Book Review: The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty
On June 8, 2021, citizens of the lowcountry of South Carolina woke up to the shocking news that Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, wife and son of prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh (pronounced Alec Murdock), had been murdered on the grounds of the family’s estate the night before. Paul Murdaugh, age 22, had been embroiled in controversy following the death of one of his friends in a drunken boating accident while out on the family’s boat. When the first law enforcement officer pulled up to the dog kennels at Moselle, the Murdaugh home, some of the first words out of Alex’s mouth were about how the deaths may be connected to the boat crash.
Thus began the whole sorry saga of the unraveling of the Murdaugh family, the subject of “The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty,” by Valerie Bauerlein. She details the rise of the family, four powerful generations of attorneys who, over the course of a century, dominated local law enforcement through their elections as solicitors, or local district attorneys, in their coastal judicial circuit. The Murdaugh law firm made millions not through prosecuting criminal cases but through their work on civil cases resulting in large judgments against defendants with deep pockets.
Bauerlein does a thorough job of explaining the incredible sequence of events leading up to the murders: Alex’s addiction to prescription painkillers; the rumored links between the Murdaughs and the mysterious deaths of their housekeeper Gloria Satterfield and Stephen Smith, an openly gay nursing student rumored to have been involved with a Murdaugh; Alex’s theft of millions in settlement money intended for his vulnerable civil clients; the impending death of Alex’s father; and finally, on the day of the murders, an uncomfortable meeting with his firm’s financial controller who had realized at last that significant sums of money were missing from their accounts.
I followed the murder case fairly closely as events unfolded. Even so, I learned much I did not know, even after reading articles and listening to podcasts about the case. Bauerlein spent significant time interviewing attorneys for the prosecution as well as Mark Tinsley, the attorney for the family of the boat crash victim, Mallory Beach. She also The picture she paints of Alex Murdaugh is a chilling one of a desperate sociopath whose one goal is to keep his financial crimes under wraps, even if it means murdering his family to gain sympathy and stave off inquiries.
Bauerlein’s account of this twisted tale is detailed and comprehensive. Readers familiar with the case will still discover new information in its pages. Those who did not follow its ins and outs over time will find “The Devil at the Elbow” a chilling account of a powerful man who was revealed to have a deep dark hole where his soul should have been.
“The Devil at His Elbow” will be published August 20, 2024 and will be available for check out at Moon Lake Library. Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free ebook in exchange for my honest review.