Morgan Doughty, 23, spoke publicly for the first time in the Netflix documentary “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Tragedy” about how Paul, who was 22 at the time of his murder, reportedly hit and kicked her and attempted to strangle her.
Doughty, who began dating Paul in high school, also claims in the series that Paul was verbally abusive to her.
The three-part documentary debuted on Wednesday, during the fifth week of Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial.
Alex is suspected of murdering his wife, Maggie, 52, and Paul on June 7, 2021.
Paul was reportedly driving his family’s boat while inebriated in 2019 when he slammed into a bridge piling, killing Mallory Beach, 19, and injuring four people on board, including Doughty.
She had previously said that Paul had spit on her and smacked her in a fit of fury before to the collision.
Paul was detained and charged with three counts of boating while intoxicated. He was slain while awaiting trial.
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Doughty describes several events in the documentary in which Paul reportedly physically mistreated her.
One such instance occurred in their hotel room on the night of Buster’s graduation.
Paul is described as “”We had finally gone to bed and for some reason Paul was, like, kicking me,” she claims.
“I shouted at him, and then he sprang on top of me, yelling, ‘I told you to shut up!’ as he clutched my neck.
“All I remember is him punching me extremely hard in the knee right here.”
A bruise on her body, purportedly caused by Paul, is among the photographs displayed in the video.
This was not the first time she said he had been violent to her.
She was bringing him home in his vehicle after a Christmas Day party in 2017 when he “aggressively” informed her that he wanted to drive even though he was inebriated, she claims.
The vehicle swerved off the road and into a ditch.
As she attempted to dial 911, he allegedly took the phone from her grasp and disconnected the connection.
Instead, he dialled the number of his father and grandpa, lifelong attorney Randolph Murdaugh III, who died three days after the double shooting on June 7, 2021.
She alleges that his father, grandparents, and mother raced to the scene and concealed the booze and firearms in the vehicle before police arrived.
They told her she shouldn’t have contacted 911 because Paul may have been in problems with the authorities, she claims.
‘It was quite natural for them to be drinking.
Doughty states throughout the documentary that Paul drank a lot of booze and was often inebriated.
She claims Paul’s parents seemed to enable him to drink.
“Whenever I was to the Murdaughs’, they were usually drinking and had a lot of booze always stocked in the home,” Doughty adds.
Gloria Satterfield, the family’s longstanding housekeeper, reportedly knew of Paul’s aggressive behaviour against her and provided her advise regarding their volatile relationship.
“You know how he is, and you’re simply going to have to learn how to cope with his rage, or you need to go out,” Doughty says in the documentary.
Satterfield died in 2018 as a result of an alleged slip-and-fall accident at Moselle, the Murdaughs’ hunting lodge near Islandton, where Paul and Maggie were shot and murdered. Authorities, however, have reopened the inquiry into Satterfield’s death.
After the deaths, Satterfield’s sons discovered that Alex Murdaugh had defrauded them of a $4.3 million insurance claim.
Murdaugh eventually confessed to taking the money meant for Satterfield’s boys.