Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders

In Tangled Vines, bestselling true crime creator John Glatt reconstructs the upward push of the prestigious Murdaugh circle of relatives and the shocking double murder that led to the downfall of its patriarch, Alex Murdaugh.

Among the lush, tree-lined waterways of South Carolina low country, the Murdaugh name means power. A century-old, multimillion-dollar law practice has catapulted the circle of relatives into implausible wealth and local celebrity—but it used to be an unattainable tragedy that would thrust them into the national spotlight. On June 7th, 2021, prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh came upon the bodies of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the grounds of their thousand-acre hunting lodge. The mystery deepened only months later when Alex himself used to be came upon shot in the head on a local roadside.

But as authorities scrambled for clues and the community reeled from the loss and media attention, dark secrets about this Southern legal dynasty came to light. The Murdaughs, it turned out, were feared as much as they were loved. And they wouldn’t hesitate to wield their influence to offer protection to one of their own; two years before he used to be killed, a highly intoxicated Paul Murdaugh used to be at the helm of a boat when it crashed and killed a teenage girl, and his light remedy by police led to speculation that privilege had come into play. As bombshells of financial fraud were revealed and more suspicious deaths were linked to the Murdaughs, a new portrait of Alex Murdaugh emerged: a desperate man getting ready to ruin who would do anything, even plan his own death, to save his circle of relatives’s reputation.