True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Paul Murdaugh kept Mallory Beach’s obituary tucked into the door frame of his truck. Every time he climbed in, it was right there. Blanca Simpson saw it because she’d been inside the Murdaugh home for fifteen years and knew things about that family the cameras and courtrooms never captured. In this interview with Tony Brueski, Blanca tells the story of who the Murdaughs actually were behind the front door — and why the public version doesn’t match what she witnessed.
She goes back to the beginning — meeting Alex in the late ’90s, translating for his cases, and eventually becoming the family’s housekeeper after the real estate crash left her between jobs. Over the years, the relationship deepened from cleaning to running the household, cashing checks, and becoming someone Maggie trusted enough to confide in when Alex wouldn’t give her the full truth about a $30 million lawsuit bearing down on the family.
Blanca challenges the public image of both Maggie and Paul. She describes Maggie as the opposite of the cold socialite in a fur coat — loud, funny, generous, and always shopping local to support the community. She remembers Paul’s humor and his arrogance in equal measure, but insists the version the media handed the public after the boating incident erased the person he actually was.
She reveals the private fractures: Maggie wanting to sell everything to make things right while Alex wouldn’t sit down long enough to explain the situation. The joke about Maggie divorcing Alex for Tom Brady that got twisted into a serious rumor. And the two months before the murders when Alex started retreating — staying in bed, showing up late, carrying something nobody around him could fully see.

LINKS & LEGAL

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#MurdaughTrial #AlexMurdaugh #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh #BlancaSimpson #MurdaughFamily #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #MurdaughMurders #SouthCarolina

Her children begged a judge to keep her locked away forever. Kouri Richins responded by telling them she’s coming home — and everything she said in between is worse than you think.
Minutes after therapists read the handwritten words of three boys into the court record — words describing locked rooms, neglect, dead animals, and a childhood spent in fear — Kouri stood and delivered a fifteen-minute statement that never once acknowledged what those kids lived through. She didn’t mention the locked bedroom doors. She didn’t mention the brother who had to sneak food to his sibling. She didn’t mention the animals that starved and froze while she was in charge.
What she did talk about was herself. Her love story with Eric. How marriage is hard. How her love was “enough.” She told the boys their father “was in a lot of physical pain” — still nudging an alternate narrative even after a conviction. She told them to “be like your dad,” the man a jury says she killed. And she told children who described being scared for their lives to question the people who finally gave them safety.
Tony Brueski plays back her full courtroom speech and dismantles it in real time.
Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod
This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
#KouriRichins #EricRichins #TrueCrimeToday #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylMurder #UtahCrime #Sentencing #Justice

The South Carolina Supreme Court threw out Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions, restricted the evidence that dominated his first trial, and rewrote the legal standard for jury tampering claims in the state. Eric Faddis — a former prosecutor who now practices defense — provides the full analysis.
The ruling: Toal placed the burden on Murdaugh, violated evidence rules by questioning jurors about their mental processes, and relied on testimony that was inadmissible. The court adopted the Cheek framework, making it the governing standard in South Carolina, and found the State could not prove the verdict was unaffected by Hill’s comments.
The evidence: twelve and a half hours of financial crimes testimony flagged as excessive. The motive timeline survives. The inflammatory details do not. The defense also has unresolved challenges to forensic evidence the court declined to address.
The retrial: Murdaugh’s prior testimony locked in as a prosecution asset. Hill’s conviction as a potential defense narrative. A venue fight with no obvious answer. And Faddis’ answer to the question every trial lawyer in the country is asking — which side would you rather be on?

LINKS

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

HASHTAGS

#AlexMurdaugh #TrueCrimeToday #MurdaughRetrial #EricFaddis #SCSupremeCourt #TrueCrime #BeckyHill #JuryTampering #MurdaughEvidence #NewTrial

The courtroom heard from three boys who still can’t stand in front of Kouri Richins and speak. Their therapists did it for them — reading handwritten words about a childhood prosecutors say was defined by neglect, fear, locked doors, and a father taken by fentanyl.
One child wrote about being forced to parent his younger siblings while the woman in the house disappeared with neighbors or stayed incapacitated. Another described waking to emergency sirens, not knowing what was happening, and spending years afraid her relatives would show up and drag him away from safety. The youngest put it plainly: he was locked in his room, his brother snuck him meals, his animals died around him, and the woman prosecutors say orchestrated all of it threatened to kill his pet when he wouldn’t comply.
All three asked the judge for the same thing: keep her locked away. Forever. They said they finally feel safe — and that safety disappears the moment she walks free.
And while every one of those words was read aloud, Kouri Richins sat in that courtroom and scoffed. She rolled her eyes at her own children’s pain.
Tony Brueski breaks it all down — including what Kouri had to say for herself afterward. That part might make you angrier than everything the boys wrote.
Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod
This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
#KouriRichins #EricRichins #TrueCrimeToday #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrime

Three years between the verdict and the reversal. In that time, the defense picked up a perjury conviction against the clerk who tampered with the jury and a Supreme Court opinion restricting the financial evidence that dominated the first trial. The prosecution picked up a complete transcript of Murdaugh’s testimony and additional time to refine its forensic case.
Eric Faddis weighs the advantages from both sides. Murdaugh’s prior testimony is potentially the State’s most valuable asset — a locked-in record that constrains the defense whether Murdaugh testifies again or not. But the defense has something it never had before: an official judicial finding that the first trial was unfair, backed by the harshest language the Supreme Court could muster against a court officer.
Faddis addresses whether Hill’s misconduct can be put before the retrial jury as part of the defense narrative, whether the State has new evidence to bring, and the jury selection challenge that may define the entire proceeding — finding twelve people in South Carolina who haven’t already formed an opinion about this case.

LINKS

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

HASHTAGS

#AlexMurdaugh #TrueCrimeToday #MurdaughRetrial #EricFaddis #BeckyHill #SCSupremeCourt #TrueCrime #NewTrial #JurySelection #MurdaughTrial