Georgia woman returns murdered Paul Murdaugh’s cap to his brother Buster to ‘help him find peace’

A Georgia woman who paid $25 for murdered Paul Murdaugh’s white cap at the Moselle hunting lodge auction has gifted the memento back to his older brother Buster to ‘help him find peace’. 

Shelby Freeman, 28, said she had attended the auction to secure a piece of South Carolina criminal history – but regretted the purchase after feeling the visor didn’t belong to her and wanted to give it back to its rightful owner. 

The cap had been worn by Paul Murdaugh just days before he was brutally executed by his father at the family’s Moselle hunting lodge – where his mother Maggie was also shot to death. He was seen wearing it in a video shown during his father Alex Murdaugh‘s six-week double murder trial. 

Shelby told Dailymail.com she also spent just under $550 on Christmas ornaments and a nightstand, which contained bullets, lottery tickets and beer koozies labelled with family and friends’ names. She says she had also offered to give those back, but Buster, 28, had not yet responded. 

‘I reached out to Jim Griffin (the Murdaugh family lawyer), and said I felt like the right thing to do was to offer them back,’ she said, adding that she hoped ‘Buster is able to find some peace.’ 

Freeman says she felt particularly compelled to give back a white visor she had bought at the auction after discovering it was worn by Paul in striking footage played at Alex Murdaugh’s blockbuster murder trial. 

The jury saw cellphone video showing Paul wearing the visor while excitedly carrying a birthday cake to his dad at their beach house in Edisto Beach, South Carolina. 

Taken in 2021, just days before Alex butchered his wife Maggie and his son Paul, family and friends gleefully sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the murderous patriarch while a beaming Paul carried the sheet cake. 

Explaining why she attended the auction, Freeman said that like many Americans she felt an ’emotional attachment’ to the case, and even went to the trial a number of times. 

‘I just wanted to go and see it on a personal level, I have been following the case ever since the boat crash. I stayed at the auction all day, just to be part of it. 

‘Buster and I are similar in age, and at the trial he seemed very nervous. People can’t imagine what he is going through, but no one being so vicious can fathom his situation.’ 

Freeman said she spent just under $550 in the auction on an array of items, and only began bidding after getting ‘caught up in it’ when some nice quality possessions were going cheap. 

Alongside several Christmas ornaments and serving platters, she also bought a nightstand believed to be either Alex or Paul’s, which she was surprised to find was still filled with items from the murdered family’s past. 

But after bringing her haul home, she admitted to her husband: ‘This doesn’t belong here, I didn’t feel like the right owner… it was maybe some guilt, but more just a feeling that it needs to be in its rightful place.’

After reaching out to offer the possessions back, Murdaugh’s lawyer Jim Griffin responded within hours to her request and said Buster ‘would love’ to have Paul’s visor back. 

‘I thought, the worst case is that I spent $550 to bring (Buster) some part of joy,’ added Freeman, who maintained that she felt sorry for him after watching his ordeal throughout the trial. 

‘People have a go at Buster, but you can’t replace a mom and brother. I hope he is able to find some peace, a lot of people online are hitting out at him, speculating, but he hasn’t done anything wrong.’ 

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The visor was purchased by Freeman for $25 at the Georgia auction on March 23, where thousands flocked to buy items from the family’s Moselle hunting lodge. 

Scenes from inside the warehouse where the auction was held showed rows of possessions laid out across long tables, as prospective bidders sorted through the items that once filled the sprawling country home of the prominent southern family.

The auction comes almost a year after the 1,700-acre mansion where the Murdaughs lived was listed for $3.9million.

The Moselle estate was eventually sold Wednesday for $2.6million, with proceeds for the sale reportedly going towards Alex Murdaugh’s outstanding legal fees, Palmetto State Bank, Buster Murdaugh and victims of the infamous 2019 boat crash, according to Fox Carolina.

The new owners, James Ayer and Jeffrey Godley, decided to clear the house after their purchase and put all its contents up for auction.

Prospective buyers sifted through a variety of former possessions from inside the auction room, where long tables were filled with deer antlers, mounted turtle shells, decorative plates, figurines from a Christmas nativity scene.

Among the more expensive items on sale were lamps emblazoned with turtle shells, which sold for $800, a Yeti tumbler for $400, and mounted long horns which were given a hefty $10,000 price tag.

The first item auctioned off was an animal trap, which went for $500, which was later followed by a pair of rocking chairs for $850, and a couch from the family mansion, which fetched $30,000 after an intense bidding war.

In addition to Murdaugh’s own camouflaged shirt, numerous pairs of hunting boots could be seen in the inventory, along with a hat bearing a South Carolina Highway Patrol baseball cap.

And on top of the boxes of shotgun shells, boxes of unused rifle bullets were up for auction, along with a hunting crossbow, rifle scopes, and what appeared to be a case for a rifle or shotgun.

After purchasing a bike owned by Maggie Murdaugh, Erin Craig told DailyMail.com he was planning to put the item on display in a storefront because ‘it will serve its purpose best where people can look at it instead of it going to somebody’s backyard.’

Craig added that he paid over $3,000 for a variety of items from the Murdaugh auction, including an American flag, some Richard Alexander Murdaugh monogrammed glasses, and one of Paul Murdaugh’s wallets.