350 - My Favorite Murdaugh

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] To my favorite murder.

[2] That's Georgia Hartstark.

[3] That's Karen Kilgareff.

[4] And this is a very special episode.

[5] It's a crossover episode with a podcast that we talked about a while ago that you guys know, we all love.

[6] We're so thrilled.

[7] Our guests today are two investigative journalists who broke one of the biggest true crime stories of our time, arguably of our time.

[8] Through their fearless reporting, they took on the Old Boys Club in South Carolina.

[9] and exposed years of legal fraud, exploitation, and shocking multiple murders.

[10] Please welcome to the show, Mandy Matney, and Liz Farrell.

[11] Hi, you guys.

[12] Hi.

[13] Hi, guys.

[14] Hello.

[15] This is so awesome.

[16] Yeah, this really is.

[17] I'm very impressed by how you guys just did that.

[18] I was reading off of this paper.

[19] I didn't memorize that.

[20] We're very used to scripted, so this is different.

[21] Oh, yeah, this is off the cuff.

[22] This is, and first of all, we have to ask.

[23] if everyone warmed up their vocal fry.

[24] Hilarious.

[25] Extra vocal fry today.

[26] Yeah.

[27] Oh, yeah.

[28] Celebrate it.

[29] People are horrible.

[30] That's what we realized.

[31] You just don't want public feedback kind of ever, but it made me laugh so hard.

[32] Whatever, you know, it was very early on when I was listening, and that was a thing you started talking about where I was just like, I guess this is just what every female podcaster is going to have to field if they have to have.

[33] any kind of an audience because this is the criticism that people love to throw as if like as if it fucking matters as if as if you're supposed to have like talk like walter cronkide i'm not sure what they're looking for yeah i was first of all i had never heard of vocal for i had you guys when you got that feedback i literally was like what are you i mean i was i was not a broadcast journalist by any means so i didn't even think about like the way that i talked um obviously everyone doesn't really like the sound of their own voice.

[34] So I just always thought my voice was annoying and so does everybody else.

[35] Whatever.

[36] But I was shocked.

[37] I remember after launching, it was like three hours in, I started to get a flood of emails.

[38] And the podcast wasn't, I mean, it didn't really get big for a while, but still a lot of people that had found it.

[39] And the thought process of them, like, stopping what they were doing and emailing me about how I need to fix my voice.

[40] And I remember, I remember talking to Liz about it.

[41] I remember talking to David and being like, do I address this?

[42] What do I do?

[43] This is absurd.

[44] And I'm really trying to get people to focus on the fact that there's really bad people in this.

[45] There's a real point to this podcast.

[46] It isn't like it's a comedy podcast or you're bantering.

[47] You're talking.

[48] You're just speaking about true crime.

[49] Yeah.

[50] And they're focusing on your voice.

[51] Yeah.

[52] If a woman does anything slightly wrong compared to men doing things that are just, even though the voice isn't even wrong.

[53] No. It's just how I sound.

[54] It's crazy.

[55] And the other thing, I was just like, I'll just address it.

[56] Who cares?

[57] But what shocked me is the amount of, like, successful women who reached out to me after that, that were like, I got that too.

[58] blah, blah, blah, and it felt like it was like a community of support from women who had been through the same thing.

[59] And I also got a lot of feedback from just our regular audience saying, oh, I had no idea you were dealing with all of that on top of being an investigative reporter in a super stressful case.

[60] You're getting yelled at about your voice all the time.

[61] Yeah.

[62] And the other, like, I could go on about how stupid vocal fry is.

[63] But in the amount of people who are like, you can change it.

[64] that's right because they like compliment you they're like oh you guys you're doing such a great job yes they start out with a compliment sure like you're complimenting me but then you're also talking about how terrible I am about something well and also it's it's a preference thing that they're expressing but I have preferences about male podcasters speaking that I could talk about all day long and it's not just one thing it's like six and I would never think because it's that idea that I have been trained in life to know that they don't give a shit, that they're not, they don't even care what I think.

[65] So why are women raised to, if they hear any feedback that's supposed to be considered negative, they're going to change that right away.

[66] Because God forbid, they're not pleasing some mystery person out in the world.

[67] It's just like, what are you fucking talking about?

[68] And also, do you know how many people speak like this?

[69] Like, this is normal talking.

[70] Yeah, I got to the point where I was like, well, it's not for you.

[71] Exactly.

[72] It's about like, there's lots of podcasts out there.

[73] There's lots of really shitty ones from many talk about things that they have no idea about.

[74] Listen to that.

[75] I don't care.

[76] This isn't for you.

[77] And that's fine that people have podcasts out there that I don't like, but I'm not going to stop what I'm doing and be like.

[78] Right.

[79] Taylor your podcast to my person's because I'm just.

[80] Can you imagine if you've lived your life that way?

[81] How exhausting.

[82] But a lot of people.

[83] Yeah, and that's something that's really hit me in the last year.

[84] It's like, man, of all these people just put their energy to something else.

[85] Just anything.

[86] Well, that idea, too, that you're going to stop what you're doing, where what you're doing is entirely a public service to expose some of the most insane, like, white -collar criminals and then straight up, like, murderers.

[87] Like, this story, the idea that that would be anyone's reaction.

[88] when the story you were telling and how that story rolled out was so goddamn insane.

[89] Like, I couldn't believe what I was hearing on that podcast.

[90] I actually called Adrienne and I was just like, you have to start listening to this right now because this, I need someone to witness this with me. Because essentially, Mandy, in the very early days, you were breaking this story.

[91] Like, as you were reporting it, you were then coming to podcasts to break the story on the podcast, right?

[92] You talk us through that for anybody who hasn't heard Murdoch Murders podcast, essentially what that was.

[93] Okay.

[94] So like in summary, and I thought about this, this story is what happens when a powerful family in their circle of friends in a small town America get away with whatever they want for a hundred years.

[95] And that family produces Alex Murdoch.

[96] And we're going to call him Alex today because it's no. is Elyke, Murdoch, and it's confusing.

[97] They call, it's a South Carolina accent.

[98] We'll just call them Alex and make it simple.

[99] Oh, we?

[100] Okay.

[101] It's a South Carolina accent.

[102] Yeah, in South Carolina, a lot of times, sometimes they call Alex as Ehrlich.

[103] Am I saying right, Liz?

[104] Yeah, it's ELEC.

[105] And we had to do it because we're just, you know, to have any sort of street cred with the people we are talking to.

[106] And it's actually several pronunciations.

[107] It's like, if you are actually in Hampton, you're saying murdick, like it's just, it like spits out of your mouth, like, murdick.

[108] Yeah, and even at his own firm, it seems like they were spelling it with the C. Like, they didn't even know that Alex is not pronounced that way.

[109] So I don't know.

[110] It's hard because it's just like you want to sound like, you know, you know what you're talking about.

[111] But then it's just so exhausting to say it every time.

[112] And you know, what's weirder is during court, he would sometimes pronounce his own name the right way.

[113] So it's like he was aware.

[114] He is aware that his name is not the way most people say it.

[115] Yeah, in court, well, we realize that in court, they do the way that it's spelled so the court reporters get it right.

[116] And then so in court, people are like, are you sure you're pronouncing this right?

[117] And it's like, God, this is...

[118] You could do a whole side podcast about this.

[119] I mean, it really could.

[120] And I get shit for it all the time.

[121] Like, why are you pronouncing it?

[122] And like, I kind of regret it.

[123] Okay.

[124] Okay, so this family ultimately produced Alec Murdoch, who is now tied to five deaths since 2015.

[125] And, again, not accused of murder in all five of those deaths, but tied to them in different ways.

[126] And the last year, Liz and I were counting today, and he's at 90 charges, I believe, between the...

[127] Something like that.

[128] Between the murder of his wife and son, the biggest one, his suicide.

[129] for higher incident, which was just the craziest.

[130] That was the part of the story that just, like, sin everything off the rails.

[131] So it's like a fake suicide, but then we believe that the fake suicide story is also fake.

[132] Really?

[133] Yeah.

[134] It's double fake.

[135] I really don't think it was suicide or any sort of.

[136] It was just to us, it always looked like he wanted his, it to look like his family was being targeted.

[137] Right.

