Alex Murdaugh listens to the prosecution’s closing statements during the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier/Pool)
“He’s the kind of person for which shame is an extraordinary provocation,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said of accused double murderer Alex Murdaugh – using the line once and twice. “His ego couldn’t stand that. And he became a family annihilator.”
The state spent over three hours delivering its closing statement in the nearly 6-week trial, taking up all courtroom proceedings in Colleton County on Wednesday.
Hewing to essentially the same trajectory as the trial itself, Waters spent considerable time re-litigating Alex Murdaugh’s numerous admitted financial crimes – a series of under-oath admissions that could result in hundreds of years behind bars on their own.
Later in the day, the long-serving member of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office reprised some of the phraseology from the state’s earlier statements about the case. He mentioned the “gathering storm” of the drunken boat crash implicating several members of the Murdaugh family. He mentioned how it exacerbated pressure on his years of Ponzi scheme-like financial trickery, theft, and shell games that eventually came crashing down. It was an effort to tie the various money issues to the murder of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and youngest son, Paul Murdaugh, at Moselle on June 7, 2021.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters presented what he called #AlexMurdaugh’s “gathering storm” that led up to him allegedly murdering his wife and son. pic.twitter.com/pKfsXsuQuL
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) March 1, 2023
Waters said his motive for the slayings was to put the kibosh on then-recent scrutiny over his financial misdeeds and reconfigure public appraisals of the Murdaugh legacy in light of the boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in February 2019.
Part and parcel with that, the prosecutor said, was a successful effort to stop the Beach family’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Murdaugh family in its tracks and to secure additional loans so the defendant could remain one step ahead of his financial house of cards.
SEE ALSO: Alex Murdaugh Murdered Wife and Son to Escape Consequences from Fast-Approaching’ Personal, Legal and Financial Ruin,’ Prosecutors Allege
“In the wake of this, everything changes,” Waters said, referring to the brutal murders at the family’s hunting lodge. “All those things that were coming to a head immediately go away. It’s a different world now. Everyone rallies around Alex Murdaugh. And it worked.”
After laying out the jurors’ sworn obligations under state murder laws, defining certain terms of art in those statutes, and explaining how the jury should assess the evidence they’ve seen and heard, the state turned to the evidence against Murdaugh.
Again, Alex Murdaugh’s lies came to the fore.
The most obvious, and for Waters’ admitted part, the most important: the defendant repeatedly lied about his whereabouts on the night of the killings to friends, family, and law enforcement. He only admitted those lies about not being at the dog kennels just before the shootings when he took the stand in his defense last week.
And then there is his invocation of the cliché-like quote from author Walter Scott about the “tangled web we weave.”
He explained his lie initially by attributing it to drug addiction-induced paranoia and then said he believed that once he told his family the lies, he “had to keep lying.” Waters rubbished that explanation.
SEE ALSO: Alex Murdaugh tells jury he ‘did lie’ about whereabouts on night of murders but blames drug use: I’d never ‘intentionally’ harm my wife and son
“He’s manufacturing an alibi,” the prosecutor accused. “He’s smart. He’s a good lawyer. His family has a history of prosecution. He understands these issues.”
Waters also pointed out that Alex Murdaugh repeatedly could not remember the details of his final conversations with his family in interviews with law enforcement and under oath. But he could remember certain details that firmed up his alibi.
“He lies convincingly and easily, and he can do it at the drop of a hat,” the prosecutor said near the end of his statement. “He’s been doing it to all the people who trust him for years. And he did it to y’all.”
The state played back a series of those interviews, attempting to use the defendant’s words against him.
“He knows what to do to try to prevent evidence from being gathered,” Waters said. “Listen to his statements again and listen to the questions he asks. He’s asking questions like that. He’s trying to figure out: What do the police have? What do they know? He’s a prosecutor trying to manufacture his alibi.”
Alex Murdaugh looked on. While attorneys on both sides struggled to stay awake during the lengthy closing, the disbarred and disgraced attorney stayed rapt, sometimes appearing upset.
“Husbands have been killing wives, unfortunately, for years,” the prosecutor continued, returning to more of his favorite narrative devices. “And husbands killing sons goes back as far as King Herod. Probably further. And those pressures mount. And someone becomes a family annihilator.”
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