06/05/2026
What was she hiding? The UNTOLD SECRETS of Maggie Murdaugh’s final days before the horrific hunting lodge massacre—This is sickening!
The late Margaret Kennedy Branstetter — the granddaughter of a simple barber from rural Kentucky who grew up to marry one of South Carolina’s richest men and fly around in chartered jets — was guilty of only one thing, according to family and friends.
Maggie Murdaugh, as she was known as an adult, spoiled her two sons.
By most accounts, her older child, Buster, 26, was much more easygoing and well-adjusted than Paul, who was 22 when he was shot to death along with his 52-year-old mother at the family hunting lodge in rural Colleton County last June. The now notorious murders, covered by news outlets all over the world, remain unsolved.
Paul was facing criminal charges in the February 2019 boat crash death of his one-time girlfriend, Mallory Beach, 19. Friends testified that Paul became a different, destructive person when he drank and called his alter ego “Timmy.”
But Paul was a handful even as a little boy, a family member told The Post.
“I saw him snap at least once,” the family member said. “He told his aunt Nancy to go f–k herself. It was about 10 years ago and he would have been around 11. I was alone with him and maybe a few other kids were there. I was on his case about it but he said he didn’t give a s–t. He did not take authority well.”
Bubba Mixson, 52, of Varnville, SC, whose eldest son attended school with Buster, said he and his wife knew Maggie well. He said she shouldn’t be blamed for being overindulgent with her boys. An old-school homemaker and mother, she never worked outside the home except briefly when she opened a gift shop on Hampton’s main street years ago.
“Maggie lived for her kids,” Mixson told The Post. “She was at every school function. She was such a sweet person. She never met a stranger. I can’t say enough good about her. and I mean that.”
