A true crime buff was amazed to find hundreds of never-before-seen vacation photos of the Murdaugh family on a memory card she bought at auction.
Dawn Martin, who had been “closely following” the Murdaugh case, said the shots showed Alex driving the family boat and Paul holding precious pigs he had just killed.
Martin invested in several items at auction, but claimed she “didn’t really know” what a memory card was or if it would provide such an intimate glimpse into the family’s life.
She shared only two photos — one of Maggie on vacation and another of Alex in a diving mask — while she waited to decide what to do with the rest.
Last week, the Liberty Auction House in Pembroke, Georgia, auctioned off a slew of items from the Murdaugh family’s 1,800-acre property where Patriarch Alex murdered his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, on June 7, 2021.
A photo of Alex Murdaugh diving was one of hundreds of never-before-seen photos of the family found last week on a memory card sold at auction
A picture of Maggie enjoying her vacation was also found on the old cards
It was revealed yesterday that the Murdaugh hunting lodge had been sold for $2.6 million to two buyers – a cut from the $3.9 million it was listed for.
Martin, who lives in Pembroke, said she decided to visit the auction after realizing how close it was to her home.
“I followed the case closely. I had a day off and decided to do that as it was so close I was very surprised to have it in Pembroke Georgia,” she shared WTOC 11.
“The most important thing to me was this camera bag that would contain information about SIM cards.”
She bought two cameras and a bag of memory cards that she took home and uploaded to her computer.
She insisted she had expected to see “nothing” on the cards, adding, “I didn’t really know what a SIM card or memory card was.”
However, they were filled with hundreds of photos from family vacations in Murdaugh.
She explained, “Alex, with his arm around it steering the boat, pictures of Paul holding a pet, pigs he apparently shot, pictures from vacations.
Dawn Martin said she had been following the Murdaugh case “very closely.” She bought several items at auction, including two cameras and a bag of memory cards
Martin said she “didn’t really know” what a memory card was and didn’t expect to find anything on the devices
“I will say it changed me. I can’t undo it. I never thought I would own things and hide a glimpse into the private view of their lives.”
She added: “The images told a story. There were so many. And to guess that I was looking at a novel and knew the outcome and what that outcome was and how shocked I was myself.”
Martin said she also wanted to pay tribute to Maggie through the photos.
She was the forgotten victim in this story and I am honored to have seen her. But it’s like in the novel, we know what happened in the end. So to me it’s very creepy,” she said.
The Liberty Auction House sold household items during last Thursday’s auction, including a leather sofa, armchair set, dinnerware, lampshades and hunting accessories, all belonging to the Murdaughs.
Among the more expensive items for sale were lamps decorated with tortoiseshells, which sold for $800, a Yeti tumbler for $400, and mounted long horns, which carried a hefty $10,000 price tag.
Martin said the footage provided an intimate glimpse into the Murdaugh’s private life. They are pictured from left to right: Buster, Maggie, Paul, and Alex Murdaugh
A shot shared on Facebook shows Maggie on vacation with her two sons
The first item auctioned was an animal trap, which fetched $500, followed later by a pair of rocking chairs for $850, and a couch from the family home, which fetched $30,000 after an intense bidding war.
It comes three weeks after Murdaugh appealed his double murder convictions and his life sentence. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the March 3 murders.
Murdaugh is currently in the high-security Kirkland Correctional Institution, one of South Carolina’s most notorious prisons.
And while the disgraced former lawyer escaped the death penalty for the murder of his wife Maggie and son Paul, a third life sentence would mean Murdaugh will spend the rest of his life behind bars under the federal law’s three strikes law. the state.
He is currently appealing his murder conviction, but the state is specifically seeking three additional breach of trust convictions totaling $10,000 or more.
Three additional convictions on breach of trust charges would result in a life sentence, removing his chance of parole.
Murdaugh’s trial lasted six weeks and included more than 75 witnesses, but culminated in a jury taking less than three hours to find the 54-year-old guilty of shooting his wife and son to death.
Murdaugh called 911 on the evening of June 7, 2021, saying he found his son and wife dead when he returned home from an hour-long visit to his mother, who suffers from dementia.
Murdaugh family household items, including a leather sofa and armchair set (pictured), dinnerware, lampshades and hunting props, were sold at auction
The auction house also sold a few lamps with turtles on them
The sale also included hunting horses from the family’s estate in Moselle, where Alex Murdaugh killed his wife Maggie, 52, and their son, Paul, 22.
Authorities said Paul was shot twice with a shotgun, each round loaded with a different size shot, while Maggie was hit with four or five rounds from a rifle.
A crime scene report suggested that both victims had been shot in the head after they were initially wounded near dog kennels on the Murdaughs’ sprawling rural estate.
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