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In August 2021, two months after the murder of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, Alex and Buster Murdaugh were reportedly seen drunk at the annual South Carolina Association for Justice convention.
An anonymous source described the incident to the New York Post, mentioning that the father-son duo was heavily inebriated.
The source said:
"They showed up en masse and a lot of them got very drunk, including Buster. It got bad enough that some of us had to leave and go upstairs to get away from them. We didn’t want to wind up in some brawl under a pile of Murdaughs."
Alex Murdaugh was suspected by South Carolina authorities in the killings of his wife and son. On Friday, March 3, 2023, he received two consecutive life sentences for the double homicide.
Buster Murdaugh was reportedly also seen gambling in October 2021
According to NBC, after the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh claimed that the killings were most likely revenge for Paul's involvement in a drunken boating accident that led to the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach.
Paul Murdaugh was accused of drunkenly operating the boat, implicating him as the primary cause of Beach's death. Alex Murdaugh claimed that as a result, assassins arrived on June 7, 2021, before fatally shooting Paul and Maggie.
Speaking to the New York Post, the anonymous source said that he found it suspicious that Alex and Buster Murdaugh were openly partying so soon after the deaths of their family members.
The source claimed that if a vigilante or hired killer had indeed perpetrated the murders, the surviving members of the family should have been in fear for their lives.
“It was kind of surprising to see. Your whole family has just been slaughtered and you should be worried about assassins lurking around every corner but instead you’re whooping it up and drinking.”
As reported by the Post and Courier, Buster Murdaugh was also seen at a Los Vegas casino, gambling with his father's brother, John Marvin Murdaugh, in October 2021.
According to the Independent, the incident was brought up in court. The prosecution stated that Buster Murdaugh was seen at the Venetian Hotel Casino, which may contradict Alex Murdaugh's claims that his family was struggling financially.
The prosecution linked Buster Murdaugh's presence at the casino to allegations that Alex Murdaugh had been involved in several financial crimes and that he may have had money he was hiding away.
The motion claimed:
“Alex Murdaugh has demonstrated an extraordinary pattern and practice of deceit and fraud in the handling of his assets and by his actions to misappropriate assets belonging to others."
The surviving Murdaugh child was also implicated in the 2015 death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, who was allegedly his former lover.
