The murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh as seen by two different people, according to Dove, in New Jersey, on a television screen
Prosecutors believe one of those voices belongs to Murdaugh, and that voice is the only other on the video besides the victims and places him at the scene at the time of the murders. The witness on Wednesday agreed with those claims.
A law enforcement expert has testified Paul’s video appeared to have been recorded around the kennels, where Paul’s and Maggie’s bodies would be found. Murdaugh has maintained in interviews with law enforcement he was not at the kennels before he found the bodies. Police said he called at 10:00 p.m.
Three different voices could be heard in the footage, Dove testified Wednesday. Dove didn’t know the voices, but he said that they were different.
Paul Murdaugh and the murder of his wife, Maggie, and son, Almeda, heard by an emergency worker the night of the murders
Murdaugh has claimed he last saw Maggie and Paul earlier in the evening that day. They ate dinner together before Murdaugh took a nap and then drove to Almeda, to visit his mother, he has said. He told authorities that when he returned to the family home in Moselle, he discovered the dead of his wife and son.
Paul Murdaugh called Gibson the night of the shooting, at 8:40 p.m., to ask if something was wrong with Gibson’s dog, Cash, which was in a kennel at the Murdaugh property. The two tried to hold a video call so that Gibson could see the dog, but the reception was not good enough, Gibson testified. In a previous conversation, Murdaugh said he would take a video of the dog and send it to him, if the call didn’t work.
Jurors in the murder trial of disbarred South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh heard Monday about autopsy evidence on a day the court also publicly released body camera videos from law enforcement officers who arrived the night his wife and son were killed in June 2021.
In his opening statement, Dick Harpootlian said the audio obtained by the prosecution wouldn’t show any animosity between Murdaugh and his wife. Harpootlian claimed that Paul was very happy. “Nobody’s down there threatening him. Daddy is not going to kill him with a shotgun.
Three weeks into the trial, Wilson will testify about the killings of the Murdaughs. Alex Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges.
The night of the murders, which took place at the family’s property in Islandton, South Carolina, Murdaugh called emergency services to report that he’d found his wife and son dead.
Maggie’s phone showed repeated missed calls from her husband over the course of the next hour, Dove testified, along with evidence it had switched to portrait mode. That is another indication that the phone was held in someone’s hand, the expert said. A final call from Murdaugh wasn’t received until 10 minutes later.
In his opening statement last week, Waters told the jury Murdaugh repeatedly called his wife that evening before texting her that he was going to visit his mother and driving to Almeda, South Carolina.
The Murdaugh-Ginzburg and Satterfield Cases Revisited in the Court of Superior Law and Appellate Processes
The display of the phone was turned off just a short time later. The orientation changed to landscape at 8:54 pm and the phone was moved, so the camera tried to locate her face in an unsuccessful attempt.
Asked specifically if the calls were deleted from the log, Dove said, “it would appear that way,” noting there was no way to know when they were deleted or who was responsible.
Dove said that the only way to remove the calls from the log is to do it manually, and that a gap like that would indicate that.
Dove testified that Murdaugh had a habit of checking his texts for 30 to 40 minutes.
The attorney said at the murder trial that Alex Murdaugh confessed to having a drug addiction and stealing money from his law firm and clients.
Another prosecution witness this week spoke about Murdaugh’s financial dealings. The CFO of his law firm testified that she confronted Murdaugh about missing funds on the morning of June 7. His coworkers sympathized with him and gave him a reprieve from the financial issues.
Prosecutors accuse Murdaugh of committing the killings to distract attention from a series of alleged illicit schemes he was running to avoid “personal legal and financial ruin,” per court filings.
“They’ve got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they do about evidence of guilt in a murder case. Last week, defense lawyer Jim Griffin said that this was all about that.
He and Murdaugh had worked on a personal injury case together and won a verdict of $5.5 million, with each attorney earning about $792,000. Murdaugh asked Wilson to write the check to him personally rather than his law firm, and Wilson did as requested.
Much of the testimony this week has focused on Murdaugh’s financial issues. The judge overseeing the case ruled on Monday to allow such evidence, saying it was “so intimately connected” with the state’s case “that proof of it is essential to complete the story.”
Also in court Thursday, Michael “Tony” Satterfield, the son of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, testified about being defrauded by Murdaugh.
Satterfield said he heard from his family that they had heard about the settlement. “Murdaugh told me that they were still making progress and would be ready to settle by the end of the year” he said.
Mallory Beach, a Florida man killed in a boat accident, and Murdaugh’s sued for misappropriation of money
The CEO of the bank that Murdaugh had his account with testified for the jury that Murdaugh had money taken from his account. As of August 2021, Murdaugh had a total debt to the bank of $4.2 million, according to Palmetto State Bank CEO Jan Malinowski.
The session ended with attorney Tinsley on the stand. He represents the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, crashed.
