Timing Videos of Murdaugh and his Friend Paul before and after the Killings: A Correspondence between Attorney General Harpootlian, P.C. Waters, and M.D. Rogan
In the last three weeks of the trial, prosecutors tried to get a jury to conclude that Murdaugh was involved in the killings. Instead, their case has relied heavily on circumstantial evidence that they say shows Murdaugh lied to investigators and was at the scene just minutes before the killings.
A short video was filmed on Paul and his phone before he and his friend were killed. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Dove said that there were three different voices in the footage. And while Dove did not personally know the voices, he said, “You can tell that they’re different voices.”
After the killings of Paul and the Murdaughs, Rogan said he was almost certain the third person heard was Alex Mur, a close friend of his. He told the investigators last November that he was absolutely certain of it.
In his testimony last week, Murdaugh admitted he lied when he said he had not been to his estate’s dog boarding facility on the night of the killings. The admissions came after several witnesses for the prosecutionfingered his voice in a video taken on Paul’s phone at or near the kennels, which prosecutors contend is evidence that the killings happened.
In his opening statement last week, Prosecutor Waters of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office teased the video in which Alex claimed to investigators he was napping.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said the audio showed Murdaugh and his wife having a “normal discussion” with “no animosity.” Paul is “very happy,” Harpootlian claimed. Nobody is threatening him. Daddy is not shooting and killing him with a shotgun.
Prosecutors have tried to paint Murdaugh as a dishonest and disgraced attorney who killed his wife and son to draw attention from investigations into financial misconduct allegations against him. In his testimony, Murdaugh repeatedly denied carrying out the killings but admitted to stealing millions of dollars from his former clients and law firm.
Murdaugh was hospitalized after he was shot in the head on a road. The man who turned himself in that same month also admitted to asking a former client to kill him, so that Murdaugh’s oldest son could get insurance money.
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. The expert said this was another sign that the phone was held in someone’s hand. A final call was not made by Murdaugh.
Waters told the jury in his opening statement that he and Murdaugh had been texting each other before he called his wife.
Griffin ran through phone data reflecting the minutes after 8:49, laying out a theory in which the slain mother and son might have simply set down their phones at the kennels. He said that it might have been possible that a bad guy had a phone and that she was still holding it.
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 calls from the log was to do it manually.
A Murdaugh Lawyer in the South Carolina Lowcountry who pleaded not guilty to a murder conspiracy and lying about his financial misdeeds
Additionally, Murdaugh was in the same group chat as his wife when relatives were texting about his dying father, Dove said Wednesday. And while evidence shows Maggie read both messages, Murdaugh did not read them until the next day, Dove said, despite telling state investigators about his concern for his father’s health.
As for the lies Murdaugh admitted telling, Griffin said his client lied because “that’s what addicts do.” He added that Murdaugh had “a closet full of skeletons” that he didn’t want exposed.
Following the killings, Murdaugh was confronted by his colleagues about the missing funds and forced to resign. A day later, Murdaugh was shot on the side of a rural road in what he initially claimed was a random attack – but investigators eventually determined was part of a bizarre murder-for-hire plot concocted by Murdaugh.
Now disbarred, Murdaugh is a member of a prominent legal family in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Three generations of his family over 87 years have served as solicitor for the 14th Circuit, which oversaw prosecutions throughout the area. His grandfather’s portrait was on a wall in the courtroom, but it was removed before the trial started. Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A defense lawyer says there is more evidence about financial misdeeds than there is about a murder case.
Murdaugh offered to file a claim against his insurance company to get money for his housekeeper’s sons, Michael Satterfield testified. Satterfield did not know that Murdaugh collected more than $4 million in settlements, but he did see some of the money.
The checks ultimately played a key role in Murdaugh’s law firm’s discovery that he had been misappropriating funds, according to testimony from his coworkers.
Also in court Thursday, Michael “Tony” Satterfield, the son of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper 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, Seckinger, and Mallory Beach, the Simpson’s lawyer, testified about a boat wreck in February 2021
A CEO of a local bank told the jury that Murdaugh’s account had been overdrawn. As of August 2021, Murdaugh had a total debt to the bank of $4.2 million, according to Palmetto State Bank CEO Jan Malinowski.
Thursday’s session ended with attorney Mark 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.
“Our criminal justice system worked tonight,” Wilson said. “It gave a voice to Maggie and Paul Murdaugh who were brutally mowed down and murdered on the night of June 7, 2021 by someone that they loved and someone that they trusted, and they couldn’t be here to testify for themselves tonight.”
