Buster Murdaugh Sues Over Claims In Netflix, Max True-Crime Docs

The surviving son of Alex Murdaugh claims three docuseries about his family's scandals falsely linked him to the death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith.

The surviving son of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has filed a defamation lawsuit against multiple media companies, claiming their true-crime documentaries about his prominent South Carolina family falsely linked him to a teen’s death.

Richard “Buster” Murdaugh claims in the lawsuit’s complaint, which was filed Friday and obtained by HuffPost, that Investigation Discovery’s “Murdaugh Murders: Deadly Dynasty,” Max’s “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” and Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” falsely accused him in the death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old gay man who was found dead in 2015.

The suit names Warner Bros Discovery and Netflix, as well as the series’ production companies. It also names Gannett, the parent company of the Hampton County Guardian, a local paper that covered the case. The paper’s editor, Michael DeWitt, appeared in the Netflix series and is also a defendant in the lawsuit.

The 2021 killings of 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, Buster’s brother, and the brothers’ mother, Maggie Murdaugh, kicked off a media frenzy which only intensified when her husband, Alex Murdaugh, was arrested. Questions swirled about Alex Murdaugh’s motive, which prosecutors later described as a desire to conceal a vast web of financial crimes.

Reporters also dug into other deaths allegedly connected to the family, including a 2019 boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach and the 2018 death of housekeeper Gloria Satterfield on a Murdaugh property.