Jurors in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial have finally been dispatched to reach a verdict after six weeks of testimony, more than 75 witnesses and 800 pieces of evidence – including a trip to the crime scene.
The disgraced legal scion, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, in the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021 .
The state says he faced a “swelling storm” caused by his financial crimes and a disastrous lawsuit over his son’s fatal boating accident, which led him to kill the couple.
His defense argues that the claim is “ridiculous” and that he was a loving husband and father incapable of the brutal executions of his wife and son.
Murdaugh faces 30 years to life if convicted.
Murdaugh, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, in the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021
Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh attend a dinner at the South Carolina Yacht Club. Buster was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the murders
Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex’s sister Lynn arrive at court on Thursday
The jurors were sent by the judge this afternoon after two days of high court drama, including a rare jury trip to the scene of the crime.
Murdaugh’s lawyers requested the trip to help the 12 men and women gain better spatial awareness, where Paul was shot twice with a shotgun in the kennels’ feeding room and where Maggie was killed with a shotgun just yards away .
After visiting Moselle, jurors returned to the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro to hear impassioned closing arguments from opposing legal parties.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said, “No one knew who this man was. He avoided accountability all his life, he had relied on his family name, he had a powerful family, he wore a badge and used it in authority, he lived a lavish life – but now he was finally in danger of complete ruin.
“His father whom he idolized – who I occasionally worked with – was dying, his son was being sued in the boat case, he was facing a civil suit that not only had the potential to ruin him, but exposed the reality of what he had done he had an opiate addiction for years, his life was about to change, he couldn’t live for that – he is the kind of person for whom shame is an extraordinary provocation.
“His ego couldn’t take it and he became a family destroyer.”
In his three-hour monologue, Waters outlined how Murdaugh had been confronted on the day of the murders of more than $792,000 that went “missing” from his law firm.
In the months following the murders, it would be revealed that he had stolen more than $10 million from clients and partners over the past ten years.
Three days after the murders, he was due in court for a hearing in the lawsuit over his son’s drunken boating accident that killed a teenage girl two years earlier.
The patriarch of the family, Randolph III, would die of cancer three days after the murders. Murdaugh had continually turned to him for huge loans and the pair were close.
Adding to that, Waters said Murdaugh’s 20-year opioid addiction was on the rise, that his pill purchases “escalated” in March, and reminded jurors that, as the defendant himself admitted, “by recording he would do anything, anything to get out of it.” to get rid of’.
Waters ended his argument by urging the jurors not to be duped by “the master liar.”
Murdaugh arrives as a protester holds a sign that reads, “FORGIVE MY SINS JESUS SAVE MY SOUL”
Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex’s sister Lynn arrive at court on Thursday
A line of people outside the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro. Tasting enthusiasts have been lining up since the early hours
He said, “This defendant has fooled everyone. Anyone who thought they were close to him he fooled them all and he also fooled Maggie and Paul and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t be fooled either.’
Murdaugh’s defense on Thursday refuted the state’s case, accusing investigators of fabricating evidence and arguing their alleged motive.
In his closing argument, Jim Griffin said that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), the state’s version of the FBI, failed to secure the crime scene and examine key evidence that could have exonerated Murdaugh, and instead focused on him concentrated because of its editing. drug and financial problems.
“That made him an easy, easy, easy target for SLED,” Griffin said, arguing that Murdaugh could have been ruled out as a suspect. “SLED has failed miserably to investigate this matter.”
The case has attracted significant media attention given the family’s immense political power in and around Colleton County, where the trial is taking place.
For decades until 2006, family members served as the area’s leading plaintiff, and Murdaugh was a prominent personal injury attorney in the Deep South state.
Throughout the months-long trial, prosecutors attempted to portray him as a serial liar and argued that only he had the means and ability to commit the murders.
They say he shot his wife and son to distract from a litany of financial crimes, including the theft of millions of dollars from his lawyers and clients – money used to fuel a years-long addiction to opioids and an expensive lifestyle support.
For their part, Murdaugh’s lawyers have tried to portray their client as a loving family man who, while struggling financially and suffering from an opioid addiction that led him to lie and steal, would never harm his wife and child.
They have put forward alternative theories, with Murdaugh testifying that he believed someone was upset about a fatal boating accident in 2019 where Paul likely wanted revenge on his son.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said Murdaugh, 54, was facing an “oncoming storm” of financial and reputational damage that led him to murder Maggie and Paul on June 7, 2021, at the family’s hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina.
Defense attorney Jim Griffin attacked a video proving Murdaugh was at the crime scene moments before prosecutors say he killed his wife and son, saying “there is nothing to indicate strife or anger”.
Griffin described the state’s alleged motive as ludicrous, arguing that the murders would only draw more attention, not less, to allegations of Murdaugh’s financial misdeeds.
He repeatedly stressed the high legal bar in criminal cases of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, underlining the challenge for prosecutors who have based their case on circumstantial evidence rather than direct evidence.
“If there is any reasonable reason to hesitate to write ‘guilty,’ then the law requires you to write ‘innocent,'” he said.
Griffin also outlined a handful of examples where he claims the state fabricated evidence. They include the claim that Murdaugh had high-velocity blood spatter on his shirt, a claim contradicted by testing by SLED.
One of the state’s strongest pieces of evidence is Murdaugh’s admission from the witness stand last week that he lied about his whereabouts the night of the murders, telling investigators he was not in the dog kennels before the murders.
Murdaugh changed his account after the jury listened to audio evidence placing him at the crime scene minutes before it happened.
Griffin repeated Murdaugh’s claim that he lied to investigators because of paranoia related to his drug use, as well as his mistrust of the police.
“He lied because that’s what addicts do. He lied because he had a closet full of skeletons,” the lawyer said.
