Elizabeth “Libby” Murdaugh, who played an important part in her son’s adamant denials that he killed his wife and son, was in hospice care on Tuesday when she died, according to Peeples-Rhoden Funeral Home in Hampton County, South Carolina. She was a librarian and teacher in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
The woman had been in declining health for years with dementia. Her son had just visited her in June 2021 when he arrived back to his home about 11 miles (17 kilometers) away and, according to his 911 call, found Maggie and Paul Murdaugh shot to death outside.
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Murdaugh listens to testimony about cellphones during his trial for murder at the Colleton County Courthouse in February 2023 (
Image: TNS)
Mobile phone data showed Alex Murdaugh was telling the truth about where he went, although he appeared to overestimate the time he spent there. But a video – taken by his son just minutes before he and his mother’s cellphones were never used again – showed Alex Murdaugh was with them and prosecutors convinced a jury that Murdaugh had enough time to kill them, clean up evidence and get to his mother’s house and back.
Libby Murdaugh’s health didn’t allow her to testify at her son’s trial last year. Murdaugh is serving two life sentences after being convicted of two counts of murder.
His mother was married to former Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh III for 60 years. The elected prosecutor along with his father and grandfather oversaw criminal cases in Hampton County and surrounding areas for nearly nine decades.
From left to right: Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh
The night of the killings, Randolph Murdaugh III was in the hospital. He died three days later. Shelley Smith, who spent four years taking care of the older Murdaughs in their home, testified at the murder trial that they were great people and like her own family.
At the end of January, a judge denied Murdaugh’s request for a retrial after the murderer claimed there was jury tampering. The court clerk accused of tampering with the jury denied the allegations in her testimony in court.
“I did not have a conversation with any juror about any topic related to this case,” said Rebecca Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court. As part of her testimony, the clerk cited that she planned to capitilise on Murdaugh’s guilt by writing a book after the trial, which she believes would sell well. Hill was questioned by presiding judge Jean Toal, who asked her about the “literary license” she took in her novel about the trial.
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Toal suggested that Hill tampered with the jury in order to get the best possible ending for her book, which released about four months after the trial’s conclusion. The clerk swiftly rejected that claim saying: “It didn’t matter to me if it was guilty, not guilty or mistrial.”
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In an attempt to prove her words were true, Hill admitted that she made only $100,000 (£78,600) from her book “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders” and it was no longer being sold since it was discovered Hill had plagiarised a passage from a BBC News article. Another court clerk, Rhonda McElveen of Barnwell County, provided a conflicting account soon after Hill’s testimony.
Once-prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh arrives at his bond hearing in October 2021
