In criminal cases, defense teams may pursue third-party theories suggesting someone else was involved in the crime, which requires examining behavioral patterns, financial motives, and evidence inconsistencies to determine if the defendant acted alone or with accomplices.
Deep Dive
Prerequisite Knowledge
- No data available.
Where to go next
- No data available.
Deep Dive
Did Alex Murdaugh Have a Plan B the Night of the Murders?Added:
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brussky and Robin Dreke.
New trial for Alec Murdaugh, it's likely going to be happening. No date or anything set yet. I know people are like, "Well, what if the state decides they don't want to?" Well, the state's already said publicly and everyone running for the position has all publicly said they're going to be trying Alec Murdaugh again. So, unless an asteroid hits or something, who knows? I guess anything is possible.
Uh we're likely going to be seeing another trial of Alec Murdaugh. The only thing I think that would be preventing that would be death. Uh so, unless Alec kicks it between now and then, I we're likely going to see another Alec Murdaugh trial.
>> something, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean again, anything's possible. [laughter] Uh the the the question is um what's going to be what's going to be happening in a new trial? Will there be third-party defense arguments being made? That's already been uh hinted at uh a bit by the attorneys for Alec Murdaugh. They were on television the day after the conviction was overturned and said that they have new information about third parties and potential motives, things that were not in existence in trial number one. If we go down the third-party road, who are we talking about and why? I guess would be the question. Your thoughts in the comments section as we work through this. I'd love to get your reactions if you think we're going to see a third-party argument made here.
Meaning somebody else did this other than Alec. I'd be very curious for everybody's opinion on where that is in fact going to land.
One of the things that I know Blanca Simpson had said that essentially she thought there was a plan A and a plan B that night. Plan A might have been that there was somebody else possibly involved in this. Plan B would be if they didn't show up. And uh Alec had to do it himself. And was this a plan B? Was this a plan B? Was Alec for whatever I mean, if we're going back to the financial motives and you need to take out your family to get sympathy and empathy and your son's an eff up and you're utterly ashamed of him every which way and he's essentially pulling and destroying your life by all of your finances that have now been exposed because of his actions and your wife is ready to leave you and then all of that stuff could be exposed in a divorce.
It starts to make sense why he might have murdered his family.
Um it not that it's justified or ever the solution, but if you're twisted drug addict who's a narcissistic monster in my opinion who it seems might be, that might be the motive for him to do it.
And if somebody doesn't show up and you got the weapons there and you go to do it, you might I don't know.
Um where do you think that goes? I do you think there's a way to get a plan B or to get a third-party argument into this when it was not even remotely argued in trial number one to a lot of people's surprise.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised it wasn't argued either and here's here's why because as soon as we started, you know, thinking about this Tony and over the weekend I looked at it and I I actually searched it through uh Beck Blanca's book as well.
The the idea of someone else being involved, it's actually pretty plausible if you're looking at Alex's behavior arc. Never once according to at least Blanca throughout the course of her tenure there, did did Alex ever do anything for himself?
Never cleaned up. Never never took out the trash. I mean, never did anything himself. He's not a do-it-yourself kind of guy. He was always an outsourcer. And so, if you just think about human beings and our behavior, the the likelihood and laws of probability of him doing a solo act of something like this is pretty remote. It would be an outlier. It'd be a spike.
So, I think the idea of the concept of having a plan A and a plan B, it actually fits a behavior pattern I'd expect. And so, the fact it wasn't introduced in in one's cuz they had all the finance stuff to rely upon. But again, now that we have all that hindsight, all is conjecture. Now, now, anti that in my world is the fact that you've had no leakage, um that we know of anyway, between then and now, of other people potentially being involved. Cuz I would think people would throw people under the bus but in that time frame since then. But maybe not, but maybe that's what we're going to find out in the next trial.
What do you think of that? The question that I I see a lot, too, why Maggie and Paul, but not Buster? Um one, um Buster wasn't necessarily as readily available, I guess, could be one of the answers, um that evening. But I I I I think it goes it goes deeper than that. Buster was not actively causing a lot of shame for the family at that moment in time, or a potential threat to Alec, I think, more than anything else. Maggie, a divorce threat, exposure. Buster, the trial that was going to be coming up for the boating accident, threat to Alec, exposure. Buster didn't present any threats to exposure.
Uh he, you know, he was kind of off doing his own thing already. He seemed to be the one, I mean, granted, there was the the college stuff, the cheating. But again, that really was that was I guess that was par for the course Murdaugh [ __ ] Uh that, you know, we we've we see these sort of things with wealthy families, entitled families, all the time, unfortunately, but not like [ __ ] that people go murder their families over. The other stuff, a little more volatile, I would say, in my opinion. I don't know. What are your thoughts, Robin?
