Jurors in Alex Murdaugh‘s double murder trial have finally been sent out to find a verdict after six weeks of testimony, more than 75 witnesses and 800 items of evidence – including an outing to the crime scene.
The disgraced legal scion, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, at the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021.
The State says he faced a ‘gathering storm’ wrought by his financial crimes and a ruinous lawsuit over his son’s fatal boat wreck which drove him to kill the pair.
His defense argue the claim is ‘ludicrous’ and that he was a loving husband and father who was incapable of the brutal executions of his wife and son.
Murdaugh is facing 30 years to life if convicted.
Murdaugh, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, at the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021
Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh attend a dinner at the South Carolina Yacht Club. Buster was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the murders
The jurors were sent out by the judge this afternoon following two days of high courtroom drama which included a rare jury outing to the scene of the crime.
Murdaugh’s defense attorneys requested the trip to help the 12 men and women gain a better spatial understanding where Paul was blasted twice with shotgun in the feed room of the kennels and where Maggie was killed with a rifle just yards away.
After the visit to Moselle, jurors returned to the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro to hear impassioned closing arguments from the opposing legal sides.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said: ‘Nobody knew who this man was. He avoided accountability his whole life, he had relied on his family name, he had a powerful family, he carried a badge and used that in authority, he lived a wealthy life – but now finally he was was facing complete ruin.
‘His father who he idolized – who I worked with on occasion – was dying, his son was facing charges for the boat case, he was facing a civil action that could not only potentially ruin him but expose the reality of what he had been doing for years, he had an opiate addiction, his life was about to be altered, he couldn’t live for that – he’s the kind of person for whom shame is an extraordinary provocation.
‘His ego couldn’t stand that and he became a family annihilator.’
In his three-hour monologue, Waters outlined how Murdaugh had been confronted on the day of the murders over $792,000 that had gone ‘missing’ from his law firm.
In the months after the murders it would be revealed that he had stolen more than $10m from clients and partners over the last decade.
Three days after the killings he was due in court for a hearing in the lawsuit over his son’s drunken boat crash that killed a teen girl two years earlier.
The family patriarch, Randolph III, would die of cancer three days after the murders. Murdaugh had continually turned to him for massive loans and the pair were close.
Compounding this, Waters said Murdaugh’s 20-year opioid habit was spiraling, his pill purchases ‘escalated’ in March, and reminded jurors that on the defendant’s own admission, ‘withdrawals would make him do anything, anything to get rid of them.’
Waters ended his argument, by urging jurors not to be conned by ‘the master liar.’
Murdaugh arrives as a protestor holds a placard saying: ‘FORGIVE MY SINS JESUS SAVE MY SOUL’
Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex’s sister Lynn arrive at the court Thursday
Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex’s sister Lynn arrive at the court Thursday
A line of people outside the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro. Trial enthusiasts have been lining up since the early hours of the morning
He said: ‘This defendant has fooled everyone, everyone. Everyone who thought they were close to him he’s fooled them all and he fooled Maggie and Paul too and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t let him fool you too.’
Murdaugh’s defense on Thursday rebutted the State’s case, accusing investigators of fabricating evidence and arguing their alleged motive.
In his closing argument, Jim Griffin said the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), the state’s version of the FBI, failed to secure the crime scene and examine key evidence that could have exonerated Murdaugh, and instead focused on him due to his mounting drug and financial troubles.
‘That made him an easy, easy, easy target for SLED,’ Griffin said, arguing Murdaugh could have been ruled out as a suspect. ‘SLED failed miserably in investigating this case.’
The case has drawn intense media coverage given the family’s immense political power in and around Colleton County, where the trial is taking place.
For decades until 2006, family members served as the leading prosecutor in the area, and Murdaugh was a prominent personal injury attorney in the Deep South state.
Throughout the monthlong trial, prosecutors have sought to portray him as a serial liar and argued only he had the means and the opportunity to commit the murders.
They say he gunned down his wife and son to distract from a litany of financial crimes, including the theft of millions of dollars from his law partners and clients – money used to feed a years-long addiction to opioids and support an expensive lifestyle.
For their part, Murdaugh’s lawyers have tried to paint their client as a loving family man who, while facing financial difficulties and suffering from an opioid addiction that led him to lie and steal, would never harm his wife and child.
They have floated alternative theories, with Murdaugh testifying that he believed someone angry over a deadly 2019 boating accident involving Paul likely sought revenge on his son.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said Murdaugh, 54, faced a ‘gathering storm’ of financial and reputational devastation which drove him to kill Maggie and Paul at the family’s hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021
Defense attorney Jim Griffin attacked a video which proves Murdaugh was at the crime scene moments before prosecutors say he killed his wife and son, saying ‘there is nothing to indicate any strife or anger’
Griffin described the state’s alleged motive as preposterous, arguing the murders would only draw more scrutiny, not less, to the allegations of Murdaugh’s financial misdeeds.
He repeatedly highlighted the high legal bar in criminal cases of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, underscoring the challenge for prosecutors who have built their case on circumstantial rather than direct evidence.
‘If there’s any reasonable cause for you to hesitate to write ‘guilty,’ then the law requires you to write ‘not guilty,” he said.
Griffin also outlined a handful of examples where he alleges the state fabricated evidence. They included the claim that Murdaugh had high-velocity blood spatter on his shirt, an assertion contradicted by testing by SLED.
Among the state’s strongest evidence is Murdaugh’s admission from the stand last week that he’d lied about his whereabouts on the night of the killings, telling investigators he wasn’t at the dog kennels before the murders.
Murdaugh changed his account after the jury listened to audio evidence placing him at the crime scene minutes before it occurred.
Griffin repeated Murdaugh’s claim that he lied to investigators because of paranoia tied to his drug habit, as well as his mistrust of the police.
‘He lied because that´s what addicts do. He lied because he had a closet full of skeletons,’ the attorney said.
DailyMail
