Alex Murdaugh and his alleged financial malfeasance in the wake of the February 7 murders of his wife, Margaret, and son Paul
Alex Murdaugh, 54, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the case. The lawyer is facing a number of charges in relation to alleged financial schemes, which include insurance fraud, money laundering, and forgery.
Two investigations in particular that could have exposed Murdaugh’s alleged wrongdoing were coming to a head at the time of the murders. For one, the chief financial officer of his law firm testified she had confronted Murdaugh about missing funds on the morning of June 7, 2021, hours before the killings. After the murders, the internal investigation into the funds took a back seat.
Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to all the charges he is facing for the murders of his wife, Margaret Murdaugh, and his son, Paul.
But he changed his story on the stand last week, acknowledged his voice is heard in the clip and admitted to jurors he lied about his whereabouts on the night of the killings. Murdaugh was adamant that he did not shoot his wife and son.
They have more evidence of financial malfeasance than they do of guilt in a murder case. And that’s what this is all about,” defense lawyer Jim Griffin said last week.
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. Wilson did as Murdaugh ordered and wrote the check to him personally.
Prosecutors are allowed to present allegations that Murdaugh stole huge amounts of money from clients and friends. Newman said that by asking witnesses about Murdaugh’s character the defense opened the door.
The son of Gloria Satterfield testified about being defrauded by Murdaugh.
Satterfield testified that he learned of the settlement from his family, who heard about it through media reports. He said when he asked Murdaugh about it in June 2021, Murdaugh told him “it was still making progress” and to be ready to settle by the end of the year.
Murdaugh’s lawsuit against Mallory Beach, the 19-year-old victim of a boat crash, was filed in a civil case on February 10, 2019
The CEO of the local bank told the jury Murdaugh had his account overdrawn by $350,000. Jan Malinowski, the CEO of Palmetto State Bank, stated that Murdaugh’s debt was $4.2 million at the end of August.
Second, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, crashed. A hearing in that civil case was scheduled for June 10, 2021, and had the potential to reveal his financial problems, prosecutors argued.
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.
“We weren’t going to go in there and harass him about money when we were worried about his mental state and the fact that his family had been killed,” the CFO, Jeanne Seckinger, testified.
It was three months after his law firm confronted him about the misappropriated funds that he resigned.
Murdaugh is charged with two counts of murder and one count of weapons charges. He faces 99 charges of financial malfeasance that will be decided at a future trial.
The next morning, Murdaugh asked Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson to clean up the mess that had been made. She testified the house had no crime-scene tape, and she washed a towel and khaki pants she found on the floor. She said investigators came in while she was there, but they didn’t question her.
Turrubiate- Simpson said that she was told that they were asking $30 million in the lawsuit. “She said she knew the amount of money they were asking.
“He said there was going to be people probably stopping by and bringing food and stuff,” Turrubiate-Simpson said. “He said I just want the house to look the way Maggie would like for it to look. So, I said OK and I went to the house.”
Ahead of Turrubiate-Simpson’s testimony, some Murdaugh relatives were ordered this week to sit farther back in the South Carolina courtroom due to inappropriate contact and conduct, the Colleton County clerk of court said.
In court Wednesday, Alex Murdaugh’s sister Lynn Murdaugh Goettee passed him a book through a member of his defense team. A source with knowledge of Goettee’s incident told CNN that Goettee had been reprimanded five minutes before the incident took place.
The book was considered contraband because it was not clear what was in it, the source said, adding Murdaugh was already back in his jail cell with it before anybody could check it. The book – John Grisham’s “The Judge’s List” – was later confiscated.
The younger Murdaugh was admonished for the incident, Hill said. Lynn Murdaugh Goettee and more violations will result in them being barred from the courtroom.
During the testimony, a bomb threat was called into the clerk’s office and the courthouse was evacuated, according to Hill. Court resumed hours later.
The trial commenced at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the day the case is expected to go to the jury.
The defense and the state will both have to wait at least a week, because of how long testimony already has lasted, said Dick Harpootlian, the defense attorney.
The defense has out-of-state expert witnesses who will require travel and lodging, Harpootlian said, pointing out the length of the state’s case is making that difficult and expensive to schedule. The state so far has called 44 witnesses and introduced more than 400 exhibits of evidence.
Judge Clifton Newman approved a request from the defense on Monday to allow the jury to view Murdaugh’s property in Islandton, particularly its dog kennels where the bodies of Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh were found. That visit will happen sometime after the rebuttal witnesses’ testimony, Newman said without specifying a day.
