WALTERBORO, SC – Alex Murdaugh, a fourth-generation attorney whose family has long made an impact in small-town courtrooms across parts of South Carolina, was convicted Thursday of the murder of his wife. and his son, marking the dramatic downfall of a man of considerable wealth and powerful relationships but living a secret life in which he stole millions of dollars from clients and colleagues, and at the same time lied to many of the people closest to him.
The guilty verdict came after a trial that lasted nearly six weeks, more than 20 months after the June 2021 fatal shooting of Mr Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, 52, and their young son, Paul, 22 years old, on the family’s rural estate. This gruesome crime has resonated throughout the state, in part due to the long history of the Murdaugh family, who controlled the regional prosecutor’s office in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina for more than 80 years and operated a law firm influence even longer.
“Today’s ruling proves that no one, no one — no matter who you are in society — is above the law,” the state attorney general, Alan Wilson, said at a news conference after the ruling.
In finding Mr. Murdaugh guilty, jurors rejected his claim that he left the dog kennel where the crime occurred minutes before the shooting, an assertion Mr. Murdaugh made from eyewitnesses only. as a fallback after prosecutors played a video that contradicted his longstanding position. claimed that he was not there at all. The pivotal, one-minute video recorded at the crib happens to capture Mr. Murdaugh’s voice in the background. It was captured by Paul Murdaugh in one of his last moments of life, an inadvertent act that helped secure his father’s conviction.
Prosecutors allege Mr Murdaugh killed his son with a shotgun, then shot his wife with a rifle when she ran to see what had happened. Prosecutors said Mr Murdaugh quickly created an alibi, texted and called his slain wife and visited the ailing mother a short drive away.
Mr. Murdaugh stood silently in the courtroom as the verdict was read. His eldest son, Buster Murdaugh, who testified about how distraught his father was after the murder, sat in the courtroom with one hand covering his mouth.
The jury also found Murdaugh guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon while committing a violent crime.
Judge Clifton Newman said he would sentence Mr Murdaugh on Friday morning. The minimum sentence for murder is 30 years in prison, and prosecutors have said they will seek a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Dick Harpootlian, one of Murdaugh’s attorneys, said he plans to appeal the verdict.
The trial was a reckoning for Mr Murdaugh, who has long avoided legal consequences for his theft and lying – which he admitted from the witness stand – as he lived a life live rich and privileged.
In addition to the stolen money, he made millions of dollars in real income over a number of years as an attorney for his family’s firm.
Murdaugh once dreamed of following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather as the region’s top prosecutor, but instead served only as a volunteer, sub-prosecutor. several cases for more than two decades. However, he kept the prosecutor’s badge on his car’s dashboard and fitted a flashing blue light – a sign, prosecutors said, that he considered himself the stand-in. on the law.
Mr Murdaugh was stripped of his powers last summer after being charged with multiple financial crimes including theft totaling about $8.8 million. Mr. Murdaugh claims that he took the money to pay for an opiate addiction that sometimes costs him tens of thousands of dollars a week.
A prosecutor, John Meadors, delivered a brief closing argument for dismissal on Thursday, urging jurors not to believe the claims of innocence Mr. Murdaugh made from the witness stand. . The jury of seven men and five women began deliberation shortly before 4 p.m
Motivation has been a question from the very beginning of the case. Prosecutors argued that Mr Murdaugh carried out the killings in a failed attempt to win sympathy and keep his longtime embezzlement from being exposed.
But another lawyer for Mr. Murdaugh, Jim Griffin, told jurors on Thursday that the notion that Mr. Murdaugh would try to evade scrutiny of his finances by placing himself in the middle of an investigation. The murder investigation is unbelievable.
“Why, why, why did Alex Murdaugh, on June 7, execute his son Paul and his wife, Maggie, whom he loved so much?” Griffin asked, noting the number of people who knew the Murdaughs and testified about their love relationship.
Creighton Waters, lead prosecutor, noted that Mr Murdaugh had admitted before witnesses that he had told many lies over the years to cover up his financial wrongdoing and addiction to painkillers. Mr. Nuoc urged jurors to avoid being the next to believe his lies. “Don’t let him fool you anymore,” he said.
