What Really Happened the Night of the Murders in 'Murdaugh: Death in the Family'

The newest episode of Murdaugh: Death in the Family dramatizes the most infamous night in the whole saga — the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh — but it does so using the version of events Alex tried to sell the jury at the eventual trial. The evidence, however, completely contradicted his account of the timeline.

Here’s the sequence the show depicts: Paul, out at the dog kennels, glances at his phone and is shot instantly; Maggie hears the gunfire, walks toward the kennels, and is gunned down seconds later. Meanwhile, Alex is miles away, sharing ice cream with his mother and watching TV, oblivious to the horror unfolding at home.

The evidence told a different story. Prosecutors at Alex Murdaugh’s 2023 double-murder trial built an intensely detailed digital timeline — a minute-by-minute reconstruction from cell-tower pings, GPS data, and phone-orientation logs. Yes, investigators can even detect when a phone’s orientation changes from landscape to portrait, and that detail matters here.

At 8:44 p.m. on the night of the murders, Paul recorded a video at the family’s dog kennels. That short clip became the smoking gun: Alex’s voice is audible in the background, contradicting his repeated claim that he hadn’t been at the kennels that night. Oops. Within five minutes — around 8:49 p.m. — both Paul’s and Maggie’s phones went silent. Neither sent another message, answered a call, nor unlocked again.

Maggie’s phone later registered a final orientation change at 9:06 p.m., roughly half a mile from the house, suggesting it was tossed or dropped as the killer left the scene. Two seconds after that orientation change, Alex called Maggie’s phone — a call prosecutors claimed was staged to create an alibi after the fact.

Alex’s story was that he left the house around 9 p.m. to visit his ailing mother, stayed briefly, then came home to find his family murdered. He called 911 at 10:07 p.m., distraught and rambling, saying he hadn’t seen them for hours. His mother’s caretaker recalled giving him a bowl of ice cream that evening — a small detail the defense used to anchor his alibi.

However, the cell data and the kennel video undermine every aspect of that account. The phone evidence placed Alex at the murder scene minutes before the estimated time of death. The digital record of his car showed movements that matched the state’s version — that he drove to his mother’s for a short window, then returned home and made carefully timed calls before “discovering” the bodies.

As an attorney, Alex Murdaugh should’ve known how easily prosecutors can reconstruct a timeline from digital footprints. And for anyone thinking about committing the “perfect crime”: don’t bring your phone, and don’t let the victim record a video with your voice minutes before they’re killed.

Alex Murdaugh is currently serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.