[138] So this whole thing, like the world found out about the Murdoch family last.

[139] June, for the most part.

[140] It was making international headlines right after Maggie and Paul Murdoch were found murdered at their hunting lodge called Mozel in a very small town in the low country of South Carolina, which is just the coastal area of South Carolina.

[141] And when that happened, like Liz and I were like, our whole world's changed, right?

[142] Because we were sitting on this pile of research for the past, in reporting for the past two years at that point.

[143] Because when we were at the island packet to newspaper reporters, I guess we were editors at the time, we both started covering the death of Mallory Beach in the boat crash.

[144] Yeah.

[145] So tell us about that, tell the listeners about that one that kind of kicked it off.

[146] Yeah.

[147] Liz, do you want to take the boat crash?

[148] Yeah, it was, I think it was a weekend, right?

[149] And we got the call that there was a boat crash.

[150] And we found out pretty early on that one of the passengers on the boat was named Paul Murdoch.

[151] And we knew that name vaguely at that point because we had heard about the Stephen Smith case really, like, within the last year before that, and we're kind of considering taking it on.

[152] But yeah, it's this girl.

[153] So Paul and his friends, there were five people that he had taken on a boat.

[154] They went to an oyster roast down the road, as you say, I guess, on the river.

[155] And they ended up crashing really early in the morning, and a 19 -year -old girl from Hampton County named Mallory Beach went missing.

[156] She was missing for a week in the water, which was horrible.

[157] And they found her body.

[158] And it basically, from there, I mean, from the minute it hit go, we knew that we had to look out for corruption because we knew the thing that people said about the Murdox was that anything they get into, as Conor Cook later said, who was one of the passengers on the boat, they can get out of.

[159] So we were just looking for.

[160] like, were law enforcement, were they doing what they were supposed to?

[161] Like, what was going on behind the scenes?

[162] And it went, how many, it was two months before we saw charges.

[163] And it just actually seemed for a minute, like we weren't going to see charges in it.

[164] So it was kind of actually surprising that that ended up happening, right?

[165] And that's because this family is, when you say 100 years of this.

[166] Oh, yeah.

[167] It's because they're a family of lawyers, like a dynasty of lawyers.

[168] Is that right?

[169] Not just lawyers.

[170] Yeah.

[171] So in South Carolina, the district attorney of a Circuit is called a solicitor.

[172] So it's real old -timey.

[173] And they are three generations of solicitors up until 2006.

[174] And then the current solicitor of this area is somebody that they handpicked to put in that position.

[175] So they had him appointed by the governor and he's been reelected ever since.

[176] And so they are not only, you know, like what the people say is the Murdochs are the law here.

[177] And it's a five -county system.

[178] So, you know, we're the coast, where we live, So there's the boating and all that.

[179] They have their hunting lodges in the other counties and the rural areas.

[180] It's like their playground, basically.

[181] So everyone knows them in law enforcement pretty much.

[182] And, yeah, that's it.

[183] They have a reputation of getting their way.

[184] Yeah.

[185] One way or another.

[186] And they had the law firm, too.

[187] So they were able to, it's crazy, but like two sides of the law, they were able.

[188] And this very small town, they had this very powerful civil law firm known for for huge payoffs.

[189] But this isn't like one of those fancy lovers.

[190] It's not like something with like Glenn Close.

[191] Like it's like, it's like, make no mistake.

[192] Well, I want to ask you this.

[193] Like you guys mentioned Steven Smith and and having kind of a little tingle of something's not going to be not right.

[194] And we should look out for this Murdoch, you know, name.

[195] Can you bring us all the way back to 2015 and tell us that like that's kind of the beginning of the story, you know, in a lot of ways for you guys, right?

[196] Yeah.

[197] So Liz found out about.

[198] it in 2018, and she told me about it, but it was very vague.

[199] And, like, I kind of remember, and I remember writing a little, a few things down, but I remember at the time being, like, well, that's in Hampton County.

[200] And, you know, traditional newspapers, you have, like, a border that you work around.

[201] And if it's outside the border, then, and it was outside of Beaufort County.

[202] So it was like being on the moon.

[203] It was so far away, even though it's only an hour away.

[204] Well, so what happened?

[205] Basically, when this boat crash happened, we started seeing all of these post online saying justice for Stephen and Mallory from Hampton County people, justice for Stephen and Mallory.

[206] And we were like, what's going?

[207] And Liz started putting it together.

[208] And I started, I started just messaging anybody that I could from Hampton County, just like, what's going on here?

[209] What happened to Stephen?

[210] And within a week or two, we went to go see, we found Sandy Smith, Stephen's mom, and went to go see her.

[211] And we went to go see in Hampton.

[212] And she had literally a kitchen table full of police documents that she had personally foiled and she had in letters that she had written, autopsy, everything.

[213] She was like, I will give you anything.

[214] I just want anybody to look into this.

[215] She smelled that something was wrong from that case from the very beginning.

[216] And so Liz and I said absolutely, we'll look into everything and we pulled at those strings for the next two years but there was no time to with a story like that where you have to go back in time and dig stuff out especially like the island pack of the newspaper that we were at was so small at the time we were down like I remember how many reporters we were down I don't remember but we didn't really have a reporter yeah it was and we were just constantly like pressured to produce page views and not do like these deep dive investigative reporters, which is a big problem with journalism today and everything.

[217] It's a small paper, but we were owned by a big corporation.

[218] So we were owned by the McClatchie Company.

[219] So you had like the small town part, but then you also have this like pressure from the big guys who want that profit.

[220] Right.

[221] And so Stephen Smith, his case got ruled a hit and run.

[222] And what about those police reports and all the, you know, the reporting that his mother had uncovered made you think otherwise in this case?

[223] And he had been, it was 10 miles from the Murdoch home was where the hit and run had happened.

[224] Yeah.

[225] So, like, in our free time, Liz and I, we got the investigation and we just started, like, listening to all the audio interviews.

[226] Well, you got leaked to the investigation.

[227] I think that's important because, you know, if we were to FOIA, the investigation, it would have been redacted, and we wouldn't have seen half as much.

[228] So it was because technically it was still an open case.

[229] So Mandy got leaked the entire case file, or at least what looks like the entire case file.

[230] So for both of us, I would say it was the photos, right?

[231] Like, for me, was it the photos for you, Mindy?

[232] Well, yeah, the, I mean, the photos, it did not look like a hit and run.

[233] And we asked several law enforcement sources of, like, what do you look for, blah, blah, blah.

[234] Showed them the photos.

[235] Yeah, we showed them the, yeah, and said it could this possibly be a hit and run?

[236] And, I mean, most of the damage was done to his face.

[237] So how do you get hit?

[238] And their conclusion was maybe he got hit by a truck mirror.

[239] But, like, think about that.

[240] happening and the smiths will say this over and over there like that's insulting to say that about her son like he was a smart kid he was a nursing student he wasn't gonna let and he was completely sober that night he wasn't gonna let a truck mirror because you would have to yeah it was just crazy and then he also none of it made sense none of it none of it made sense and then you look through the case file and everybody on scene and everybody who was investigating it didn't really believe it was a hit and run.

[241] And there's nowhere that anybody says, this is definitely a hit and run, and here's why.

[242] The only person who ruled it was a hit and run was the pathologist, Dr. Aaron Presnell, and she kind of got into a fight with Highway Patrol, and it's weird.

[243] Remember us reading that document for the first time, Liz?

[244] We were like, I've never seen this in a never.

[245] I've never seen this in a case file before.

[246] It's like public officials basically talking shit on each other.

[247] Yeah, they don't put that stuff in writing unless they're trying to signal that something is amiss here.

[248] Wow.

[249] So you think those cops on the scene knew something was up?

[250] Well, we think that they knew that wasn't a hit and run.

[251] I mean, that is pretty clear.

[252] But as far as like who was pulling the strings, if strings were being pulled, not necessarily all of them.

[253] I mean, but it definitely, you know, you cannot walk away from that case file without feeling like something, it really definitely was being covered up here.

[254] And the photos of him, like from the crime scene, his, or I should say the accident scene, as they called it, his arms are sort of behind him and his knees are together and, like, sort of splayed to the, you know, I think the left or the right.