The prosecution questioned Tinsley about the lawsuit on Thursday. He said he was looking for $10 million from Murdaugh, but he was told he wouldn’t have enough money. Tinsley was not cross-examined Thursday and is expected to resume his testimony Friday morning.
The CFO, Jeanne Seckinger, testified that they wouldn’t harass him about money or his family being killed when they were worried about his mental state.
The law firm confronted him again about misappropriated funds and this time he resigned, as well as a murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot.
After about a dozen friends and family members identified his voice on the video, Murdaugh took the stand and admitted he was there. He testified that he’d lied to police about his whereabouts because of “paranoid thinking” stemming from his addiction to opiate painkillers.
About 30 seconds after Greene and Murdaugh begin talking, the deputy asks him whether 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.
Murdaugh tells the deputy that the gun leaning against his vehicle is where the deputy questions where the gun is. The deputy watches Murdaugh’s shirt.
“This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck … months back. He is receiving threats, says Murdaugh. “Most of it’s been benign stuff. He has been getting punched so we didn’t take it seriously. I know that is 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’s autopsy revealed that he had been shot at least four times with an assault rifle, a conversation with Ellen Riemer
The prosecution questioned Ellen Riemer, a Pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, about the injuries she found on Maggie and Paul while doing her autopsy.
Alex Murdaugh was overcome with emotion when Riemer told him about the wounds to his son and wife. He shook his head as he heard something.
Murdaugh was shot at least four times with an assault rifle, according to Riemer. 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.
Riemer testified that he did not see anything on his hands that would show he had his hands up to his face. “That first shot, his arm was down, and I don’t see any evidence of injury to his hands from the second.”
The next shot went upward, starting at Maggie’s chest and going through the left side of her face. Riemer said she attributed that to the first two shots causing Maggie to double over, with her head bent over. She said the wound would have been fatal. Riemer said that the last shot was to the back of the head.
The Murdaugh Dynasty Revisited: Coroner Harvey and Detective Rudofski Testified in a Low Country High-Redshift Case
The jury 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.
After prosecutors rested their case on Friday, they showed the court evidence that Paul Murdaugh confronted his father about having pills in his system.
On May 26, there was a search for a green gel pill p30, which matches a description of a nonprescription nighttime cold and flu medication.
On May 7, 2021, Phillip Barber showed a text Alex Murdaugh sent to his wife, apologizing and saying he was very sorry. I love you.”
The defense has claimed that the man is being prosecuted because of a poorly handled investigation and that he called police after finding his wife and son because he was a loving father.
The defense on Friday called to the stand its first two witnesses, including Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey who said he estimated the time of death for Paul and Maggie to be around 9 p.m. that night, based on armpit checks he conducted. Harvey said yes when he was 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.
During his testimony on Friday, Peter Rudofski, an investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said he was able to plot Murdaugh’s movements on the night of the killings through latitude, longitude and speed data provided by General Motors.
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.
Murdaugh turned into the front entrance at the Moselle property at roughly 10 p.m. that night, and shortly after, headed over to the family’s dog kennels located on the property, arriving there at 10:05 p.m., the investigator testified.
Witnesses to the Murdaugh family: A case against a prosecutor for the murder of a 14th Circuit Solicitor in Morse Valley
According to previous testimony, he told investigators on the night of the killings that when he arrived at the crime scene and discovered the bodies, he tried to turn Paul over, then attempted to check Paul’s cell phone, and then attempted to tried both of their pulses, before calling 911.
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 was played in court on Wednesday, and it showed SLED agents questioning Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to conflict with his earlier statements.
Owen agreed with Murdaugh that Rogan had been around the family for a long time. The man recognizes your voice and it has a distinct one. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”
The footage played Wednesday also showed the agents confront Murdaugh about another piece of footage filmed by Paul the night of the killings: A Snapchat video showing Murdaugh looking at a sapling on the family’s property. In it, Murdaugh is wearing clothes. He was wearing shorts and a white shirt after that.
There is a video on Paul’s phone with you and him. 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. “At what point in the evening did you change clothes?”
Murdaugh’s Son and His Sister, Blanca, and Owen, a Family Housekeeper, had no contact before the shootings that day
Two people disagree, the first one is Murdaugh and the other one isMaggie’s sister. The conversation Marian Proctor had on the day of the murders was that Maggie did not want to go to Islandton.
