For the first time in his life, attorney Alex Murdaugh—the scion of a long line of lawyers and prosecutors—stands before a jury at the Colleton Courthouse, not as a practitioner of law, but rather as a defendant. He is accused of having murdered both his wife Maggie and his son Paul on the evening of June 7, 2021.

This trial, The State of South Carolina v. Richard Alexander Murdaugh, marks the end of a fascinating story that gripped the nation for months. An unusual case involving financial crimes, drug abuse, corruption, attempted suicide disguised as murder, and other mysterious deaths in 2015, 2018, and 2019. But more than anything else, this story explores a waning American aristocracy: a successful and powerful family brought to ruin through a mix of drugs, violence, and an intoxicating sense of impunity.

French journalist Arthur Cerf lived in Colleton County, South Carolina, for eight weeks to write about this high-profile trial, which he brilliantly recounts as one family’s fall from grace.

50 States of Crime: France’s leading true crime journalists investigate America’s most notorious cases, one for every state in the Union, offering up fresh perspectives on famously storied crimes and reflecting, in the process, a dark national legacy that leads from coast to coast.