And earlier this week, the defense seemed to suggest the killings of Maggie and Paul could have been related to a money dispute with a drug gang, telling the court Murdaugh was buying $50,000 worth of drugs each week from one man who owed a lot of money to a gang.
On Thursday, the prosecution asked Tinsley about how that lawsuit was proceeding. He testified he was seeking $10 million from Murdaugh, but was told Murdaugh was broke and might only be able to come up with $1 million. Tinsley was not cross-examined Thursday and is expected to resume his testimony Friday morning.
The CFO testified that they weren’t going to harass him about money when they were concerned about his mental state and the fact that his family had been killed.
It was only after three months, when his law firm confronted him again about the misappropriated funds, that he resigned.
The video had been shown to the jury in January, but Monday was the first time the public could watch Murdaugh’s actions as deputies arrived at his home on the family’s estate after he placed a 911 call.
After the two people talked about what happened, the deputy asked if the gun he brought to the scene was from inside the home. Murdaugh says yes, and then offers his own reasoning as to why someone would kill his family.
The deputy asks where the gun is, and Murdaugh tells him it is leaning against Murdaugh’s vehicle. The deputy checks Murdaugh’s shirt before talking further.
This is very long, very long. A few months ago, my son was in a boat wreck. He’s been getting threats,” Murdaugh says. “Most of it’s been benign stuff. He has been getting punched a lot, and we didn’t think that was serious. I am aware that is what it is.
When Murdaugh was asked when he was last with the couple, he replied earlier tonight and explained that he had left the home to visit his mother, who lived about 15 minutes away.
Maggie Murdaugh and their autopsy results, revealed by Ellen Riemer, an attorney at the Medical University of South Carolina, under questioning
Also Monday, under questioning from the prosecution, Ellen Riemer, a pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, gave graphic testimony Monday about the injuries suffered by Maggie and Paul and their autopsy results.
Alex Murdaugh cried as Riemer showed him the extent of his son and wife’s wounds. He shook his head when he heard something.
Maggie Murdaugh was shot at least four times with a different weapon – an “assault rifle,” Riemer testified. Riemer said that the first two shots were fired from the front, with one going through her body and the other into her thigh.
Riemer said he did not see anything on his hands that showed he had his hands up to his face. He had his arm down from the first shot, and I don’t think he injured his hands from the second shot.
The next shot went upward, starting at Maggie’s chest and going through the left side of her face. Riemer said that it was due to the first two shots, with her head bent over. She said that this wound would have been fatal. The last gunshot, Riemer testified, was to the back of the head.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/us/alex-murdaugh-trial-monday/index.html
On the Murdaugh Dynasty: a Coroner, a Veterinar, and a Defense Attorney in South Carolina
The remaining jurors were tested Monday and will be tested again Wednesday. The judge told jurors they would have a positive attitude and they would wear masks if the proceedings were delayed.
Editor’s Note: The HBO docuseries “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” chronicles the family’s influence in South Carolina. It airs on CNN Sunday, February 19, at 8 p.m. ET.
Before prosecutors rested their case on Friday, they presented evidence in court showing Paul Murdaugh – son of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh – confronted his father about pills about one month before both he and his mother were found fatally shot.
Cell phone records showed that Murdaugh searched for ‘white pill 30 on one side rp’. A pill that has the same description as a Oxycodone Hydrochloride pill. The prosecution stated that she deleted her searches for the pills.
The text Alex Murdaugh sent to his wife on May 7, 2021, was read by a defense attorney. I adore you.
The defense has shown that the man who called the police after finding his wife and son was a loving father and husband, while the real culprits remained at large.
The first two witnesses that the defense called to the stand were the Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey who estimated the time of death to be around 9 p.m. and a doctor who examined the corpses. Harvey said yes when asked if they could have been shot between 10 and 8 p.m.
The court also earlier on Friday heard from an investigator who offered a timeline of the night Maggie and Paul were killed, combining data from cell phones and vehicle systems which showed Alex Murdaugh drove by the spot where his wife’s phone was later found and that he called police seconds after his car arrived in the area the bodies were found.
The investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division testified on Friday that he was able to plot the movements of Murdaugh using latitude, longitude and speed data.
Rudofski testified that while on his way to his mother’s house that night, Murdaugh drove by the spot on the side of the road where Maggie’s cell phone was later recovered by investigators.
The investigator testified that Murdaugh arrived at the family dog corrals at 10:00 p.m. after he entered the front entrance of the Moselle property.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/us/alex-murdaugh-trial-friday/index.html
Correspondence to “Mr. Paul’s Detection of a Newly-Selected Criminal Weapon” by D. H. F. McKay
According to previous testimony, he told investigators that when he arrived at the crime scene and discovered the bodies, he tried to turn Paul over, then tried to check Paul’s cell phone, and finally tried to call the police.