Blanca Simpson, a family housekeeper, similarly testified last week that Maggie told her the day of the murders that Alex had asked both Maggie and Paul to come to Moselle that night.
“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 an expert had found blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, but it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.
When you did the Hema-trace test to confirm that there was no blood, it came up negative. Wasn’t that not taken care of? asked the man.
Owen wondered if the biological material from the blasts that killed the two people would be on them.
The motion to limit the questioning of Murdaugh before he testified was denied by the judge due to allegations of financial wrongdoing.
The defense appeared to suggest last week that the killings could be related to a financial dispute with a drug gang, saying Murdaugh was buying $50,000 worth of drugs each week from a man who was in significant debt to a gang.
Before that day, did Alex Murdaugh talk to you about anyone else who might have been involved in his son or wife’s murder?
Asked if a cell phone analysis had been performed to see if any of the drug gang members were in the area the night of the killings, Owen said drug gang members typically use burner phones, and he didn’t have their phone numbers. But state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and had identified only first responders as coming to the scene, Owen said.
The defense attorney also asked Owen if any DNA analysis had been done to match a small amount of unknown male DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.
A day after defense attorneys rested their case in Alex Murdaugh’s weekslong double murder trial, prosecutors on Tuesday intend to call a handful of rebuttal witnesses before the jury visits Murdaugh’s sprawling South Carolina estate where his wife and son were shot to death in 2021.
The defense has painted Murdaugh as a loving father and husband being wrongfully accused after what it says has been a poorly handled investigation. 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.
A trial attorney said that it made the case more difficult. If the prosecutors have enough evidence, it can rise to the level needed to get a conviction.
Jurors want something that is persuasive, science, and DNA are some things that jurors want. “But because (prosecutors) lack it … their focus is now on the tenuous motive and the lies after the fact, but neither of those things … substitute the evidence that they need.”
A South Carolina attorney who killed his wife and son in 2021 allegedly violated the First Amendment and Constitutional Rights of a Fourth-Foreigner
One of Paul’s friends who lived off-and-on with him in South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh was identified as the third voice in the video that Paul recorded of the dog.
The prosecution has used that Snapchat video to try to disprove his assertion that he was asleep, and other testimony has also cut into his claims about how long he had been with his mother.
Alex Murdaugh was the only person with the intention, means and opportunity to kill his wife and son in June of 2021 and he betrayed him, according to prosecutors in his trial.
After deliberating for less than three hours Thursday, the jury in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh found him guilty of murdering his wife and son, the grisliest and most severe of the allegations faced by the disgraced former South Carolina attorney.
Buster Murdaugh was called as the defense’s first witness of the day. A source close to the case has previously told CNN that an accident reconstructionist is expected to follow him and be interested in what the investigators found at the scene.
After admitting on Thursday to taking millions of dollars from his law firm and clients, the man who used to be known as PMPED was sentenced to five years in prison.
“I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Murdaugh said in response to prosecutor Creighton Waters during the prosecution’s cross-examination.
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.
Murdaugh recalled calling 911 and “trying to tend” to Paul and Maggie, going back and forth between them while on the phone. Paul’s injuries were particularly bad, Murdaugh said, and he recalled trying to check his son’s body for a pulse and trying to turn him over.
“I don’t know why I tried to turn him over,” an emotional Murdaugh said. “I mean, my boy’s laying face down. He’s done the way he’s done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I did not know what to do.
According to earlier testimony, Murdaugh searched for a restaurant in Edisto Beach and read a group text message shortly after he found the bodies.
He believed his addiction was the result of surgery he received for an old college football injury. He said he needed a few surgeries, and he started getting addicted to hydrocodone around 2004 before moving on to oxycodone around 2008.
When asked if that drug transaction actually happened, Murdaugh said he didn’t know because after withdrawal symptoms started, Murdaugh said he changed his plan.
Murdaugh’s cross-examination of a serial killer convicted of murdering his wife and son, Paul, during the June 7 shootings
After about six hours of testimony on Friday, the court adjourned to the weekend and will resume on Monday.
“And you disagree to my characterization that you’ve got a photographic memory about the details that have to fit now that you know … these facts but you’re fuzzy on the other stuff that complicates that? You don’t agree with that?
The cross examination resumed after the lunch break. Waters pointed out discrepancies in Murdaugh’s videotaped statements to police, including his claim that he did not know about the killings. Parts of the taped interviews were played for the jury.