[255] So it almost looks like you had somebody, you know, from our uneducated opinion, holding him by his arms and somebody else holding him by his legs and dropping him on the ground and, like, you know, where he would lay in place.

[256] And when Mandy says, you know, he didn't look like he was in a hit and run, you know, everything about him was pristine.

[257] I mean, like, he had a few scratches on his arm, but when he has damage to his face, it's just one clear impact mark.

[258] And it's on, I believe, the side of his head where had he been walking in the direction of his home, it truly would not have made sense because a car would have to have been oncoming and it would hit him on the other side of his forehead.

[259] So it's just logic tells you, you know, this isn't right.

[260] And then how many times did we see Buster Murdoch's name in that report, Mandy?

[261] So, I mean, the Murdoch name was brought up 40 times.

[262] Wow.

[263] Just all of these people that they interviewed saying, we've heard the Murdoch kids have something to do with it.

[264] We've blah, blah, blah.

[265] And, I mean, it just kept going on and on, but what's weird is that it just, the case all of a sudden just ended.

[266] Like, they tried to call Buster Murdoch one time and left a voicemail, and then the case was closed.

[267] Wow.

[268] Wow.

[269] Not closed, but it went cold.

[270] Yeah.

[271] And then the other main thing that I keep forgetting to mention is there was no trace of any evidence of a vehicular homicide.

[272] So there was no mere pieces on the scene.

[273] There was no pieces of the car.

[274] Shoes were on loosely tied.

[275] Shoes were on.

[276] There was just no one to get no tire marks, which always happens with hit and runs.

[277] Even if a person keeps going, there's usually some sort of tire.

[278] Again, it's positioning.

[279] Yeah.

[280] Let me ask you guys this, because now you're talking about things that go all the way to the top.

[281] And these are some big scary people at the time.

[282] top, it could be, do you guys get worried about reporting on, and I know there was one incident where you felt like you were being followed, do you get worried about reporting on these big wigs?

[283] That's why the vocal for our thing is so funny because it's like, I don't think people realize like we are, you know, having to protect our, you know, lives to a certain degree here in the sense that, you know, yeah, if a delivery person walks up to Mandy's house while, you know, we're here, we both sort of have that moment of like, is this it?

[284] Like, is this happening?

[285] Yeah.

[286] That happens all the time.

[287] We should probably go to therapy for it.

[288] Right.

[289] Seriously.

[290] You guys have dogs, I think, get a bigger dog.

[291] Yeah.

[292] And, like, I've really stepped up my home security system in the last year.

[293] And the other thing that's terrible about it is all of the – and people are being nice, but they freak me out even more.

[294] I mean, since 2019, I've been getting – be careful of the – like, I'm worried for you.

[295] I'm scared.

[296] for your safety.

[297] I hope you're being careful.

[298] Our friends in law enforcement say it.

[299] Our friends in law enforcement are, we had one of, so the incident that you're referring to happened when we went to go interview a source and afterward we went to the scene where Stephen had been killed.

[300] And this is like a wide open road, you know, these are, you know, like how do people know we're there?

[301] But our friend who is a cop begged us not to go and he was just like you're not like, I'm being serious here.

[302] Like, you don't need to be there.

[303] And sure enough, you know, we had him, we did our, like, location sharing with him.

[304] And sure enough, it ended up having, you know, Mandy ended up having to call him because we were driving away from the scene.

[305] And we didn't linger or anything like that.

[306] And we're driving away.

[307] And, like, in the distance, we could see, like, a silver SUV kind of coming toward us.

[308] And I was like, oh, no. And he stopped.

[309] So, like, imagine you're on a two -lane highway and you're going, you're driving the speed limit.

[310] And he's driving towards you and it's almost like he saw and they stops and then he does like a slow you turn and comes behind me and it's a state highway uh south carolina highway patrolman you know again like the highway patrolman here they're not that's not their thing like investigating murders right they investigate hit and runs they're like highly trained in that and so these guys were handed the case for a reason if somebody was pulling the strings here so yeah it was a very sweaty like scary moment.

[311] So Mandy called up our friend and had him on speaker just in case and I'll tell you even recently I was driving through, this is the stupidest thing I've done, I was driving through Hampton County to go to the courthouse to go to the probate court and I was like, why are you doing this?

[312] You're an idiot.

[313] And I had forgotten that I had not put the sticker on my license plate.

[314] Like you know how you could like update it the year?

[315] And so I was like, oh no, like it looks like I have an expired license plate.

[316] So luckily, I used to work for the Beaufort County Sheriff's office for about a year and a half before joining Mandy.

[317] And the sheriff happened to call me. He just had a question about something, you know, just like randomly.

[318] And so he stayed on the phone with me until I left Hampton County by his own situation.

[319] Like he was like, yeah.

[320] So, you know, it just sort of hammers home, like how seriously those around us are taking.

[321] So like obviously we're taking very seriously too.

[322] Yeah.

[323] Well, and that is what gave it that very David and Goliath kind of feeling at the beginning of that podcast because it's like you guys essentially stumble upon one story that leads into another that leads into potential cover up that leads into this, that there's people waiting to go, I can't talk to anybody about this, can I talk to you about it?

[324] And it's building a case against one of the most powerful legal families for hundreds of years in the area.

[325] So, like, that, yeah, that idea that you were just basically like, well, we have to keep going.

[326] I mean, did you ever think I need to quit or I'm going to quit?

[327] No, I mean, I mean.

[328] Maybe we should.

[329] Did I want to?

[330] Absolutely.

[331] At this point, I'm just very tired of it.

[332] I'm like, God, I'd really like to wrap this up.

[333] No, I'm just kidding.

[334] But initially, when we started talking to those first few stories, sources in Hampton, who were so upset.

[335] I remember this one woman called me crying a couple, and Mallory was still missing at that point.

[336] And she was just like, this family has gotten away with everything, and they're going to get away with this too.

[337] And this has to end now.

[338] Like, somebody has to do something.

[339] And those words just resonated so much with both of us in a way that Liz and I just kind of looked at each other and we're like, we can be the difference.

[340] Whereas for 100 years, there was nobody to, I mean, they rolled the paper there, they ruled everything.

[341] Yeah, everything, everything.

[342] And I do understand, too, like, I will admit, I do not feel comfortable in Hampton County.

[343] Yeah.

[344] Things are getting a lot better, but I understood the secrecy and the fear that we were experiencing early on.

[345] Yeah.

[346] So, like, sometimes we joke that this is, like, a haunted house because you are reading, like, old stories from the past.

[347] And you're like, oh, my God, we're reading about the same freaking people who have the same names.

[348] You know, I'm not going to say real names.

[349] You know, Thomas Smith, you know, the first, and then it goes all the way to the sixth.

[350] And so you just feel like it's never ending.

[351] So I think the culture, like, I don't feel bad for the people of Hampton County in the sense that they're good people.

[352] It's just that they live in a place where the industry is a law firm that has profited mightily off of its ability to.

[353] control its juries.

[354] Wow.

[355] And how it controls its juries is something that, you know, will be revealed at some point when it's not libelous to say.

[356] But yeah, it's, so you have that.

[357] They were known for their like astronomical settlements.

[358] So when Mandy found that document for Gloria Satterfield, that is Elex housekeeper, Alec and Maggie's longtime housekeeper who died as a result of fall at their Moselle property, when Mandy found that document, I remember thinking like 500 ,000 dollar settlement doesn't seem that big a deal like you know given that at sampton county and as we found out you know it was much bigger than that who gets a 4 .3 million dollar settlement for you know a trip and fall a house so that's because of that that is where the power lies right so you have um this firm that has helped all these people get these types of settlements so you owe an allegiance to them in some way or you just want to keep your head down and do your job and not you know so I think that's the hard thing about Campton County.

[359] So they're so scared and they're not complicit necessarily.

[360] Some of them definitely are.

[361] Some of them are.

[362] Yeah, some of them definitely are.

[363] But the system is just old.

[364] It's like it's set.

[365] It's old and new.

[366] It behooves you to stay on their right side.

[367] Yes.

[368] Yeah.

[369] That's perfectly put.

[370] Yeah, that is so perfectly put.

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[390] Goodbye.

[391] Well, how shocked were you guys when you're like, you're knee -deep in reporting all of this and this family and the unexplained and unprosecuted deaths?

