The Murdaugh trial and small-town power

A lone hook dangles where a portrait of Randolph Murdaugh Jr used to hang in the Colleton County courtroom. Murdaugh was the longest-serving prosecutor in South Carolina history, his tenure wedged in between his father’s and his son’s. This multi-generational legal dynasty was revered in Lowcountry, in the state’s marshy south. But now, rather than arguing from the prosecutors’ bench, his grandson sits in the defendant’s seat, accused of slaying his wife and son. The gilt-framed portrait was taken down for the trial.