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.
Murdaugh, a once-prominent attorney in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, is accused of fatally shooting his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh on the family’s expansive hunting estate on June 7, 2021.
The deputy asked the location of the gun, and Murdaugh said it was leaning against his vehicle. The deputy checks Murdaugh’s shirt before talking further.
This is not a short story. My boy was involved in a boat wreck. Murdaugh says that he has been getting threats. Most of it has been harmless. We didn’t take it seriously because he had been getting punched. Um, I, I know that’s what it is.”
When Greene asked Murdaugh when he was last with the pair, Murdaugh answered, “earlier tonight,” before explaining that at one point that evening he’d left the home to visit his mother, who lived about a 15-minute drive away.
Murdaugh had long denied that he went to the kennels that night, but a video taken by Paul’s phone at 8:44 p.m. includes audio of Murdaugh’s voice in the background.
Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, 47, were shot by a blackout rifle, a prosecutor’s attorney, and their autopsy results
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.
The force of the shot caused his brain to be ejected, Riemer said, and it arrived to the autopsy separately. Alex Murdaugh wiped his eyes and nose after he was emotional at the testimony.
Riemer claimed that Maggie Murdaugh was shot at least four times with an assault rifle. The first two shots were fired from the front while Maggie was standing, Riemer said; one went through her abdomen and the other went through the inside of her left thigh.
“I don’t see anything on his hands that would indicate he had his hands up to his face in anticipation of the injury that was about to happen,” Riemer testified. “That first shot, his arm was down, and I don’t see any evidence of injury to his hands from the second.”
Maggie was killed by a Blackout rifle and Paul was killed by a shotgun, prosecutor Creighton Waters said, adding that both were family weapons. Evidence from a weapons expert proves that there was a match between what was found near the body of another person and other parts of the family’s property.
The Murdaugh Dynasty in South Carolina Revisited: A New Family of Lawyers and a Positive Attitude, Not a Mask
The remaining jurors will be tested again on Wednesday. Prosecutors and defense attorneys discussed with the judge postponing the day’s proceedings, but Judge Clifton Newman said jurors would wear masks and “they have a positive attitude.”
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.
Murdaugh was shot in the head on a roadway on September 4, 2021, but survived. The same month he turned himself in after acknowledging he asked a client to kill him in order to get an insurance payment.
The case was transferred that same day from the local solicitor to the Attorney General’s Office, which has been prosecuting the case due to the Murdaugh family’s long ties with the local solicitor: Three generations of Murdaughs served as the 14th Circuit Solicitor over about 87 years.
The footage played in court Wednesday showed SLED agents confronting Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his earlier statements to law enforcement.
In his own opening statement, Harpootlian said the audio simply showed Murdaugh and his wife having a “normal discussion” with “no animosity.” Paul is “very happy,” Harpootlian said. Nobody is threatening him. Daddy is not shooting him with a shotgun.
Rogan has been with your family for most of his life, Owen said. “And he recognizes your voice, and you have a distinct voice. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”
A Murdaugh witness testifies that no biological materials would have been found on the two victims of the shootings of Moselle, or that murderer didn’t
Murdaugh wasn’t asked about the blue shirt and pants he was wearing in the video when he was cross-examined. Owen said he did not ask Murdaugh for those clothes.
“There’s a video on Paul’s phone of you and him on the farm that night. You’re wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt … When I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt,” Owen said. Did you change your clothes in the evening?
Two witnesses disagree: On Tuesday, Maggie’s sister testified it was Murdaugh who wanted Maggie to come to Moselle. Maggie was staying in the family’s Edisto Beach property and did not want to go to Islandton, Marian Proctor said, recalling a conversation they had the day of the murders.
“And the reason you didn’t, (was because) you weren’t concerned about those clothes. Your investigation had been focused since early June on the T-shirt he was wearing, the shorts he was wearing and shoes he was wearing at the time he called 911,” Griffin said.
Owen testified that he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and it was sent to a lab for testing. The test found no blood on the shirt.
Y’all didn’t understand that when you did a Hema trace test, it came up negative. Griffin asked if that hadn’t been overlooked.
Owen asked if any biological material would have been on the two victims of the blast that killed them.
It was established that the mother’s property in Almeda wasn’t searched after the killings. No weapons were found on that property, Owen testified.
