Alex Murdaugh poses in Confederate military uniform in 1989 frat party photo
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Wild-eyed, drunk and mocking privilege, legal scion turned double murderer Alex Murdaugh dresses as a Confederate soldier for a frat party photo obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.
A smiling Murdaugh donned a Civil War-style uniform to a 1989 ‘Old South’ ball he attended with friends from Kappa Alpha from the University of Southern California.
College acquaintances remember him as a braggart bully who bragged about his family’s powerful connections, drank heavily, and challenged students to fistfights.
Alex Murdaugh is seen dressed in a Confederate military uniform while attending an ‘Old South’ dance at the University of South Carolina in 1989, in an unearthed photo obtained by DailyMail.com
The disgraced legal scion and now convicted murderer was a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, whose members at the time described Murdaugh as a “belligerent drunk” and a “poster child of white privilege.”
Murdaugh was led out of the courthouse to a prison van waiting to start his life sentence on Friday after being found guilty of murdering his wife and son.
“Alex Murdaugh was the symbol of white privilege,” one told DailyMail.com.
He was a belligerent drunk. He would be verbally abusive towards women. He would challenge his frat brothers or college classmates to a fight.
‘His attitude was, my family owns everything and everyone and I can do whatever I want, I’m the boss. He believed it was made of teflon.
The Murdaughs were influential in South Carolina, where three generations of their family served as top prosecutors in the five-county, 3,200-square-mile office of the attorney for the 14th Judicial Circuit.
But no amount of wealth or influence could shield Murdaugh, 54, from justice for murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul at the family’s rural hunting lodge in June 2021.
A six-week trial heard how Maggie, 52, was shot five times with a semi-automatic rifle, while Paul, 22, was shot twice with a shotgun.
Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed the couple to divert attention from financial crimes that were about to come to light, including millions of dollars he embezzled from his law firm and clients.
The lying patriarch took the stand to tearfully testify about his crippling addiction to opioids and how his love for Maggie and Paul meant he could never harm them.
But it took jurors just 45 minutes to decide the disgraced attorney was guilty of annihilating his own family, earning him two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The Murdaughs were one of South Carolina’s most prominent legal families, with family members running the 14th Circuit attorney’s office dating back nearly a century. In the photo from left to right, Paul, Margaret, Alex and Buster
Murdaugh (pictured with murdered wife Maggie) earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at USC, the same institution where his great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr, graduated in 1910 before starting the family law firm in Hampton County.
The South Carolina law firm formerly known as Parker, Murdaugh, Parker, Elztroth & Detrick, or PMPED, dropped Murdaugh’s name from its header last year and has since changed its name to Parker Law Group.
“We all have dorky college photos and Alex looks like a complete buffoon in this one,” the former acquaintance told DailyMail.com.
“But there’s something about her photo that foreshadows her downfall, perhaps the arrogance in her eyes.”
Murdaugh earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from USC, the same institution where his great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr, graduated in 1910 before starting the family law firm in Hampton County.
He was a 21-year-old senior when he attended an ‘Old South’ party, a tradition celebrating the southern roots of the Kappa Alpha fraternity.
The male revelers typically wore military garb, while the women wore hoop skirts and southern belle hats inspired by the classic 1939 film Gone with the Wind.
Murdaugh didn’t have an exact replica of the Confederate uniform, but he was wearing the closest thing he could find: a vintage cadet tailcoat from the Virginia Military Institute dating from the Civil War days, when Virginia was a southern slave state and a prominent member of the Confederation. .
The event was supposed to highlight traditions of courtesy, kindness and hospitality, but was removed in 2016 due to its historical association with plantations and slavery.
‘The Kappa Alpha fraternity in the south is the epitome of southern culture. They all wore a uniform once a year, but they don’t anymore, everything is forbidden. We are past that era,” our source added.
“It was supposed to be about being a gentleman, but Alex Murdaugh was anything but. He was unpleasant to be around, he had an abusive personality.
I don’t know if he got Maggie to marry him or why she stayed with him so long.
To this day, many of Murdaugh’s former college classmates are wary of publicly criticizing him because of his family’s influence, explained the former associate, who asked to remain anonymous.
Murdaugh spoke briefly, telling the judge: ‘I am innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie and I would never hurt my son Pau Paul ‘he was sentenced to life in prison
Judge Clifton Newman sentenced Alex Murdaugh to two consecutive life sentences
Murdaugh was helped out of a prison van. He was wearing orange sneakers with socks and a prison jumpsuit.
His father was a district attorney. They ruled his county for a hundred years. Alex grew up thinking that he was special. He was never denied anything,” he added.
‘As a consequence, I was walking around with an attitude on steroids. Nothing has changed to this day. He thought that he was invincible even when she was lying to the court. But no one is that special.
Murdaugh faces life in prison and could still face more charges for tax fraud and crimes.
Juror Craig Moyer told Good Morning America before today’s sentencing in the Colleton County courthouse that it took just 45 minutes to unanimously decide he was guilty.
Judge Clifton Newman made a scathing assessment of Murdaugh’s ‘duplicitous’ character, saying his opiate addiction may have turned him into a ‘monster’.
You have to see Paul and Maggie at night when you try to sleep. They will surely come to visit you. I’m sure,’ she said.
Murdaugh replied: ‘All day, all night.’
Judge Newman responded: ‘I’m sure. And they will continue to do so.
Judge Newman also spoke of the irony that Murdaugh had escaped the death penalty when his legal family dynasty spent more than a century sending others to their deaths in the same courtroom.
He also regretted the fact that he met Murdaugh through the courts.
Alex Murdaugh took the stand but failed to convince the jury of his innocence
Murdaugh was taken from the courtroom in Walterboro, South Carolina, on Friday to begin his two life sentences.
As a well-known member of the legal community, he has practiced law before me. We have seen each other on several occasions over the years,” she said.
“It was especially heartbreaking for me to see you go in the media from being a grieving father who lost a wife and child to being the person accused and convicted of killing them.
‘A lawyer, a person from a respected family who has controlled justice in this community for over a century.’
Prosecutor Creighton Waters was granted his request for the maximum sentence of two consecutive life sentences.
He said that Maggie was ‘cut in the prime of her life’ while Paul was ‘cut when he was just beginning to live his life’.
‘Both of them, like everyone else, didn’t know who he really was. No one who thought they were near him knew who he was. That’s chilling,” Waters said.
I have looked him in the eye. She liked to look down on me. I got to see the real Alex Murdaugh. The depravity, the cruelty, the selfishness of these crimes are staggering.