[392] And then Paul and Maggie Murdoch, the son and the wife of Alec Murdoch, are shot to death.

[393] Like how, and that's while you're reporting on this case.

[394] How shocking was that for you?

[395] Mandy was in Puerto Rico.

[396] And it was the worst night of my life because I was at the sheriff's office and I got woken up by a source of mine when I was a journalist.

[397] And it was about 120 in the morning, 1 .30, something like that.

[398] And he said Maggie and Paul have been killed.

[399] They've been shot.

[400] And I was like, wait, well, I just remember being oddly emotional about that, even though I really viewed those two people as abhorrent to a certain degree at that point just because of everything I saw the people around them being put through.

[401] And just for people who might not know, sorry, Paul, the one who was shot and killed, was the one driving that boat?

[402] Yes, that is Paul.

[403] Yeah.

[404] This is the red string connecting.

[405] This is your homeland red string connecting this whole insane conspiracy theory.

[406] Yeah.

[407] That's absolutely right.

[408] He's charged for, is it manslaughter?

[409] BUI.

[410] So it's boating under the influence.

[411] Yeah, three felonies.

[412] Causing a death.

[413] Yeah.

[414] So three felonies and two, for the injuries of other people for the passengers on the boat and one for the death of Mallory Beach.

[415] So he was facing 25 years, I believe, in prison.

[416] Oh, yeah.

[417] Yeah.

[418] If you had to speculate, you think they think that's why his father would have killed him is just the shame or?

[419] They don't feel shame.

[420] Alec Murdoch has never felt shame in his life.

[421] Oh, right.

[422] I forgot.

[423] I forgot people don't feel what I feel on a regular basis.

[424] Yeah, for real.

[425] It must be nice, right?

[426] The more that we think about it, the more that we put the pieces together, and again, this is still an active situation, and we have gotten very few actual answers from law enforcement for why the murders took place.

[427] However, we have found that the boat crash was really the first domino to fall that would ultimately be the end of the Murdoch family in their dynasty.

[428] because it, A, put the spotlight on the Murdox in a way that they had not had before.

[429] They were powerful, but they weren't in the spotlight.

[430] You know, they threw a lot of money to a lot of different political campaigns.

[431] They were doing their lawyer stuff, but they weren't in the media all the time.

[432] Like, normal people didn't know their names.

[433] Outside of where they're from, their names weren't really well known.

[434] Yeah, exactly.

[435] And Hampton is very small.

[436] It's a really, really small county.

[437] So everyone there, of course, knew their names, but anybody outside, I mean, kind of, but, and we'll get to that later, but it put them in the spotlight, and then right after the boat crash, there was a lawsuit filed.

[438] I believe, and Liz believes, really put a lot of pressure on Alex Murdoch in a way that he had not felt before on his finances, which we know.

[439] realize it's just a mess of criminal activity.

[440] I can't even...

[441] Like, how could we even have predicted that?

[442] Right.

[443] Yeah, I had no idea that it was this bad.

[444] It turns out he wasn't really a lawyer.

[445] Or a lot of the time he was just stealing from people, which is terrible in the most vulnerable people in the most vulnerable situations.

[446] And that's something that we've really wanted to highlight in our podcast is like, look, these are financial crimes.

[447] but he was hurting these people and he really damaged them in a way that it's hard to explain until you have the victims themselves explain it and they were very ruthless crimes just because they're white color or whatever.

[448] They're still victims, yeah.

[449] Yeah, absolutely.

[450] I mean, those people where it's like you're turning to a law firm to fight for your rights because the one I'm thinking of is the person who was paralyzed and for a car accident, they get a settlement, and then they keep, yeah, and then they keep, like, what, 80%, I mean, just a gigantic amount?

[451] They kept a, he kept a portion of it.

[452] It's so confused.

[453] He was made a quadriplegic by that accident, and he was also already deaf.

[454] And his family, obviously, before the settlement came through, he couldn't afford to keep him close to the home because he's just not that kind of care.

[455] So he was about, I think he was like an hour and 45 minutes away.

[456] and sort of just vulnerable to the whole situation.

[457] So his settlement came through the timing of it.

[458] It's so weird.

[459] And there's questions about whether he died before the settlement.

[460] So whether Elek misrepresented that he was alive in order to get that settlement because had he died, it would have lessened the settlement altogether.

[461] So I don't know if he stole most of it.

[462] It was just more that he stole a good bit of it.

[463] But he also pretended that, you know, definitely pretended that Hakeem was alive when Hakeem was not alive, according to documents that we've found.

[464] Which is so terrible.

[465] Yeah.

[466] Just craven greed and, like, just fraud, just complete fraud.

[467] Yeah, no care.

[468] Yeah, and we've, I mean, the amount of, he clearly targeted people for their vulnerability.

[469] Most of their victims are people of color.

[470] Most of them were in horrible situations.

[471] And Alex was also really good at looking people in the eye and saying, I got your back, buddy.

[472] And these people, and it's so horrible when you think about it, like, think of the worst time in your life and a person that you thought was helping you, like 10 years ago.

[473] That's what the pink knees were dealing with.

[474] Ten years ago, all this went down, and like Alex was their lawyer, their guy, and they thought that he was doing the right thing for them and fighting for them.

[475] And he would say, look, we're doing everything.

[476] We can't.

[477] I'm so sorry about all the – he said all the right things to these people.

[478] And then now they're just dealing with pure betrayal.

[479] Yeah, yeah.

[480] Thinking back to the worst time of their life when they were so vulnerable and, like, thankful for this person who was just robbing them.

[481] It's just so cold.

[482] And that's another thing that we've discovered.

[483] A lot of people, when the murders happen, and we're all over the place here, because this whole case is all over the place.

[484] Yeah, yeah.

[485] Unbelievable.

[486] It's just sprawling.

[487] We used to say that there's monsters around.

[488] So in 2019, when we were reporting this, Mandy, I would like, I mean, we were, we tried not to say the word obsessed, but we were obsessed with it in the sense that we knew.

[489] It's like when you get that feeling, you're like, something's not right.

[490] They're trying to pull one over on us.

[491] So we were just constantly talking about it, constantly researching outside of work.

[492] And, you know, we would talk about there being monsters around every corner.

[493] Because with this case, it's not as simple, even when I was driving here to Mandy's house today, I got a text from somebody that was like, hey, did you hear that the guy who bought Moselle from the Murdo.

[494] killed himself.

[495] And I was like, no, no, I don't want to know that.

[496] Is that true?

[497] No, it is not true.

[498] But great, rumor.

[499] Because that's a step too far.

[500] Yeah.

[501] But I would imagine, yeah, the rumors going around.

[502] Absolutely.

[503] Yeah.

[504] So the rumors, you're like, the most preposterous rumor comes, and Mandy and are like, no, because most times it does turn out to be true.

[505] And that is where the monster is, like, around the corner, because it's a whole new thread that we have to look into and deal with.

[506] Well, it's crazy how enmeshed.

[507] You guys are just totally enmeshed in this case now.

[508] It's almost like you're part of it because the podcast got so huge, so quickly.

[509] And people are turning to you to hear about this story and to hear the truth about everything that's going on.

[510] So that's a big responsibility.

[511] And then, yeah, you get these text messages of rumors and you're the ones who have to sort through because you're part of it now.

[512] Yeah.

[513] Mandy.

[514] So I fully believe that Mandy is reporting over the summer of 2021, had she not done that work for the organization she was working for, I don't think we would be where we are in terms of the investigations because she was holding them accountable singularly in some ways and forcing the issue.

[515] So she was forcing them not to be able to look away.

[516] And I think that that's what was so brave, especially given like what we knew behind the scenes, because we can only report what we can verify.

[517] So there's, you know, there's only a little bit comparatively to what we know.

[518] So it, yeah, it was, I mean, without that reporting that she did, I honestly don't think any of this would have gone this way.

[519] Yeah.

[520] Was it Alex Murdoch's lawyer when he started talking about Mandy when he was giving his statements and stuff where you're just like, oh my God, it's like through the looking glass where she's reporting, she's telling the story, trying to be like, you know, all her allegedly's and everything is, everything's in line and you're doing it totally by the book.

