“We are on Salkehatchie Road and there is a male on the side of the road with blood all over him and he’s waving his hands,” the driver tells a 911 dispatcher. “He’s fine, he looks fine, but it kinda looks like a set-up so we didn’t stop.”
In response, the emergency dispatcher replies, “Oh, I don’t blame you.”
“I got a flat tire, and I stopped, and somebody stopped to help me, and when I turned my back, they tried to shoot me,” Murdaugh tells the dispatcher.
Alex Murdaugh.Orange County Department of Corrections
“Were you shot?” the dispatcher asks, to which Murdaugh responds, “Yes, but I mean, I’m okay.”
When asked if he needs EMS, Murdaugh replies, “Well, I mean, yes… I can’t drive … and I’m bleeding a lot.” He then says he was shot “somewhere on my head.”
Two weeks later, SLED agents wouldarrest Murdaugh, 53, of Islandton, “in connection to a shooting incident on Sept. 4 in which he conspired with Curtis Edward Smith to assist him in committing suicide for the explicit purpose of allowing a beneficiary to collect life insurance,” the state’s highest law enforcement agency said in a news release.
He was charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report in connection with the shooting. He has not entered a plea, but his attorney, Dick Harpootlian, has admittedon theTodayshowthatMurdaugh was behind the plot.
Alex Murdaugh.Mic Smith/AP/Shutterstock
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The alleged plot went awry when Murdaugh survived the shooting, called 911 and was airlifted to a hospital. When he was released, Murdaugh announced he was entering rehab for an admitted opioid addiction.
Curtis Edward Smith.Ap/Shutterstock
Smith, a former Client of Murdaugh’s, claims he didn’t shoot Murdaugh.
Gloria Satterfield.Brice W. Herndon and Sons Funeral Home
In addition to the charges from the Sept. 4 shooting,Murdaughalso now faces charges for allegedlystealing $4.3 million from his late housekeeper’s insurance settlement. He has been named a person of interest in thedouble homicide of his wife and son.
Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.Maggie Murdaugh Facebook
Another of Murdaugh’s attorneys recently revealed he is aperson of interest in the case. But the attorney, Jim Griffin, toldFOX Carolina Newsthat at the time of the killings, his client was visiting his mother, who suffers from dementia. “He had no motive to kill them,” Griffin told the station.
Murdaugh has not entered a plea in the charges against him from the Sept. 4 shooting or the alleged theft of his housekeeper’s insurance settlement.
In a statement to PEOPLE on Oct. 14, attorneys Harpootlian and Griffin, said, “Alex intends to fully cooperate with this investigation, as he has with the investigation into the murder of his wife and son. He deeply regrets that his actions have distracted from the efforts to solve their murders.”
source: people.com
