The Devil at His Elbow Quotes

“If he didn’t do it,” McDowell said, “how did he know what time to lie about not being there?”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“He cried so hard, so often, that one juror offered a box of tissues. When Alex dabbed his eyes, the jurors seated closest to him, only a few feet away, looked at the crumpled tissues in his hand. The tissues were dry.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“They say you’ve got two kinds of family, the family you were born with and the family you chose,” said one of the lawyers following the case. “Alex stole from both.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Maggie felt it—the boredom beneath the surface, the sadness seeping into every minute of every day.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Staring down at the prisoner in his shackles, Newman said he vividly remembered Alex standing poolside at the trial lawyer’s convention, just after Maggie and Paul were killed, seemingly having the time of his life, a friend to all. He said he could not reconcile the man he thought he knew with the man standing before him. Alex, he said, had become a void, unknowable even to himself. “You are empty.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Alex’s team was requesting a new trial on the grounds of alleged jury tampering by Becky Hill, Colleton County’s clerk of court. The defense alleged that Hill had coached jurors, many of whom she knew, to disregard Alex’s testimony. The primary witness against her was the Monkey Farm lady, who claimed that Hill had engineered her last-minute removal from the jury. Hill had denied the allegations, but her credibility was in question. She was the subject of a state ethics investigation related to a memoir she’d written about the trial. Her son, the county’s technology director, had been arrested two days before Thanksgiving on charges he’d tapped an administrator’s phone to suss out the case against his mother.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Investigators had bungled the physical evidence in astonishing ways, Griffin said. They’d ignored tire tracks in the wet grass. They’d failed to take impressions of a footprint in the feed room or test Maggie’s and Paul’s clothing for DNA. They didn’t protect the information on Maggie’s phone, so her location data the night of the murders got rewritten. And somehow, Griffin said, Agent Owen had missed an email from SLED’s own lab that Alex’s shirt showed no human blood.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Waters told the jury he was aware that the story he was telling was hard for most people to wrap their heads around, but that was because most people don’t think like Alex Murdaugh. The prosecutor asked the jury to remember his ticking through dozens of victims’ names, with Alex unable to recall a single time he sat down with any of them individually and lied to their face. “He couldn’t name one conversation, and didn’t want to talk about any of those individuals who trusted him as he looked you in the eye and asked you to do the same.” Waters walked the jury through the elements of the state’s case: motive, means, opportunity, and evidence of consciousness of guilt.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Alex Murdaugh, the prosecutor said, was a person of singular prominence who had never been questioned about anything his entire life. When he stumbled into a series of bad land deals and was pinched for cash to fund his extravagant lifestyle, Waters argued, it had been easy enough to start stealing. Alex was addicted, yes, but his addiction was to money, and he stole millions of dollars over the course of a decade to maintain the illusion of his own image.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“By the time the jury returned from Moselle, the sun had come back out. Bright light was streaming through the courtroom’s windows, but as the jurors filed back toward their seats, their expressions were subdued. Judge Newman called on Creighton Waters, and the prosecutor walked over to the jury rail. “It’s been a long trial, hasn’t it,” he said. They’d been in the courtroom together for six weeks, through seventy-five witnesses and more than eight hundred exhibits, from mundane bank records to gruesome autopsy photos. “Yes, it has,” one juror said.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“The visit to Moselle brought out visceral responses that were not available in the cold courtroom, the same way a song can spark a sense of longing and a smell can summon the past. No amount of words, no stack of crime scene pictures, could convey the feeling of the place. Asked later, almost to a person, everyone repeated the same word. It was the same one David Owen had used a year earlier. They felt a sense of heaviness, though they varied whether they said it was in the air or in the ground itself.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“It was disorienting, listening to that disembodied voice as Alex rocked in his chair. It was like two versions of the same man, both coming apart. On the tape, he was the hysterical father and husband, begging for help for his wife and son, surrounded by blood. In the chair, he was the weeping defendant, refuting the prosecution’s insistence that he was the one who had spilled all that blood in the first place.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Even on an off day, Harpootlian was better than most lawyers on their best. He had prosecuted or defended more than fifty murder cases, honing a reputation as lovably gruff and mercurially brilliant. He was an attack dog in Democratic presidential primaries and in the state senate and loved nothing more than the gamesmanship afforded the man in the center of the ring, part of the reason why he’d stuck with the Murdaugh case even when his client ran short of money to pay him. He’d made no secret that in whatever movie was made from this case, he wanted to be played by Billy Bob Thornton.