“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. Murdaugh said that he was not doing any of that.
“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. “So I know for a fact that I never, ever, ever created an alibi.”
“I can tell you for a fact that the person or people who did what I saw on June 7, they hated Paul Murdaugh,” he testified. “And they had anger in their heart.”
Connection to boat crash: Murdaugh was questioned about the idea of a “random avenger” murdering his wife and son. A fatal boat wreck that Murdaugh was involved in was the reason for the killings, he testified. He said that he didn’t think anyone involved in the boat wreck had anything to do with the murders, but that he suspected someone had heard about it.
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.
Shortly before 4 p.m., Waters concluded his cross examination and Murdaugh’s defense attorney, Jim Griffin, began questioning him again after a brief break. The court was adjourned for the rest of the day after the questioning was over.
Murdaugh, 43, of South Carolina, is charged with murder and possession of a weapon in a violent crime, and is facing life in prison
They are real people. They’re good people. A lot of the people I love are people that I did wrong by.
“Whether that came from me looking them in the eye or not, I can’t answer that. But I will agree with you that every single client I looked them in the eye and I believe that the people that I stole money from for all those years trusted me.”
“This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters said. “He fooled everyone, and he paid for it with his own life.” Don’t let him fool you, too.”
On September 4, 2021, nearly three months after the killings, Murdaugh reported he was shot alongside a road and was treated for a “superficial gunshot wound to the head,” authorities said.
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 prosecution played clips of the police interview.
He’s charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and he’s on trial in Walterboro. If convicted, he faces a potential sentence of life in prison.
When was Alex Murdaugh convicted? A lawyer’s perspective on a trial at the LHC and the prosecution’s questioning of his cooperation with the jury
Legal experts told CNN that having Murdaugh testify was a calculated risk by the defense. 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.
Waters argued that his other explanations were completely out of proportion because he chose to lie so soon after the deaths. “You told the same lie, and all the reasons that you told the jury about the most important part of your testimony was also a lie,” the prosecutor said.
“If I was under the pressure that they’re talking about here, I can promise you I would hurt myself before I would hurt one of them, without a doubt,” Murdaugh said on the stand Friday.
You said that you were cooperative and that you wanted to give more information, but you didn’t include the most important parts? Waters asked.
The exchanges between Waters and Murdaugh turned ugly. Waters faulted Murdaugh for being fuzzy on details when he talked about his last minutes with his wife and son.
The first interrogation by David Owen, lead South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigator, took place hours after the killings.
Murdaugh was asked to confirm that the last time they saw each other was when they were eating supper.
Murdaugh said he spent most of the night sitting in a golf cart. He briefly left the golf cart to take a chicken from his dog Bubba’s mouth, he said.
Waters said that location data shows that Murdaugh did not bring his phone to the shelter. Murdaugh acknowledged that he “must not have” had his phone, adding that it was not unusual for him to leave his phone in the house.
During that time, Alex Murdaugh’s phone had been immobile at the main house. But starting at 9:02 p.m., data from Murdaugh’s phone showed that it moved 283 steps in four minutes.
When asked about the movements, Murdaugh testified that he was getting ready to leave for his mother’s house but did not give any details about his journey.
Noting that he had just left Maggie at the nearby kennels and had then failed to get her on the phone, Waters asked why Murdaugh didn’t just swing by the kennels to speak with her. “She’s close, and there’s a driveway there,” Waters said.
The Murdaugh story of the execution-style murders: a criminal defense attorney tells the jury that he had no choice but to testify
In the months before the murders, Murdaugh said he took more than 60 pills a day. He said he was buying different types of pills of oxycodone.
Murdaugh told the jury that he couldn’t remember details or precise conversations but didn’t challenge the prosecutor’s account of the misdeeds.
Waters also questioned Murdaugh about a solicitor’s badge he carried for years — a credential he received from his father when he volunteered at the circuit solicitor’s office that elder generations of the Murdaugh family led for some 86 years.
The night of his son’s boat accident, Waters showed a photo of Murdaugh with the Badge, which he wore while speaking to people. That event thrust the family into an unwelcome spotlight, and Murdaugh has said he believes it is linked to the execution-style slayings.
Legal experts say it was risky but worth it to have Alex Murdaugh’s story told to the South Carolina jury after he took the stand.
A criminal defense attorney said that if you were going to have somebody testify, you should have a lawyer who has been in the courtroom and lied for 20 years. One juror connecting with him emotionally is all it takes.
