Oct 26, 2024

Envelope

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

The buyer of the home where Alex Murdaugh shot dead his wife and son has broken his silence about his controversial purchase—and claims he is in possession of a key piece of evidence that proves Murdaugh is innocent.

Alex Blair of Rock Hill, SC, bought the sprawling Islandton, SC, estate—where Murdaugh shot his wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22—for $1 million in an auction in February 2024.

In the months since, Blair has embarked on a “roof to subfloor” renovation of the home, including an extension to one side of the property, he tells Realtor.com®. It will be completed in early November.

Now, he has opened up about what prompted him to invest in the property despite its horrifying history, stating that he didn’t have a problem buying the house for one very plain reason: “I don’t think [Murdaugh] did it.”

Murdaugh, who has vehemently denied shooting his wife and son on June 7, 2021, was convicted of both murders in March 2023. The former personal injury attorney is currently serving two life sentences.

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Alex Blair bought the Murdaugh family home earlier this year. He says he doesn’t believe the disgraced attorney murdered his wife and son.(Facebook)

Murdaugh family

Alex Murdaugh was convicted of the 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul (center) and is currently serving two life sentences.(Facebook)

Murdaugh kennels

Blair says that he is in possession of the door from the kennels in which Paul was shot—and claims the location of the bullet holes indicates Murdaugh “didn’t do it.”(Fox News)

A crime scene expert determined Murdaugh ambushed Paul in the dog kennels and shot him twice, then shot his wife five times, delivering the final shots after she fell to her knees.

In a wide-ranging interview with Realtor.com, Blair claims that cannot be the case. He says that he is actually in possession of the kennel door and window that contain the bullet holes, which he says is clear evidence of Murdaugh’s innocence.

Reports initially suggested that the dog kennels had not been included in the 21-acre portion of the Murdaugh family estate—known as Moselle—that he purchased. However, Blair says that the kennels, as well as Murdaugh’s private airplane hangar, were both part of the sale.

He has since torn both structures down, but retained possession of the kennel door.

“I have the door and the window from the dog kennel,” he reveals. “[Murdaugh] is a big man, he was even bigger back then, and he’s too big for the bullets to have gone through in the way that they did.

“Maybe it was karma for other things that he did,” he went on. “But I don’t think he killed them.”

He adds that, while he didn’t know Murdaugh personally, many of the locals who live on the street where the Moselle Estate House is located agree with him that the former lawyer is not guilty of the murders.

“Everyone on that road is like, ‘No,'” he shares.

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Blair, a local businessman, bought the Murdaugh family home, known as the Moselle Estate House, at an auction for $1 million.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

In July, Blair shared images of the home’s original interior on his Facebook account. In a matter of months, it would look like “a completely different home,” he said.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

The photos on Facebook show the home’s original wood-paneled interior. Blair has gutted the property.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Blair notes that the renovations he is carrying out are “roof to subfloor.”(Facebook)

The kennel door is not the only item that Blair has kept from the Murdaugh family’s time living in the property, which he says was in a state of disrepair when he began working on it.

He also has a set of keys and keychain that belonged to Maggie. He held on to them in case Murdaugh’s surviving son, Richard “Buster” Murdaugh, “wanted it back … to have something of his mother’s,” Blair explains.

Blair says he hopes that the work he is carrying out on the property, which he plans to use as a “secondary residence,” will remove the “bad stigma” that surrounds it, noting that he wants to change the home’s narrative in a “positive” way.

He adds that you would be hard-pressed to find a property in the South Carolina Lowcountry without blemish.

“Every property in Lowcountry has a history,” he explains. “One bad thing about our state is that slave trading happened here.

“Bad things have happened on every property. But you have a choice to either focus on the negative or to create a positive narrative. And that’s what I want to do.”

Blair, who is a father of two, owns a hunting cabin just 20 minutes away from the Murdaugh family estate. He says that he wanted to ensure that any other home he adds to his property portfolio is close enough to that house so that his family can move between the two without disrupting their kids’ lives too much.

“I wanted to be able to move without packing everything, for my kids to know that we’re just going down the road, we’re not going on vacation to get to another house,” he explains.