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“As the news spread of Alex’s financial crimes and his lies about the roadside shooting, the Fourteenth Circuit solicitor’s office announced it was barring him from prosecuting cases. Two days later, the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended him from practicing law altogether. Gloria Satterfield’s sons filed a lawsuit against Alex, Russell Laffitte, and Cory Fleming, pointing out that not a penny of the millions of dollars in insurance payments for their mother’s death had ever been paid to them. Connor Cook sued both Alex and Buster, alleging that Alex and others had orchestrated a campaign to blame Connor for the crash.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“That’s when it dawned on the detective why it was taking so long to make a case. All along, as he’d investigated Paul’s and Maggie’s murders, he had been struggling to get the truth from Alex. Now it was clear that others had been withholding key details. The law firm had been searching for the $792,000 since early June. Only hours before Paul and Maggie were gunned down, the firm’s CFO had confronted Alex over the missing check. Weeks later, as more evidence of Alex’s financial crimes was discovered, no one from the firm had shared that with SLED, either. They hadn’t told the authorities about Alex’s opioid habit. Any of these revelations would have helped Owen immensely. Even now, Alex’s brother and the other partner were quibbling over the definition of “missing.” At last Owen realized Alex was not the only one obscuring the truth.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“The week Maggie and Paul had been killed, the investigator had asked the firm repeatedly whether there was anything in Alex’s life, professionally or personally, that might make somebody want to harm his family. SLED had later interviewed Randy and John Marvin and asked if their brother was harboring any secrets, if he had any issues at work, any problems with drinking or drugs, any trouble at home. All of them—the law partners, Randy, and John Marvin—had assured the investigators that other than the tensions from the boat crash case, they knew of nothing out of the ordinary in Alex’s life.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“A few weeks later, as the investigators dug deeper into the murder case, DNR released hundreds of pages of documents and several videos from the boat crash investigations. Internet sleuths scoured all of it, posting their theories about what had really happened on the night of the crash. They marked up photos of the boat, circling bloodstains they took as indications that Connor was on the passenger’s side at the time of the crash. They used Morgan Doughty’s and Connor Cook’s depositions to make a timeline of Paul’s previous drunken wrecks. They built string maps resembling the ones on the walls in TV cop shows, showing the relationships between the investigators and the Murdaughs. The revelations—about the family and the ways they hid their secrets—were piling up.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“With the criminal charges against Paul dropped in the boat case, Mark Tinsley tried to keep the pressure on SLED not to forget its investigation into Alex’s attempted cover-up in the emergency room. Connor Cook’s lawyer, Joe McCulloch—an old hand who knew a good stunt when he saw one—filed a hundred-page motion asking the judge in the boat crash case to let him take additional depositions from the DNR agents on the scene at Archers Creek. McCulloch understood that the judge would almost certainly not grant his motion. But he also knew that reporters were closely following every new document filed in the case. Even if his motion died in court, its contents would draw more attention to all the ways Alex had tried to hide his son’s responsibility for the crash.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Chief Alexander had no jurisdiction on this property, so it wasn’t clear why he was there. As a police officer, Alexander would have understood that a crowd would make it more difficult to protect evidence. Another complication was that so many of the officers were friends or acquaintances of the Murdaughs. These relationships were already affecting the processing of the scene. It wasn’t just Greg Alexander. It was the fire battalion chief who had covered the bodies, and the coroner who had been reluctant to use the rectal thermometer, and the sheriff who was briefing his friend, one of Alex’s law partners.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Paul was treated like a wild animal,” he said. “If you let them be feral, they will be.” To Tinsley, it was clear that Paul’s recklessness had led directly to the death of Mallory Beach. But his parents’ indulgence had made the two of them even more culpable. He had collected photos and videos from social media that showed Paul swigging alcohol his parents had provided for him. In one video, Alex and Maggie watched as Paul stumbled through a game of beer pong. Another showed Alex sitting shirtless on the side of a boat while Morgan Doughty poured liquor down Paul’s throat. After the boat crash, Maggie had taken down many of the most shocking posts. But by then it was too late. Tinsley had already harvested the most damning photos and videos as evidence. If the case went to trial, he wanted the jury to see the ways Alex and Maggie had nurtured their son’s worst instincts, leading him to drunkenly crash one truck after another before finally driving the family’s boat into the bridge at Archers Creek.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“From her years as a court reporter, Beverly remembered Mark Tinsley as a bulldog who did not let go. Already, Tinsley had been busy pursuing the truth in the boat crash. He had sued Alex on behalf of Mallory’s parents. He had successfully pressured the Department of Natural Resources to remove the investigators who were close to the Murdaughs. Now he was uncovering other discrepancies in the case, demanding action. If anyone could bring Alex down, it was this guy.