[521] And this man is basically like, this one's over here, whatever sexist thing that he said to you, where it's suddenly you're just like, oh, she, this is actually working.

[522] Like, these people don't want her doing this, which means something really huge is here.

[523] Yeah.

[524] Was that the feeling you got?

[525] Yeah.

[526] Well, first of all, that story is so weird because, I mean, last, and circling back to like just how crazy things were, I would not recommend anybody to start a podcast while, well, actually, I mean, it all worked out, but covering breaking news and then having to do a podcast at the end, oh, my gosh, it was so hard.

[527] And there was a point after Alex was shot and things just real, lawsuits were being filed and every, like, every day was just absolutely insane.

[528] And I was not getting any sleep either at that time.

[529] And I really did, I remember the first night that Alex went to jail.

[530] I finally, like, slept okay for the first time in a really long.

[531] Like, but the, that whole period of time was just really horrible for my mental health, my well -being, all of that.

[532] And it was also dealing with, like, just all these awful people telling me that they hated my voice.

[533] I'm not, it was so stupid.

[534] But it was just a really, like, I look back on that time of my life that it should have.

[535] been excited.

[536] I mean, not, it was just very dark.

[537] And my fiance and I drove to the courthouse in Hampton that day to cover that bond tearing.

[538] And that was for Alex's suicide or shooting incident thing.

[539] And there was just a sea of reporters outside.

[540] And it just looked like a circus.

[541] And my stomach just dropped.

[542] And I could not, you notice that feeling.

[543] And they say, like, listen to your body, listened to your instinct.

[544] I was like, I can't go in.

[545] I just need to go home.

[546] And I remember texting Liz that day, and she was like, you're not even sounding like yourself.

[547] Are you okay?

[548] Like, yeah?

[549] I was just not okay at that point.

[550] And then I go and I'm like, okay, whatever, the bond hearing's going to be covered online.

[551] I can cover it.

[552] It doesn't really matter if I'm there at the end of the day.

[553] And then as I'm watching and I'm getting all these text messages like, are you seeing what Dick Rupitlian said about you?

[554] Oh my God.

[555] Oh my God.

[556] Oh my God.

[557] blah, blah, blah, blah.

[558] And that was a bit, first of all, I was like, that was the first moment and I was like, okay, wow, the target is on my back.

[559] Like, they're noticing me. I didn't know before that point.

[560] Ultimately, I think he was saying that he considered me a threat there, even though he was saying also sexist bullshit.

[561] Ultimately, he didn't care about that, as a reporter.

[562] He cared about me being there because I was the only one holding him and his little circle of buddies accountable.

[563] And the, and the second thing was just, just like, I'm so glad I wasn't there because I don't know what I would have done.

[564] The worst part of that was listening to all of those reporters laughing on his jokes about me, but I'm so glad I wasn't there because I don't know what I would have done, you know?

[565] Right.

[566] And it's just one of those things where it's like, if you have that feeling, just follow it.

[567] Absolutely.

[568] And that was a big turning point of like, I need to take care of my mental health and take a little bit of a step back from these things, you know.

[569] but the unprofessionalism from them this whole time.

[570] It was a betrayal.

[571] Let's just call it what it was because it's a betrayal.

[572] Like you are breaking, you were making their jobs easier.

[573] There was an onslaught of national media here.

[574] All of them wanted to pick Mandy Drain.

[575] All of them just wanted a casual little coffee.

[576] Let me pick the brain.

[577] What they wanted was her notes and her sources and her.

[578] So she's like fending those off at the time.

[579] But for local media in particular to have laughed, It sounds so minor, probably to people not in it, but it was so indicative of the problem because it's like, you guys are the ones that were supposed to be covering this.

[580] Where were you?

[581] Like, there are men in the room that these old white men in the room that you're like, you are chumming it up just so that you can get a, you know, a scoop from this guy later.

[582] And it's just, it just showed you like, you guys were the, you know, the guys in charge for a long time.

[583] now you have a girl who's come on the scene, and she's saying the things that you guys whitewash.

[584] And at that point, I mean, we can't forget the, like the week before, it was just pure, utter chaos after the moment he got shot, because the lawyers were pushing out this narrative to all the media that laughed at me with Dick Harputlian that somebody's after Alex Murdoch, and we're going to have a suspect for a soon.

[585] on the guy, they had this whole narrative that there was a guy in a truck that was following him and that he stopped to change his tire and that's how he got shot.

[586] And a PR company, by the way.

[587] Let's not forget that there's - And a PR company was behind, yeah, and like, and I was the only one to be like, this is bullshit.

[588] And everyone in Hampton County, everyone was like, first of all, that guy never changes his own tires.

[589] Yeah, totally.

[590] So let's start there.

[591] Yeah.

[592] The road that they were on, he was saying it was on his way to Charleston, and it wasn't on the way to Charleston.

[593] Like, the story was so bad.

[594] And it was just a pure example of how the media was not just doing their jobs.

[595] And they just wanted to have their little quotes and make their little stories and their big headlines and get lots of clicks because this story was a click mine.

[596] Yeah.

[597] It never mattered either.

[598] So the Murdox, like, are so used to just being able to say what happens.

[599] I can just say that, you know, the sky is green and people are like, I see it too.

[600] Right.

[601] And we don't have to look into it more.

[602] So for him to say all those things and no one to fact check him, they were not used to being fact checked by law enforcement or clearly the media.

[603] I just remember seeing it and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was an article in The Guardian.

[604] Was it the Guardian?

[605] Yep.

[606] Where when it went, so this is, starts as local news and slowly you're watching it spread into a national news story of this happened.

[607] Now these, his wife and son are dead.

[608] Now he, someone quote unquote, tried to kill him or shoot him, which, you know, is what you're guys talking about.

[609] That's bullshit.

[610] And then basically, this is how I found out about it was this article in The Guardian that was basically like, here's what's going on.

[611] And here's the one person actually chasing down what's happening.

[612] I felt like that was such a great, that article really was about how alone you were and how you basically were holding up this journalistic ethic to go, we need to figure out what this is because this has gone, like, enough people have died, enough people have been ripped off.

[613] Like, this has to change.

[614] And suddenly you're getting global, I mean, I wouldn't say you're getting the coverage, but like this story is being told accurately to how you're.

[615] seeing it, as opposed to the good old boy journalists that are laughing along with Dick Harputtlian.

[616] I mean, did that feel good?

[617] Because I was thrilled.

[618] When I read that, I was like, retweet.

[619] Everybody has to read this.

[620] Oh, my God.

[621] What is happening?

[622] Yeah, Drew Lawrence is one of my favorite reporters.

[623] And he's actually a friend of mine now.

[624] And he was the one who wrote that story.

[625] And it was just so validating when it came out because it was just like a, like, thank you.

[626] And from the, he approached his conversations with me totally different than, like, look, I don't want to, I'm not competing with you in any way.

[627] I'm not trying to retell the story that you've obviously covered for years now.

[628] But I want to tell it about how it's been for you and the journey for you and what's going on with journalism.

[629] And I was like, oh, yeah, let's do that.

[630] And I also feel like I got very, I was very misunderstood in those months last fall.

[631] from people thinking that, like, I didn't want other media covering the story.

[632] I don't care about it.

[633] Like, they could cover it.

[634] Please, come investigate the stuff.

[635] It's very hard.

[636] Just do it accurately.

[637] Yeah, yeah.

[638] Like, just tell the actual story.

[639] Tell the actual story.

[640] If you didn't uncover it, give credit to the reporter who did uncover it.

[641] Like, it's not that hard.

[642] And don't treat the victims like dirt.

[643] I was so sick of getting phone calls last summer of, like, from victims being like, this reporter's in my yard right now and they won't leave oh my god and these people were not used to anything like that like the story just exploded in a way that nobody ever predicted and all of these people were left very extremely hurt by it and the media was making it worse for the most part yeah right a perfect example of that and the reason why i really started my podcast i had wanted to start a podcast for years and told liz about it we were we were always like had a pipe dream about a boat crash podcast because we thought like there was plenty with the stephen smith case and it was one of those things like one of these days we'll do it and you just don't get to do it but i remember listening to a national some sort of talking head on the news talking about this case after the murders and they were saying like they obviously had just googled the case and what they could find was that there was a boat crash and a girl died in the last couple years but their conclusion was like that means it's probably one of the victims from the boat crash.

