Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson tells PEOPLE Alex Murdaugh’s successful appeal “reopens the emotional part of it all”

Alex Murdaugh; Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson.Credit : Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post And Courier via AP; Amanda Greene

When Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson heard that the South Carolina Supreme Court had overturned her former boss’s double-murder conviction and ordered a new trial, she immediately thought of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, she tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The Murdaugh family’s former housekeeper drove to the grocery store to get some items for dinner, then found herself at the cemetery where Maggie and Paul are buried to reflect on the news.

“The rest of the world is fascinated by this case, but Maggie and Paul were two living, breathing individuals that I knew. For those of us who loved them, we’re still dealing with their loss,” she says.

“I understand Alex deserves a new trial,” she says. “I’m respectful of the court’s decision. But a new trial just reopens the emotional part of it all over again. They were real people who are no longer here. They can’t speak for themselves.”

While so much attention is focused on Alex, “Maggie and Paul are the forgotten victims,” she says.

On March 2, 2023, Murdaugh, 57, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences after being convicted of murdering his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, in June 2021 at the family’s hunting estate in Islandton.

Murdaugh took the stand in his own defense, where he proclaimed he was innocent — which he continues to maintain to this day.

Soon after his conviction, Murdaugh’s defense team filed an appeal accusing former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill of improperly influencing jurors during the trial.

On Wed., May 13, South Carolina’s highest court handed down its bombshell decision. The justices wrote in their unanimous opinion that they agreed with Murdaugh’s argument that Hill improperly influenced jurors.

Turrubiate-Simpson, who worked for the Murdaugh family for years, says she had been preparing herself in case the court overturned the conviction. “I thought I was prepared for it but the emotions still came out. I didn’t think I was going to get as emotional as I did yesterday.”

In 2025, she and Mary Frances Weaver wrote the New York Times bestselling book, Within the House of Murdaugh: Amid a Unique Friendship, about her time as the Murdaugh family’s housekeeper, which gave her a front row seat to much of what was going on with the family behind closed doors.

In their book, Turrubiate-Simpson and Weaver lay out different scenarios pointing to Alex’s alleged guilt.

“I’m not budging when it comes to my theories in my book,” she says. “I knew them. I knew their routines.”

Murdaugh had initially denied being near the dog kennels on the night of the murders, but while testifying in his own defense, he admitted to lying about his whereabouts that evening due to paranoia he claimed to be experiencing due to his drug addiction at the time.

A Snapchat video Paul sent to a friend allegedly placed Murdaugh, the scion of a longtime South Carolinian legal dynasty, at the crime scene just moments before the two were fatally shot.

After the murders, speculation swirled that someone else came to the property and killed Maggie and Paul at the kennels.

In the book, Turrubiate-Simpson questioned why the dogs weren’t barking near the kennel right before the murders are thought to have taken place. “I knew those dogs,” she says.

In the Snapchat video taken right before the shootings, “The dogs were quiet, even with the guinea chicken in the dog’s mouth. They didn’t alert, they didn’t sense any strangers.

“Then four minutes later or something like that, that’s when they claimed they died, they were killed. The dogs were not alerting.”

She adds, “There’s a lot of things that were not disclosed, that were not looked at,” she says.

Just before the murders, Murdaugh was supposed to reveal his financial records following a 2019 fatal boating accident that resulted in the death of Mallory Beach. Paul Murdaugh, who was driving the boat, was on trial in connection with the crash at the time of his death.

Murdaugh will remain in jail regardless, having been sentenced to 27 years in prison on state charges and 40 years in prison on federal charges relating to various financial crimes he committed before and after the deaths of Maggie and Paul.

Asked how she feels about everything happening now, Turrubiate-Simpson said quietly, “Saddened. Their decision was based on a technicality and I have to accept that. I respect the court’s decision. But it’s painful.”

Murdaugh’s attorneys did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.