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“That morning, the Beaches had gone to church and prayed for closure. When Renee arrived at the bridge, she saw a man wearing a jacket labeled Coroner and began to cry. Her daughter had been returned from the wilderness. The case could move forward. Renee was glad her lawyer was ready to fight. But she knew it was foolish to hope for justice. The Beaches were nobody. The Murdaughs were the law.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Later that same day, Beverly’s son was standing with friends when he became vaguely aware of being watched. Anthony turned around to find Paul standing a few steps away, his red curls underneath a cap. “You know I love you, don’t you?” Paul said. “I love you, too,” Anthony said. “But you need to go.” Since the crash, Paul had exhibited signs of trying to make amends. He seemed to be drowning in guilt. He kept showing up at the causeway, staring awkwardly at his friends as though he wanted to say something but did not have the words. Phillip Beach had prayed with him, asking God to forgive Paul. Both of them had cried. Paul had texted Morgan and told her he was sorry for what he’d done. Morgan said she would pray for him and then had cut off communication. The others from the boat were now ignoring his texts, too. He was alone with his conscience.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Out on the causeway, Mallory Beach’s father led the families and friends in prayer. Phillip asked them all to join hands, and then he told God it had been too long since Mallory disappeared beneath the surface of the creek for them to cling to any hope of her survival. Deep down, he said, he knew the rescue crews fanned out across the water were searching not for his daughter but for her body. Mallory’s spirit, he said, had risen from the marshes to join Jesus in heaven. Phillip prayed for the strength to accept that his baby was gone, and asked God to invest her death with meaning. “Let some greater good come out of this,” he said. “Something big.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Phillip called Keith Altman, Miley’s dad. Mallory and Miley had been best friends almost since they learned to walk. Phillip asked Keith what was happening. “They’re looking for her,” Keith said. “No, God,” Phillip said. “Not my child.” The Beaches could not help noticing that none of the Murdaughs—not Paul, not his father—had shown them the common courtesy of a phone call. More striking, they had not been contacted by any of the half dozen law enforcement agencies working the crash. Beverly Cook, Anthony’s mom, had offered to give the Beaches’ numbers to an officer at the scene, but he had said thank you, no.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Back at bed 10, Randolph kept watch at his grandson’s bedside. An ER technician came in to request a urine sample for a drug screen. She was young and pretty, and as she handed him the bottle, Paul leered. “Would you hold it for me?” he asked. The tech ignored him. When she came back, collected the container, and turned to walk away, he pointed at her behind. “Oh wow, that’s nice.” Randolph III had heard enough. “Shut the fuck up!” he told his grandson. The old man wandered out into the hallway, muttering “He’s drunker than Cooter Brown.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“He backed out of the room and down the hallway, keeping an eye on her door. He tried calling Morgan’s mother but she didn’t pick up. He’d keep trying. She’d answer eventually. Morgan asked the nurse to keep Mr. Alex out of her room. “I just know too much to know better,” she said. “He’s sketchy. He’s good at covering stuff up.” Officer Pritcher tapped on the doorframe. Morgan told him to come in and shut the door. “I don’t want anybody to hear what I am going to say.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“When Paul grew especially drunk, he seemed to become someone else. His face grew red, his blue eyes grew as wide as half dollars, and he began to sway and curse. His friends dreaded the emergence of the alter ego they had come to call Timmy. Timmy was a horror show, obnoxious, aggressive, defiantly irresponsible, sure to hijack any evening. In Timmy, the most unpleasant strains of the Murdaugh men rose to the surface: the assumption of entitlement, the brutality barely veneered by charm, the conviction that the family reigned over everything around them. The clearest sign of Timmy’s arrival was that Paul would strip off his clothes for no reason, even if others were watching, then splay his fingers wide and spread his arms as though he were flying. He no longer spoke, only screamed.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“The Murdaughs perpetuated the illusion that they were Hampton’s benefactors, fighting for neighbors who had nothing. But their legal chokehold chased away businesses, deprived people of jobs, kept doctors from opening a practice, and made it more expensive to raise families. Because the county’s tax base was so depleted, property tax rates rose far higher than in wealthier jurisdictions. Car insurance rates rose as well. The Murdaughs were thriving as the town around them sank.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

“Walmart bought twenty acres of land on Carolina Avenue, including most of the block where Randolph Sr. first built a home a century earlier. But before construction began, Walmart realized its error. Hampton was what legal advocacy groups call “a judicial hellhole,” a place where hometown jurors leveled $1 million judgments against big corporations in cases that would get a $100,000 judgment anywhere else in the state. If Walmart opened its doors in Hampton County, the Murdaughs would take them to court for every slip-and-fall in the state. Ultimately, Walmart canceled construction and gave the land to the town for free.”
― Valerie Bauerlein, The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty