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The South Carolina Attorney General said Alex Murdaugh has been ‘weaving a tangled web of lies for decades’ and the once prominent attorney’s guilty verdict proves that ‘no one is above the law.’
Murdaugh secured his downfall when he took the stand in his double murder trial, AG Alan Wilson said Friday morning on Good Morning America just before the disgraced legal scion was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. The two life sentences will run consecutively.
Murdaugh took the stand last month in his trial, uttering ‘oh what a tangled web we weave’ when admitting that he had lied about being at the crime scene minutes before the murder.
‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,’ he had told the court. ‘Once I told a lie, and I told my family, I had to keep lying.’
After six weeks of harrowing testimony and just under three hours of deliberations, a jury came back with the guilty verdict.
Wilson said the guilty verdict sends a message to those ‘who question the criminal justice system’ and who think ‘it doesn’t apply fairly and equally to all people.’
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said Alex Murdaugh (pictured in court Friday) has been ‘weaving a tangled web of lies for decades’ and that his guilty verdict proves that ‘no one is above the law’
Wilson said Friday morning on Good Morning America that Murdaugh secured his downfall when he took the stand in his trial for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul
Murdaugh was led away after he was sentenced to life in prison for the 2021 murders
‘We are here to say that it does, that no one is above the law in South Carolina and when you brutally murder your wife and son, you will be held accountable no matter who you are,’ Wilson said.
Wilson said on GMA that he was ‘pleasantly surprised’ when he learned that the jury had returned a verdict in less than three hours and added that he had hoped it was a good sign.
‘I didn’t know what to think,’ he said. ‘I respect the process too much to be that confident, but I was guardedly optimistic when they came back as quickly as they did.’
He pointed out that Murdaugh was able to manipulate people – including juries – for so long, but he could not get what he wanted out of this jury. This was his last closing argument, Wilson said.
‘For so long, he’s been able to manipulate people and bend them to his will because he’s so good at what he does,’ Wilson said.
‘He was a master at manipulating and communicating with juries and I believe when he took the stand, that was his last closing argument. He had done this for so long, he believed that he could get what he wanted out of this jury.
And I think when he took the stand, he confirmed for many of those jurors what they had heard in that video — that he was a liar.’
The disgraced legal scion arrived at court on Friday where he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. The two life sentences will run consecutively
Murdaugh’s surviving son Buster remained emotionless in court on Friday
Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh were shot at close range near the dog kennels on their family estate in South Carolina on June 7, 2021
Wilson wanted to make clear that he hopes no one forgets the victims of the case.
‘At the end of the day, two people were brutally murdered, they lost their lives, a family was destroyed, a legacy was torn asunder and there’s been a wake of victims going back decades, and we want to put the attention on them and let them know that their voice can be heard,’ Wilson said.
On Thursday night, just after the guilty verdict was delivered, the AG spoke to the press and talked about the six weeks everyone endured through through the trial.
‘But it was all worth it because we got to bring justice and be a voice for Maggie and Paul Murdaugh,’ Wilson said.
The South Carolina attorney thanked the authorities, investigators and prosecutors in the case, and said that ‘they made this conviction possible.’
He also praised the people in the community of Walterboro, the small Lowcountry town in South Carolina.
‘You don’t know how good that feels when you’re under an incredible amount of stress, an incredible amount of scrutiny,’ Wilson said, noting the doubt some had that holding the trial so close to home would hinder a fair verdict.
