Alex Murdaugh poses in Confederate military uniform in 1989 frat party photo trends now
Wild-eyed, drunk and sneering with privilege, this is legal scion turned double murderer Alex Murdaugh dressing as a Confederate soldier for a frat party photo obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.
Grinning Murdaugh donned Civil War-style fatigues for a 1989 'Old South' ball he attended with Kappa Alpha pals from the University of South California.
College acquaintances remember him as a swaggering bully who boasted of his family's high-powered connections, drank heavily, and challenged students to fist fights.
Alex Murdaugh is seen dressed in a Confederate military uniform while attending an 'Old South' ball at the University of South Carolina in 1989, in an unearthed photo obtained by DailyMail.com
The disgraced legal scion and now convicted murderer was a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, whose members at the time have described Murdaugh as a 'belligerent drunk' and a 'poster child for white privilege'
Murdaugh was led out of the courthouse to a waiting prison van to begin his life sentence Friday after being found guilty of murdering his wife and son
'Alex Murdaugh was the poster child for white privilege,' one told DailyMail.com.
'He was a belligerent drunk. He would be verbally abusive to women. He would challenge his frat brothers or college classmates to a fight.
'His attitude was, my family owns everything and everyone and I can do what I want – I'm the top dog. He thought he was made of Teflon.'
The Murdaughs held massive sway in South Carolina where three generations of his family served as top prosecutor in the 14th Judicial Circuit solicitor's office, spanning five counties and 3,200 square miles.
But no amount of wealth or influence could shield Murdaugh, 54, from justice for murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul at the family's rural hunting lodge in June 2021.
A six-week trial heard how Maggie, 52, was shot five times with a semi-automatic rifle while 22-year-old Paul was blasted twice with a shotgun.
Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed the pair to divert attention from financial crimes that were about to be exposed, including the millions of dollars he embezzled from his law firm and its clients.
The lying patriarch took the stand himself to tearfully testify about his crippling opioid addiction and how his love for Maggie and Paul meant he could never harm them.
But jurors took just 45 minutes to decide the disgraced lawyer was guilty of annihilating his own family, earning him two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The Murdaughs were one of South Carolina's most prominent legal families, with family members heading up the 14th Circuit solicitor's office dating back almost a century. Pictured from left to right, Paul, Margaret, Alex and Buster
Murdaugh (pictured with murdered wife Maggie) earned his bachelor's degree in political science at USC, the same institution where his great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr, graduated in 1910 before starting the family law firm in Hampton County
The South Carolina law firm formerly known as Parker, Murdaugh, Parker, Elztroth & Detrick, or PMPED, stripped the Murdaugh name from their masthead last year and has since rebranded as the Parker Law Group
'We all have idiotic college pictures and Alex looks like a complete buffoon in this one, ' the former acquaintance told DailyMail.com.
'But there's something about his photo that foreshadows his downfall, the arrogance in his eyes perhaps.'
Murdaugh earned his bachelor's degree in political science at USC, the same institution where his great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr, graduated in 1910 before starting the family law firm in Hampton
