I Helped Expose Alex Murdaugh. Then the Threats Started

It was 2019 and my reporting partner Liz Farrell and I had come to visit the site where a teenager named Stephen Smith had been found dead four years earlier. We had just finished taking pictures of the makeshift wooden cross on the side of the road when we realized we were being followed.

Had someone tipped off the highway patrol when we were interviewing a source in town just an hour ago? Was I just being paranoid?

We turned into a driveway to reverse and head in the other direction. A moment later, the cruiser did the same thing. “Oh my God,” I said to Liz, as she gripped the wheel.

It felt like all the rumors we had heard were coming true. We were told no one ever investigated anything in Hampton County because the powerful Murdaugh family had the cops in their back pockets. We were told to leave well enough alone if we knew what was good for us.

But my gut told me something wasn’t right in this place, and I had to learn more.

I was practically crying by the time we reached the lights in the center of town, but after a few more minutes, the police cruiser finally turned off.

It was the first time I truly feared for my safety since becoming a journalist, but it wouldn’t be the last.

The warnings started as soon as I began reporting on the Murdaughs, the storied South Carolina family who had dominated rural South Carolina for decades. Be careful, commenters wrote on my first stories about a fatal boat crash involving the Murdaugh family’s younger son Paul in early 2019. These people make bodies disappear.

Once I started digging, things got even more treacherous: The family’s longtime housekeeper had died after a mysterious accident in their house. A paper trail of unusual legal filings suggested backroom dealings and buried secrets.

What was going on?

Two years later, in June 2021, patriarch Alex Murdaugh would call 911 to report his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, were found dead at their hunting lodge—and my life would never be the same again.

We launched the Murdaugh Murders Podcast from my kitchen table a couple of weeks later, and within days, our show began to climb the charts. Listeners were hungry for information and accountability—downloads grew exponentially each week.

Within a few months, we had reached #1 of all Apple podcasts. I was shocked and elated, but between covering court appearances, keeping up with sources, and doing daily reporting on a breaking news situation that was shifting by the day, I was numb.

I was working myself to the bone, and my mental health was suffering.

The online hate began immediately after our first episode. I got plenty of cheers from listeners, but in between mentions of my “vocal fry” and how much I desperately needed voice training, a new kind of violent rhetoric cropped up.

“When you get the s**t kicked out of you and call the cops, I hope they don’t show up,” said one email. “Go die, b***h,” said another.

Who would sling all this hate at a stranger? Why were they targeting me when I was just doing my job?

Anxiety and fear began to take over my life. I barely slept at night; the cases and the harassment had infected my dreams. Sometimes I’d wake up in a panic, convinced an intruder had gotten into the house.

My fiance knew how to calm me down and bring me back to reality; and Liz helped me cope while we nicknamed the rude awakenings “Murdmares.”

I started taking other precautions when I was out in public. I stopped posting my location on social media until after I had left wherever I was. Live events and big crowds worried me; I sometimes asked friendly cop sources to come out for backup. I stopped driving places alone in fear I would get followed.

I rarely go anywhere without my husband even now—as much as I value my independence as a woman, my safety concerns have taken priority over everything since we started the podcast over two years ago.

About seven months after we launched the podcast, I realized something needed to change. I started taking antidepressants for the first time in my life to cope with anxiety and depression levels I had never experienced.

Contrary to ancient journalism rules, I did something a lot of people considered to be brave: I shared these mental health struggles with my podcast audience. I know, I know: journalists are supposed to stay out of the story. They aren’t supposed to make it about themselves.

But ultimately, opening up to my audience saved me in a lot of ways because of the overwhelming response I received. We’re rooting for you, so many said. You got this.

These words of encouragement kept me going in times when it was hard enough to get out of bed and even harder to keep digging into an investigation that was making my life miserable.

I was especially grateful to see so many podcast fans standing up for me online—I felt comfort knowing other people were out there defending me when I didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.

I was lucky. Because of the success of my podcast, my husband and I were able to launch our own company Luna Shark Media, where mental health is a top priority for journalists. I didn’t have to go to court proceedings where I feared for my safety. I took a lot of time completely away from my phone and work—a luxury I really never had when I worked for other news outlets.

I learned how important it was for me to limit my social media time in order to preserve my mental health, and I was able to hire someone to monitor social media and online activity, while they flagged, blocked, and reported accounts on the regular.

Gradually, the fog began to lift. And in March 2023, when Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the murders of his wife and son, it felt as though everything I had gone through was worth it. All the fear and the tears and the sleepless nights had meant something.

For the first time, a Murdaugh was held accountable for his actions, and a new generation of Hampton County folks could believe justice was possible. Our podcast and the community we had built were part of what made this happen.

There was still a long road ahead, and for the first time, it felt like the tide was turning.

Strangers in public often approach me and tell me that they wish there were more journalists like us out there to expose the evil doers of the world. But after spending nearly a decade working for legacy news organizations, I understand why there aren’t.

For most of my career, until I started my own business, I was paid less than $50k a year and was told I should be grateful simply for being employed as a journalist. I worked nights, days, and weekends and made myself available for sources or breaking news nearly 24 hours a day.

We expect investigative journalists to risk their safety, bite their tongues when they are harassed online, and carry the emotional weight of heavy stories—and for what?

As we slip further into the age of misinformation, good journalists—the kind who people trust and follow to report the truth and not the spin — are more needed than ever.

We started Luna Shark Productions and the podcasts because I knew that the story deserved a bigger platform and that people would pay more attention if only they could listen to what I was hearing. We wanted to expand the impact of our mission and welcome additional journalists into achieving those goals for stories across the country and beyond.

We wrote Blood On Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty to inspire journalists often told to ignore their instinct in favor of promoting the status quo.

But most of all, we want this book to stand as a testament as to what can be accomplished against overwhelming challenges facing investigative journalists like institutional sexism, dependence on legacy media companies with skewed priorities, and a perversion of public agencies to shield some from justice by pillaging it from others.

I’m a huge advocate for press freedoms, and I feel strongly that journalists should never be harassed or made to feel unsafe just for doing their jobs. I was horrified to read about the police raid of the Marion County Record in my home state of Kansas, and I continue to hope that we can inspire young journalists to protect the truth from public agents and agencies that pervert it.

And we changed the name of Murdaugh Murders Podcast to True Sunlight so we could branch out without being limited. I speak out whenever I can; when I talk to college students about the journalism industry, many of them ask me how I can keep going amidst such a toxic climate.

My answer is always the same: Because Stephen Smith’s family needs answers. Because Alex Murdaugh and the systems that continued to prop him up still need to be held accountable for this wholly avoidable disastrous saga I’ve been reporting on for more than four years.

Because the ‘good old boys’ are still running South Carolina and beyond.

There is still so much work to be done.

Mandy Matney is a journalist, podcaster, CEO of Luna Shark Media and the author of the forthcoming book Blood On Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty due out on November 14 from William Morrow.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast transformed into True Sunlight Podcast in May 2023 and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Luna Shark also launched Cup of Justice Podcast in February 2023 as it also hit #1 of all Apple podcasts with Co-hosts Liz Farrell, Eric Bland and Mandy to provide even more insight on this saga and beyond.

Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at [email protected].