Real Southern Noir - “The Way Down” and “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty”
“The Way Down”
This is a documentary about Gwen Shamblin, the Remnant
Fellowship Church and the diet ministry The Weigh Down Workshop, centered in
the upscale southern town of Brentwood, TN, just south of Nashville. It might as well be a southern update of Flannery
O’Connor’s Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away, Erkine
Caldwell’s Journeyman or Sinclair
Lewis’ Elmer Gantry. What can a leftist take away from this train
wreck, which actually ends in a deadly plane crash in a local lake?
Well, a number of things.
It is a harsh reflection on the evangelical Christian mindset, which, in
an attempt to lose weight, does not rely on any scientific information but that received
from a minister or the Bible. Sound familiar? Gwen Shamblin, a big-haired
preacher that began to look like a weird waitress in a truck-stop, said that
when you’re hungry, ‘think of God.’ Her weight-loss
ministry, started in 1986, grew through trying to get the weight off of mostly
working class southern women. It shamed
those who could not lose weight; it advocated starvation diets; it discouraged
exercise or physical work; it blamed over-eating on ‘emotional issues;’ it
thought weight-gain a ‘sin.’ Prayer and
looking to God or Shamblin was the answer.
Buying the books, tapes and videos was another. Escapees from the Weigh Down cult report
mental health problems and eating disorders, though some also lost weight for a
while.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Another relevant detail, familiar to anyone who pays
attention to ‘pay to pray’ outfits like this is the wealth accumulated by the
leadership. The Remnant Church
Fellowship was the parent of Weigh Down, and above that, many trusts that held
the property of the Shamblin family. She
had over $20M in real estate property, including a $4M mansion near the church
when she got divorced from her first husband – though divorce was not allowed
in the church, except evidently to her. Her will included nothing for the
church. The cultural image of Remnant was
of smiling, happy, upper-middle class families dressed in frilly and proper
clothes, with their nice cars and big houses, having a marvelous time. Like so many southerners who drink and party,
Gwen did too. It’s like some bad 1950s
charade, with the women sometimes described as Stepford Wives.
The cultish aspects continue: the church practiced shunning of any who left,
accusing them of being heretics. It
provided free lawyers during divorces to those remaining in the church for full
child custody against the leaving parent.
It ran many businesses like car repair, building, real estate, child
care and the like, much of it for low pay or no pay. It did not pay members for work ‘during
church hours,’ including the hairdresser who repeatedly did Gwen’s beehive. Marriages were encouraged within the church
and potential brides or grooms had to join if they wanted to marry a member.
Members were forced to put in their wills that their children would be put ‘in
the custody of the Church’ in the event of their untimely death. It practiced ‘obedient children’ parenting
doctrine – which led to the beating death of a parishioner’s 8 year old son in
2003 after he had been abused for years with Church approval. Children were treasured as long as they were
‘perfect.’
Multi-Culty
The Shamblin ministry at one point in 2000 decided to
distinguish itself from other evangelicals by getting rid of ‘The Trinity’ and
only focusing on God. Now the trinity of
‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ has never made sense to anyone except those
drilled in fundamentalist Christian or Catholic doctrine. Jettisoning Jesus reminds one of how some
Southern Baptists now think Christ is too much of a liberal – too ‘woke.’ And who did God talk through? The prophet Gwen Shamblin. Most evangelical Christianity is male-based,
so Shamblin was an exception, a weird form of conservative feminism. She did urge her followers to be obedient to
their husbands, which is the fundamentalist line. That is why divorce was looked down upon
except for her.
That child’s death foretold what would happen to Gwen, her
gold-digger husband Joe Lara, her son-in-law and 4 other top leaders in the
Church when Joe’s jet went down in a lake east of Brentwood. They all died. They were headed to a 2021 MAGA event for
Trump in Florida, which seems to be poetic justice. Now you may think the accident was caused by
low, thick clouds and Joe’s inadequate license and jet training and you’d be
right, as he did not have a license to fly by instruments alone. But when you’re an evangelical Christian, a
magical thinker, you might blame it on God’s will. Or to put it in the Hindu – karma. But the Church continues with Gwen’s pinch-faced, anemic
daughter as one leader. Because if there
is anything else that is magical, it is that their own doctrine doesn’t apply
to them. It’s a cult for
Chrissakes. You’re in or you’re out.
(*Leftists stuck in these situations might want to change
direction. Odd group think or fear of speaking out is a cult-like
marker of a small group mentality.)