While defendants can often find themselves at a disadvantage when taking the stand, in this case, several attorneys told CNN Murdaugh practically had no choice but to testify.
Everybody wanted to know what the reason was for you to lie that you weren’t there. So he had to give an explanation as to that,” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Bernarda Villalona said. The criminal defense attorney made a calculated decision to put him on the stand because of that.
“They’re trying to use it for a very positive effect, to show that he had a problem (with addiction), he is sympathetic for trying to wrestle with it and that that may have made him paranoid and caused him to distrust the police and telling them this lie about not being there,” defense attorney Shan Wu said.
“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.
A criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst said that the prosecutors are saying that he is a liar, cheat and can’t be trusted.
Alex Murdaugh: A Model Witness, a Judge, and a Forensically Expert in the Case of a Dog Kennel
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 called his son “Paul-Paul,” during testimony, and often referred to his wife as “Mags.”
“That’s one of the biggest sticking points for the prosecution in this trial: it’s would he really do this?” said Jessica Roth, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law. “Despite all the other crimes he’s admitted to, would he actually kill his wife and son?
The key will be if Murdaugh was able to persuade at least one person on the jury panel to acquit him of the charges, which could save him from prison for the rest of his life.
Among the witnesses called by Murdaugh’s attorneys were his former legal partner who testified the scene was not properly secured, and a forensics expert who said his analysis suggests two shooters carried out the killings.
Timothy Palmbach, a former professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven, was hired by Alex Murdaugh’s defense to review the case and analyze the crime scene.
He said it wasn’t practical to have two long weapons in a shooter’s possession. “Add that to what I believe happened to the shooter who fired first with the shotgun, and I think it tips in favor of the probability of two shooters.”
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the fatal shootings at the dog kennels of their family estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021. He separately faces 99 charges for alleged financial crimes that will be adjudicated at a future date.
The Defense of the Murdaugh-Murdaugh Shooting in St. Paul’s Day on October 17, 2011 at Clebael’s Summit
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.
The 14th and final defense witness was the defendant’s brother John Marvin Murdaugh, who testified in emotional terms that law enforcement released the crime scene back to the family without cleaning up Paul Murdaugh’s remains.
He said that a piece of the skull was about the same size as a baseball. The fact that this young man had been murdered made me angry.
The defense also worked to show that investigators had done a shoddy job with the case, particularly in securing the crime scene. Mark Ball testified there was nothing police or barricades did to block the entrance to the property and that Paul’s remains were still there after investigators left.
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.
The prosecution is going to call at least four witnesses to testify on what the defense is saying, and hopes to have them all finished by Tuesday, Waters said.
The defense rested its case Monday after calling 14 witnesses including Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering two people.
Prosecutors have used a video filmed at the dog kennels shortly before authorities say the killings took place to argue Murdaugh was at the scene just minutes before the fatal shootings.
When did Harvey Murdaugh and his wife, Maggie, last see his wife and child, and when did he shoot him? A cross-examining of the case of Harvey
After death, the body can take up to 3 hours to develop rigor mortis, and Harvey said he arrived on scene at 11:04 pm.
A forensic pathologist, Jonathan Eisenstat, testified Monday that armpit temperature checks are “just not a valid method to try to make a determination of time of death,” calling the technique “just a guess.”
He said that the person who arrives on scene should first check the ambient temperature of the area where the body is found and then try to get as close to a core body temperature as possible.
Harvey said he did not take 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.
South Carolina senior assistant deputy attorney general and lead prosecutor. He has been with the case for some time. The state attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case because of the close ties between the local solicitors office and the Murdaugh family.
The evidence shows that he began to steal because the millions of dollars in legal fees he was receiving was not enough and he was addicted to money.
Primarily using phone forensics, Waters reconstructed a timeline of the prosecution’s version of events before, during and after the murders by the kennels at Moselle.
“That changed everything. Why did it change everything? Opportunity. Waters was at the scene of the murders. “More importantly, exposing the defendant’s lies about the most important thing he could have told law enforcement. When did I last see my wife and child? Why in the world would an innocent, reasonable father and husband lie about that, and lie about it so early? He didn’t know that (video) was there.”
The prosecutor recalled testimony from a friend of Paul’s who said he and Paul shot his .300 Blackout rifle — which prosecutors say was used to kill Maggie — a month or two before the murders. The gun, which has not been located, was recently at Moselle.
