you stayed friendly or in touch with him over the years? absolutely. i got wedding gifts from him. i gave him gifts. i went out of town and stuff he liked, i knew it, i brought it back. i mean, we were friends. i trusted him. alex murdaugh wasn t just a resident of hampton. alex s great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, randolph murdaugh iii, had all been the county s district attorneys or what they call solicitors. being a solicitor in south carolina is one of the most powerful positions in our legal system. mandy matney, john munk, and liz farrell are all local journalists. people do have trouble finding lawyers here because of the way the legal system works. you have to be careful about who you hire sometimes, because of who they might be associated with. over a century ago, alex s great-grandfather, a solicitor, also started a local law firm, formally called peters,
one of the things that people outside south carolina don t understand about this entire story is somebody may read about it and they may watch, you know, cnn and learn about it and feel like this happened quickly. it did not. this was a slow burn. it it was like there was no bottom to the hole that was being dug. alex, he embodies the old saying, if you re going through hell, just keep on going. it s the onion that you keep peeling, and you never get do the core. right. mike is the attorney for sandy smith. sandy s son, stephen, was found lying in the middle of a hampton county road in july 2019. he suffered from blunt force trauma to the head. his death was deemed as a hit and run. stephen s case was cold for