‘He did it’: Alex Murdaugh’s housekeeper reveals the moment she realized he had murdered his wife and son
More than four years after Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son and two years after the disgraced South Carolina lawyer was convicted, the family’s longtime housekeeper is now sharing her story.
Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson’s new book Within the House of Murdaugh: Amid a Unique Friendship – Blanca and Maggie, written with Mary Frances Weaver, offers an intimate look inside the family’s world before, during, and after the 2021 murders that shattered South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
On June 7, 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and their son Paul, 22, were shot to death near the dog kennels on the family’s 1,770-acre hunting estate in Islandton.
Murdaugh stood trial for the murders in 2023. Turrubiate-Simpson, who had worked for the family for 14 years and was also close friends with Maggie, testified about the family’s finances and the tension she saw between the couple.
But it was the police body cam footage that she saw after the trial that gave her the big “aha” moment about Murdaugh’s guilt.
The footage, played in court, showed a beach towel in Murdaugh’s Suburban.
Turrubiate-Simpson recalled that she had washed that very towel and placed it on a high shelf in the laundry room on the day of the murders, she said.
“I looked at the towel and I said, ‘Oh my God. He did it,’” she recalls in the book.
Murdaugh had claimed that he had been visiting his elderly mother and dying father on the day of the murders. When he returned to the property at 10:07 p.m., he said he found the bodies of his wife and son and called 911 sobbing.
In the book, Turrubiate-Simpson said she believes Murdaugh used the beach towel to clean up after the murders, but like the shirt he had on that day, the towel disappeared.
“What happened to that towel?” she asks.
In the book, Turrubiate-Simpson takes readers back to the moment she heard the news.
Around 6 a.m. on June 8, 2021, just hours after the murders, Turrubiate-Simpson got a frantic call from Murdaugh.
“They’re gone, B,’” she remembers him saying. “They’re gone!”
Later that morning, he asked her to clean the Moselle home before Maggie’s parents arrived.
In the book, she recalled the small details she noticed that day that unsettled her: Maggie’s Mercedes was parked on the wrong side of the driveway, her pajamas and underwear were neatly laid out – despite the fact that she never wore underwear to bed, Turrubiate-Simpson said, adding “I knew automatically that wasn’t her.”
Turrubiate-Simpson also detailed her own theories about what happened that night.
She speculates that Murdaugh worked with an accomplice who helped him clean up, drive Maggie’s SUV back to the house and stage the crime scene by leaving her pajamas on the floor.
Though no one truly knows what happened except for Murdaugh, she added.
The chilling details from the day after the murders haunted her, but she says when police began investigating the case, “nobody asked me anything.”
When she tried to offer information that she believed would help, no one listened, she claimed.
“To them, I was just the Mexican housekeeper,” she says.
Turrubiate-Simpson, who first met Murdaugh back in 2002 when she helped him with his Spanish-speaking clients, said she still struggles to believe he could kill his wife and son.
Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 of the double murders. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole.
“In the end the Murdaugh name meant more,” she said. “Maggie and Paul were just collateral.”
Turrubiate-Simpson also talks about her bond with Maggie, which began when she was hired in 2007.
“We were on different rungs of the social ladder,” she writes. But Maggie always made her feel like a friend, rather than an employee.
“She would call me on the phone and say, ‘Girl, I got something to tell you,’” Turrubiate-Simpson recalls.
“I have so many fond memories of her,” she says. “She was thoughtful, generous – and a lot of fun.”
After Maggie’s death, Turrubiate-Simpson adopted her beloved Labrador, Bubba – the same dog that helped prosecutors place Murdaugh at the scene through his voice on a cellphone video.
“I took care of Bubba and he kind of emotionally took care of me,” she said.
Ultimately, Turrubiate-Simpson said she hopes readers will see the real Maggie – not just a name in the headlines or a victim in a widely known crime saga.
“She was so full of life,” Turrubiate-Simpson said.
“She always looked out for me. I want to honor her legacy.”
