Murdaugh Moselle estate, site of 2021 SC murders, sells for $3.9M
The Murdaugh family’s rural Colleton County estate where they indulged in a life of hunting, fishing and gentleman farming has officially been sold less than a month after Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and son on the property.
The 1,770-acre estate, known as Moselle, sold for $3.9 million, according to documents filed in Colleton County Wednesday.
The majority of the money from the sale will be used to settle outstanding legal claims against Murdaugh’s surviving son, Buster, and the estates of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, who were shot dead near the family’s dog kennels.
Public records indicate that the new owners are Jeffrey Godley and James Ayer.
They have provided no public statement on how they intend to use the land, which has become interwoven with the tragedy of the Murdaugh family.
The sale of the property, which had been held in Maggie’s name since 2016, appeared inevitable.
Over the course of Murdaugh’s trial it was revealed that neither he nor Buster ever spent a night there following the double-murder on June 7, 2021. But after a deal was signed in June 2022, the property became mired in what one legal filing called a “Gordian knot” of competing interests and claims.
Since 2019, the Murdaughs have faced an unfolding series of lawsuits, beginning with the boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach. Paul was accused of causing the crash when he steered the family’s boat into a bridge after a night of drinking. In the wake of the deadly accident, attorney Mark Tinsley filed a lawsuit against Murdaugh and Buster, who was accused of letting Paul use his driver’s license to buy alcohol.
Legal claims against Murdaugh himself mounted after he was sued by some of his former clients for stealing millions of dollars in settlements. The property’s value was also encumbered by approximately $2 million in mortgages, as well as lawyers’ fees for the various parties in the settlement.
This web of claims against the property was finally resolved in January.
Under the terms of the approved settlement, the majority of the money from the sale that remains after debts and fees are resolved will go to benefit victims of the crash. Among them are Tinsley’s clients, the Beach family and two survivors of the boat crash, Morgan Doughty and Miley Altman.
Buster will get $530,000 from the sale of the property.
“The Beach family feels like Buster had suffered enough, and it was important to get Buster out of the lawsuit,” Tinsley previously told The State Media Co.
Among other beneficiaries, the settlement dictates that $275,000 from the sale of the property will go into a pool of money intended for victims of Murdaugh’s financial crimes. Another $100,000 will go to Connor Cook, a survivor of the 2019 boat crash, and $290,000 will go toward settling Maggie’s estate’s legal expenses.
After Murdaugh obtained Moselle from his long-time business partner Barrett Boulware, his family lived there nearly full time.
Throughout the murder trial, friends and family members testified about how Paul in particular worked to transform the land into a Lowcountry Camelot. The property boasted a gun range and was dotted with food plots that attracted all manner of game, to the benefit of Murdaugh, who delighted in the outdoorsman lifestyle of hunting and fishing.
At an auction house in Pembroke, Georgia, this week, large crowds reportedly turned up to see the remaining household items from Moselle be auctioned off. A set of longhorn antlers went for $10,000, while a sofa set sold for $30,000, according to CBS.
