SC judge grants Alex Murdaugh bond in case stemming from failed suicide plot [The Charlotte Observer]

A Hampton County judge set a $20,000 bond for Alex Murdaugh late Thursday afternoon for his part in staging his own murder so his older son, Buster, could receive a $10 million insurance payout.

Murdaugh faces charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and falsifying a police report. He turned himself in to police late Thursday morning and was booked into the Hampton County Detention Center.

The bonds are personal recognizance, meaning he will be released on his promise to appear in court later without having to pay any fines. He also surrendered his passport to state police, but will be allowed to travel back to the out-of-state rehab facility he’s been staying at.

Hampton County Magistrate judge Tonja Alexander assigned the bond, and Murdaugh’s case will be prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Before the hearing, Murdaugh’s lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin fielded a few questions from reporters.

“What’s Alex Murdaugh’s state of mind right now?” one reporter asked.

“He’s in jail,” Harpootlian said. “That’s his state of mind.”

The 53-year-old Murdaugh, who was shot in the head on Sept. 4, had originally told police someone shot him as he was fixing a flat tire on his car on the side of a rural Hampton County road. He was flown to a Savannah hospital for treatment, and then entered an out-of-state drug rehab facility.

On Monday, he confessed to police the attempted murder story was a lie and said he had conspired with 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith in the shooting.

Smith, a former client of Murdaugh’s from a 2010 personal injury lawsuit, was arrested Tuesday on charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Smith was granted a total cash surety bond of $55,000 for all four charges Wednesday morning.

Outside the jail, 73-year-old Rev. Willie Rakes stood in the rain to support his lawyer.

The Varnville pastor said he hired Murdaugh as his lawyer after getting into a crash in Beaufort two years ago while working as a truck driver. He said Murdaugh’s father and grandfather had represented his family members in other cases.

He said his case is ongoing, and he spoke to Murdaugh about it as recent as two weeks ago.

“I tell you... it’s unbelievable,” Rakes said. “I’m praying for the family, man.”

Thursday’s hearing comes more than three months after Murdaugh called 911 to report that he had found his younger son, Paul, and wife, Maggie, shot to death at their Colleton County estate on June 7. The double murder remains unsolved.

Since the murders, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division has opened multiple other investigations connected to the family, including reopening a 2015 cold case involving the death of a 19-year-old, looking into how much money Alex Murdaugh allegedly stole from his family’s law firm, and investigating the 2018 death of the Murdaugh family’s former housekeeper and nanny, who died after a “trip and fall” incident in their house.

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