[644] And, like, have they looked at the boyfriend of Mallory Beach?

[645] I bet he wants revenge.

[646] And they were just really re -victimizing all these people who had gone.

[647] And these are kids.

[648] Like, they were 1920 when this happened.

[649] And now they're like 22, 23.

[650] And Liz and I were just like, we didn't know for sure who it was at the time, but we knew it wasn't the kids in the boat crash.

[651] And we also knew the basic fact that, like, people in Hampton County are utterly terrified of the Mardox, and they're not going on their property and shooting Maggie and Paul.

[652] That is the riskiest murder in the state of South Carolina.

[653] So the narrative was just getting so wrong.

[654] And like Liz said, there was a PR company.

[655] We can't forget that.

[656] We don't know what they were doing behind the scenes to push this narrative.

[657] So I was really motivated to just like, here's what's really going on with this family.

[658] That's why it sucked that you were.

[659] in Puerto Rico that.

[660] Because, you know, you get the call and, like, just like with the boat crash, but even to a greater extent now, you just know, like, the fix is going to be in.

[661] We have a small window of time right now for somebody to say what's actually happening because if there's going to be a cover -up, it's going to be starting now.

[662] So I had texted her, called her, and I, you know, obviously it was like late at night and I didn't expect it.

[663] But I couldn't go to the scene because I worked for the sheriff's office and that would have been inappropriate.

[664] But, you know, I contacted her boss at the time and was just like, you know, here's this information.

[665] He published it.

[666] As soon as he published it, I texted it to a former reporter that we worked with because it didn't matter.

[667] I just wanted it out there at that time.

[668] But what bothered me is just like, so when Mandy got back, like finally, because it's like if you don't have a guardian of the truth and keeping people honest, like somebody like Mandy, it's just all going to be the same again.

[669] And, you know, whatever they get into, they'll get away with.

[670] And so if Ehrlich did it, if he hired somebody to do it, if it was something related to the Murdox.

[671] Like, it needed to be done now.

[672] And media needed to understand that story from a corruption standpoint, not a, oh, somebody got murdered, or two people got murdered, and it's tragic.

[673] Not to basically make Elek the victim, which arguably, and from my very ignorant point of view, might have been the reason those murders happened in the first place, since everything else was avalancheing down and everything was kind of getting exposed.

[674] that would be a way to report it that would absolutely benefit him.

[675] So, I mean, I have no idea what really happened or why, but that idea where it's like, yeah, you have to get somebody in there going, no, no, no, we have to keep everything in context.

[676] And the context is not good for this family.

[677] Yeah, and the context isn't good for a lot of law enforcement.

[678] I mean, still at this point, we don't know why it took so long to arrest Alex.

[679] And that's another thing we just go back to.

[680] I'm like, what would they have done if we weren't there?

[681] Yeah, yeah.

[682] But the point of it was the point of that story and that podcast when we put it out was that, look, we're not really sure if law enforcement is going to do anything with this case.

[683] We think that they are, and we do have good sources that are saying we're doing everything that we can, trust me, blah, blah, blah.

[684] but there was evidence that we knew they could have arrested him with a long time ago and we're just not sure there's just so many accusations of corruption that we had to put everything out there to keep the pressure on.

[685] Yeah.

[686] And it worked.

[687] Yeah.

[688] I mean, like, it really worked.

[689] You guys did an unbelievable job and you did it in the way.

[690] It's like, not that I know the difference, but like old school journalism where you're just like, we're going to do the thing.

[691] We're just exposing this to the light, to the truth, to the public.

[692] So it's like, you're just reporting what happened.

[693] You're not saying anything.

[694] It's not, you're not doing clickbait stuff.

[695] You're basically like, this has to go on record.

[696] And it has to go on record the official way to say, here's the real story.

[697] Don't let anyone tell you differently.

[698] Like, we're on the ground.

[699] All the fact checking and the stuff as opposed to, here's an unbelievable story about this weird double murder.

[700] What could have happened?

[701] Who really?

[702] knows, where you're just like, no, really, this is important to say what did happen.

[703] We need to find out.

[704] Someone needs to look into this.

[705] That's what was so thrilling to me as a listener.

[706] This is like two women holding up the lantern alone.

[707] And in the face of old boys club, like centuries of corruption, the deepest corruption, where the kind that people say there's nothing you can do, give up.

[708] And you guys didn't.

[709] You fought it.

[710] It's pretty amazing.

[711] Yeah, and that was something we were talking about earlier.

[712] Liz has always said from the beginning, like, a big thing that really took down this dynasty is just technology and social media.

[713] And that's something the good old boys are very bad at and don't understand and they can't control it.

[714] Yes.

[715] In a way.

[716] And so we were like, we don't even know what Grandpa Buster and all of them, what they did because the Internet didn't exist.

[717] Who knows?

[718] And it was way easier to get away with stuff back then than it is now, even though for powerful people, it's still way too easy, in my opinion.

[719] Yeah.

[720] Well, I think a really important question would be who's going to play you guys in the Made for TV movie about this podcast.

[721] Dream, dream role.

[722] like dream person, who would it be?

[723] I'm not kidding.

[724] Karen, actually.

[725] Hey.

[726] Yeah.

[727] I love it.

[728] We're Saul sisters.

[729] So I'm Irish -American too.

[730] We got the same sense of humor.

[731] I think, yeah.

[732] I'm all about it.

[733] Liz, I think I could really do justice.

[734] I think.

[735] Thank you.

[736] Because, like, when I listen and you do your jokes, like, you do your reporting, but you're also like, and can I just say this?

[737] Like, I, you coming into the podcast, too, Because I, there were, there were points where I was worried about Mandy, whereas it's like, this is a person alone doing this thing, doing this reporting or whatever.

[738] And you coming in was really a lovely, beautiful, like the partnership, working and supporting each other.

[739] You could just kind of feel how nice that was for you, Mandy, that you had another person to look across and go, holy fuck to, which makes all the difference, right?

[740] Yeah, as you guys know, I mean, having a partner, you absolutely trust.

[741] and who understands and who you don't have to explain all of the background and all the other shit that's involved because they've been in this.

[742] It's monumental and so changing and just like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders when Liz was able to come on and then she brought humor and light and I mean, I'm not going to lie.

[743] There's a lot of weeks where I'm like, I don't know what we're going to talk about next week because I don't know what's going to happen.

[744] And Liz is always like, we got this.

[745] Or, and we do have a good thing with our partnership of, like, one of us is down.

[746] The other one goes up.

[747] We're kind of like a seesaw.

[748] Yeah, and it works really well.

[749] Otherwise, I would have just stayed down.

[750] I mean, I definitely would have quit at this point.

[751] Wow.

[752] Because it's just, it's too hard.

[753] And I think people need to realize that.

[754] Like, nobody needs to do this stuff.

[755] No. It's way too hard.

[756] And we all just need to support each other and keep going, you know, and do everything that we can to keep going and take care of.

[757] of ourselves.

[758] Especially if you're fighting the old boys club, those old crusty reporters laughing at you or wherever, where it's like, that's fine.

[759] Now that you know that there's like millions of true crime fans who are like so behind you and so thrilled about the work that both of you are doing and like how you powered through.

[760] Like this is how you power through awful stages of life.

[761] You just keep going and you figure out who your team is and how you get the support you need and how you can take care of yourself and, like, step out so someone else can step in.

[762] But I don't know if you realize how inspirational that looks from the outside.

[763] As hard as it is for you, you're modeling such beautiful behavior, not just as journalists, but, like, as a team of women.

[764] I'm trying not to cry.

[765] Yeah, me too.

[766] I want you to cry.

[767] Cry, cry, cry.

[768] We love it.

[769] It's true, though.

[770] You get us.

[771] Sweet, but thank you.

[772] That's so sweet.

[773] why it's so annoying that people are like, change your voice.

[774] It's like, that's not what it's about.

[775] Change your voice is a trick.

[776] Change your voice is a distraction so that you stop doing what you are doing.

[777] It's bullshit.

[778] Like, we got to be more Gen Z about that shit.

[779] Those kids would just be like, what?

