Murdaugh family murder mystery in South Carolina

[DaveBrown74]

Is anyone following this story? It is obviously terrible, but it is also very mysterious. All kinds of possibilities about what may have happened here.

Long story short:

Rich family in South Carolina, with the father being a prosecutor. Son (22) is seemingly a bit of a bad seed or at least black sheep type. He was already in trouble for the wrongful death of a girl who was with him when he was driving a boat drunk. He also may have been involved in a hit and run death. Several months ago, he and his mother were gunned down at their property. The just the other day the father was shot in the head (but somehow survievd) on a secluded road not too far from their home. There are all kinds of theories going around about who may have been behind the killings and the attempted murder of the father the other day. Pretty wild story. I am curious to hear if anyone has any theories.

There are plenty of articles on this story if you just do a google search of "Murdaugh family", but here is one from the other day:

https://nypost.com/2021/09/04/alex-murdaugh-reportedly-shot-in-south-carolina/

[LennG]

Since it happened in a 'Red'state, I'm sure Biden and the Democrats will get blamed. 

Interesting story though. I'm sure it will be on Netflix next year and probably be a big hit.

[DaveBrown74]

Apparently there was no obvious reason why the father should have been on this remote and somewhat out of the way road. If that's the case, this may have been an intended meeting that went bad. I think we can safely assume that the shooting of the father is linked to the deaths of his wife and son. If not, that would be an almost impossible coincidence.

So assuming they're linked, I see three possibilities here:

1. The father was actually the intended target in the first killing, plus maybe his son. Presumably for revenge against the son's actions and the father's attempts to cover them up.

2. The father was involved in something illegal or very shady and was in over his head or otherwise seen to be a liability somehow. The bad guys killed his family to send him a message, but they then decided that that wasn't enough and that he also had to die.

3. The father actually paid to have his family killed (maybe there was another woman in his life, maybe he saw his son as too much of a liability), and whoever the killer was got nervous that the father would reveal him in a police investigation, so he wanted to cover his own tracks. Perhaps this was a meeting to discuss the options and the killer got nervous and decided to just kill him (but didn't hit him cleanly).


I think 1 is the most likely by far, but one cannot rule out two or three. Of course, it may also have been random, but that seems exceptionally unlikely.

[LennG]

Before I saw your answer, I also would go with what's behind door #1.