Where does Hampton County, SC, go after Alex Murdaugh verdict? Pain, lessons linger

• So many in the Lowcountry have some personal connection to the suspects, victims, witnesses and institutions involved in the Murdaugh crime saga.
• Alex Murdaugh's guilty verdict, and consecutive life sentences, was a final coffin nail in the hearts of many in the Murdaugh family, piling a final layer of tragedy upon tragedy.
• From tragedy was born the charitable benevolence of the Gloria’s Gift Christmas Foundation, the Mal’s Palz animal shelter charity, and the #StandingForStephen movement.

Try as we might, here in Hampton County, South Carolina, we can’t escape it: the stain of the bloody Alex Murdaugh crime saga on our lives, and its lingering aftermath in the community.

Now that the verdict is in on Murdaugh — guilty of killing his own wife and child — while other people in distant cities, states and countries may begin moving on to the next big media frenzy, resolution and healing will be a long time coming here in the Murdaugh's home haunting grounds of Hampton County.