Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian, on the left, and witness Ronnie Crosby, on the right, battle it out during the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, inset, over financial issues and anger in Colleton County, S.C., on Feb. 28, 2023.
A tense moment occurred during the defense’s cross examination of the state’s first rebuttal witness on Tuesday morning as the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial draws to a close in South Carolina.
First came a lengthy discussion about the scourge of wild hogs in the Palmetto State. Topics included: precautions one might take to protect against hogs during dove hunts; the types of guns you would use to deal with a hog versus the kind use to hunt birds; planting certain crops to attract certain game; and where hogs live and their behavior through the seasons or in certain other circumstances.
After all of that, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian established, without complaint or objection, that his client’s former law partner, Ronnie Crosby, really couldn’t testify as to the gun use habits of the defendant and his son, Paul Murdaugh, as they typically traveled around the family’s expansive hunting lodge known as Moselle.
Harpootlian then turned to what Alex Murdaugh told his then-friend on the night of the murders.
“Let’s ask it this way,” he said. “Your practice is primarily personal injury, is that correct?”
“It is,” Crosby replied.
“Catastrophic injuries?” the defense attorney pressed.
“I handle a lot of catastrophic injury cases,” Crosby said.
Testimony and questions then turned to the concept of memory. The defense attorney sought to elicit agreement from the witness that sometimes people who experience extreme trauma have trouble remembering specific details and occasionally offer inconsistent recollections of the immediate aftermath of tragic, violent events.
Crosby, for his part, was hesitant to agree with Harpootlian, saying it would typically behoove one of his clients to get the details right because it would aid him in rendering effective lawyerly counsel. Still, the witness did agree with the general concept, saying it can happen.
Then came the dust-up.
“So, the instance you’re talking about where Alex told you he turned [Paul] over before he made the 911 call, whatever it was, I’m not quite sure, before, I think, is what you said,” Harpootlian started. “If that would be inconsistent with something he says later on after having reviewed other peoples’ statements, looking at video – that would not be unusual in your business. I think you just said it would not be unusual, correct?”
SEE ALSO: In graphic testimony, doctor who performed autopsies pushes back on Alex Murdaugh defense’s alternate theories about wife and son’s murders
The witness paused for several seconds, prompting the defense attorney to try and strike the question.
But he eventually answered anyway – in a sense.
“You’re trying to take me somewhere that you probably don’t want to,” Crosby said.
“Oh, no, I think I want to,” Harpootlian replied, visibly a bit rattled.
The question was then withdrawn.
“Let me ask you this question,” Harpootlian said. “Maybe this gets to the meat of matters here: Have you had to come out of pocket to pay back the money he stole?”
The witness replied that he did and ultimately estimated that millions have been borrowed and spent trying to make clients and the business whole again. The total amount of Alex Murdaugh’s admitted financial crimes over the years, he said, had yet to be established.
“I couldn’t tell you how much has exactly been paid back as we sit here today,” Crosby said. “And if you’re implying that I would come in here and somehow shade truth in any way because of that, that’s – I would take high offense with that, Mr. Harpootlian.”
“I’m not concerned about your high offense,” the defense attorney quickly said, raising his voice, nearly cutting the witness off and shouting by the end. “Are you angry at him for stealing your money?”
Crosby replied that he had “no feeling one way or the other.”
Harpootlian, eyes wide, expressed something like mock or real surprise.
“You don’t have any feeling about Alex Murdaugh betraying you and stealing your money?” he asked, still shouting. “I admire you. I don’t know that I could look beyond that.”
The state then lodged an objection that Judge Clifton Newman sustained by noting there was no question asked. The judge then directed jurors to ignore the attorney’s sarcastic argument.
“You are not angry with Alex Murdaugh?” Harpootlian tried again.
The witness finally replied
“I have had anger with him,” Crosby said. “Extreme anger, Mr. Harpootlian, because of what he did to my law firm, my partners, my clients, his clients, our clients. What he did to his family. What he did to so many people. Yes, I experienced a lot of anger. But you can’t walk around with anger. You have to find a way to deal with it and move forward. And I have done that. And if you suggest, you are dead wrong, if you think I have come in here and told this jury something because of money, when we are talking about two people who were brutally murdered, then you’re heading in the wrong direction.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