There is a family that killed a person. It was present in a few months prior to the murders. The weapon the defendants cannot account for is the murder ofMaggie.
The defense of Murdaugh claimed the police and forensics work they did undermined the evidence against him.
Murdaugh was too tall to fire a blackout rifle, but somehow managed to get out of the Moselle area, says his former law partner Mark Ball
Vehicles and people were permitted into the Moselle grounds in the hours after the killings. And on a night with misting rain and drizzle, Paul and Maggie’s bodies were covered by sheets rather than tarps.
“People just kept piling in, just more and more people kept showing up,” said Mark Ball, Murdaugh’s former law partner. There was nothing to keep cars away, and first responders were walking around inside a taped-off area, he testified, adding that he saw water dripping from the kennel roof onto Paul’s body.
Ball said his large group eventually left the area – but instead of being sent away, they were told to go inside the main house, despite Ball’s own concern that it could be part of the crime scene. Some of them tidied up the house, he said.
The outfit matches testimony from Turrubiate-Simpson, the housekeeper, who even recalled fixing Murdaugh’s collar that morning. Two months after the murders, she told jurors about a conversation with her employer.
Maggie was enjoying her home in nearby Edisto Beach and hadn’t planned to see her husband that night, Proctor said. But Alex Murdaugh’s father was dying and his mother was ailing, and Proctor encouraged her sister to support him.
Proctor testified that even after the murders, Murdaugh was focused on a different case, over a fatal boating accident in which Paul was criminally charged. It struck her as odd.
The Murdaughs originally had two custom Blackout rifles, given to Paul and his brother, Buster, as Christmas presents. Paul’s was apparently stolen in 2017, and a replacement was bought; that newer gun has not been found.
It was believed by prosecutors that Murdaugh was too tall to fire the shots that killed Paul, because of the chaos at the scene and the potential of firing 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.”
“What are you doing?” Murdaugh was asked if Waters was the prosecutor. The accused man didn’t give any details about his trip to visit his mother who has Alzheimer’s.
Smith said Murdaugh stopped by that night for 20 minutes. She said that Murdaugh later tried to convince her that the visit was over in about 30 minutes. Smith felt so uncomfortable, she said, that she immediately called her brother, who works in law enforcement.
Murdaugh denied doing that. Investigators testified they later found a blue raincoat with gunshot residue at the house, leading to speculation that it had been wrapped around a recently fired weapon.
Paralegal Annette Griswold described Murdaugh as a “Tasmanian devil” who showed up late for work and was all over the place. The first person to discover missing settlement fees was Griswold. Griswold said she initially assumed Murdaugh had misplaced them. She told the firm’s chief financial officer that she was suspicious.
Seckinger said that when she confronted Murdaugh about the missing money, he shot her a dirty look that she’d never seen before.
After the murders, she was getting a file in her boss’s office when a check fluttered like a feather to the ground. She said that it hit her hard. He’d been lying for a long time.
The attorneys who kept up with the trial didn’t expect the unanimous guilty verdict to come so quickly. They believe that the hasty decision was due to Murdaugh’s lies.
Every prosecutor has to contend with two things. Laura Coates, CNN senior legal analyst, said she was referring to motive and opportunity. Here are key takeaways from the legal experts’ discussion of the case:
Hatchett said he thinks there is a credibility gap because he waited until testimony from multiple people in the courtroom to say that he was paranoid.
“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.
The man who was acquitted of murder in the death of Martin said that the prosecution needs to exclude every plausible alibi in order to get a conviction.
The South Carolina Attorney General said Friday that circumstantial evidence is just as powerful as direct evidence. I think the video hung him.
The Trial of a Newly-Informed Juror on the Newman Trial of Addiction and Heroin: A CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Gupta
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 increase their tolerance to these drugs. This is not new, according to Gupta. “Over time, people can increasingly escalate the dose.” It is difficult to know what the effect of addiction would be on a specific person.
There is a point where people will no longer take medication to get high and will instead just feel normal and not have withdrawal.
The trial resumed shortly after 9:30 a.m. Thursday — the day the case is expected to go to the jury, more than a month after the court heard opening statements on Jan. 25.
After the defense presents its closing argument, the prosecution will offer a response. The jury will be charged with coming to a verdict by Judge Newman after he gives final instructions.
As Thursday’s court session began, Judge Clifton Newman announced that a juror is being replaced on 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 thanked the woman for her attentive and positive attitude throughout the case, and the investment of her time. 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.