Before Murdaugh testified Thursday, a motion from the defense to limit the scope of questioning he would face was denied by Judge Clifton Newman – in particular, allegations of financial wrongdoing.
The Day Alex Murdaugh Was With His Son, Curtis Edward Smith, and His Daughter, Grace, a Loved Husband
Griffin said Smith owed a lot of money to a drug gang, and Owen testified that he was told the gang was not worried about the money because it knew it was going to get paid.
“Prior to that day, had Alex Murdaugh ever mentioned to you Curtis Edward Smith or anyone else that might have been involved in his son’s or his wife’s murder?” prosecutor John Meadors asked.
Drug gang members typically use burner phones and Owen didn’t have their phone numbers, but he said he had done a cell phone analysis to see if any were in the area on the night of the killings. But state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and had identified only first responders as coming to the scene, Owen said.
Owen was asked by the defense attorney if a small amount of male DNA was found under Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.
Interpretation of details is crucial in this case: Prosecutors are asking jurors to find Murdaugh guilty beyond reasonable doubt, based on circumstantial rather than direct evidence.
The defense believes that Murdaugh is being wrongly accused after the poorly handled investigation claimed that he was a loving father and husband. Here are some of the key moments from his first day of testimony:
Legal experts who have followed the trial told CNN the prosecution’s lack of direct evidence makes it harder to convict – though certainly not impossible.
“It does make the case more difficult,” said trial attorney Misty Marris. “But at some point, if the prosecutors have enough evidence that they can put together that story, and show motive and opportunity, it can certainly rise to the level needed to get a conviction.
“Jurors want science, jurors want DNA, jurors want something that’s persuasive,” Azari said. The focus of the prosecutors now is on the tenuous motive and the lies after the fact, but neither of those things substitute the evidence that they need.
Discovery of a Snapchat Video About Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s June 7, 2021, Just before the Family’s House Shooting
A Snapchat video, just short of a minute long, was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just minutes before Paul and Maggie were shot dead, according to Lt. David Dove is a supervisor in the computer crimes center.
A video focusing on one of their dogs appears to have been recorded at the family home in Islandton. In the background, three different voices can be heard in the footage, and family friends identified those voices as that of Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh.
The prosecution tried to disprove his claim that he was sleeping, as well as cutting into his claims about how long he had been with his mother.
After less than 3 hours of deliberations, the jury found Alex Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and son, which was the most severe allegation against him.
The first witness of the day was Buster Murdaugh. A source familiar with the case previously told CNN that an accident reconstructionist would likely focus on the findings of investigators at the scene of the murder, including how it was treated and what conclusions were drawn.
He told investigators he found his wife and son dead by their dog kennels after returning to the family’s estate.
The Coroner Richard Harvey was the first witness for the defense on Friday, and he estimated the deaths of Paul and Megan at around 9 pm on June 7, 2021, based on body temperature checks.
The video was filmed on Paul’s phone at 8:44p.m., and appears to show one of the family dogs being taken out of the house. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified.
Murdaugh Murders and Mallory Beach Drone Revisited: Why Does He Shoot Me? A True Crime Correlator Who Isn’t
Sometimes it is enough to be in the right place at the right time, and that is because of the success of true crime, which often features family tragedies as the basis of the docuseries. WhatMurdaugh Murders doesn’t do, is make a case for watching it.
Indeed, if ever a true-crime docuseries would have benefited from using a narrator, it’s this one; instead, the producers let the group of friends who were swept up in the tragic boat accident that claimed the life of 19-year-old Mallory Beach drone on, augmenting their accounts with blurry reenactments that look like something out of a cheap horror movie.
Those who were on board speak of Paul, who often drank excessively, driving the boat, and the Murdaugh family – thanks to patriarch Alex, a well-connected South Carolina attorney – allegedly using its wealth and influence over the authorities to protect him.
Gloria Satterfield, a nanny for the Murdaugh’s, died when the family dog hit her, but the Murdaughs were not scrutinized in the face of suspicious events.
Still, Murdaugh was emphatic in his denial that he shot and killed his wife and son, insisting in response to Griffin’s questions, “I didn’t shoot my wife or my son, anytime, ever.”
In his closing argument, Waters stressed to jurors that he thinks one thing was missing from the two days Murdaugh spent testifying. If the alibi is true, Waters asked, why hadn’t Murdaugh apologized for missing the kennel to potentially protect his wife and child?
