Murdaugh Moselle estate items sell for big bucks as buyers descend on South Carolina auction

PEMBROOK, Ga. - Just before 9 a.m. Thursday, a crowd began to line up outside Liberty Auction in Pembroke, Georgia, in anticipation of an afternoon auction featuring items from the Murdaugh family's South Carolina Lowcountry hunting estate, where Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son in 2021.

"We came out of curiosity just to look at the Murdaugh items," one attendee told Fox News Digital, as was the consensus for most people at the event. 

Doors opened at noon, and by the time the auction began at 4 p.m., buyers found it difficult to move about inside the stuffy building. By the time bidding started, those who purchased items had to duck in and around other people to pick up their new belongings.

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"We're here to buy Christmas presents for the rest of the family. Trying to get them something from the Murdaugh trial. Everybody found it very interesting, so we'd like to get them a little…something to remember the Lowcountry events," another attendee said.

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The Murdaughs' belongings were identified by the number 3-335 and sold for higher-than-normal prices. The family's couch, for example, sold for $14,000. The buyer, Phillip Jennings, is the owner of Broomsedge Rod and Gun, a hunting and lodging company based in Georgia.

"We think these are very novel pieces. They came from a very nice plantation lodge in South Carolina, and we want them to live on. … We try to specialize at our lodge…very unique things that are conversation pieces for people and they can sit around and talk," Jennings said.

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A pair of lamps with stems made out of turtle shells sold for $2,000.

 The auctioneer did not identify the belongings by the family's name but referred to the property where they came as a "prominent South Carolina estate."

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Some attendees commented on the odd nature of the event after a Colleton County, South Carolina, jury on March 2 found Alex Murdaugh guilty in the 2021 murders of his wife and son at Moselle.

After the leather couch sold, several people sat and even laid down on it. One attendee suggested burning sage around the furniture. 

A buyer who purchased Maggie Murdaugh's bicycle and tumblers with Alex Murdaugh's initials said he had plans to start a local museum and would add the items to his collection.

The same day, the Murdaugh's sprawling, 1,700-acre Islandton property sold for $3.9 million to buyers James Ayer and Jeffrey Godley, according to Colleton County documents obtained by FOX Carolina.

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Funds from the sale will be divided among multiple people involved in a lawsuit stemming from the 2018 death of Paul Mudaugh's friend, Mallory Beach, who died aboard the Murdaugh family's boat after Paul apparently got drunk and took his friends out for a ride along the South Carolina coast before he crashed into a bridge.

Buster Murdaugh, Alex's eldest and only surviving son, will get $530,000 from the sale. 

Mark Tinsley, who is representing three boat crash victims, including Beach, will get the balance of his attorney's fees. Joseph McCulloch, who is representing boat crash victim Connor Cook, will receive $100,000. Alex's brother, John Marvin Murdaugh, will get $290,000 to pay the estate's outstanding legal fees. 

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Additionally, co-receivers will get $275,000, Palmetto State Bank will receive $25,000 for its claim against the estate and more than $6,500 will go toward another creditor with a claim against the estate, according to court documents.

Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to serve life in prison.

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The disgraced personal injury lawyer is also facing another trial for his 99 alleged financial crimes stemming from 19 separate indictments in South Carolina's Lowcountry. He is accused of embezzling nearly $9 million from his family's personal injury law firm and its clients.