Alex Murdaugh might have been arrested for murdering his wife and son, but to this day questions about his motives remain. Murdaugh: Death in the Family seeks to paint a clearer picture, with stars Jason Clarke and Patricia Arquette providing further insights into his mind.
The true crime drama, currently airing on Disney+ and Hulu, explores the rise and fall of South Carolina’s powerful Murdaugh dynasty. At its center is Alex (Clarke), a man born into privilege, with wealth, status, and a seemingly perfect family life with wife Maggie (Arquette) and their two sons, Buster and Paul.
But as is revealed in Murdaugh: Death in the Family, a series of scandals began to surface: financial fraud, opioid addiction, and a string of mysterious deaths, including housekeeper Gloria Satterfield and teenager Mallory Beach, who was killed in a 2019 boat crash involving Paul.
By June 2021, tragedy struck again when Maggie and Paul were found shot dead on the family’s hunting estate, and the investigation soon turned toward Alex himself. Dexerto spoke with Clarke and Arquette to find out what really motivated him.
Why did Alex Murdaugh murder his family?
Despite being convicted for the murders of Maggie and Paul, Alex Murdaugh maintains his innocence, making a motive impossible to confirm. However, the leading theory is that his extensive financial crimes were about to be exposed, and so he killed them to buy more time.
As per AP, prosecutor Creighton Waters argued to the jury, “The pressures on this man were unbearable, and they were all reaching a crescendo the day his wife and son were murdered by him.”
Other potential influencing factors that are presented in Murdaugh: Death in the Family include his opioid addiction and his background of privilege and power. There’s also the theory that Alex has narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, although he’s never received a formal diagnosis.
Dexerto caught up with Jason Clarke, who plays Alex Murdaugh in the new Hulu series, to find out his thoughts on the case. To Clarke, the motive was a case of “doing the math”.
Alex was dealing with his opioid addiction, the millions of dollars he stole, and then in 2019, his 22-year-old son Paul got into a drunken boat crash, killing his friend Mallory Beach. The pressures were closing in, and like prosecutors, Clarke believes he saw killing Paul and Maggie as a way out.
“After going through it and examining it to play him, I thought, ‘He just did the math.’ Paul had to go… if Paul went, the boat crash ended. If the boat crash ended, all his stuff doesn’t come out and the family continues,” Clarke said.
“He knew it was all going to come down like a Ponzi scheme because he was trying to take the money and then repay it over time, but then he just forgot to repay it and kept spending and thought, ‘F**k it.’”
The actor went on to explain that he may have thought about killing Paul prior, but then the idea of Maggie leaving him may have pushed Alex over the edge.
Prosecutors presented the couple’s past issues including Alex’s addiction and his alleged affair in court. Although they were said to have moved past these problems, a source told People back in 2021 that Maggie had met with a divorce attorney just six weeks before she was murdered.
Clarke said that even if Maggie hadn’t 100% decided, Alex may have felt that “ the sons are leaving the house, the wife’s going leave him too… The emptiness, I definitely think that pushed him over the line.”
“And then there’s just the inane selfishness and insanity of a man who can think he could and would and should do that,” he added.
After researching the trial to get into character, Clarke said he believes Alex is “a sociopath, I think, or a narcissist.”
“I listened to him a lot to understand his mind and that massive wall of denial that he built up in his head. His ability to gaslight everybody, to literally make everything about him constantly, it’s a real full-time commitment.”
But Clarke also believes Alex’s background didn’t help. “It’s all about the patriarchy, the privilege and power, but also the little, small things that just breed the inability to take care of your own mess… to take responsibility for your life.”
Patricia Arquette, who plays Maggie in Murdaugh: Death in the Family, also shared her thoughts on Alex’s motives from the perspective of portraying the convicted killer’s wife.
Patricia Arquette unpacks Maggie and Alex Murdaugh’s marriage
Speaking to Dexerto, Arquette explained that she looked at the “mechanics” of their relationship to prepare for the role, including addiction, codependence, betrayal, and being raised at a time where ”women are the support system for the men.”
“ And then also there’s narcissistic abuse or whatever he had… [maybe] some kind of sociopathy or psychopathy,” she said.
“ I’m not a doctor so I can’t really diagnose anybody,” Arquette added, but she also pointed to Alex’s surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, who said in the Netflix documentary on the case that describing his father as a psychopath is a “fair assessment.”
The Severance star continued, “ In any event, just looking at a lot of those personality disorders, they share a lot of features: the kind of grandiosity that he showed. He loved validation all the time. He would try to be the life of the party and have everybody look at him.
“The pathological lying, the gaslighting people, trying to lure them into his non-reality so that they would question their own instincts and what was really going on at any point.
“There were also aspects of liking to get away with things, they called it ‘duper’s delight’, stealing… there’s just a lot that really plays into those patterns.”
Arquette told us that it was important for the Murdaugh: Death in the Family creators to look at all these different elements that led Alex’s victims to be duped by this “ charming, beguiling, confusing person, who had a lot of money and a lot of access.”
Where is Alex Murdaugh now?
As of November 2025, Alex Murdaugh is serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole at McCormick Correctional Institution in South Carolina. Now 57 years old, Murdaugh remains behind bars following his 2023 conviction for the murders of Maggie and Paul.
He was sentenced in March 2023, just one day after a jury found him guilty on all counts following a six-week trial that drew international attention. Murdaugh also faced over 100 state and federal financial crime charges over schemes that defrauded clients, colleagues, and the government of millions of dollars.
Alex later pleaded guilty to 22 federal fraud counts and was handed an additional 40-year sentence, which will run concurrently with his state time. He was also ordered to pay reparations of $8.7 million to his victims, including the family of his former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, who died on the Murdaughs’ property.
Despite these crimes, Alex maintains his innocence in the double homicide, with his defense team appealing for a new trial of his murder convictions, which is awaiting a decision from the South Carolina Supreme Court.
This week, Alex spoke out against Murdaugh: Death in the Family via his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin. A statement shared with People reads, “Alex is deeply disappointed and disturbed by the recent Hulu streaming series about him and the entire Murdaugh family.
“The program contains numerous inaccuracies and misleading portrayals that distort the truth of their lives… The depiction of their personal family dynamics is particularly troubling, as it totally mischaracterizes Alex’s relationships with his wife Maggie and his son Paul, both of whom Alex loves so dearly.
“Alex was always extremely proud of Paul. Any other portrayal of his feelings toward Paul and Maggie are baseless and false. Equally concerning is the lack of engagement by the producers or actors to understand the individuals portrayed.
“No one from Hulu ever reached out to Alex, his son Buster, anyone in the Murdaugh family, or Alex’s attorneys to hear their perspective or verify the facts.”
Last year, Aimee Zmroczek – the lawyer representing Murdaugh’s co-defendant, Curtis Eddie Smith – said she heard from “multiple inmates” that Alex was “living it” up in prison.
Zmroczek said (via NBC News), “I was actually in prison yesterday… Let me tell you, he is running that place. He has a side gambling system.” Griffin once again stepped in to defend Alex, claiming that he’s playing chess “all the time” and working as a wardkeeper’s assistant in a state prison protective unit.
When is Murdaugh: Death in the Family Episode 7 out?
Murdaugh: Death in the Family Episode 6 dropped on Hulu and Disney+ on November 5, 2025, with Episode 7 set to land on November 12, at 12am PT / 3am ET.
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