“There are very few Lex Luthors out there.”
This is a quote from a friend of mine who is a Judge around these parts. I forget the context in which it came up. But it was at least a couple of weeks before Alex Murdaugh took the stand, allegedly in his defense, in the double homicide case brought against him by the state of South Carolina.
I thought of the Judge’s maxim as Murdaugh, his alibi blown to smithereens, proceeded to lie his way straight into 2 life sentences in the South Carolina state pen, a destination which will no doubt require an adjustment on his part, having lived a life of riches (or more accurately an abundant line of credit) and privilege up until this point in time. To be fair, he has already gotten a taste of his new lifestyle, having spent the last year behind bars awaiting his trial date. But you get my larger point. Murdaugh doesn’t fit the usual profile of a guy in the joint. Which may make his tenure there somewhat problematic.
It must really suck to be him now. Two consecutive life sentences. That first sentence could end next week if he runs across the right con in the exercise yard. That second one will be a bitch to serve.
But, to paraphrase something my dad used to tell me, he has only himself to blame.
I assume, gentle reader, that you are basically conversant with the facts. Forget about the lying for a minute. Here’s how fucked up all this is. As I told the Deacon around Wednesday of last week, “Sure he is a liar and a thief who was about to get exposed to the world as such during discovery in his son’s wrongful death case. So he blows his wife and Paul to Kingdom Come to buy him time to come up with some money? That makes no sense.”
His able defense attorney, who did a pretty good job of spinning straw into gold, even threw that one out there for the jury to consider. Why would Murdaugh do that? It makes no sense.
And yet that is what he did. When confronted with a money problem, albeit a pretty stiff one, he blew away Mags and Paw-Paw.
There once was a time where there very much was a Gothic South. A South where the likes of Faulkner, Miss Eudora, Williams and McCullars walked alongside the authors of the King James Bible. In that world, certain families pretty much ran things in their particular locales. Arkansas really didn’t have many cities or counties that were “ran” by a person or family. Sheriff Marlin Hawkins in Conway County comes to mind along with Robert E. Lee Wilson of Wilson, Arkansas.
One of my buddies and I were discussing this the other day. I think it would be harder to be “the boss” of a county or city now. In the first place, and boy did Murdaugh discover this to his torment, there’s too many cameras, too many tracking devices, out there even in the country. (Note to self: Before attempting a major crime turn off On-Star.). Secondly most of the old cracker types that used to populate the rural south, the ones that Faulkner knew so well, have died off and their offspring have left.
Still, as was pointed out to a fare-the-well by the media last week, Alex Murdaugh came from a long line of lawyers, judges and prosecutors in the low country judicial district that eventually put him in the dock. No doubt, the Murdaughs historically have cut a lot of ice in Colleton County. And yet, in an interview with the former US Attorney for the District of South Carolina during the Obama Administration, he implored the media to quit referring to the Murdaughs as “prominent.” He basically said that they were nobody outside of Colleton.
Still it’s a long way from the yacht club and Gamecocks baseball to getting away with murder. Are narcissism, privilege and a“big fish in small pond”sense of historical entitlement sufficient to make a good ole boy like Alex Murdaugh into a master criminal, at least in his own mind? Who thinks like this?
I’m with his lawyer. It makes no sense.
But it proves the Judge’s maxim in spades.
Because Alex Murdaugh sure as hell ain’t no Lex Luthor.