I think the first thing that comes to my mind is logistics, believe it not. I think logistically it's it's harder to go for all three than to than to two.
And and also to your point, um wasn't in the line of sight, you know, the ones that are potentially threat or those two more than Buster. And also, the I think in his in his twisted, drug-induced way, I think it would have looked more suspicious in his in his mind if all three were gone and not just two. Uh especially if he thought Buster might be his buddy on his side. I mean, I I See, right now, and I'm kind of cringing at what I'm saying for a few reasons. One, because I'm giving Alec the benefit of the doubt of thinking. And I don't think people like this think. I think they're completely abhorrent bags of bad genetic coding, right? Um and I don't think he's as contemplative as we're giving him credit for. Um So, that's why I'm I'm thinking it was probably logistical convenience more than anything else.
Yeah, I it it it it it And plus, too, I mean, if we're going to get on the road of of Alec was thinking about it. And I do think a lot of this was drug-hazed.
>> Reaction.
Where which I think led to bad choices.
But if we're going to go down that road there, of of him thinking this this out a little bit, okay, if if Maggie's taken out, if Paul's taken out, and if if if they had taken out Buster, too, why is Alec still alive? Wouldn't Why If he's Yeah, if he's right there, why wouldn't he have been taken out as well? That that just doesn't make any any sense. So, I'm wondering if he thought, too, of well, but then, of course, we go down the road a little bit further, and then we have the you know, the quote-unquote the attempt on his life on the side of the road with cousin Eddie where that was supposed to look one way and didn't look that one way drug-fueled. I mean just utterly chaotic in everything that was that moment in time.
Um I'm wondering how that plays into this case this round in terms of of Alex thinking and motivation and cousin Eddie in general and and and and what he has to say about all this. He did not take the stand in the first trial curiously.
I'm wondering if we will see some some interesting testimony from him this round. Yeah, it will be interesting. I I I would I'd bet we probably will.
Why wouldn't we?
It's hard to imagine people not wanting to testify after called upon to testify.
The I'll tell you just just the life of these people is just pretty remarkable.
>> [laughter] >> It is. I mean it it it it it really is to see where exactly um they all go in terms of the direction that they're motivated >> to look at the word I just wrote down too. Oh, this is You know what I don't get on this Tony that we see in every other case?
If he was so financially Again, this is why I don't give his intelligence all that that much credibility.
Out of And then granted not that they're super smart but you will at least see we've seen it in every other case. Why weren't there life insurance policies?
Except on him. I mean how stupid is So so just think about the stupid brain. I stupid people do stupid things, right?
He's got a life insurance policy on him.
And so the only way to make money is to have him self-bumped off for his kids but he's got no life insurance on them and so he's going for a sympathy theme.
What? I mean, you just you see the chaos of stupid brain here? It makes no sense whatsoever. Even Lori Vallow took out life insurance policies on people before she bumped them off. You know, and so that's why for for someone to use that's why it'll be really interesting what they come up with a prosecution on this one because his broken brain somehow or other kept thinking twice according to you know, the second you know, the trial on this but on the second attempt of taking lives. First one on his cell for a sympathy theme and this one same same motive according to the prosecution was a sympathy theme to for delaying tactic so he can get money to pay off this immense debt.
What? I mean, think about this. Kouri Richins had insurance policies out and and and granted her insurance policies wouldn't even cover her debt that she had. Oh, it's just what a bunch of lunatics.
>> Yeah, I mean, and that's what I'm I'm wondering how much and I wonder how much more drugs are going to be brought into this this trial. I know they they brought him up at the first time. I'm wondering if they're going to rely on it more as any sort of motivating factor or cuz if they're going to say not how you even go down that road without saying he did it cuz he says he didn't do it. But other than than explaining why he doesn't know what happened is that it? I mean, the the drama that was done of it the the Murdaugh murders there were I'm not talking about the documentary. I'm talking about the the mini-series that came out based on that reporting from Matney and all that. They they leaned really heavily into the drug area of the story. And yes, some of it was dramatized without a doubt, but I mean, if if Alec was as much of an addict as he was portrayed there a lot of this makes sense because and none of it does make sense. Yeah. That that's that's really the the nonsensical nature of all this makes sense when you say drugs were involved. Dope brain.
Yeah. The was what was the amount that and was this in [snorts] testimony or was it in the in the documentary 50,000 a week? It was insane. I mean it was like it was beyond what anyone could actually take.