He said that he tried to call his wife twice, but she wouldn’t answer. He said he also left her a text. She was with Paul and he did not think her non-response was unusual.
The man who went by the name of PMPED and was subsequently renamed theParker Law Group has now admitted to stealing millions of dollars from his clients.
In all the cases, Mr. Waters, I shouldn’t have taken money that wasn’t mine, Murdaugh admitted during his cross-examination.
A 17-year-old alcoholic recovering from a drug addiction: Murdaugh returns to Islandton, where he met his wife Margaret and Paul
Upon returning to the house in Islandton after visiting his mother, Murdaugh said, Margaret and Paul weren’t there – and he assumed they still were at the kennels, so he went back there.
“I don’t know why I tried to turn him over,” an emotional Murdaugh said. My boy is laying face down. He’s done the way he’s done. His head was his way. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do.”
Murdaugh rebutted earlier testimony about data collected from his cell phone, which showed he searched Google for a restaurant in Edisto Beach , and read a group text message soon after finding the bodies.
Murdaugh said he had a pill addiction for roughly two decades but was able to maintain his legal practice and was “certain none of my partners knew I had an addiction.”
When asked if he was aware that the drug transaction happened, Murdaugh said he had changed his plan due to the withdrawal symptoms.
Murdaugh and Waters, a convicted felon, were never charged with a crime against a man in Greensboro, South Carolina
The court adjourned for the weekend on Friday as a result of the testimony that included a prosecutor grilling the disgraced South Carolina attorney over drug use and lies.
You disagree with my suggestion that you have a photographic memory about the details that have to fit now that you know and you’re fuzzy in the other stuff? You don’t like that?
Waters asked Murdaugh if his dogs were barking when he was with his wife and son at the place where he was killed.
“I know what I wasn’t doing, Mr. Waters, and what I wasn’t doing is doing anything, as I believe you’ve implied, that I was cleaning off or … washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat. I can promise that I was not doing that, Murdaugh said.
“I never manufactured any alibi in any way shape or form because I did not, and would not, hurt my wife and my child,” he said. I know for a fact that I have never created an alibi.
He said he could tell that the person who did what he saw hated Paul Murdaugh. They were angry in their hearts.
Waters then went through a list of law partners, friends and family members that Murdaugh had lied to over the years – with the defendant admitting that he lied to them either directly or by omission.
After completing his cross examination, Waters was questioned by Murdaugh’s defense attorney who began again after a brief break. Griffin ended questioning shortly after and the court adjourned for the day.
Murdaugh, 27, had no choice but to testify in the trial before he was convicted of murdering his family and killing his 19-year-old father
They are real people. They’re good people. They’re all people that I care about … And a lot of them people that I love and I did wrong by them,” Murdaugh said.
I can not answer that because I cannot see whether that came from me or not. I think that every single client I looked at, and the people that I stole money from, trusted me.
Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed his family to make up for the millions he stole from his clients and colleagues. He was facing a financial reckoning, they said, that also included his liability in a court case over a fatal 2019 boating accident in which Paul, then 19, was said to be driving.
He said various factors contributed to his “paranoid thinking” which led to his decision to lie to police, including his “distrust of SLED,” (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division), questions about his relationship with his wife and son, and “the fact that I have a pocket full of pills in my pocket,” he said. The clips of the police interview were played by the prosecution.
Waters claimed that Murdaugh had the means to commit the murders. Waters said that both of the dead were killed by guns, and that both were family weapons.
Having Murdaugh testify was a bold move and likely a calculated risk by the defense, legal experts told CNN. While many attorneys don’t like to put their clients on the stand because it’s hard to predict what questions prosecutors will ask and how the jury will perceive the accused, Murdaugh was the prime defendant for the job, experts said.
“If you’re going to have somebody testify, having a lawyer who’s smart, who’s been in the courtroom, who’s lied for 20 years … that’s the guy you want on the stand,” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark Eiglarsh said. “And all it takes is one juror to connect with him emotionally.”
Attorneys who spoke to CNN said that Murdaugh had little choice but to testify, since he had no choice in the matter.
“They convicted him with conviction,” criminal defense attorney Sara Azari said. “I really thought there was going to be somewhat of a struggle in this jury room. I believe they could not get beyond the lie about the video.
Jurors have gotten a massive amount of information about Murdaugh’s character, from his former law colleagues and clients who said he stole millions of dollars, to the multiple stories about his alibi.
