Murdaugh trial verdict: Alex Murdaugh discovered responsible of murdering his spouse and son

The trial of Alex Murdaugh, the person on the middle of one of the crucial byzantine true crime circumstances in current reminiscence, lasted six weeks — however ultimately, the jury solely wanted a couple of hours to return a verdict within the case: responsible.

Jurors deliberated for lower than three hours earlier than returning with a unanimous verdict that Murdaugh had killed his spouse, Maggie, and his second son, Paul, as a part of an elaborate try to cover his many years of embezzlement, fraud, and habit.

Shortly after the decision, the protection referred to as for a mistrial, solely to be swiftly denied. Circuit court docket Decide Clifton Newman cited the “overwhelming quantity of testimony” indicating Murdaugh’s guilt. Newman has scheduled Murdaugh’s sentencing for March 3.

After frustration at varied factors with how lengthy both sides was taking to current its case, prosecutor Creighton Waters took a complete day to summarize a prolonged case, utilizing presentation slides to clarify authorized factors to the jury and emphasizing the mountain of circumstantial proof pointing to Murdaugh’s guilt.

The protection then took its flip, specializing in the speculation that investigators rushed to judgment in accusing Alex and didn’t correctly examine the crime scene. Lawyer Jim Griffin accused investigators of “fabricating proof towards Alex” and argued that Murdaugh’s “longtime drug points … made him a straightforward, simple goal.”

The ultimate day of the trial acquired off to a shock begin, with one juror having to be eliminated and changed with an alternate. A member of the general public notified Decide Newman that the juror had been improperly talking concerning the case; an investigation discovered the juror had spoken concerning the case to a minimum of three individuals towards strict directions to maintain mum, together with giving her opinion about Murdaugh’s guilt or innocence. The juror then additional bemused the court docket by revealing she’d left a dozen eggs within the jury room, apparently introduced by one other juror, and requesting the bailiff retrieve them so she may take them together with her. (To be truthful, eggs are costly!) Newman, who’s turn into a preferred determine with the tens of hundreds of each day viewers of the courtroom livestream, remarked, “We get numerous attention-grabbing issues, however now a dozen eggs…”

The eggs had been removed from the one head-turning second within the trial; actually, the Murdaugh trial simply is perhaps the primary high-profile true crime case to characteristic each chickens and eggs. It’s a trial that’s seen a number of moments of dramatic testimony, a lot of it regularly emphasizing extraordinarily graphic particulars of the crime scene, with legal professionals usually belaboring seemingly irrelevant particulars like hog looking and guinea fowl. After weeks of trial revelations, Murdaugh unexpectedly took the stand on February 23 to testify in his protection towards the cost that he murdered his spouse and son in 2021.

On the stand, a teary-eyed Murdaugh haltingly professed his innocence — however then instantly admitted to mendacity to the police about his whereabouts on the time Maggie and Paul had been fatally shot. In a outstanding reversal, Murdaugh, in rambling, tearful testimony, positioned himself on the scene of the crime — the household’s property.

In a very weird scene, Murdaugh’s lawyer led him by means of an concerned anecdote detailing the place he was on the time of the murders. Whereas putting himself on the property, Murdaugh claimed he had a bathe, then went right down to the kennels briefly — lengthy sufficient to free a rooster from a chook canine — then left instantly once more and returned to the home. The testimony explains why Murdaugh gave the impression to be clearly caught on video within the background of his son Paul’s final Snapchat video, however conveniently put him inside throughout the murders.

Murdaugh’s testimony was filled with unrelated tangents about every part from the place an acquaintance’s son performed baseball to the Krispy Kreme doughnuts he introduced his father earlier within the day. He spent roughly 10 minutes discussing the chook canines within the kennel, to no obvious level past establishing that he had certainly been on the kennels. He did, nonetheless, get a chuckle from the viewers when he described making an attempt to revive a rooster that one of many canines had caught.

In line with Murdaugh, he returned to the home for some time however drove again to the kennels when he couldn’t get Maggie or Paul to reply their telephones. “I noticed what y’all have seen footage of,” he stated, indicating he discovered their our bodies after which referred to as 911. Murdaugh often stopped and sobbed and requested for water.