[780] Fuck off.

[781] Like, who cares?

[782] The change your voice people don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

[783] Yeah.

[784] It's so weird that you say that because I'm Gen X and Mandy's obviously a millennial.

[785] That's what that's like us.

[786] Oh my God.

[787] That's a It definitely is.

[788] And we, like, when Mandy was going through that and she was like, should I address this?

[789] Like, it's so dumb, right?

[790] You're like vocal for it.

[791] Why are we talking about this?

[792] But it was like, my instinct as somebody older was like, no, just ignore it.

[793] Ignore the haters.

[794] But Mandy was like, look, if I'm going to be holding people accountable for their behavior here in this story, like in the context of the story, I need to hold other people accountable to you because their behavior matters as well.

[795] How you treat people matters.

[796] And so she, by doing that.

[797] At first, I was like, oh, maybe you shouldn't mention it.

[798] But then I understood it.

[799] And, like, it was so brave of her to do that.

[800] And it has changed my complete philosophy on how to address people who hate you.

[801] I used to have a thing I would do it.

[802] Like, if I got a hate mail at work, I would send an email back and be like, can't win them all, Jim.

[803] And I always felt like superior for that because I was like, have a nice life, you know.

[804] But by Mandy saying honestly and like, authentically, you are hurting somebody when you say this.

[805] And it's not just like, you are needlessly putting something out there that doesn't need to be put out there.

[806] And I'm going to call you out on it.

[807] And that has been one of the biggest lessons that I think I've learned in all of this, especially as we've dealt with so many very unsavory characters and all of this.

[808] It's that lesson right there that I think it's so important.

[809] Yeah.

[810] A lot of people say all the, like, just ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.

[811] And it's like ignoring it, a lot of times, yes.

[812] Ignoring it is the answer.

[813] because nobody wants to waste it.

[814] Is that your guys' philosophy?

[815] Not mine.

[816] I'm sure you can hate online.

[817] I'm learning.

[818] I'm learning.

[819] But it is hard, and it does sometimes feel like, I want to have a conversation.

[820] I want to respond.

[821] I want to stand up for myself.

[822] Yeah.

[823] Then there also is the part of it.

[824] It's like, well, what if they're right?

[825] And what if, you know, and that's where you can't respond.

[826] Yeah.

[827] And I'm sure no matter how successful you get, you're always going to get that little voice in your head saying, well, what if my voice is annoying?

[828] Yeah.

[829] Am I?

[830] What if my show does suck?

[831] It's almost like take it in, do what you want, but it's like you can't really ignore it classically because ignoring it makes it seem like you can have it not be in your head at all.

[832] Once you read one horrible thing, it stays there.

[833] And that's my thing is I get that it's impossible to ignore.

[834] Just don't let it get you off course.

[835] Don't actually let it make you change anything or redirect your plan, which you guys didn't.

[836] Like, you got to express the strength of vulnerability by going, yeah, that really sucks.

[837] You can stop now.

[838] But it didn't make you stop reporting.

[839] It didn't make you stop going out and being the person that you are.

[840] That's the important part is like, you stayed on track.

[841] And it wasn't like, oh, now we're going to, now I'm going to go to a vocal coach and I won't be recording this podcast until I get my voice right.

[842] Like, absolutely not.

[843] Because that's how you basically make women shut up is pointing out that they're not doing it, right?

[844] where it's like we don't need women to shut up these days.

[845] We need women to stand up.

[846] And you did.

[847] Well, and like women, like women in television, it's like when podcasting, it's do we have the appropriate, whatever.

[848] I don't even know what the opposite of a vocal fry is.

[849] But feminine, I don't know.

[850] I mean, do we sound like a guy, do you sound like a male reporter, I think is essentially what it is?

[851] Or do we sound like a bro?

[852] Do we sound like what we're, quote, supposed to sound like, which is so stupid because podcasting.

[853] is so new that there is no what it's supposed to sound like.

[854] But boys can, men can sound like whatever.

[855] Like, it's just their voice and their content.

[856] And, but like, for, I have a lot of friends who've been TV reporters over the years.

[857] And TV reporters go through so much shit about what they look like.

[858] And those girls do not get paid nearly enough.

[859] Right.

[860] And their bosses also, like, criticize them for how they look in a way that they do, not criticize males.

[861] So on TV, they have to worry about so many extra things besides the content.

[862] And it's just so much.

[863] And again, people give me a lot of shit online for saying, when I say, like, this is a sexist thing.

[864] Let's just call it what it is.

[865] Like, I don't have statistics on this, but I know male reporters do not go through what we need.

[866] Absolutely not.

[867] You don't need statistics.

[868] You just like living in the world.

[869] We all know.

[870] Yeah, it's walking outside.

[871] Yeah.

[872] Entirely.

[873] Well, what's next for you guys?

[874] Anything non -Murdock -related that you're excited about these days?

[875] We are trying.

[876] I, there's like silence.

[877] You're like, absolutely not.

[878] Mandy, you're getting married.

[879] Oh.

[880] I'm getting married next month.

[881] That's exciting.

[882] So this whole time you've been planning a wedding.

[883] That's insane.

[884] Yeah.

[885] I got engaged a week before the double homicide.

[886] She was celebrating her engagement when it happened.

[887] I was, yeah, I was in Puerto Rico and so.

[888] celebrating my birthday and then my engagement and new beginnings.

[889] And yeah, but we've figured out how to plan a wedding during all of this chaos.

[890] Wow, good for you.

[891] And that's been fun.

[892] But yeah, I mean, we are now trying to focus on, I think what we've realized is that our approach to journalism does work.

[893] We're Liz and I both spent a very long time in the newspaper industry, just getting trampled by old white men who are making very bad decisions and for a lot of money for a lot more money than we were making of course and yeah we want to empower other journalists to be doing the same things that we are doing like I am not convinced I know that there's not going to be a lot of Murdoch stories to repeat you know I hope not I don't want to find another monster like this ever again yeah um however the podcasting investigative journalism model really does work.

[894] It finances journalism.

[895] Podcasting advertising works.

[896] A lot of people don't realize that in a way that, I mean, I was always told since coming out of journalism school, there's no future in journalism.

[897] You're never going to make money in it.

[898] It's just going to suck forever.

[899] That's got to sound great and exciting to hear.

[900] Enjoy your student loans.

[901] Yeah.

[902] And my parents were all the time like, are you sure?

[903] Why are you doing this?

[904] And every, even like my counselors in journalism school were like, are you sure?

[905] Like, it was, it's just been a very, very uncertain terrible industry to be in.

[906] And, I mean, if we want to talk about.

[907] Wait, because that's what we were taught, that it's an uncertain industry to be in.

[908] But what's uncertain, and this is what Mandy and I figured out when we were working at McClatchie, is the profit model for the people at the top.

[909] So you get sold, the people that are doing the work of the content creators or whatever we want to call them, We're the ones that are being told, like, I don't know about this.

[910] You might be laid off next week.

[911] And it's like, why?

[912] Because you get a $35 ,000 a month stipend just for your house rental.

[913] On top of your $2 million salary, remember that one.

[914] Yeah.

[915] Right.

[916] That was a real thing.

[917] Yeah.

[918] We were having layoffs in our newsroom while we found out that our CEO was making over $2 million a year plus a $35 ,000 housing stipend a month.

[919] And our reporters were making.

[920] making $35 ,000 a year, who we're getting laid off.

[921] But I think people conflate the idea that journalism, there's no future in journalism with, there's no future for that profit model because it's too many people doing too little for too much money.

[922] But journalism itself is a means of communication.

[923] It's storytelling.

[924] It's watchdog.

[925] It's accountability.

[926] That has always been necessary.

[927] And it's always going to be necessary.

[928] And it takes us, I think that's why, you know, what we're thinking is that we want to motivate other journalists to do the same thing, while also solving that problem in different communities.

[929] Because, you know, there's so many cases that just go unsolved because lack of motivation, you know, incompetence is obviously always a thing.

[930] But corruption is always a part of it, almost always.

[931] I shouldn't say always.

[932] But there is some sort of like, whether it's noble cause corruption or just straight up corruption.

[933] So that's what journalism is for to stop that.

[934] And you're right.

