Maggie Murdaugh’s sister wept on the stand today as she recalled how Alex told her whoever shot his wife and son ‘had thought about it for a really long time.’
Marian Proctor told the court she found it ‘odd’ that Alex did not seem worried that the killers could still be out there – he seemed more concerned with clearing his son’s name in relation to a fatal boat crash in which he was drunk driving.
Proctor said she did not talk to Alex much in the aftermath because he was ‘just really busy. The whole town was coming to see him. He was very, very, very torn up.’
Later she asked if he had any idea who had shot Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, dead at the family’s hunting estate. ‘We’ve got to find them,’ she recalled saying.
Alex told Proctor he had no idea who killed the pair but added, ‘whoever did had thought about it for a really long time.’ Proctor said she asked Alex if Maggie had suffered and he assured her that she had not.
‘Now I’m not sure that that’s true,’ Proctor told the court.
Marian Proctor told the court Tuesday that Murdaugh did not seem scared that the murderers could still be out there and seemed more intent on ‘clearing his son’s name’ following a drunken boat crash two years before.
Alex Murdaugh pictured with his wife Maggie and their two sons Paul (right) and Buster
The 59-year-old said she and Alex ‘never talked about finding the person who could have done it.’ Proctor felt that this was ‘odd’ because the rest of the family was terrified that whoever killed Maggie and Paul was still out there.
‘We were living in fear because we thought this horrible person was living out there we were mostly afraid for Alex and Buster,’ Proctor said.
She said they believed that it ‘probably had something to do with the boat case and we thought that until September and then things started to change a little bit.’
At the time of Maggie and Paul’s deaths, Alex and his son were facing a lawsuit over the fatal boat crash in February 2019 that left 19-year-old Mallory Beach dead. Paul was driving under the influence in his father’s boat.
Proctor appeared to be about to suggest that she changed her mind after a botched suicide attempt Murdaugh made in September.
But she was swiftly cut off as the defense raised a hearsay objection and the jury were sent out.
Murdaugh allegedly hired his cousin, Curtis ‘Eddie’ Smith, to shoot him in order to gain a $10m life insurance payment for his surviving son Buster.
In the absence of the jury, Proctor said that she had been driving with her husband Bart Proctor when he received a phone call from a friend offering his condolences because Alex had been shot.
‘We literally stopped the car pulled over on the side of the road. I thought whoever had killed Maggie and Paul had now shot Alex and I was horrified Buster was next,’ Proctor said.
Maggie’s sister said they then phoned Buster who confirmed Alex had been shot but that ‘he was okay.’
Proctor said they then had a conversation with Alex’s attorney Jim Griffin, who is also one of his trial lawyers. Griffin confirmed Alex had been shot and that he had recently been fired from his law firm because he had been caught stealing.
In addition to the botched suicide scam, which the jury has not heard, the State asked the judge to rule on whether they could ask Proctor about an alleged affair Alex had with an old college friend and his opioid addiction.
Judge Clifton Newman invited questions to Proctor so that he could understand what the prosecution wanted the jury to hear and what the defense objected to.
Alex Murdaugh listens during his double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023, in Walterboro, S.C
At the time of Maggie and Paul’s deaths , Murdaugh and his son were facing a civil suit over the boat wreck that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in February, 2019. Murdaugh told cops Paul and Maggie had been killed in revenge for the accident
Proctor confirmed that Maggie had confided in her about an affair she suspected Alex was having with an old college friend around 15 years ago. Alex denied the infidelity and the couple were able to resolve the issue.
However, Maggie’s sister said ‘it still bothered her’ and she ‘still brought it up’ as recently as a year before she was killed.
Judge Newman ruled that the evidence of the affair was not admissible as the jury were likely to find it too confusing.
However, the jury were summoned back to hear evidence about the opioid addiction and how Alex was shot in September.
Proctor gave evidence that Maggie called Paul ‘her little detective’ because he would find out if his father was taking pills.
She said she did not know how long exactly Alex had been abusing opioids but that ‘it had been going on for some time.’
Earlier Proctor told jurors her sister was ‘sweet’ and ‘kind of a free spirit.’
She said Buster and Paul were ‘her world.’
Proctor said Paul was a ‘sweet, sweet boy’ who had been portrayed badly by the media following the boat crash.
Asked by prosecutor Creighton Waters about the accident, she said it was a ‘devastating blow’ to the Murdaughs.
Maggie felt the Hampton community had turned against them and this was one of the reasons she preferred spending time at their Edisto Beach house, Proctor testified.
On the day of the killings, she said she chatted to her sister on the phone while she was driving at around 4pm.
