run of 800 paperback and 700 hardcover books and a Kindle edition. It has photos by Gordon’s wife, Melissa Gordon. People — up to 10 a day —are still making pilgrimages to the Colleton County courthouse, Hill said.

During the trial, Hill made notes every day about events, such as when she delivered the witness oath to Alex Murdaugh, and had access to exhibits introduced at trial. Hill went with jurors when they visited Maggie and Paul’s death scene, and her witness to that event — and its impact on jurors — is in her book, she said.

▪ James Lasdun. An award-winning author who lives in upstate New York, Lasdun, 65, wrote an extensive piece in January on the Murdaugh saga for The New Yorker, weeks before Murdaugh’s trial began. Lasdun has signed a contract to write a book, tentatively called “A Family Man,” with W.W. Norton. “It’s very much about him (Alex Murdaugh) ... and family relations, to an extent,” says Lasdun, who spent more than a year off and on writing his New Yorker story. “I have a lot more I didn’t put into the article but I’m going to be reporting again.”

Lasdun, who has published both fiction and non-fiction, said he hopes to bring perspectives of character, psychology and setting to his work — “all those things that people go to novels for” but at the same time be strictly factual. “I’m not going to try to imagine dialogue or anything like that,” he said.

Lasdun says it might be a year or two before his book appears. “They weren’t concerned to rush it out,” he said.

▪ Arthur Cerf. Cerf, 29, a bilingual French writer, spent several months in Hampton and Colleton counties, including attending Murdaugh’s trial, researching his book for a French publisher who publishes books on American true crime stories. His book will be called “The Murders of the Low Country” (“Les meurtres du Lowcountry”) and will be published next fall.

“I try to give a precise depiction of the ‘trial of the century,’ which I hope will be fascinating for French readers. Here (in France) justice is not a ‘show’ like it is in the U.S. - we don’t have Court TV for example,” said Cerf, a popular figure among the American journalists at the trial. “Beyond the story of crime, corruption, power, influence and family, I’m trying to depict this moment when a small community is caught in a true crime hurricane, what it is like when the circus arrives in a city like Walterboro.”

Eric Bland. Columbia lawyer Bland, 61, intends to do a book to be called “Collision Course.” Bland and his law partner, Ronnie Richter, were significant players in the Murdaugh saga. In September 2021, they filed a lawsuit against Murdaugh on behalf of the heirs of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdaugh’s housekeeper, who died in a 2018 fall at the family house. That lawsuit sparked criminal investigations and led to numerous public disclosures about Murdaugh’s million dollar thefts over the years from his law firm, clients, friends and even his own brother.

Bland’s book, which may be self-published, will describe how Bland and Richter, who don’t shy from suing other lawyers for legal malpractice, were exactly right for the job of filing a lawsuit against Murdaugh, a long-respected lawyer and member of a legal family so prominent they were thought of as untouchables. Most lawyers will not sue other lawyers. Since then, Bland and Richter have recovered millions for their initial clients — Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriott — and other Murdaugh victims.

Mandy Matney. The Lowcountry based podcaster/crusading journalist has been at the forefront of Murdaugh coverage for more than four years, with her first podcast on the Murdaugh murders for Fits News coming two weeks after the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. Now an independent podcaster with Liz Ferrell, Matney is said to have plans for a book.

Contacted last week by The State newspaper, Matney texted that an announcement “on that front” will be forthcoming and declined further comment.

What value books?

In an age of social media, are books still relevant?

Yes, said University of South Carolina English instructor Nicola Waldron.

Not only is there something comforting and intimate about the act of just holding a book, but a book itself can take a reader on a more personal journey that no other media can give, she said.

Language in a book stimulates, encourages and invites a reader’s imagination in ways “that you don’t get through other media, which provide the audience with almost everything,” Waldron said. “If you didn’t have a book, something would be lost.”

Book writers will also be able to explore questions that continue to color the tale: Did Alex Murdaugh really do it? How did he persuade his friends — top banker Russell Laffitte and respected lawyer Cory Fleming — to help him steal millions? Will the murder weapons — a shotgun and a high velocity AR-type rifle — ever be found? How much of the millions he stole is unaccounted for? Why didn’t Murdaugh’s law firm catch on to his 15-plus years of thievery?

“Too much happened that nobody questioned,” said Jay Bender, a longtime South Carolina media lawyer who served as a go-between for reporters and court officials at the Murdaugh trial.

Bender, who has represented The State, said the huge audience, both in the Colleton County courtroom and nationally on Court TV, portends a good reception for Murdaugh books. “I think the books will all sell very well.”