Jim and Alex Murdaugh: The Lawyers for Buster and Ginzburg-Lambda, and their Witnesses, in the Defender’s Case
Earlier Thursday, Murdaugh’s defense team delivered closing arguments, saying law enforcement was too quick to pinpoint him as the main suspect in the killings by the dog kennels on the family’s sprawling estate.
Jim and one of Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys. Harpootlian is an attorney and a South Carolina state senator.
The judge is hearing the case. He has been on the bench since 2000. Since the year of 2020, Newman has presided over the Murdaugh case.
Alex Murdaugh’s younger brother. He is listed as a witness at trial and has accompanied Buster Murdaugh to court. Paul lived with John Marvin during the summer of 2021, and was doing work for him.
The chief financial officer of Parker Law Group, where Alex Murdaugh practiced when the firm was known as PMPED (Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick, PA). Seckinger testified February 7 that on the day of the killings, she had confronted Murdaugh about $792,000 in missing fees from the law firm that she believed he kept for himself. Russell Laffite, the former president of Palmetto State Bank who gave money to Alex Murdaugh and was convicted of six counts of financial fraud crimes, is the sister-in-law of Seckinger.
An experienced attorney is part of the prosecution team. He worked in both the Attorney General’s Office and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office. He has tried hundreds of murder trials and was hired by the US Attorney’s Office in early January.
Alex Murdaugh’s mother visited the night of the murders but there was an overnight care for her. She testified that Murdaugh was there for 15 to 20 minutes but later told her it was 30 to 40 minutes. She called her brother after she heard the comment and told him about it. Smith describes a blue tarp that Murdaugh carried into the house.
An expert who analyzed the blood stain pattern on the shirt worn by Alex Murdaugh was present on the night of the murders. In a motion filed just before the trial, the defense asked the court to prohibit Bevel from testifying. The state never called Bevel to testify, as had been anticipated.
The verdicts were read and Murdaugh kept a stony face. His last son,Buster Murdaugh, wiped tears from his eyes. Murdaugh said “I love you” when he was being placed in handcuffs.
The lawyer representing the financial crime victims of Murdaugh was surprised by the speed of the verdict. When Justin Bamberg heard a verdict had been reached less than three hours after deliberations started, he suspected Murdaugh would be convicted, he said.
“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.’ ”
Murdaugh’s charges in separate case yet to go to trial: he lied about a crime committed against him and the government
In a separate case yet to go to trial, Murdaugh continues to face 99 separate charges stemming from a horde of alleged financial crimes, including defrauding his clients, former law firm and the government of about $9 million.
He said the agency failed to investigate hair found in Murdaugh’s wife, take fingerprints, examine footwear and tire impressions, and test DNA on the victims’ clothes.
“Because that’s what addicts do. He said that Addicts lie. “He lied because he had a closet full of skeletons, and he didn’t want any more scrutiny on him.”
Murdaugh faced a sentence of 30 years to life in prison for each murder conviction. They were going to seek life in prison without parole for Murdaugh.
A jury verdict in the murder trial of Murdaugh, whose blood spatter killed his wife and girlfriend, Paul Waters, started with a clean theory, but failed to reveal his hair
“Justice was done today,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said in a Thursday night news conference. “It doesn’t matter who your family is. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or people think you have. It doesn’t matter … how prominent you are.
Judge Clifton Newman described the evidence of guilt in the case against Murdaugh as “overwhelming” and denied a request from the defense to declare a mistrial.
The six-week trial, which riveted South Carolina, ended in the judge’s comments. There were live broadcasts of the trial and true crime shows on the internet.
Prosecutors said the once influential lawyer lied to those close to him when he stole millions of dollars from his colleagues and clients and — in an act of desperation, as his financial pressures were mounting — fooled his wife and son, too, when he 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. This jury verdict has begun complete accountability here today.
SLED took samples from Alex Murdaugh’s clothes but never took samples from Paul orMaggie’s clothes. Once investigators seized on the idea that tests showed high-velocity blood spatter on Alex Murdaugh’s T-shirt, he added, they refused to dismiss that idea and pursued it “with vengeance.”
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.
Griffin accused the agency of a list of failures, saying the state never explained if tests were performed on hair he said was found in Maggie’s fingers. 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.