They are trying to use it to show that he has a problem with addiction and is sympathetic for trying to wrestle with it and that it may have caused him to lie to the police about not being there.
“But if he was that addled by the addiction, he might have been acting very irrationally at the time and the jury might believe that this very opioid-addicted person went off into this paranoid frenzy and did slaughter his own family,” Wu noted. It is a double-edged sword.
“What they’re doing, the prosecutors, is saying he’s a liar, he’s a cheat, he can’t be trusted and you should not at all take whatever he says at face value,” criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson said.
Murdaugh’s alleged actions in the deaths of two dogs and his wife, Mags, and son “Paul-Paul” at the Islandton, South Carolina, estate
In many ways, Murdaugh was a model witness, experts said. He looked straight at jurors when he spoke, and grew visibly emotional talking about his slain wife and son, often referring to them by endearing nicknames. He referred to his wife asMags and his son as “Paul-Paul” during testimony.
The biggest sticking point for the prosecution in this trial is the issue of whether he really did it, according to Jessica Roth, a law professor. “Despite all the other crimes he’s admitted to, would he actually kill his wife and son?
The defense hired a former University of New Haven professor to review the case and analyze the crime scene.
He said that Paul and Margaret were shot by a shotgun and a rifle, respectively. He believed the shooting of Paul came first because he was so close to the shooting range that the attacker might have been surprised by the violence.
He entered a not guilty plea to the charges of two counts of murder and two weapons charges that he faced in the deaths of two dogs at the family estate in Islandton, South Carolina. 99 charges for alleged financial crimes will be dealt with at a future date.
The prosecution, which featured 61 witnesses over three weeks of testimony, said they plan to seek testimony from four or five rebuttal witnesses on Tuesday. Judge Clifton Newman also ruled jurors will be allowed to visit the family’s sprawling estate after the rebuttal witnesses but prior to closing arguments.
Moselle Marvin and Mark Ball: A Murdaugh surviving son of a murderer murdered on the night of the Martin Luther King shootings
Despite the large and complex crime scene, state law enforcement released Moselle back to the family on the morning after the murders, according to Murdaugh’s brother, John Marvin. He told the story about cleaning the parts of Paul’s remains that were still open.
It wasn’t cleaned up. He testified through tears that he saw blood, brains, and pieces of skull. “For some reason I thought it was something that I needed to do for Paul to clean it up. It felt like it was the right thing to do. I felt like I owed him, and I started cleaning. I can promise you no mother or father or aunt or uncle should ever have to see and do what I did that day.”
The defense has tried to paint the crime scene as shoddy and argue that it was mishandled. Mark Ball, who worked for Murdaugh at the law firm, testified that there were no barricades or police tape around the property the night of the killings.
In particular, they have tried to prove he was at the crime scene that night, worked to show he lied to investigators and painted a picture of a fraudster who killed his wife and son in a desperate bid to distract the investigations into his actions.
That shooting was followed by a stint in rehab for drug addiction, dozens of allegations of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.
Murdaugh vs. Harvey, the Colleton County Coroner, and a forensic pathologist: Harvey did not take exact temperatures during the night of his death
The state will call at least four or five witnesses and hopes to have all of them present by the end of the day, according to the prosecutor.
On the stand on Friday, Murdaugh said that he would hurt himself if they were talking about him.
More than a week ago, Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey testified that he estimated the time of death to be around 9 p.m. – just minutes after Murdaugh’s voice was captured on the video – based in part on armpit checks he conducted to feel how warm the bodies were.
When Harvey showed up, he testified that rigor mortis had not yet set in and that it typically started developing within one to three hours after death.
A forensic Pathologist testified Monday that the technique of temperature checks on body parts is not a valid method of determining time of death.
Instead, he said, someone arriving on scene should first check the ambient temperature of the area where the body is found and then take a rectal temperature to get as close to a core body temperature as possible.
Harvey denied taking rectal temperatures that night. During cross examination, prosecutors asked if the coroner had an idea of when the killings occurred since he did not take exact temperatures.
“This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters told the jury in his closing argument. “He fooled them, too, they paid for it with their lives.” Don’t let him fool you as well.
The evidence that you have heard shows that he got addicted to the money and began to steal, because his legal fees was not enough.
Phone Forensics and a Family Weapon in the Moselle Center for the Study of Multiple Arrests by the Kennel at Moselle
Waters reconstructed a history of the prosecutions version of the murders by the kennel at Moselle, using phone forensics.
