#Murdered S.C. mom and son ‘both shot multiple times’: coroner

The murdered mother and son from one of South Carolina’s most prominent families were “both shot multiple times,” the coroner confirmed to local media.

Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her 22-year-old son Paul — who was facing felony charges for a 2019 drunken boat crash that killed a teen girl — were found shot near dog kennels outside their home in Islandton late Monday last week.

“They were both shot multiple times and [the state Law Enforcement Division] will take it from here,” Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey told the Post and Courier on Monday.

Harvey confirmed that they were likely killed between 9 and 9:30 p.m., and their bodies found just after 10 p.m.

He refused to answer more questions, including queries about reports that two separate firearms were used — a shotgun to kill the son and an assault rifle to gun down his mother, the paper said.

SCLED spokesman Tommy Crosby told the paper that the agency would not release records into the investigation because the heavy redaction they would need would make them unreadable.

The Murdaugh family is seen as a legal dynasty in South Carolina, with three generations serving as 14th Circuit solicitor covering the state’s southern tip.

Paul Murdaugh was awaiting trial on a charge of boating under the influence causing death in a February 2019 crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach. The woman’s body was found seven days after the crash.

The charges against him are being dismissed after his death — but the investigation remains ongoing, the state Attorney General’s Office told the Island Packet.

“We had every intention of moving forward with Paul Murdaugh’s prosecution,” spokesperson Robert Kittle told the paper Monday.

“While the charges against him will be dismissed, the case has not been closed because the investigation is not finished.”

Jim Griffin, who was Murdaugh’s attorney in preliminary hearings in the case, believes that the ongoing investigation along with secrecy over the current murder probe suggests a link.

“I can understand that they would not want to open the investigative file to disclosure because there may be information related to the murder investigation,” Griffin told the paper.

However, the family still “don’t know for certain” if there is a connection, longtime friend Tangie Peeples Ohmer told Fox News on Monday.

But at least one family member told her they are “confident that justice will be served,” she said.

The patriarch of the family, 81-year-old Randolph Murdaugh III, a former South Carolina prosecutor, died days after the shooting deaths. He had been ill at the time of his death, the Island Packet has reported.