Alex Murdaugh‘s defense is this week braced for explosive testimony from the cousin who allegedly shot him in a botched suicide attempt after his wife and son were killed.
The State is set to rest its case this week but Curtis ‘Cousin Eddie’ Smith has yet to testify. Smith is accused of shooting Murdaugh in the head three months after the disgraced legal scion, 54, allegedly killed his wife and son.
Murdaugh and Smith face a separate prosecution over the life insurance scam which was allegedly designed to furnish his surviving son Buster with $11million. Smith denies participating in the scheme and instead claims he tried to stop a suicidal Murdaugh from trying to shoot himself.
Ahead of the trial, Murdaugh’s defense insinuated that Smith was involved in the killings of Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, at the family’s sprawling hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021.
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Alex Murdaugh arrives Monday as the prosecution is set to rest its case by midweek. Murdaugh is accused of shooting dead his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, at the family’s sprawling hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021.
Curtis Edward Smith, 62, is taken back to jail after a judge revoked his bond at a hearing on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022, in the Richland County Courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina. He is accused of participating in a life insurance scam with Murdaugh, shooting him in the head around three months after his wife and son were murdered
In a legal filing in October, Murdaugh’s attorney said police overlooked a lie detector test taken by Smith during which he was asked about the murders.
Smith told investigators he was ‘nowhere near’ the Murdaugh family home the night of the killings and that he’d been at his own house with friends.
But they say the test indicated he was lying when he made those remarks.
Smith is the same man police say was hired by Murdaugh to shoot him in the back of the head weeks after Paul and Maggie’s murders.
In the same polygraph test, Smith suggested another theory: that Maggie was having an affair with a groundskeeper that her son Paul came home and discovered.
He suggested that the groundskeeper then murdered both Paul and Maggie in a panic. Smith did not give the name of the groundskeeper, nor did he explain why he thought that may be plausible.
Before the trial kicked off, Smith’s attorney claimed the failed life insurance shooting was actually an attempt by Murdaugh to murder his cousin and pin the killings on him.
Aimee Zmroczek said: ‘I believe that when he (Murdaugh) lured Eddie out to the side of the road, he was gonna kill him and blame this whole thing on him … I firmly believe that was what was gonna happen.’
Speaking to NewsNation in January the lawyer also confirmed that there haven’t been any conversations about a plea deal regarding Smith. ‘The basic story has not changed and that honest truth will be told when Eddie is sworn under oath to tell the truth,’ Zmroczek said.
Three weeks into disgraced South Carolina attorney’s trial, prosecutors have called dozens of witnesses offering wide-ranging – and sometimes disjointed – testimony.
The defense hopes to start its case in middle of next week and had planned a week of testimony but is rethinking that because of the trial´s length.
Buster, Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh
Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted.
The disbarred lawyer also faces about 100 other charges ranging from stealing money from clients to running a drug and money laundering ring.
Much of last week’s testimony focused on whether Murdaugh stole millions from his family’s law firm and clients.
Prosecutors contend Murdaugh thought he was about to get caught stealing and killed his wife and son to buy time to cover up the money trail.
The office manager from the family law firm said Murdaugh stole millions in fees and client settlements. A law school buddy said Murdaugh took advantage of his trust and left him to pay $192,000 to keep his client trust fund balanced.
The son of the Murdaughs’ housekeeper and nanny who died in a fall testified Murdaugh promised to get them a hefty insurance settlement for the death but kept more than $4 million collected for himself.
This photo provided by the Colleton County sheriff’s office shows Curtis Edward Smith. He was charged with assisted suicide, insurance fraud and several other counts
The defense objected to each witness, saying there was no evidence linking the killings to financial misdeeds.
‘This is piling on. This is more trying to prejudice the jury into believing somehow someone who steals a bunch of money in any way whatever would commit a murder,’ Murdaugh lawyer Dick Harpootlian said.
Prosecutors have called 47 witnesses in 12 days of testimony, but at times there has been little rhythm to the order.
Last week, the caretaker of Murdaugh’s mother testified about a blue jacket Murdaugh might have held when he visited but then other witnesses testified about financial crimes before the state forensic scientist who tested the jacket for blood and gunshot residue took the stand.
Lengthy testimony has focused on cellphone data between Paul Murdaugh’s friends.
Some intriguing evidence has been introduced but never explained to jurors, who do not have notebooks to keep track of testimony.
A crime scene technician put into evidence a receipt with a $1,021.10 item from Gucci circled, but it hasn’t been brought up since. An FBI technician gave the times Murdaugh’s SUV was shifted into and out of park the night of the killings without interpretation.
At the beginning of the trial, Murdaugh cried and rocked in his chair several times as crime scene photos of his wife and son were shown and described. Prosecutors and defense have said the aftermath of the shooting was gruesome. Agents testified Paul Murdaugh’s brain was detached from his skull with a close range shotgun blast.
Murdaugh has adamantly denied killing his wife and son. His lawyers said he was visiting his ailing mother the night of the murders and police wrongly focused on him from the start.
Murdaugh cried Thursday as the defense showed video of a family birthday party weeks before the killings.
But during the financial crimes testimony, Murdaugh has been much more stoic, listening and occasionally speaking to his lawyers.
Within weeks of the killings, state agents wanted data from the SUV Alex Murdaugh drove to visit his mother the night of the killings and from Paul Murdaugh’s cellphone.
But both devices were encrypted and impossible to crack in 2021.
Advancements in hacking allowed agents to get into Paul Murdaugh’s iPhone data last year and they found one of the key pieces of evidence so far – a video he took of a dog at the family’s kennels about five minutes before investigators said the killings took place.
Several witnesses have said all three Murdaughs can be heard in the video taken near where the bodies were found.
Alex Murdaugh told police both right after the bodies were found and again a few days later he was never at the kennels.
A FBI agent testified he worked for a year to crack the encrypted data from the computer entertainment and information console on the SUV the family law firm provided Murdaugh.
Along with other information, he extracted the times the vehicle was shifted into and out of park, although he couldn’t tell if the vehicle was in motion or someone had their foot on the brake. The agent said he also could tell when the windows were raised or lowered, but never said if that happened during Murdaugh’s 20-minute ride to his mother’s home the night of the killings.
Maggie Murdaugh´s cellphone was recovered from the side of a road the day after the killings