Maggie told her that Alex ‘needed her to come home’ to the hunting estate because his father’s health was declining.
Later that night, Proctor’s husband got a call from Alex’s brother saying there had been a ‘tragedy.’
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she told jurors. ‘I didn’t think it was true.’
Proctor said her husband Bart drove to Summerville to inform her parents in person.
Her mother went into shock. She was so distraught she could not keep still and ‘kept making these noises,’ Proctor told the court.
The prosecution is still laying out evidence but are expected to rest their case as early as tomorrow.
The State says Murdaugh killed the pair to distract from his financial crimes. He embezzled millions from his law firm and was facing a lawsuit over his son’s drunken boat crash.
On the day Maggie and Paul were murdered, Murdaugh had been confronted over $792,000 that he stole from the firm.
Later that week a hearing to determine the state of his finances was due in the boat wreck lawsuit.
Murdaugh told lawyers for Beach’s family that he was broke and the court has heard how he was siphoning funds from the firm into his personal accounts in an attempt to shield the money from the lawsuit.
Maggie had recently confided in their housekeeper that they were being sued for $30million.
The defense theory is that somebody else killed Maggie and Paul in revenge for the boat accident.
They argue that their client was a ‘loving’ husband and father who could have never killed his wife and son. They have branded the State’s alleged financial motivation as ‘ludicrous’.
Alex Murdaugh is seen on June 7, 2021, at the murder scene at the family’s hunting lodge in Islandton, South Carolina. Murdaugh is speaking on the phone in the video and tells the officer it’s his brother on the line.
PAUL’S BODY: Paul’s body is seen outside a doorway at the kennels. The body is blurred out
MAGGIE’S BODY: Murdaugh’s wife’s corpse is seen blurred out in the extreme foreground as he paces around in a white t-shirt near his parked up Chevrolet Suburban
Murdaugh claims that he went to visit his mother at around 9pm on the night of the murders. The State says Maggie and Paul were killed shortly after 8.49pm and that a video taken by Paul at 8.45pm proves he was at the scene.
Several witnesses, including close family friends, have testified they can hear the voices of Alex, Maggie and Paul in the footage.
But the alleged killer told investigators he was never at the kennels.
Murdaugh says that the family ate dinner together around 8.15pm and that Maggie and Paul went down to the kennels while he fell asleep in front of the TV.
At 9.06pm, his Chevrolet Suburban was fired up and he went to visit his mother in Almeda, around 15 minutes away.
He claims he was there for around 40 minutes, although this is disputed by his mother’s caregiver who said he was only at the house for 20 minutes.
Murdaugh says he arrived back at the hunting estate to find Maggie and Paul dead at the kennels. He called 911 at 10.07pm.
First responders have testified that they did not check either Maggie or Paul because their injuries were so horrific as to be ‘incompatible with life.’ Two shots entered Maggie’s head, while Paul’s brain was completely detached from his skull.
The court has previously heard evidence that Murdaugh’s clothing when cops arrived appeared clean to the extent that police believed he had recently changed.
Buster arrives at court Tuesday with his girlfriend Brooklynn White (pink shirt) and Alex’s sister Lynn behind him
Blood tests carried out on his white t-shirt later came back positive. However, Murdaugh does say that he touched their bodies to check for signs of life.
An earlier video taken that night by Paul at 7.56pm shows Murdaugh wearing a blue shirt, long pants and brown loafers.
The family’s housekeeper Blanca Simpson testified last week that she never saw the items of clothing ever again.
The State intends to rest its case by Wednesday and then the defense will start calling their own witnesses.
The trial is taking place at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, a sleepy, rural town 50 miles west of Charleston in a low-lying region of South Carolina over which the Murdaugh family has wielded immense judicial and political power.
Indeed, in the courtroom where Murdaugh faces judgment, a portrait of his late grandfather – legendary longtime 14th Circuit Solicitor Buster Murdaugh Jr. – had hung on the wall before it was removed ahead of the trial.
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’
Forensic pathologist Ellen Riemer indicates where the fourth shot to Maggie passed through her left breast and up into her brain from the bottom of her jaw
Following the murder trial, Murdaugh will have to face more than 100 additional criminal charges, ranging from drug trafficking to allegations that he stole nearly $9million from clients and other attorneys.
Prosecutors say Murdaugh lured his wife and son to their 1,700-acre hunting lodge and shot them dead.
The state also claims that his life was spiraling out of control amid years of opioid addiction and ballooning debts.
Murdaugh pleaded not guilty in June, and the blockbuster trial is expected to include wild allegations of dark family secrets, financial ruin and hedonistic excess.
In total, over 220 people could testify against Murdaugh in the trial.