>> know the street I don't know I don't know street value of anything like that but 50,000 a week that's a lot of pills I would think. There there needs to be more explanation here. There needs to be more investigating here as to what the hell was going on because I think quite honestly at the end of the day if if Alec did not do this I think the answer to who did lies somewhere in that circle of how the hell he was spending what egregious amounts of money on pills so much more money than anyone could ever consume without dying. I mean this is like I mean it's enough to like kill a zoo.
>> [laughter] >> It it it it is.
>> It is. I mean it really is. It does not make sense but it just it's like an unanswered question that lies out there in the ether in this case. Everybody's just like oh wow he spent that much on drugs. Like yeah that makes no sense at all. He's not consuming that many drugs.
He clearly wasn't like hoarding them somewhere in Moselle. So where is it going? Where are they all going and why was there no like explanation for any of this? Why was this just kind of like settled up oh he just spent that much money on drugs like if there was anything else he was buying that much of like if he was spending that much money on weapons in a week they'd be figuring out where the [ __ ] he bought that many weapons from.
But with the drugs it was just like spent a lot of money on on dope. Like yeah I think that may that circle there whoever is involved in that circle doesn't want that circle explored. So so so here's an So I'm going to throw my I never do this either, Tony. I'm going to I'm going to put my foot in it. Um that my conspiracy theory side, right? For alternative um alternative possibilities that the defense might try to do. It'll be interesting. So here's a dude that was in debt up to his eyeballs, probably to his drug dealers as well. So the drug dealers the drug dealers either threatened him to kill the family or take out the family thinking that the family had life insurance policies that they could actually pay that he could use to pay them back with.
That's an interesting thought.
And [laughter] well, I mean and well, and look at this picture.
>> the center of it.
Well, look pattern of behavior here, too. I mean, it Alec was screwing people out of money left and right that he viewed as being less than him, his clients and and such. Uh does anybody think for a moment that Alec Murdaugh wouldn't be screwing over his drug dealers, too, who he would probably view as less than him? Uh so it does make you wonder if maybe somebody there got really [ __ ] pissed. I don't know. I mean, I I I do think I I don't know. I'm 75% on that Alec did it himself. I'm 25% on that there's somebody else involved here. Alec is involved in the circle.
>> Yeah, I think he's the center spoke of the hub of the wheel. Yeah. Um but again, if you're looking at um past is prologue with him, he's never done anything solo.
Um he's always had handlers. And so I'm I'm curious about how that'll play into it, including his drug dealing handlers.
Like, where the hell did he get all these pills? Where did he get $50,000 worth of pills a week? Well, and I and it just makes me wonder again. I mean, it goes deeper, I think, cuz it's Okay, I don't think it would be that hard to dig and find out who those people are or why they were involved in the way that they were. There's a reason those doors have not been opened.
>> I know. It's interesting, isn't it?
>> in in my mind. Your thoughts in the comments section on Substack and YouTube we'd love for you to weigh in and give us your thoughts. Robin's latest book it's not all about me available wherever you get books go and check this out and buy it or or audiobook it as well available audible or wherever you get your audiobooks.
>> Thank you.
Until next time for Todd and Robin I'm Tony Brusky we'll talk again real soon.
Want more on this case and others then press [music] subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony [music] Brusky and the Hidden Killers podcast.
Related Videos
BREAKING: Judge Kathleen Issues Emergency Arrest Warrant After Trump Defies Order
Frontora
2K views•2026-05-29
8 Hidden Things About Mackenzie Shirilla Netflix's 'The Crash' Didn't Show You
MarvelousVideos
2K views•2026-05-28
MP Garnett Genuis warns Canada’s MAiD system has ‘gone too far’
WesternStandard
187 views•2026-05-28
THE STREISAND EFFECT AT BARBARA STREISAND’S HOUSE! - First Amendment Audit
KULTNEWS
1K views•2026-05-30
Trump Impeachment STORM IGNITES as 29 Judges Vote for Conviction!!
DanielBriefDaily
2K views•2026-06-02
EBK Jaaybo Won’t Be Going To Trial?! | Criminal Lawyer Reacts
floridadefenseteam
404 views•2026-05-29
OFFICE HOURS: The Theft of Black Brilliance... AI and Intellectual Property (w/ Lisa E. Davis)
marclamonthillnetwork
2K views•2026-05-29
सुप्रीम कोर्ट में 5 जजों का शपथग्रहण समारोह #supremecourt #judges #oathceremony #shorts #ytshorts
Bharat24Liv
4K views•2026-06-02











