Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty

- If you didn't know the Murdaughs,

you wasn't from Hampton.

And whether you knew 'em or not, they knew you.

- Where the Murdaughs go, death seems to follow.

- There is no justice in Hampton County.

Yeah, if it come out of Hampton,

it's not going nowhere.

- People that could just erase it

like it never happened.

- This is a Southern version of a Mafia story.

- Enough evil had been done by the family.

It's gone too far this time.

No.

- The Lowcountry is a different part of the world

and a different part of South Carolina.

Hampton in particular is a small,

sparsely populated town.

- Hampton is a small rural community,

very few stoplights,

country folk.

- We've had generations and generations of families,

the same families.

- Not a whole lot going on, you know?

Not a whole lot of jobs, a lot of poverty.

- People like me, we work for our money.

We wasn't born with a silver spoon in our mouth.

- Nobody ever had any reason to leave

that part of South Carolina,

and nobody ever had any reason

to come to that part of South Carolina.

- Small towns generate big fish in small pools.

- Hampton is pretty much historically dominated

by one family: the Murdaughs.

- Murdaugh. That name means power.

- They're a great American family

who has a successful law firm.

Had deep roots in their community.

Money, position, power.

The Murdaughs have had control of Hampton County

for close to a century.

- They have held the position of the prosecutor...

The solicitor, we call it... Through four generations.

Everyone knows that they are

the lawyers in the area.

The Murdaughs are the justice system.

Kings of the Lowcountry.

- Literally what took 100 years to build

crumbled...

in one year.

A mystery in the Lowcountry:

a mom and son found dead,

the circumstances still unknown.

- We're still learning more about what exactly happened

behind these gates of this hunting lodge.

What we do know is, a high-profile family

has lost both a mother and a son,

both shot and killed.

Detectives were called in just after 10:00 p.m.,

where they found two bodies inside:

22-year-old Paul Murdaugh

and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh.

Their bodies were found by Maggie's husband

and Paul's father, Richard Alexander Murdaugh.

- The investigation into their murders was extremely closed.

Authorities were being very tight-lipped

about what evidence they had gathered,

how they exactly they even had died.

It was all very shrouded in mystery.

- While the Murdaugh family owned hundreds of acres

in this area, the people who are their neighbors

wouldn't talk much about the family

or exactly what happened,

just saying that they were good people.

When the murders happened,

the town stopped talking completely.

It was truly this sort of ghost town feel of,

"We can't say anything about it because either we're scared,

or we know too much, or we could be next."

- You felt the dome over this little county

starting to crack.

And since that time,

it pretty much has broken wide open.

Paul did some bad stuff.

None of that warrants being killed that way.

And I think that was the one big question.

There's something that's not being told.

- I just can't imagine anybody being hated that much.

- It was shocking to hear about Paul and Maggie.

But it's like, at the same time,

you can only do so much bad

until somebody finally just takes it in their hands.

- In my opinion, you couldn't ask for a better childhood

than Hampton, small town.

You know, that's not what a lot of people like,

but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Me and Paul, we started hanging out

probably when I was in fifth or sixth grade.

Couldn't ask for, you know, a better friend.

One of our favorite things to do was go to the river.

Everybody's got boats, so, you know,

you just call somebody and go.

So us six did that a lot, for hours.

- They were all childhood friends.

They all grew up together. They were all extremely close.

There is Anthony Cook

and his girlfriend Mallory Beach,

Connor Cook and his girlfriend Miley Altman,

and Morgan Doughty and her boyfriend Paul Murdaugh.

A very South Carolina group of friends

that would do a lot of outdoor activities together.

In the Lowcountry,

you go fishing, and you go boating,

and sometimes those activities

may involve a little bit

of alcohol consumption as well.

So provisions were made by some of these kids

to get beer and to get alcohol.

Paul Murdaugh used his older brother's ID.

- He'd walked out and then lifted the 12-packs

up over his head in celebration.

- And off they went in the Murdaugh boat

and headed towards a destiny

that they could not possibly have imagined.

Just take us through

how y'all met up that night and what y'all did.

We want you to tell us what you're sure

and certain about what you saw.

- Mm. - Okay?

Everybody was drinking.

Ain't no denying it, hiding it.

It was just the thrill

of going on a long boat ride at night.

Then for some reason, Paul and Connor

decided they wanted to make a pit stop

at a bar on the way,

and I definitely knew that wasn't a good idea.

- I tried to stop that from happening,

but there wasn't much I could say.

- Paul was like the puppet master.

People listened to him because of who his dad was.

People were afraid of him because who his dad was.

- Wasn't anything too good that I've ever heard about him

that people would say.

They would say Paul was very arrogant,

entitled,

always got his way.

You could tell he was a "rich kid."

Like, he had a temper,

and he liked to control everybody.

And if you didn't do what he wanted,

he had friends that would back him up

to do his dirty work.

Whoo!

- He always did a few things that I...

You know, don't really feel comfortable.

I'm not going to talk bad about him, you know?

He was a good guy.

- And we grew up with Paul's family.

We did.

One thing that we have tried

to instill in our children is,

you're friends with the Murdaughs,

but at the same time,

you have to beware of them,

because if something goes down,

you're gonna be the one in trouble, not them.

A lot of people in town

would not let their kids hang out with Paul

because of the reputation they all have.

- His mother, Maggie, she taught her children,

"Do whatever you want to do.

It's okay because of who you are."

They raised them to know

that they were above anyone else.

The law did not pertain to them.

- It's a scary thought, because you know

they have that much power.

You said you noticed that...

Paul was getting kinda drunk?

When we left the dock,

things were starting to catch up.

Late, cold, foggy.

I mean, everybody had been drinking.

Wasn't smart.