Alex Murdaugh moves to maximum security jail – but authorities REFUSE to say where

Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh completed his evaluation at a South Carolina state prison and is now in a maximum-security facility, but authorities won’t say which one.

According to a press release from the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Murdaugh, 54, “has been transferred to the statewide protective custody unit of a South Carolina maximum security prison.”

The decision to place Murdaugh in protective custody was made Thursday after a recommendation by the Protective Custody Review Board. Her case was evaluated at the Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia.

The disgraced attorney will be kept away from the general population due to “validated protection concerns.” The four-member board considers safety, mental health and classification, before making its decisions.

The South Carolina department of corrections does not disclose the exact location of inmates in protective custody for their own safety. There are six maximum security prisons in the state.

Smiling Alex Murdaugh appears with a shaved head in a new prison mugshot days after he was found guilty of murdering his wife and son. The new mugshot would replace an out-of-focus photo taken on March 3 (right) when he was transferred to the Kirkland Reception and Assessment Center.

Murdaugh will be housed with 28 other inmates “in a single eight by ten cell containing a bed, toilet and sink.” His privileges will be no different than other inmates, the SCDC said.

This comes after many raised concerns about Murdaugh’s potential influence over the judiciary stemming from years of operating within the state’s legal sphere.

Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at their home in June 2021, shot them with two different weapons, cleaned up the scene, then drove to visit his ailing mother before calling 911. and say that he discovered the bodies.

After a six-week trial, Murdaugh was sentenced to two life terms. ‘I’m innocent. I would never hurt my wife, Maggie. I would never hurt my son, Paul,” he told Judge Clifton Newman after his conviction.

The six maximum security prisons in South Carolina are located in five counties, two in Richland, with Greenville, Lee, McCormick and Dorchester making up the others, reports The state.

The same day Murdaugh was sent to his new home, reports surfaced suggesting that law enforcement was looking for two new potential suspects in the 2015 murder of 19-year-old Stephen Smith in Hampton County.

Smith had ties to the Murdaugh family, particularly the eldest son, Buster.

local news website FitsNews has named the two people as Patrick Wilson and Shawn Connelly, both 25, citing sources with the South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement.

DailyMail.com has contacted SLED for comment on the new revelations. Stephen Smith was found dead in the middle of a two-lane highway in Hampton County on July 8, 2015. His car with the gas cap missing and his wallet still inside was found a short distance away.

The Kirkland Correctional Center will be Murdaugh’s grim new home for the next several weeks as he undergoes an evaluation to see where he will be sent permanently.

This undated file photo provided on July 11, 2019 by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the new death row at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.

Kirkland, where Murdaugh was being tested, is one of South Carolina’s most notorious facilities. Far from safe within the fortified prison walls, inmates like Murdaugh are under constant threat from the murderers, sex offenders and armed robbers they call neighbors.

The shocking absence of law and order inside the so-called correctional facility was highlighted in 2017 when two inmates strangled four others after luring victims into their cell with promises of drugs and cookies.

The murders were carried out by Denver Simmons, who was jailed for killing a mother and her son, and fellow prisoner Jacob Philip, convicted of strangling his girlfriend and eight-year-old daughter.

Their motive: The couple wanted to be placed on death row because they were fed up with hellish prison life.

One by one, they lured their four victims into their cell and then used a broom and electrical cord as weapons to beat and strangle them, hiding the bodies behind a curtain on their bunk. Simmons and Philip then calmly walked to the guard station and confessed.

Kirkland inmates have also been known to orchestrate horrific crimes abroad from inside their cells.

Two years ago, armed robber Harvester Jackson used a contraband cell phone to orchestrate the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend in Columbia, South Carolina.

Jackson was in Kirkland serving a 10-year sentence when he ordered four accomplices to fire on the victim’s home, prosecutors alleged. His ex-girlfriend, who survived the attempt on his life, told investigators it was not the first time Jackson had ordered an attack behind bars.

Kirkland’s notorious reputation was also highlighted by a recent report that found it had the highest death rate of any prison in South Carolina. Between 2015 and 2021, 160 inmates died in the state institution.

In second place was the Broad River Correctional Institution, which is a stone’s throw from Kirkland and could be where Murdaugh ends up housed. There were 101 deaths at Broad River, which houses medium- and high-security inmates, during the six-year period.

Kirkland is where the vast majority of South Carolina’s male prisoners are sent for the first time after being sentenced.