The Murdaugh Murders Case

For the comprehensive if inessential latest installment of Crime Ink’s 50 States of Crime series, in which French journalists examine famous American cases (after Jean-Marie Pottier’s The Emmett Till Case), Cerf recounts his eight weeks in South Carolina writing about the 2023 trial of attorney Alex Murdaugh for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. Though Cerf includes courtroom scenes and discusses his visits to key locations related to the crimes, he mostly arranges the case’s well-covered details into an orderly narrative framework. It’s all there: Alex’s grip on the power centers of Colleton County, the mysterious death of the family’s housekeeper in 2018, Paul’s drunken boat accident in 2019 that left a young woman dead, and the cellphone video that placed Alex at the scene of the murders. Cerf gestures toward the case’s intriguing loose ends, including the mysterious death of gay 19-year-old Stephen Smith, who’d been hanging around Paul before he died, but there’s little new information here. Still, for readers unfamiliar with the case, this is a solid enough introduction. (Oct.)