COLUMBIA, S.C. — Days after his father was convicted and sentenced to two life terms for killing his wife and youngest son in 2021, Buster Murdaugh told the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office he was being harassed by national media photographers.
Sunday morning, Murdaugh, 26, called police to complain that a photo appeared in a New York Post article showing him through the blinds of his Hilton Head condo where he lives with his girlfriend, Brooklyn White.
The photo appears to have been taken at night with Murdaugh only visible through a gap between the blinds. After looking at their Ring Doorbell footage, the couple saw a “suspicious” car outside their home and told police, based on the car’s vantage point and where Murdaugh was in the home at the time, that they believe the driver of the car took the photo.
Police told Murdaugh they would perform extra patrols in the neighborhood, according to the report.
Less than an hour later, White called police to say she and Buster Murdaugh were “being followed by the media” while going down U.S. 278 near Spanish Wells Road heading off the island. Police saw the car that was allegedly following the couple and pulled the driver over for “speeding and making improper lane changes,” deputies said in the report. Police noted that the driver had what looked to be a “camera bag” with him when they pulled him over and he had a Louisiana driver’s license. They gave him a warning.
Buster Murdaugh is the older son of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted after a six-week trial in the deaths of his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul. Both were found shot to death on June 7, 2021, at the family’s sprawling property in Hampton County known as Moselle. Alex Murdaugh said he found their bodies outside the dog kennels on the property. He was charged with the murders last July.
Buster regularly attended the six-week trial in Walterboro, South Carolina, along with other family members, and Brooklyn was often seen in the courtroom. They met while attending law school at the University of South Carolina, according to media reports.
The trial concluded Thursday evening when, after less than three hours of deliberation, a jury found Alex Murdaugh guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to two life terms the next morning by 14th Circuit Judge Clifton Newman.
Interest in the trial has garnered national media attention and resulted in several docuseries from channels and streaming giants including CNN, Netflix and HBO Max. The series have explored the Murdaugh family’s legal dynasty built over a century in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina, Alex Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes and deaths of people close to the Murdaugh family.
Those deaths included that of Gloria Satterfield, the family’s housekeeper; Mallory Beach, Paul Murdaugh’s classmate who was killed in a boat accident in 2019 where Paul Murdaugh was driving, and Stephen Smith, a Hampton County 19-year-old and friend of Buster’s who was killed in a reported hit-and-run accident. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division reopened its investigation into the 2015 death of Smith two weeks after the double murders at Moselle.
Alex Murdaugh has yet to go to trial for nearly 100 other criminal charges connected to millions he admitting stealing from clients he represented while practicing as a lawyer, including the Satterfield family and the law firm his family founded a century ago.
Following the trial, Murdaugh was taken from Walterboro to a South Carolina Department of Corrections facility in Columbia. He will be assigned to the corrections institute where he will serve his life sentences following a 30-day evaluation period.
His lawyers have said they will appeal the convictions.
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