“That changed everything. Why did it change the way things were? There is opportunity. Being at the scene of the crime when the murders occurred,” Waters said. The most important thing the man could have told the law enforcement was lies. When was the last time I saw my wife and child? Why would an innocent husband and father lie about something they didn’t know about? He didn’t know that there was a video.
The video Paul took proving that his father was lying and the bullets that hid the murder weapon were all testimony that came from the victims.
The prosecutors said the weapon was a family weapon. But they never produced the murder weapons — a .300 Blackout assault-style rifle prosecutors say was used on Maggie and a 12-gauge shotgun used on Paul.
Murdaugh’s crime-fighting attorney, Michael Waters, pleaded not guilty to murdering his father and his brother Paul in Moselle
Police came to Murdaugh’s house and asked him about his relationships with his family and if he was addicted to Opioid, which he denied.
“You still told the same lie, and all those reasons that you just gave this jury about the most important part of your testimony was a lie too,” Waters said.
The main contention of the Murdaugh’s defense team was that sloppy police work undermines the evidence against him.
Numerous vehicles and people were allowed onto the Moselle grounds in the hours after the killings, including Murdaugh’s relatives and friends. And on a night with misting rain and drizzle, Paul and Maggie’s bodies were covered by sheets rather than tarps.
Although Ball was not confident that the main house could be connected to the crime scene, he allowed his large group to leave the area. He said some of them took care of the house.
“Murdaugh said his No. 1 goal was clearing Paul’s name,” she said, breaking down in tears. I thought it was odd because my top priority was to find out who killed my sister and Paul.
The two custom firearms were given to Paul and his brother by the Murdaughs. Paul’s was apparently stolen in 2017, and a replacement was bought; that newer gun has not been found.
According to prosecutors there are many variables in relation to the shooting death of Paul, such as the likelihood of chaos at the scene and a potential firing position from a kneeling position.
The state’s final rebuttal witness, forensic expert Kenneth Kinsey, told Attorney General Alan Wilson that the defense’s theory the gunman had to be shorter than Murdaugh’s 6-foot-four-inch frame was “preposterous.”
The outfit matches testimony from Turrubiate-Simpson, the housekeeper, who even recalled fixing Murdaugh’s collar that morning. The conversation that she had with her employer was two months after the murders.
Early in the evening of June 7, his phone seemed to be sitting immobile at the main house. The cellphone data shows that Murdaugh took 281 steps in just four minutes at 9:02p.m. That’s immediately after the time experts say the murders took place.
What were you doing? Murdaugh was asked if Waters was the prosecutor. The accused man only stated that he was about to visit his mother with Alzheimer’s.
The vehicle records show Murdaugh speeded down rural roads on that nighttime trip, reaching speeds up to 80 mph on the rural roads – far above posted speed limits. He also drove past the spot where his phone was found.
Smith said that Murdaugh came by for 20 minutes. She said Murdaugh tried to convince her it was more like 30 to 40 minutes. Smith felt so uncomfortable, she said, that she immediately called her brother, who works in law enforcement.
Murdaugh denied doing that. The investigators testified that the blue raincoat they found at the house was wrapped around a recently fired weapon.
Annette stated that Murdaugh was a “Tasmanian devil” and showed up late for work. It was Griswold who first discovered missing settlement fees from early 2021. Griswold said she initially assumed Murdaugh had misplaced them. She told the firm’s chief financial officer that she was suspicious.
According to Seckinger, who has known Murdaugh for years, he shot her a dirty look when she confronted him about the missing money.
Concerns about the missing funds were unimportant when it came to consideration of Murdaugh’s loss, Seckinger and Griswold said.
Months after the murders, Griswold testified, she was getting a file in her boss’s office when a check “floated like a feather to the ground,” revealing he was siphoning money. She said it hit her hard, “I was beside myself.” He’d been lying the whole time.
Some attorneys didn’t expect the unanimous guilty verdict to come so quickly. Murdaugh’s lies are likely what led to the speedy decision, they added.
It comes down to two things, every prosecutor has to contend with. CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates anchored a televised panel discussion and discussed motives and opportunities. The legal experts talked about the case.
I think the credibility of the case will be affected by the fact that he waited until there was testimony in this courtroom before saying he was paranoid and was actually there,’ said Hatchett.