Mr Waters told the jury that a “perfect storm” had hit Mr Murdaugh – and by extension his wife and son – on the day of the murder. Earlier that day, Mr Murdaugh was confronted by his law firm’s chief financial officer, who accused him of pocketing a six-figure check that he should have passed on to the law firm.
That confrontation was one of two investigations into Mr. Murdaugh’s finances that made him fear the walls were closing, Mr. Waters said. The other confrontation was the effort of another attorney, Mark B. Tinsley, who sued Mr. Murdaugh over his son’s involvement in a drunken boat collision in 2019 that resulted in the death of a woman. 19-year-old. Authorities say the boat was piloted by Paul Murdaugh, and Mr. Tinsley has asked his attorney to force Mr. Murdaugh to release detailed financial records so he can track down Mr. Murdaugh’s personal assets.
Initially, prosecutors said, Mr. Murdaugh’s plan worked: For several months after the murder, investigations into his finances were halted. But then, in September 2021, an employee at his law firm found a misplaced check in Mr. Murdaugh’s office, leading the firm to discover that he had siphoned it. millions of dollars. They forced him to resign.
The next day, in a series of strange events, Mr. Murdaugh reported that he had been shot in the head by the side of a country road. It turned out, as Mr. Murdaugh admitted from a rehab facility a few days later, that he had actually ask a distant cousin, Curtis Eddie Smith, to kill him. Mr. Murdaugh said he wanted to treat his death as a homicide so that his surviving son, Buster, could collect money from his policy.
Much of the trial focused on Mr. Murdaugh’s lies, including one he repeated to police in three interviews after the murder, in which he claimed to have not been in family dog kennel.
Mr. Murdaugh made decided to risk having a witness stand up for himself last week and said, in tearful testimony, that he lied to the police because he feared he would become a suspect if he admitted to being in the crib that night. He said he was there for a few minutes, but then left and drove to visit his ailing mother who lived about 15 minutes away. He said he returned about an hour later and found his family dead.
Mr Griffin directly addressed Mr Murdaugh’s initial statements to police on Thursday, saying the video from the crib turned out to be the backbone of a case that lacked any other evidence. But as a longtime drug addict, Mr. Murdaugh was used to lying, he said.
“Honestly, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there if he hadn’t been lying,” Mr Griffin said, pointing to his client, who was sitting at the defense desk in a brown blazer and top white shirt, attentively watching the proceedings. Mr Griffin added: “He lied because that’s what addicts do. Addicts lie. He lied because he had a cupboard full of skeletons.”
Throughout the trial, Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers argued that police were negligent in their investigation and focused mostly on Mr. Murdaugh rather than looking for other suspects. Mr Griffin described the police investigation as motivated by the notion that “unless we find someone else, it will be Alex.”
In his testimony, Mr Murdaugh said he believed the murder was likely committed by someone seeking revenge for the crash.
Griffin outlined the issues of the investigation in his closing arguments, including that the lead agent, David Owen of South Carolina Law Enforcement, made false statements about the weapons. guns were found in the property for the grand jury that indicted Mr. Murdaugh. He also noted that police for months wrongly believed that bloodstains were found on Mr Murdaugh’s shirt, when in fact, more rigorous tests carried out afterwards showed no blood stains.
He also criticized the prosecution for arguing that Mr Murdaugh’s inconsistent comments about the time of his travel suggested he was the killer.
“Can you imagine what he saw?” Mr Griffin said, choking on tears as he described Mr Murdaugh returning home to find his wife and son killed. “And that is proof of guilt that he doesn’t remember what the sequence was at the time? Is it proof of guilt, or is it evidence of trauma?”
But Mr Waters has criticized Mr Murdaugh for his past acts of deception, asking Mr Murdaugh several times as he stood in court whether he looked his clients in the eye when he stole their money. and suggested that he was also lying to the jury.
Mr. Waters said of the victims of Mr. Murdaugh’s deception: “He tricked them all. “He also tricked Maggie and Paul, and they paid with their lives.”
