A Georgia woman who paid $25 for the white cap of slain Paul Murdaugh at the Moselle hunting lodge auction has brought back the memory of her older brother, Buster, to “help him find peace.”
Shelby Freeman, 28, said she had attended the auction to secure a piece of South Carolina’s criminal record, but regretted the purchase after feeling the visor did not belong to her and wanted to return it to its rightful owner.
Paul Murdaugh had worn the cap for only a few days before he was brutally executed by his father at the family’s hunting lodge in Moselle, where his mother Maggie was also shot dead. He was seen wearing it in a video shown during the six-week double murder trial of his father Alex Murdaugh.
Shelby told Dailymail.com she also spent just under $550 on Christmas decorations and a nightstand, which contained bullets, lottery tickets and beers labeled with the names of family and friends. She says that she had also offered to return them, but Buster, 28, had not yet responded.
“I reached out to Jim Griffin (the Murdaugh family attorney) and told him that I felt it was the right thing to do to offer them back,” he said, adding that he hoped “Buster can find some peace.”
Shelby Freeman, 28, said she offered to return the possessions to Buster Murdaugh after feeling she was “not the rightful owner.”
Alex Murdaugh (right) with his murdered wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, (center) along with their surviving son Buster (left)
Thousands of people flocked to a Georgia auction house on March 23 as possessions from the Murdaugh family estate in South Carolina were put up for sale.
Freeman says she felt particularly compelled to return a white sun visor she had bought at auction after discovering that Paul was wearing it in shocking footage reproduced in Alex Murdaugh’s successful murder trial.
The jury viewed cellphone video showing Paul wearing the sun visor as he excitedly delivered a birthday cake to his father at their beach house in Edisto Beach, South Carolina.
Taken in 2021, just days before Alex slaughtered his wife Maggie and son Paul, family and friends gleefully sang “Happy Birthday” to the murderous patriarch as a grinning Paul carried the cake.
Explaining why he attended the auction, Freeman said that, like many Americans, he felt an “emotional attachment” to the case and even went to trial several times.
“I just wanted to go and see it on a personal level, I have been following the case since the boat accident. I stayed at the auction all day, just to be a part of it.
Buster and I are the same age, and at the trial he seemed very nervous. People can’t imagine what she’s going through, but no one who is that cruel can understand her situation.”
A white cap was purchased at the Murdaugh estate auction that Paul Murdaugh previously wore only a few days before he was executed by his legal father.
Alex Murdaugh’s defense showed footage of the father surrounded by friends and family on his birthday during his trial, where Paul was seen wearing a white sun visor which was later returned to Buster after he bought it at auction.
Freeman said she spent just under $550 at the auction on a variety of items, only starting bidding after getting “stuck” when some good-quality possessions were getting cheap.
Along with various Christmas decorations and serving platters, she also purchased a nightstand believed to be either Alex’s or Paul’s, and was shocked to discover that it was still filled with items from the murdered family’s past.
But after taking her loot home, she admitted to her husband: “This doesn’t belong here, I didn’t feel like the right owner… maybe it was a bit of guilt, but more just a feeling that he needs to be in the rightful place.
After reaching out to return the possessions, Murdaugh’s attorney, Jim Griffin, responded to his request within hours, saying Buster would “love” to get Paul’s visor back.
“I thought, worst case scenario is I spent $550 to give (Buster) some joy,” added Freeman, who maintained that she felt sorry for him after watching his ordeal throughout the trial.
“People have a chance with Buster, but you can’t replace a mother and a brother. I hope he can find some peace, a lot of people online are beating him up, speculating, but he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
The items for sale come from the Murdaugh family home in South Carolina, which recently sold for $2.6 million.
Shelby also offered to return a nightstand she bought at Murdaugh’s auction, which was surprisingly still full of items, including lottery tickets and bullet casings.
The 28-year-old spent just under $550 on a number of items in the auction, including Christmas decorations, plates and a nightstand.
Freeman bought the visor for $25 at the Georgia auction on March 23, where thousands flocked to buy items from the family’s hunting lodge in Moselle.
Scenes from inside the warehouse where the auction took place showed rows of possessions arranged on long tables as potential bidders sorted through items that once filled the prominent Southern family’s sprawling country home.
The auction comes nearly a year after the 1,700-acre mansion where the Murdaughs lived was listed for $3.9 million.
The Moselle property was finally sold Wednesday for $2.6 million, with proceeds from the sale reportedly going toward the outstanding legal fees of Alex Murdaugh, Palmetto State Bank, Buster Murdaugh and the victims of the infamous 2019 boating accident, according to carolina fox.
The new owners, James Ayer and Jeffrey Godley, decided to vacate the house after its purchase and auction off all its contents.
Prospective buyers reviewed a variety of past possessions from inside the auction room, where long tables were littered with deer antlers, mounted tortoise shells, decorative plates, figurines of a Christmas nativity scene.
Among the most expensive items for sale were lamps adorned with tortoise shells, which sold for $800, a Yeti tumbler for $400, and mounted longhorns that commanded a lofty $10,000 price tag.
Bidders and auctioneers at the Murdaugh estate auction on Thursday afternoon
A wall of hunting trophies up for auction at the Murdaugh mansion
A hunting crossbow for sale after it was removed from Murdaugh’s property
The first item up for auction was an animal trap, which sold for $500, followed later by a pair of rocking chairs for $850 and a sofa from the family mansion, which sold for $30,000 after an intense bidding war.
In addition to Murdaugh’s camo shirt, numerous pairs of hunting boots could be seen in the inventory, along with a hat with a South Carolina Highway Patrol baseball cap.
And on top of the boxes of shotgun shells, boxes of unused rifle bullets were up for auction, along with a hunting crossbow, rifle scopes, and what appeared to be a case for a rifle or shotgun.
After buying a bike owned by Maggie Murdaugh, Erin Craig told DailyMail.com that she planned to display the item in a store because “it will serve its purpose better where people can look at it rather than going into someone’s backyard.”
Craig added that he paid more than $3,000 for a variety of items from Murdaugh’s auction, including an American flag, some Richard Alexander Murdaugh monogrammed glasses and one of Paul Murdaugh’s wallets.
Erin Craig, of Colleton County, South Carolina, posed with Maggie Murdaugh’s bike after purchasing the item at auction.