“The Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty”
This is another southern noir documentary, set in the South
Carolina ‘low country’ near the Atlantic, in a rural district with the small
town of Hampton at its center. The town and high school are named after secessionist
Wade Hampton - a planter’s son, Confederate cavalry general and segregationist
Jim Crow senator. It was said that the Murdaugh clan, which had been the
District Attorneys for 100 years in this area of 5 counties, were the local
boss-hogs. They dominated the biggest civil law firm and
the criminal courts to boot. They had long-time wealth, connections, influence with the police and courts, politicians and
bankers - all the hall marks of power. Grandpa
‘Big’ Buster Murdaugh was known to physically intimidate or ‘remove’ opponents
back in the good ol’ days too. So how did it all fall apart for these
particular ‘good ‘ol boys’?
 |
| Paul, Mom, Alex, Little Buddy of the Murdaughs |
These rural counties are heavily class-stratified, not just
between dark and light skinned, but within European-Americans, with the wealthy
ones being popular in high school and powerful outside it. A series of crimes showed
this in spades. We have a boating
accident, killing one girl, in a speed-boat driven by a drunken, teenaged Paul Murdaugh. A subsequent double-homicide of Paul and his
mother at their family hunting lodge is ‘discovered’ by the husband, Alex. Next, a suspicious drive-by shooting of Alex,
who survived. Years earlier there was a body dump on a lonely rural road of a working-class gay teenager; and a suspicious fall of a Murdaugh housekeeper that led to a
huge insurance payout.
Suspicions
This family of hubris is surrounded by blood. The documentary shows all the suspicious
goings-on. After the boat accident Paul’s
father Alex and grandfather haunt the hospital telling the kids not to say
anything. The Murdaughs offer a lawyer
friend of theirs to the family whose son they later accuse of really driving
the boat. The boyfriend of the dead girl notes that on the bridge Paul said ‘he was sorry’ – Paul knew he'd been driving. The judge allows Paul to get off without any jail or
handcuffs, a small bond, the ability to travel and a case that never goes to
trial. A few months later Alex ‘finds’
his wife and son Paul dead at their lodge dog kennels and no suspects are
found. Alex is mysteriously injured a few
months later in a drive-by shooting.
Six years earlier a gay teenager, Stephen Smith, was found
dead on a road with no physical evidence of a ‘hit and run.’ No car parts, skid marks, paint chips, glass, no
physical damage except to the head. His
car was supposedly out of gas, but he had a cell phone and left his wallet in
his car 3 miles away. He’s found dumped
on a road that does not lead to a gas station. The State Highway Patrol are
barred from investigating the case by the Hampton County sheriff. The Hampton County coroner confirms it’s a
‘hit and run’ because the body was on a road, and for no other reason. Lawyer Randy Murdaugh offers the grieving
family of the boy his legal assistance ‘for free.’ He’s usually a personal injury attorney, so
the offer is odd. A Murdaugh investigator shows up to spy on the Highway Patrol
as they comb the site for some sign of the non-existent accident.
Paul’s brother, little ‘Buster’ Murdaugh, becomes a suspect
in the beating death of Smith after rumors fly around Hampton and witnesses won’t
talk. It is possible that Buster had a sexual relationship with Smith. Little Buster Murdaugh was never charged or
interviewed by police according to the documentary and left town after the
murder.
Investigators finally nail a suspect in the shooting of
Alex Murdaugh. He is actually a friend
who was hired to wing Murdough for sympathy and to beef up the fiction about a
vigilante killing his wife and son. Alex
then admits he’s been an opiod addict for 20 years, ‘quits’ his law firm for a
time and goes into rehab. His law firm
had actually fired him for misappropriating funds.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
3 years prior to this the Murdough’s long-time housekeeper
died on the front steps of their house due to a ‘fall,’ though Paul’s comments
to the dispatcher on the phone were suspiciously defensive. The housekeeper’s sons were promised support
by the Murdaughs, again from one of Murdaugh’s lawyer friends. A claim of $4.3M was made on the umbrella
insurance policy over the death – but not a cent went to the two sons. All the money was actually funneled back through
a corporate shell to Alex Murdaugh himself.
Insurance fraud … and murder? Later
it came out he’d also been stealing from poor, black and injured clients and
was hit with 70+ charges for stealing nearly $10M.
Then there is the ‘big reveal’ which you’ve probably
already guessed about the double homicide. There are indications
that his wife was contemplating divorce and divorce would entail a forensic financial
inquiry into Alex’s assets – assets which have never been found. The case continues.
You cannot make this stuff up, except in the corrupt,
bloody, backward world of rural South Carolina.
I don’t think any rich, small-town ruling family in the North has this
kind of record, anywhere, ever.
Prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search box,
upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:
“Florida Will Sink,” “A Minnesota Yankee in King Trump’s Court,”
“Drivin’ Dixie Down,” “U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederates,” “Southern
Cultural Nationalism and Southern Liberals,” “Monument,” “The Potlikker
Papers,” “Cooltown,” “Monroeville, Alabama & To Kill a Mockingjay.”
The Cranky Yankee
September 28, 2023
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