Murdaugh’s “Liars” and “Truths” Revealed in the South Carolina Criminal Legal System: John Meadors’s Rebuttal
Prosecutor John Meadors — a veteran of murder trials, who emerged from retirement to join the state’s case earlier this year — delivered the rebuttal closing argument. In a speech rife with dramatic flair, Meadors called on the 12 jurors to look past the lies the trial has exposed, including Murdaugh’s fluctuating alibi.
Murdaugh claimed his wife and son didn’t go to the dog kill because he stayed in the house, and took a nap before he went to see his mother.
He noted that South Carolina law doesn’t require the state to prove premeditation or motive in a murder case. But, he added, he believes the motive and other elements of the case against Murdaugh are proven, adding, “Nobody else could’ve done it.”
“This is an episode of Columbo, except this is real,” Meadors said, adding that just like the killers in that TV detective show, Murdaugh made crucial mistakes.
“Paul had that insurance on him,” Meadors said of the video, in which Maggie and Alex are heard talking about their dog, Bubba, who snatched a chicken in his mouth near the kennels.
He showed that he cared more about himself when the financial crimes put real pressure on him. And Murdaugh did whatever he needed to protect himself, he added.
The pressures on his client have been overblown, Griffin said. When Murdaugh did finally feel pressure, the attorney added, he took steps to end his own life in September, asking his cousin to shoot him.
The trial in the criminal legal system was compared to an instant replay of a college football game by Griffin, who began his statement with an overview. He told the jurors that despite the charges against Murdaugh, the calls on the field are that he is innocent. The prosecution is supposed to prove Murdaugh’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
According to Alex Murdaugh’s lies during the investigation, his slain wife and son need to come and visit as he tries to sleep, to which Judge Newman responded that he sees them all day and every night.
“Remind me of the expression you gave on the witness stand. … ‘Oh, it’s a tangled web.’ He wanted to know what Murdaugh meant by that, “I meant that when I lied, I continued to lie.”
“And the question is when will it end?” Newman said something. Will it end? This ended already for the jury because they’ve concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony.”
The disgraced lawyer was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and son, less than 48 hours after a jury found Murdaugh guilty in the murders of his wife and son.
“Amazingly to have you come and testify that it was just another ordinary day. My wife and son were enjoying life with me. It’s not credible. Not believable. You can convince yourself that this is true. You can’t convince anyone else about that, Judge Newman told you moments before handing down two consecutive life sentences.
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you’re attempting to go 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.
Typically, sentencing hearings include victim impact statements. There were none on Friday. The judge said Murdaugh was representing an assault on the integrity of the judicial system with his defense.
Over the past 100 years, your family and many others have been prosecuting people here in this courtroom for less serious crimes and many have received the death penalty for it.
Paul Murdaugh, 43, of the Florida Circuit Lawyer’s Office, was found guilty of a double homicide on a man with a drug addiction
After sentencing, Murdaugh was released into the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections. He left the courtroom under the watch of a law enforcement official.
The jury began its deliberations with a vote: “It was two not guilty, one not sure and nine guilty,” he said Friday, adding his vote was guilty from the start.
“It is ironic, in the end, that 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.
Murdaugh’s former law firm – which renamed itself Parker Law Group in light of his actions – called Thursday’s verdict a step toward justice. Several members of the law group testified during the murder 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. But once they decide that he’s willing to put himself out there and they don’t believe him, that’s kind of a tough hill to get over,” he added.
He told CNN that he believed that the jury found the man lying to them as well.
“The depravity, the callousness, the selfishness of these crimes are stunning,” Waters said, adding that Murdaugh continued to lie and showed no remorse.
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 it might not have been him who committed the terrible acts. Perhaps, he added, Murdaugh’s noted drug addiction caused him to become another person.
But it was one of his victims – his son – who would provide key proof after his death that legal experts say exposed his father’s web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction in the double homicide.
It was a case with little to no evidence connecting Murdaugh to the scene, but the video clip was enough for the jury to convict him.
The jury did not buy that clarification. The jury believed he was lying on the stand, even before he took the stand, Ford said.
The man in charge of a shaved head will be sent to the maximum-security prison where he’ll spend the rest of his life
The person was processed at a reception and evaluation center in Columbia. As part of that process, he had his head shaved, a standard procedure for inmates processed into the system, department spokesperson Chrysti Shain said.
Over the next month and a half, department officials will take into account the results of his tests and assessments as well as his crime and sentence in deciding which maximum-security prison he will be sent to, the department said.