The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty

The two main courthouses that appear in the text are the Hampton County courthouse and the Colleton County courthouse. Both courthouses represent the Murdaughs’ power and their family legacy at the apex of the law. Bauerlein repeatedly references the irony involved in the fact that Alex was brought to justice in the Colleton County courthouse, given that his family used that very building to convict so many others. The Murdaugh name is so enmeshed with the power of the courthouse that Alex’s grandfather stood among the “portraits of stern-faced court officials” (3) that covered the walls. Bauerlein emphasizes this connection when she shares that Judge Newman had to take this portrait down during Alex’s trial so that the jury wouldn’t “feel the old man’s eyes upon them as they decided his grandson’s fate” (4).

The Hampton County courthouse, being located in the Murdaughs’ home county, also represents the Murdaughs’ prosperity. Bauerlein first describes the courthouse as the finest building in the county, stating, “Hampton’s most impressive building, its bedrock and its beacon, was the courthouse” (24). The grandness of the courthouse indicates the importance of justice in Hampton, not as an abstract principle but as an industry.