Swamp Kings: The Story Of The Murdaugh Family Of South Carolina And A Century Of Backwoods Power,New

The strangerthanfiction story of the nownotorious Lowcountry clan, in all its Southern Gothic intensityby an author with unparalleled access to and knowledge of the players, the history, and the place.The most famous man in South Carolina lives in prison. He stands convicted of a staggering amount of wrongdoingmore than 100 crimes and counting. Once a highflying, smoothtalking, pedigreed Southern lawyer, Alex Murdaugh is now disbarred and disgraced. For more than a decade, prosecutors asserted that Alex was secretly a fraud, a thief, a drug trafficker, and an allaround phony. On the night of June 7, 2021, they claimed, he also became a killer, shooting dead his wife and son in a desperate bid to escape accountability.The many crimes of Alex Murdaugh, exposed piecemeal over the last two years, have appalled the general public. Yet his implosionthe spectacular manner in which he has turned his vaunted family name to mudhas also proved mesmerizing. With every revelation, Alex Murdaugh has been shown to be a man without bottom, though he insists he never harmed his family.Remarkably, all of his misdeeds have precedent. In Swamp Kings, Jason Ryan reveals Alexs evil actions are only the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to the Murdaugh family of Hampton County, history has a way of repeating itself. For every alleged, headlinegrabbing crime associated with Alex Murdaugh, mirrorimage incidents have played out within his familys past, including parallel instances of fraud, theft, illicit trafficking of babies and booze, calamitous boat crashes, and even alleged murder. There were some crimes committed by Alexs kin that even he would not dare mimic.Covering a century of depravity in an impoverished and isolated stretch of the Deep South, Swamp Kings weaves together the jawdropping narratives of generations of Murdaughs before culminating in the telling of a murder trial for the ages. Page after page the familys legacy is laid bare as a spotlight is finally trained on the Murdaugh men who have long lorded over the South Carolina Lowcountry.