“Once you have that credibility gap, I think that it also can taint your other testimony, whether you’re credible or not,” Hatchett, also a former chief presiding juvenile court judge in Georgia’s Fulton County, said.
Mark O’Mara, who was involved in the wrongful death trial of the man who shot and killed Martin in 2012 said that the prosecution needed to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence in order to get a conviction.
“I think this kennel video is the most important piece of evidence in this case for the prosecution because it explodes the big lie,” said Loni Coombs, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor. The big lie of his alibi is where he said he wasn’t at the crime scene.
The Trial in the Addiction of Murdaugh Against a Murmurdaugh Patient with 2,000 Milligrams on the Probing Field of Drug Abuse
Patients typically start at 10 to 20 milligrams a few times a day, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday night. While 2,000 milligrams sound astronomical in comparison, taking that much daily is possible, he said.
“People can gradually build up increasing tolerance to these drugs, these opioids. This is not unheard of,” Gupta said. People can escalate the dose over time. It is “tough to know” what the impact of opioid addiction would have on a specific person’s behavior, Gupta added.
The symptoms of drug withdrawal can include dizziness, depression and confusion, which can be avoided with the high doses Murdaugh took.
Gupta said that people can develop tolerance to the point where they are not taking the medication to get high, instead just to feel normal and not have withdrawal.
After the defense presents its closing argument, the prosecution will offer a response. Judge Clifton Newman is then expected to give final instructions to the jury, and charge them with coming to a verdict.
Judge Newman announced on Thursday that a juror is being removed from the panel. The court received a complaint from a member of the public saying the juror, a woman identified only as juror No. 785, had “improper conversations” with people not involved with the case.
Newman said that the woman had invested her time and attention in the case. But, he said, she would be replaced so that the integrity of the trial would remain intact.
A light moment then erupted shortly before the juror left, as she said she needed her purse from the other room — along with a dozen eggs that another juror had brought in for everyone on the panel.
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The closing arguments in the trial of the disbarred South Carolina attorney charged in the murders of his wife and son was delivered earlier in the day.
Murdaugh kept a stony face while the verdicts were read. The last of his sons,Buster Murdaugh, wiped tears from his eyes. Murdaugh appeared to mouth “I love you” to Buster as he was being placed in handcuffs.
The lawyer representing alleged financial crime victims of Murdaugh was surprised by the speed of the verdict. When Justin heard the verdict had been reached less than three hours after deliberations began, he was sure that Murdaugh would be convicted.
“I find it offensive that the defense … is claiming law enforcement didn’t do their job, while he is withholding and obstructing justice by not saying ‘I was down at the kennels.’ ”
He said the agency failed to investigate hair found in Murdaugh’s wife’s hand, take fingerprint evidence, examine footwear and tire impressions, or test DNA on the victims’ clothes.
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That is what addicted people do. The Addicts are liars, he said. He lied because he wanted to keep his integrity, and he had a lot of skeletons in his closet.
He was found guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of use of a weapon during a violent crime by a jury after three hours of deliberations. As the verdicts were read, Murdaugh showed little emotion.
The prosecutor said that justice had been done in Thursday’s news conference. It doesn’t matter who your family is. People think you have a lot of money, but it isn’t important. It doesn’t matter … how prominent you are.
Judge Newman denied the request for a mistrial and described the evidence in the case of Murdaugh as overwhelming.
The six-week trial riveted the nation and its citizens, and the judge’s comments concluded it. Media coverage included live broadcasts of the trial itself, true crime podcasts and a docuseries on Netflix.
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Prosecutors said that the once influential lawyer lied to people he was close to when he stole millions of dollars from coworkers and clients and then tricked his wife and son into thinking he had killed them.
Had the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, done a “competent job” of gathering evidence, Griffin said, Murdaugh would have been excluded from the list of potential suspects long ago.
“Every single person who’s been victimized by Alex has wanted one thing: complete accountability,” he said. “And complete accountability started here today with this jury verdict.”
They took samples from Alex Murdaugh’s clothes, but didn’t take anything from Paul orMaggie’s clothes. He said investigators pursued the idea that Alex Murdaugh’s shirt had high-velocity blood spatter because they seized on the idea that it was true.
But when the state was faced with mixed results and questions over tests of Murdaugh’s shirt, Griffin said, they embraced a “Mr. Clean theory,” which purported that Murdaugh committed the grisly murders, quickly washed himself off with a hose and got into a golf cart “butt-naked, I guess,” to drive back to the house, before leaving to visit his mother.