[935] It's like the evolution of it instead of saying, well, this is a dead thing or whatever.

[936] It's like basically this model of journalists having podcasts and journalists doing like the long form reporting of like, no, there will be an audience for this because there is a huge audience for true crime for people.

[937] This is the reason people follow it.

[938] It isn't just gore.

[939] It's about getting to the truth exposing people like exposing these monsters in plain sight.

[940] All of that, you know, that's what I think, that's what is behind the true crime trend.

[941] It's just like we want to witness what these, you know, reporters, journalists, whoever it is, are talking about and saying no more of this.

[942] Yeah, no one wants this.

[943] This is crazy.

[944] You shouldn't be a lawyer that gets to rip people off and or kill them if it suits you.

[945] That's crazy.

[946] Like, nothing should be this corrupt.

[947] It seems to be the way it's going.

[948] I think what we figured out is if you remove the, I don't want to say like white men.

[949] I hate to say that, but like if you move like the old school white men from the equation and journalists are left to do their jobs, my God, like how far they can go without having to feed that beast, you know?

[950] Yeah.

[951] Well, you guys are showing it.

[952] And are motivated.

[953] I mean, I feel like a lot in journalism, they make you feel like you took a vow of poverty.

[954] And if you make like an extra But, like, money motivates everybody to do better, especially if you're, if you're making, like, $35 ,000 a year, like I used to be making, you're worried about all these other things in your life because you're barely making ends meet.

[955] And you don't have time or energy to go investigate and take down a dynasty because you're just trying to get through your job.

[956] And you go to get drinks with friends and, like, the waitress is making way more money than you.

[957] Like, why am I doing this?

[958] This doesn't make any sense.

[959] So, like, journalists need to be paid a lot more.

[960] And that's something that we're going to base our model off of, of, like, yeah, they need more money.

[961] And because this is as stressful as work as lawyers do.

[962] Yeah.

[963] And it's scary, you know, like, so they need to be paying more.

[964] And that's just something that nobody ever talks about.

[965] But I will say that I think that society needs to be better at cheering on people who are making money for doing the right thing.

[966] Yeah.

[967] Yes.

[968] Instead of just shaming people for, oh, my God, you've made money off of some sort of true crime.

[969] Like, no, if somebody's doing the right thing and if they're empowering victims and if they're helping people and if they're taking down systems and they should make money and that's fine.

[970] And we should encourage other people to do the same thing.

[971] Yeah.

[972] Yeah.

[973] Somehow it's only honest.

[974] if you're suffering through it.

[975] And that's the trick.

[976] Well, what's funny, too, is like, meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper, one of the best newspapers in the world is, like, check out what this badass woman is doing.

[977] And it's just like, I think you guys got the ultimate validation of, like, check this shit out.

[978] Look at what is happening.

[979] Look at this corruption.

[980] And look at the one person fighting it at first, at the beginning, before Liz made her entrance, fighting it alone.

[981] To me, that was so impressive.

[982] Because I was just like, wow, this newspaper is basically pointing out a reporter that's just kind of like taken up this battle by herself.

[983] People love you.

[984] People love you.

[985] You need to know it.

[986] Aw, you guys are awesome.

[987] And I wanted to say thank you so much for, first of all, retweeting that.

[988] That was like, I don't have a lot of hands.

[989] It's true.

[990] A lot.

[991] My sister sent it to you.

[992] So my sister doesn't listen to my podcast as far as I know.

[993] My family never does that.

[994] So they are my, both my sisters.

[995] Mine doesn't listen to mine either.

[996] My sister's obsessed with you.

[997] She was like, oh, can you get them to say, like, hi to Ashling.

[998] I was like, no, not on the checklist.

[999] Hi, Ash, yeah, she doesn't listen to our podcast, but she sent that.

[1000] And she's like, oh, my God.

[1001] So it was a huge moment.

[1002] It was, it was awesome.

[1003] It felt so good.

[1004] It is so, you guys have said such, like, nice, like, these are really meaningful things because like we are going to replay these in our heads because it's like stuff that we need to hear because it's so like we're in our own little smaller world because of this and so it's hard for us to know kind of like how it looks from the outside other than the people that you know sort of tap you on the shoulder and they're like you sound terrible but so it's it's really you know thank you our pleasure one great thing that I've learned in all of this is just how it's going to sound tacky but like empowering the sisterhood is and like I have just just been the amount of super successful women, like you who have retweeted us and helped us so much.

[1005] And so many people who have reached out and said, ignore the haters, if you need any advice, blah, blah, blah.

[1006] I mean, that has been life -changing.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] And like this whole podcast and the story of the success is really a story of women helping each other.

[1009] I mean, the very beginning, our only advertiser was a, there are friends now, but the ban Law Group, who was a female attorney, she is the biggest fan of you guys.

[1010] Yes, she is.

[1011] Oh, wow.

[1012] Meredith, she went to your show in Charleston.

[1013] Like, she is like the biggest fan in the universe of you guys.

[1014] But, like, I just think back to her empowering me at the very beginning and say, no, you need to keep going and we'll keep funding it.

[1015] I don't care.

[1016] Like, you need to keep doing this and exposing these people because, I mean, so many women that have just kept this thing going.

[1017] And I'm just so thankful for it.

[1018] And it's just been a huge light in all this darkness, you know?

[1019] Yes.

[1020] Our fan base has given us everything.

[1021] We talk about them all the time.

[1022] It's so many amazing women who are all, you know, when George and I used to go on the road, like we'd meet people in real life and just be like, every person that we're meeting is cool and like us.

[1023] It's the weirdest thing.

[1024] Like, there is such a faction of women who have.

[1025] come together under this kind of like, quote unquote, you know, pastime or interest, but actually what they're discovering is we all need each other and we all are here for each other.

[1026] And there's just so much, you know, it does feel corny to say empowerment, but it's the best word for it.

[1027] Because that's really what it is, where it's just like, we need to know that that connection between each other is actually changing the world.

[1028] It really is.

[1029] No, it's true.

[1030] It's corny.

[1031] I'm sorry.

[1032] But it's fucking.

[1033] true.

[1034] They're doing it.

[1035] They're all doing it with each other and for each other.

[1036] And it's just really cool.

[1037] And I'm glad you guys get that piece of it because that's kind of the point.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] That's what's kind of actually the biggest joke in all of this is because when we think about like people, when they want to like be derogatory, they'll call us bloggers.

[1040] And it's like funny to think, like you can call, you can think the least about us.

[1041] It's kind of funny that we're the ones taken down the poetry.

[1042] Well, yeah.

[1043] To be like yours.

[1044] Like, no. That's right.

[1045] Well, we're honored to have you guys here, such incredible journalists, professionals, like, wow.

[1046] On our show, thank you guys so, so much.

[1047] We're honored to be here.

[1048] Oh, my gosh.

[1049] This has been so fun.

[1050] Well, you guys can find the Murdoch Murders podcast wherever you get your podcast.

[1051] New episodes are released every Wednesday.

[1052] Make sure you rate, review, positively review, and subscribe.

[1053] Mandy and Liz, we really, really do appreciate you guys being here with us.

[1054] you so much.

[1055] You guys have to come to Hilton Head.

[1056] We will take you shark fishing and it'll be a great day.

[1057] You're on.

[1058] I want to see it.

[1059] Low country.

[1060] I've got to check it out.

[1061] Yeah, you really do.

[1062] It'd be amazing.

[1063] We would like to repay you.

[1064] Yeah, I can think two wedding invitations or on the way.

[1065] On the way.

[1066] I'll tell David.

[1067] Congrats.

[1068] Thanks again.

[1069] Bye.

[1070] Bye.

[1071] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[1072] This has been an exactly right production.

[1073] Our senior producers are Hannah Kyle Crichton and Natalie Rinn.

[1074] Our producer is Alejandra Keck.

[1075] This episode was engineered and mixed by John Bradley.

[1076] Our researcher is Marin McClashen.

[1077] Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to My Favorite Murder at gmail .com.

[1078] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at MyFave Murder.

[1079] Goodbye.

[1080] Follow My Favorite Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever.

[1081] you like to listen so you don't miss an episode.

[1082] If you like what you hear, rate and review the show.

[1083] Visit exactly right store .com to purchase my favorite murder merch.