Description
Welcome to The House of Murdaugh: A storied, century-old legal and political dynasty in the South Carolina Lowcountry synonymous with wealth and power and gilded in Southern charm and mystique.
Then along came scion Alex Murdaugh, a smooth-talking, pill-popping lawyer-turned-con-man looking to cash in on the family’s connections, prestige, and generations of trust, while concealing his misdeeds by any means necessary. By 2023, what took a century to build was brought to ruin and disgrace amid scores of criminal charges and multiple homicides or wrongful deaths – including the brutal murders of Alex’s wife and younger son.
The Murdaugh crime saga has captured the attention of journalists, podcasters and writers around the English-speaking world, but only one storyteller actually lived and worked among them to know the Murdaugh clan as the talented, yet tortured and controversial characters they were.
Award-winning journalist and historian Michael M. DeWitt Jr. shares this historical, true-crime epic of the Murdaugh dynasty, a narrative that takes us from the fallen Confederacy to an internationally publicized, modern-day double-murder trial, and beyond as the search for answers and justice continues.
This is The Fall of the House of Murdaugh.
About the Author
Hampton County native Michael M. DeWitt Jr. is a multiple-award-winning journalist, longtime editor of the 143-year-old The Hampton County Guardian, and author of Wicked Hampton County and Fall of the House of Murdaugh.
DeWitt’s boots-on-the-ground coverage of the Murdaugh crime saga has been published in print and online around Gannett’s nationwide USA TODAY Network, and he has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, CBS’s 48 Hours, Dateline NBC, and Netflix documentaries to discuss the case.
As a humorist, DeWitt’s award-winning Southern humor newspaper column, “Southern Voices, Southern Stories,” was published in newspapers from Cape Cod to northern California, and he has been a regular contributor for South Carolina Wildlife magazine, Sporting Classics magazine, and its online counterpart, Sporting Classics Daily.
For four years, DeWitt served as volunteer historian, storyteller, and playwright for the five-county “Salkehatchie Stew” oral history and community theater project sponsored by the University of South Carolina. In 2014, he was named the Hampton County Chamber of Commerce’s Person of the Year for his service to the community.
DeWitt is also the author of Images of America – Hampton County (Arcadia Publishing/The History Press, May 2015), a photo history of the place his family has called home for close to three hundred years.
