Alex Murdaugh‘s hunting estate has been locked down by law enforcement in preparation for a visit by jurors in his double murder trial this afternoon.
A convoy of police and fire department vehicles descended on the entrance to the kennels where his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were shot dead in Moselle, South Carolina, on the night of June 7, 2021.
The jury had been set to make the half-hour trip from the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro to the scene of the brutal killings after the prosecution’s last rebuttal witness. However, it now appears unlikely to go ahead today after testimony finished shortly before 5pm.
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said a visit to the 1,800-acre estate would allow jurors to see ‘how small the feed room (where Paul was killed) is’ and understand its location in relation to Maggie’s body, as well as the rest of the property.
Harpootlian yesterday requested that law enforcement secure the property beforehand because ‘literally dozens of trespassers’ have been mobbing the grounds to take selfies. He told the judge that the jury needed to be protected from the ‘carnival atmosphere’ of trial enthusiasts.
A convoy of police and fire department vehicles descended on the entrance to the kennels where Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, were shot dead in Moselle, South Carolina, on the night of June 7, 2021
Murdaugh weeps as he listens to graphic testimony from the pathologist about how Paul’s head was blown off by a shotgun
Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh attend a dinner at the Carolina Yacht Club. Buster was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the killings
Lead state prosecutor Creighton Waters objected to the jury outing, arguing the estate looked different than it did in 2021 and said a visit might require additional testimony from the state.
But Judge Clifton Newman overruled the prosecutor, stating that as well as jurors, lawyers from both sides could attend. The press are only allowed to attend the site after the jury’s visit has concluded.
The State says Murdaugh first blasted Paul twice with a shotgun in the feed room of the kennels before shooting Maggie with a .300 Blackout rifle yards away.
Jurors have heard gruesome evidence of how Paul’s brain was blown out the back of his head by a close range blast of steel buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun.
Maggie was shot at least four times, with bullet wounds to her thigh, wrist, torso and head. The final shot was fired into the back of her head as she lay face down on the ground when she was already dead.
During his testimony, Murdaugh floated his own theory of who committed the murders, saying he believed that vigilantes killed his wife and son in revenge for Paul’s drunken boat accident which killed a 19-year-old girl.
He said Paul had been attacked and threatened after the wreck in which Mallory Beach was killed in February 2019.
Jurors today heard further argument from the State’s forensic pathologist Dr Ellen Riemer who refuted the defense expert’s two-shooter theory.
Defense pathologist, Timothy Palmbach, yesterday argued that the exit wound to the back of Paul’s head was, in fact, an entrance wound. He theorized that the muzzle of the shotgun was pressed against the 22-year-old’s head.
Palmbach stated that the force of the gasses from the shot would have forced blood, brains, fragments of skull and pellets back out through the entrance wound, covering the shooter.
Law enforcement officers, fire department and members of the court entering the property at 4147 Moselle Rd, the site of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s murders
Law enforcement officials and fire department personnel lock down the entrance to the kennels
Fire department personnel lockdown the kennels at the estate Tuesday
Fire department trucks and law enforcement vehicles descended on the scene this afternoon
Law enforcement officials at the scene this afternoon
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
Lead state prosecutor Creighton Waters objected to the jury outing, arguing the estate looked different than it did in 2021 and said a visit might require additional testimony from the state. Overgrown vegetation is seen covering the driveway of the main entrance to the estate
He claimed that the shooter would have been at the very least blinded by the blood and possibly injured by fragments of skull and pellet in the blowback.
State pathologist Riemer said that if the 12-gauge shotgun had been pressed against the back of Paul’s head the damage would have been so catastrophic his eyes would have been blown out of their sockets.
She said the entry wound was below the 22-year-old’s left ear and that the buckshot pellets passed out of the back of his head.
Riemer told jurors: ‘I know what you saw was absolutely awful but the damage would have been a lot worse. The sides of his head would have gone, his entire face would have been split open, because there’s no way all of that gas expansion could have occurred and not caused fractures of these delicate bones in the face, his forehead was even still there.’
The feed room (right) where Paul was killed at the end of the row of dog cages at the kennels
Maggie was shot dead a few yards to the right of the dog house under the lean-to while Paul was shot dead inside the feed room of the kennels (back right)
The quail pen stands against the wooden wall under the lean-to which was struck by a round from the .300 Blackout rifle that killed Maggie
The kennels at the 1,800-acre Murdaugh hunting estate around a half-hour drive from the courthouse where his double murder trial is taking place
The main house at the hunting estate where Murdaugh claims he was watching TV at the time the State says Maggie and Paul were shot dead. The main house is around 400 yards away from the kennels
Riemer told jurors that despite the horrific injuries that they had seen in the photos of Paul’s head – his brain was totally severed from his skull – these would have been far worse had the gun been pressed against the back of his head.
‘I understand that this was probably like the most severe thing you have ever seen and you probably can’t imagine that the damage to the head could be any worse,’ the pathologist said.
‘But a contact shotgun wound to the head with the associated gas expansion to the skull would not have you know – his face was basically intact – we would have heard about tears of the skin and his eyes would have been displaced from the orbital bones. The orbital bones were intact.’
Riemer was called to the stand as a rebuttal witness Tuesday after the defense rested its case Monday.
Buster Murdaugh arrives with his girlfriend Brooklynn White and followed by Alex’s sister Lynn
Buster Murdaugh and his girlfriend Brooklynn White arrive with Alex’s sister Lynn and brother John Marvin on Tuesday
The defense pathologist Palmbach yesterday told jurors that Paul’s killer would have been incapacitated after firing into the back of his head.
Palmbach explained that ‘the explosive release of the gas trapped in [Paul’s] cranium’ would have forced blood, tissue, brain matter, fragments of skull and shot pellets back out through the entry wound, covering the shooter.
‘I think the shooter is, at least for some brief period of time, kind of out of it. It’s not as if they can instantly suffer that, run to where the rifle is, pick that up and within any reasonable time period engage in an effective assault, shoot straight and make hits,’ the pathologist said.
‘I believe the individual who shot first, probably with blood in his eyes and maybe been injured, would have taken some degree of time to recover.’