As part of the extensive work he is carrying out on the home, Blair says he has installed a pond on the grounds, put up horse fences, torn down the kennels, and torn down and replaced Murdaugh’s private airplane hangar.

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

The main living space was gutted, and the new design includes a large fireplace and chimney.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

The main living space will be more open and airy.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Blair has also extended the property on one side, which will make the home more symmetrical.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Blair expects the work on the property to be completed by mid-November.(Facebook)

He has hired two land managers to ensure that the property remains “clean and organized,” and is renting out a greenhouse on the land to a sheriff’s deputy from the local area.

When asked about his decision to extend the home with an addition, he jokes that it was simply his “obsessive” desire to make the property “symmetrical.”

All of the windows and exterior elements of the extension were custom-made to match the exterior of the original home, he adds.

The addition is the final part of the house that needs to be completed, and Blair expects the work to be done by mid-November.

Moselle and the 21 acres that Blair bought were originally part of the 1,700-acre estate that was purchased by two businessmen for $3.9 million in March 2023.

Just a few months later, those buyers, James Ayer and Jeffrey Godley, chose to carve up the land and put the Murdaugh family home and its surrounding 21 acres back on the market for $1.95 million.

At the time, Godley explained in a statement that they had no need for the house itself and were interested only in the land, which they planned to use for hunting, farming, and timber. However, both he and Ayer were locals in the area, and wanted to ensure that the homebuyer would serve as a good “neighbor.”

“I am a next-door neighbor, with our home about a mile from this house,” Godley explained. “We seek a new neighbor to enjoy this gorgeous house and land.”

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Blair says he had all of the exterior elements of the addition custom-made to match the original exterior.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

An August 2024 Facebook post revealed extensive updates to the kitchen.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

The images also showed that the brick fireplace had been completed.(Facebook)

EXCL: Murdaugh Home

Brick walls have replaced the original wood panels.(Facebook)

The original listing suggested the home could be used as a “family residence or compound,” a site for “equestrian pursuits,” a potential “hobby farm,” or a “weekend retreat destination.”

Despite being listed on the market, the home was ultimately sold at auction. Reports at the time revealed that Blair, who was not named, planned to use the estate as a new location for his horse farm.

Since taking on ownership of the house, Blair has been sharing updates about its progress on social media, first in a Facebook post on July 9.

“Moselle will be a completely different looking home in a few short months,” he said, while posting images of the property before work began and after construction was underway.

A second update, shared on Aug. 24, was simply captioned, “Moselle photo dump.” It showed that Blair was in the process of adding a sizable extension to the property.

Blair has plenty of experience in home renovations as the owner of a business that offers “a wide range of water, fire and smoke, mold and storm damage services” to homeowners and business owners.

He founded the company, RestoPros, in Charlotte, NC, in 2018, and has since expanded and franchised its services in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, and Indiana, among other states.

Blair and his wife, Kendra, also own Freeman’s Dry Cleaners in Rock Hill, which they purchased in 2022.

Murdaugh is currently appealing his murder convictions. However, even if they are overturned, he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison, having already been sentenced to 40 years behind bars after being convicted of 22 federal financial crimes, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud; bank fraud; wire fraud; and money laundering.

During his murder trial, prosecutors claimed that his motive for killing his wife and child was to draw attention away from his fraud scheme and buy some time before it was exposed.

He was also accused of hiring a hit man to kill him so his surviving son, Buster, would receive his $10 million life insurance policy.

Earlier this month, Murdaugh settled a wrongful death lawsuit that was brought by the family of a teenage girl who was killed in a boat crash involving his youngest son, Paul, whom he later killed. Prosecutors had claimed during Murdaugh’s trial that it was this lawsuit that first provoked the father of two to murder his wife and child.

The lawsuit was brought by the family of Mallory Beach, who died at the age of 19 after a boat that was being driven by Paul crashed into a bridge in February 2019. Several other people were injured in the accident that claimed Beach’s life.

At the time of the crash, Paul was found to have had a blood alcohol level above 0.28%, according to CBS, which is more than three times the legal limit. He was later charged with felony boating under the influence.

Click here to log in to realtor.com as frankadelman82@gmail.com

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/alex-murdaugh-moselle-murder-home/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5619741&forum_id=2#48250462)