Former South Carolina Lawyer Alex Murdaugh's Net Worth Is Complicated

Former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was in court this week facing charges for allegedly murdering his wife and son in 2021. Murdaugh comes from a long family line of prominent Southern lawyers who have built their net worth in the courtroom.

Here's what we know about his net worth and why it's complicated.

However, Alex Murdaugh’s exact net worth isn't clear. Although some sources say Murdaugh’s worth is an estimated $1 million, he reportedly has millions in assets. In January, while Murdaugh sat in a detention center on a $7 million bond, attorneys argued over how much he was really worth.

Besides the murder charges in the deaths of his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, Murdaugh is also facing 51 criminal charges and at least seven civil lawsuits stemming from accusations he stole from clients, his law partners, and other attorneys, the Greenville News reports.

A court ordered Murdaugh’s assets to be controlled by two attorneys acting as co-receivers, the Greenville News reported on Jan. 24. According to the Greenville News, some of Murdaugh’s assets include:

• A retirement account worth about $2.1 million

• An IRA fund worth between $350,000 and $400,000

• Three bank accounts containing a total of $10,000 in cash

• Several real estate properties including a hunting club, some small Beauford County islands, an Edisto Island beach house, and 30 acres on St. Helena Island.

Murdaugh is also in line to receive probate assets following the June 2021 death of his wife and son and an estate trust from his father, Randolph Murdaugh III, who died three days after Maggie and Paul were murdered, reports the Greenville News.

Murdaugh’s balance sheet may appear he has a lot of money, but his defense attorney Richard Harpootlian says he doesn’t even have enough to pay his cell phone bill or buy underwear while in jail, the Greenville News reports.

Murdaugh was indicted on July 14 for the 2021 murder of his wife and younger son. Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found shot to death on June 7, 2021, at the family’s 1,770-acre property.

The Murdaugh story has taken many twists and turns since then. About three months after his wife and son were murdered, Murdaugh was shot in the head while he was changing a tire. Later, authorities discovered that Murdaugh had allegedly hired a man to shoot and kill him so his oldest son could receive $10 million from his life insurance policy, People reports.

After surviving the shooting with only “superficial” wounds, Murdaugh announced that he was leaving his family’s law firm and entering rehab. But reports eventually surfaced that Murdaugh resigned after he was confronted about $1 million missing from the law firm coffers. "I was shocked, just as the rest of my (Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick) family, to learn of my brother, Alex’s, drug addiction and stealing of money,” Murdaugh’s brother and law partner Randy Murdaugh said in a statement.

While the controversy surrounded Murdaugh, some started questioning the 2018 death of Murdaugh’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. In October 2021, Murdaugh was arrested and charged with misappropriating insurance settlement funds in a wrongful death suit following Satterfield’s death, People reports.

The charges against Murdaugh continued to pile up. He has also been charged with breach of trust, computer crimes, money laundering, and illegal distribution of narcotics. In July 2022, the South Carolina Supreme Court disbarred Murdaugh from practicing law in the state.