The state never said if tests were done on hair or fingernails, according to the accusation by the man. He also faulted the way Maggie’s phone was secured after it was found on June 8, accusing investigators of not preventing the device from continuously pinging GPS locations — which, he said, eventually overwrote data from the night of the murders.
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“That’s what’s true, not what the defense wants you to believe,” he told the jury, urging them to focus on the underlying facts of the case. He repeatedly invoked “credibility and common sense.”
“This is an episode of Columbo, except this is real, and Murdaugh made crucial mistakes like the killers in that show,” said the author.
“Paul had that insurance on him, and he talked about his dog in the video, who snatched a chicken in his mouth near the kennels, and then his people talked about it,” Meadors said of the video.
The alleged financial crimes put real pressure on him, but he showed that he cared about himself more. And Murdaugh did whatever he needed to protect himself, he added.
He also sought to sow doubt about investigators’ findings of the time of death, saying that just because Paul’s and Maggie’s phones locked around 8:49 p.m., that doesn’t mean both of them were dead.
The pressures on his client have been overblown, Griffin said. The attorney said that when Murdaugh finally felt pressure, he asked his cousin to shoot him.
Griffin began his statement with an overview of the criminal legal system, comparing the trial to an instant-replay review in college football. Despite the charges against Murdaugh, he told jurors, the call on the field — the default position of the law — is that Murdaugh is innocent. It’s the prosecution’s job, he added, to prove Murdaugh’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
During the investigation, Alex Murdaugh lied about how often he sees his murdered wife and son, so Judge Newman said he had to visit while he was trying to fall asleep.
You had an expression on the witness stand. What a tangled web we weave. What did you mean by that?” he asked, and Murdaugh responded, “I meant that when I lied, I continued to lie.”
“And the question is when will it end?” Newman said something. “When will it end? The jury have concluded that you lied and lied throughout your testimony.
Judge Clifton Newman sentenced disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and son Friday, less than 24 hours after a jury found Murdaugh guilty in the 2021 slayings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.
“Amazingly to have you come and testify that it was just another ordinary day. ‘My wife and son and I were out just enjoying life.’ Not credible. Not believable. It’s possible to convince yourself of it. but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else about that,” Judge Clifton Newman said moments before handing down two consecutive life sentences.
I am aware you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night when you are trying to sleep. I’m sure they come and visit you, I’m sure,” the judge told Murdaugh at one point in the Colleton County courtroom.
The sentencing hearings usually include victim impact statements. There wasn’t any on Friday. The hearing stood out due to the exchanges Newman had with Murdaugh, who the judge said represented an assault on the integrity of the judicial system.
“But as I sit here in this courtroom and look around (at) the many portraits of judges and other court officials and reflect on the fact that over the past century your family, including you, have been prosecuting people here in this courtroom and many have received a death penalty probably for lesser conduct.”
Paul Murdaugh, the victim who solved his own murder, appeared before a state attorney in South Carolina on Thursday night: Witnesses, the jury, and witnesses
Murdaugh was released into the care of the South Carolina Department ofCorrections. Wearing a brown jumpsuit and handcuffs, he could be seen leaving the courtroom under the watch of a law enforcement official.
He said that the jury had begun deliberations by voting, two not guilty, one not sure, and nine guilty.
In the end, “it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Florida’s Palm Beach County, told CNN Thursday night about the trial.
Murdaugh’s former law firm – which renamed itself Parker Law Group in light of his actions – called Thursday’s verdict a step toward justice. Members of the law group testified during the trial.
“The one thing you can clearly take away from this was, he had been lying to a lot of people that he loved for a long time, and so he had obviously gotten to be pretty good at it,” Bill Nettles told CNN.
If they believed him, he would be found not guilty. That is a hard hill to get over once they decide he is willing to put himself out there and they aren’t going to believe him.
The jury thought that the man lied to everybody and they concluded that he also lied, he told CNN.
Waters said the callousness, selfishness, and depravity of the crimes are stunning.
The judge said he didn’t question prosecutors’ decision not to seek the death penalty in the case — but he noted that over the decades in which Murdaugh’s family controlled the circuit solicitor’s office, “many have received the death penalty — probably for lesser conduct.”
Newman told Murdaugh that the person could not have been him. Perhaps, he added, Murdaugh’s noted drug addiction caused him to become another person.