Countless items belonging to Alex Murdaugh were auctioned off Thursday, weeks after he was charged with the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Many of the items going under the hammer come from the South Carolina hunting lodge where Murdaugh committed the brutal murders in June 2021 and include boxes of spent shotgun shells and a hunting shirt with “Alex” written on the collar.
Also up for auction are furniture from the house, decoy ducks, ghastly lamps made from turtle shells and even a smiling decorative skull.
The auction will be held by Liberty Auctions in Georgia and bidders must be at the auction house’s warehouse to participate. Bidding began at 4 p.m.
Murdaugh was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders after the month-long trial drew national attention.
A T-shirt with Alex Murdaugh’s name on it will be auctioned in Georgia on Thursday
Crates of shotgun shells, bullets and gun clips from the Murdaugh estate will be auctioned
A large crowd bid for items from the Murdaugh estate on Thursday afternoon
Alex Murdaugh (right) with his murdered wife and son Maggie, 52, and Buster, 22, (center) with his surviving son Buster
Scenes from the warehouse where the auction took place showed rows of possessions laid out on long tables while potential bidders sorted through the items that once filled the prominent Southern family’s sprawling country home.
There were also long tables with deer antlers, mounted turtle shells, decorative plates, figures from a Christmas crib.
In addition to Murdaugh’s own camouflaged shirt, numerous pairs of hunting boots could be seen in inventory, along with a hat with a South Carolina Highway Patrol baseball cap.
And in addition to the cases of shotgun shells, cases of unused rifle bullets were auctioned off, along with a hunting crossbow, scopes, and what appeared to be a case for a rifle or shotgun.
The furniture auctioned consisted of a range of leather sofas and armchairs, as well as countless wooden tables, chests of drawers, bedsteads, bookshelves and lamps.
There were also various household items, cameras, thermoses, tools and toolboxes, a pair of salt and pepper shakers decorated with the Grinch, flashlights, and household decor.
Before the auction began, scores of people could be seen searching through the items that once filled the Murdaughs’ home.
A South Carolina Highway Patrol cap will be auctioned at Thursday’s Murdaugh Estate Sale
Tortoiseshell lamps will be auctioned at Thursday’s Murdaugh home sale. They were sold for $800
A magazine full of ammo, a camera and a box of shotgun shells are auctioned
A hunting crossbow will be sold at the Murdaugh Estate Sale on Thursday afternoon
A wall of hunting trophies being auctioned at the Murdaughs’ mansion
Murdaugh family hunting boots will be auctioned on Thursday afternoon
The auction comes nearly a year after the 1,700-acre mansion where the Murdaughs lived — and were murdered — listed for $3.9 million.
Mosel is currently being auctioned for $3.7 million, according to Fox News, and the new owner decided to vacate the house and put everything up for auction.
Lori Mattingly, owner of Liberty Auction, told CNN the job of cleaning the house is “like any other job.”
“Their stuff isn’t any better or more beautiful than any other stuff we pick up from other people’s homes,” Mattingly said.
“We go to a lot of very nice, expensive houses. And we had much nicer clothes than hers, but her clothes are nice.”
Crowds gathered for the auction
Decoy will be auctioned at the Murdaugh estate on Thursday afternoon
What appears to be a shotgun or gun case was one of the many items up for auction
Also from the Murdaugh estate, a decorative skull was auctioned Thursday afternoon
Bidders and auctioneers at the Murdaugh property auction on Thursday afternoon
Crowds browse piles of antlers for sale at the auction on Thursday afternoon
A man examines a rack of rifle ammunition at the Murdaugh estate auction Thursday
A bag of money from one of the banks Murdaugh was known to collect cash from
Murdaugh is currently being held at the maximum-security Kirkland Correctional Institution, one of South Carolina’s most notorious prisons.
And while the disgraced former attorney avoided the death penalty for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul, a third life sentence would mean Murdaugh will spend the rest of his life behind bars under the state’s “three strikes” law .
He is currently appealing his murder conviction, but the state is specifically seeking three other breach of trust convictions totaling $10,000 or more.
Three more breach of trust convictions would result in a life sentence and nullify his chance of parole.
Murdaugh’s trial lasted six weeks and included more than 75 witnesses, but culminated in it taking a jury less than three hours to find the 54-year-old guilty of the shooting death of his wife and son.
Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed the couple to divert attention from financial crimes that should be exposed, including the millions of dollars he embezzled from his law firm and its clients.
The lying patriarch took the stand himself to tearfully testify about his crippling opioid addiction and how his love for Maggie and Paul meant he could never harm them.
But it took the jury just 45 minutes to rule that the disgraced attorney was guilty of destroying his own family, earning him two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.
Bidders stand ready at Thursday afternoon’s auction of the Murdaugh estate
A man searches a case of wine being auctioned off at Thursday’s Murdaugh Estate Sale
Bidders sift through a table full of belongings owned by the Murdaughs on Thursday afternoon
A prospective bidder looks at a chart of Murdaugh family possessions on Thursday
A box of bullets will be auctioned off Thursday at the sale of the Murdaugh estate in Georgia
Murdaugh called 911 on the evening of June 7, 2021 and said he found his son and wife dead when he returned home from a one-hour visit to his mother, who has dementia.
Authorities said Paul was shot twice with a shotgun, each round loaded with shots of different sizes, while Maggie was hit with four or five bullets from a rifle.
A crime scene report suggested both victims were shot in the head after initially being wounded near dog kennels on the Murdaughs’ sprawling rural estate.
It took prosecutors more than a year to charge the disgraced attorney with murder, but decided against the death penalty. Murdaugh, who is also charged with about 100 financial and other crimes, staunchly denied any involvement in the murders.
Murdaugh could have gotten only 30 years behind bars, but the judge gave him the maximum: two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.
After the trial, some jurors said the key piece of evidence supporting the attorney’s guilt was a video on his son Paul’s cellphone taken minutes before the murders at the kennels near the site.
The voices of all three Murdaughs can be heard on the video, despite Alex Murdaugh’s insistence for 20 months that he was not in the kennel that night.
Taking a stand in his own defense, the first thing he did was admit that he lied to investigators about being in the kennels and said he was paranoid about law enforcement because he was addicted to opioids and taking pills at night bag got the murders.
Leather furniture is up for sale at the Murdaugh Estate Auction on Thursday afternoon
A pair of wooden chairs and a table lamp from the Murdaugh estate will be auctioned
A trio of beds from the Murdaugh estate will be auctioned Thursday afternoon
A number of beds auctioned off in the sale of the Murdaugh estate on Thursday
Murdaugh’s testimony only cemented what they already thought — that he lied easily and could turn his tears on and off at will, jurors said.
Attorney Dick Harpootlian filed Murdaugh’s appeal in the South Carolina Court of Appeals.
Prosecutors did not have the weapons used to kill the Murdaughs, nor other direct evidence such as confessions or blood spatter.
But they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, including the video Murdaugh took to the scene of the murders five minutes before his wife and son stopped using their cellphones forever.
Through more than 75 witnesses and nearly 800 pieces of evidence, jurors heard from betrayed friends and clients, Murdaugh’s failed attempt to stage his own death in an insurance scam, a fatal boating accident involving his son, the housekeeper, who died in a fall House of the Murdaughs and the grisly scene of the murders.
The now-disfellowshipped attorney admitted to stealing millions of dollars from the family firm and clients, saying he needed the money to fund his drug habit. Before being charged with murder, Murdaugh sat in jail awaiting trial on about 100 other charges ranging from insurance fraud to tax evasion.