January 2023. The State of South Carolina v. Richard Alexander Murdaugh. An attorney beyond suspicion is found guilty in an exceptional trial.For the first time in his life, attorney Alex Murdaugh—the scion of a long line of lawyers and prosecutors—stands before a jury at the Colleton Courthouse, not as a practitioner of law, but rather as a defendant. He is accused of having murdered both his wife Maggie and his son Paul on the evening of June 7, 2021.