Alex Murdaugh‘s brother today broke down as he described cleaning up Paul’s brains the day after murders because ‘it felt like the right thing to do, I felt like I owed him.’
John Marvin Murdaugh, the alleged killer’s younger brother, said he returned to the hunting estate after arriving to be at Alex’s side on the night his wife and son were shot dead on June 7, 2021.
He said the grass where Maggie’s blood-soaked body had lain was covered with dirt ‘so there was really nothing to do.’ But the feed room at the kennels were Paul was blasted twice with a shotgun was still covered in blood and brain matter.
John Marvin sobbed as he described walking over to the feed room. He told jurors: ‘I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull, I saw tissue, and I don’t know it was just terrible.
‘And for some reason I thought it was something that I needed to do for Paul to clean it up. It felt like it was the right thing to do, I felt like I owed him and I started cleaning.
John Marvin sobbed as he described walking over to the feed room. He told jurors: ‘I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull, I saw tissue, and I don’t know it was just terrible. ‘And for some reason I thought it was something that I needed to do for Paul to clean it up. It felt like it was the right thing to do, I felt like I owed him and I started cleaning’
Murdaugh wept at the defense table as his brother described cleaning up his dead son’s brains that were still splattered across the feed room at the kennels the day after the killings
Buster, Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh on a family vacation in Lake Keowee in May 2021 – a month before the killings
‘I can promise you no mother or father or aunt or uncle should ever have to do and see what I did that day.
‘I’m not blaming anybody but I was just overwhelmed and I did everything I could and I would have moments where I would stop crying for a moment, just in disbelief.
‘At one point I called my brother Randy and told him what I was doing and told me to stop and told me it was not could for me to be there.
‘And I couldn’t stop. I had to do it for Paul. It’s just what I had to do.’
John Marvin added: ‘It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.’
Earlier he described his brother’s relationship with his sons, saying that ‘the boys always came first’ and that Maggie and Alex had a ‘good marriage.’
John Marvin Murdaugh, the alleged killer’s younger brother, apologized to the court as he started weeping: ‘Excuse me I’m gonna have a hard time speaking about Paul because we had a very special relationship.’
He told the court that Paul and his older brother Buster ‘always came first’ for Alex.
Describing his relationship with Maggie, John Marvin said they had a ‘great relationship. All marriages have hiccups here and there but I’m telling you it was a good marriage.’
He recalled attending a Darius Rucker concert with his wife Liz and Maggie and Alex and how he looked down and they were ‘holding hands and swaying together and [Liz] said “Why aren’t you holding my hand?” So my beer got put down.’
John Marvin said his brother called him the night Maggie and Paul were shot.
‘Alex called me absolutely hysterical. As soon as I herd his voice I knew something bad was going on,’ John Marvin said. ‘I think he said Maggie and Paul had been hurt really badly and said can you come here as fast as possible.’
Maggie’s body was found a few yards to the right of a doghouse, while Paul’s was by the doorway at the end of the kennels. Dr. Ellen Riemer described how Paul’s brain was blown out the back of his head by a shotgun and that the organ arrived at the morgue ‘in a separate bucket’
Paul’s body was found lying in the doorway of the feed room at the end of the row of dog cages at the kennels
Maggie’s blood-soaked body lies under a sheet at the crime scene on the night of June 7, 2021. She was shot five times with an assault rifle, while Paul was blasted twice with a shotgun a few yards away at the kennels on the estate
MURDER SCENE: Paul’s body lies outside the storage room, while Maggie lies just outside the kennels by the doghouse
He said that when he arrived at the hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina, he ran over to his brother.
‘He was just broken, he was distraught. All we did was hugged and cried. I don’t even know that we talked,’ John Marvin said.
Prosecutors have called 61 witnesses, compared to 14 for the defense. Murdaugh’s lawyers plan to rest their case Monday.
State prosecutor Creighton Waters said he then planned to call ‘a couple’ of reply witnesses intended to rebut defense evidence, indicating their testimony would not take a long time.
That would be followed by closing arguments and the judge instructing the jury, which could happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, Murdaugh defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said in court on Friday. The judge did not set a strict schedule.
Murdaugh during the trial has floated his own theory of who committed the murders, testifying on Friday that he believed someone angry over a deadly boating accident involving Paul had done so.
He acknowledged that he lacked evidence to support that theory.
During his testimony, he also said he had deceived law partners and clients out of huge sums of money to feed his drug habit, potentially undercutting his credibility with the jury.
Under cross examination, Waters sought to portray Murdaugh as a serial liar who was under pressure due to mounting financial troubles in the months leading up to the killings.
Buster Murdaugh, center, arrives with his girlfriend Brooklynn White, Alex’s sister Lynn (left) and brother John Marvin (right)
Murdaugh arrives surrounded by sheriffs at the courthouse Monday
Murdaugh admitted to lying to investigators in the aftermath of the murders by telling them he was not at the kennels on the night of the murders.
He changed his account after the jury saw cellphone video that contained audio of Murdaugh’s voice that placed him at the scene minutes before investigators have said his wife and son were killed.
Murdaugh, the scion of an influential South Carolina legal family, was indicted by a grand jury in July and pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon.
The case has drawn intense media coverage given the political influence of the Murdaugh family in South Carolina.
Murdaugh’s sole surviving son Buster, 26, has attended court everyday and testified last week. He was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the killings.
The disbarred attorney’s brothers John Marvin and Randy and sister Lynn have also attended the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro most days.
