(CNN)Alex Murdaugh, the prominent South Carolina attorney who said he was shot Saturday, about three months after he discovered the bodies of his wife and son shot dead outside the family's home, said Monday he plans to resign from his law firm and begin an unspecified rehabilitation treatment, according to a statement obtained by CNN affiliate WCSC.
South Carolina attorney shot in the head 3 months after his wife and son were killed
South Carolina attorney shot in the head 3 months after his wife and son were killed
The statement provided to WCSC through Murdaugh's attorney, Dick Harpootlian, said: "The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret. I'm resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated by these murders. I am immensely sorry to everyone I've hurt including my family, friends and colleagues. I ask for prayers as I rehabilitate myself and my relationships."
CNN has attempted to reach Harpootlian for comment.
The statement came days after Murdaugh called 911 and reported being shot Saturday on a road in Hampton County, South Carolina, according to a statement from South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) spokesperson Tommy Crosby.
Murdaugh was taken to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia, where he was treated for a "superficial gunshot wound to the head," and no arrests had been made, the SLED statement said.
CNN affiliates WCSC and WCIV reported Jim Griffin, Murdaugh's attorney, said he was told by family members Murdaugh was changing a tire when he was shot. Griffin told WCIV a vehicle had passed Murdaugh and turned around when someone shot him.
A family spokesperson said in a statement the family expects Murdaugh to recover and asked for privacy, saying, "The Murdaugh family has suffered through more than any one family could ever imagine," a likely reference to the killings of Murdaugh's wife and 22-year-old son.
Shooting deaths of wife and son remain unsolved
According to SLED, Murdaugh called 911 on June 7 and said he had arrived home to find his wife, Margaret, and son Paul shot dead outside of their home in Islandton, a small community about an hour north of Hilton Head Island. Colleton County Sheriff's deputies determined both had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
SLED took over the investigation, but the case remains unsolved. Alex Murdaugh announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the parties responsible for their deaths.
"I urge the public to be patient and let the investigation take its course," SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement in June. "This case is complex, and we will not rush this or any investigation."
The family has been prominent in the South Carolina legal community for decades: Over 87 consecutive years, three generations of Murdaughs -- including Alex's father, Randolph Murdaugh III -- held the office of Solicitor of the 14th Circuit, which covers Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties.
According to the 14th Circuit Solicitor's Office, the current solicitor is the first outside the Murdaugh family to hold the elected position.
Alex's brothers Randy and John Marvin addressed the perception of the family prominence in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" in June.
"You see words like 'dynasty' used and 'power,' and I don't know exactly how people use those words," said Randy Murdaugh. "But we're just regular people, and we're hurting just like they would be hurting if this had happened to them."
"I can't imagine the horror that my brother's experiencing," he said.

Alex Murdaugh, the prominent South Carolina lawyer whose wife and son were shot and killed in June, asked a former client to kill him this month so his other son could collect a $10 million insurance payment but survived being shot in the head, the police said on Tuesday night.

It was the latest startling twist in a series of mysteries that have brought intense scrutiny to the Murdaugh family and the rural slice of South Carolina where their family has held sway for more than a century, though the central question of who killed Mr. Murdaugh’s wife and son remains unsolved.

The former client, Curtis Edward Smith, 61, of Walterboro, S.C., was arrested and charged with assisted suicide, aggravated assault and battery, and insurance fraud in connection with the shooting on Sept. 4, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said.

The state police agency said that Mr. Murdaugh, 53, had admitted to the scheme on Monday and that Mr. Smith had admitted to being at the scene and getting rid of the gun. Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyer did not respond to inquiries about the arrest, and it was not clear if Mr. Smith, who was booked in the Colleton County jail, had a lawyer.

Mr. Murdaugh has not been charged, but he is referred to as a “co-defendant” in the charging documents for Mr. Smith; a police spokesman, Tommy Crosby, said without elaborating that the police expected to bring more charges in the case.

Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyer and spokeswoman had insisted that the shooting on a rural road in Hampton County, S.C., was not self-inflicted. They said that Mr. Murdaugh had stopped to inspect a flat tire when someone in a truck pulled up and shot him, causing a skull fracture. He was released from a hospital within several days.

A day before the shooting, Mr. Murdaugh had been pushed out of his family law firm, P.M.P.E.D., which said it discovered that he had misused millions of dollars. Mr. Murdaugh issued a statement apologizing to his family and his colleagues, and his lawyer said he was entering a drug rehab program.

It was a stunning unraveling for Mr. Murdaugh, who is part of a legal dynasty that has amassed powerful ties in the South Carolina Lowcountry over the past century. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father sequentially served as the top prosecutor across a five-county region from 1910 until 2006.

Mr. Murdaugh represented Mr. Smith as recently as 2015 in a lawsuit that Mr. Smith had filed against a forest management company based in Charlotte, N.C. He had also represented Mr. Smith in 2013 when Mr. Smith was given a ticket for driving up to 10 m.p.h. over the speed limit.

The shooting of Mr. Murdaugh came nearly three months after he returned to his family’s large, rural property in Islandton, S.C., and discovered that his wife, Maggie, and son Paul, a 22-year-old college student, had been shot to death.

At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was facing charges that he had drunkenly crashed a boat in 2019, killing Mallory Beach, a passenger, and wounding others.

The killings also led the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to open an investigation into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old man whose body was found in a road 10 miles from the Murdaugh home and whose death was ruled a shooting and then a probable hit-and-run. No one has been charged in his death.