The trial for the 2021 homicide of Murdaugh’s spouse and son, which lastly started on January 23, was something however a routine affair. Alongside his indictment final 12 months for the double murder, Alex Murdaugh (pronounced “Alec Murdoch”) additionally faces over 100 counts of monetary crimes together with fraud, cash laundering, embezzlement, and tax evasion. The Murdaugh trial introduced us weird and ugly opening statements, a “yanny/laurel” second within the courtroom, and a head-spinning protection mistake.

Going into trial, the case towards Alex Murdaugh appeared largely circumstantial — however there have been a staggering quantity of circumstances, implicating Murdaugh in not one, not two, however 5 suspicious deaths since 2015. (Try our explainer on the head-turning twists on this case for the complete image.) As a member of an elite South Carolina household of high-powered legal professionals, Murdaugh gained an area status for with the ability to manipulate the justice system and bend different individuals to his will, all with little or no accountability. That each one modified in 2019 with the dying of Paul’s good friend’s girlfriend, Mallory Seaside, in a boating incident. Paul was allegedly piloting the boat whereas drunk.

All through the following investigation, Alex drew scrutiny for trying to hinder any potential prosecution towards his son, which solely raised extra questions on different suspicious deaths to which he had ties. These included the 2011 dying of Hakeem Pinckney, a consumer whose insurance coverage payout Alex allegedly stole; the 2015 dying of Stephen Smith, a homosexual faculty pupil who was rumored to have connections to his different son, Buster; and the 2018 dying of the Murdaughs’ housekeeper Gloria Satterfield from a mysterious head damage incurred on the Murdaugh property, after which Alex allegedly embezzled life insurance coverage cash from her household. Hypothesis solely elevated following the double murder of Maggie and Paul, which came about on the Murdaugh property on June 7, 2021. Alex’s conduct after their deaths didn’t alleviate suspicion; he was subsequently arrested for insurance coverage fraud after reportedly hiring somebody to kill him and stage it to appear like a homicide.

By this level, the Murdaughs had been making nationwide headlines, so when Alex pleaded not responsible to the 2 homicide fees in 2022, he assured a media circus of a trial. However you want extra than simply proximity to a string of murders to safe a conviction, and with all eyes on the Colleton County Courthouse, the place the trial started, questions on what precise proof the state had towards Alex loomed massive.

Right here’s what we’ve realized.

Each attorneys on this case had a aptitude for the dramatic

Opening statements kicked off with a bang on January 23. After a jury choice course of that winnowed a pool of over 900 candidates right down to 12 jurors and 6 alternates, chief prosecutor Creighton Waters led by describing Maggie and Paul’s accidents — two pictures for Paul with a shotgun, a minimum of 5 pictures with an assault-style rifle for Maggie — and truly saying, “Pow, pow!”

“It’s difficult. It’s a journey,” he informed jurors, describing the entire case as a puzzle they had been slowly placing collectively. He laid out the proof, a lot of it new and far of it forensic, that the jury may anticipate to listen to, together with gunshot residue throughout Murdaugh’s garments and automobile, and cellphone proof that apparently debunks Murdaugh’s alibi.

Then, with Alex Murdaugh brazenly weeping at components, his protection lawyer, Richard “Dick” Harpootlian, gave quizzical directions to the jury: “He didn’t do it, and that you must put any thought that he did out of your thoughts,” he informed them. “There’s no direct proof. There’s no eyewitnesses. There’s nothing on digital camera. There’s no fingerprints. There’s no forensics tying him to the crime. None.” He additionally repeatedly asserted that Paul and Maggie had been “butchered,” which arguably didn’t assist his case.

“He didn’t do it. He didn’t kill — butcher — his son and his spouse, and that you must fail to remember any hypothesis that he did.”

When he’s not serving within the South Carolina state Senate, the 74-year-old Harpootlian is a veteran trial lawyer who’s labored as each prosecutor and protection lawyer, identified for hoodwinking opponents at trial with sneaky however efficient ways. Within the Murdaugh trial, he was bringing his explicit dramatic aptitude to the courtroom lengthy earlier than opening statements started, trying to overturn a protecting order in August and accusing the prosecution of withholding essential proof from the protection. There’s no proof that was true, but it surely did point out that we may anticipate some grandstanding alongside the way in which.

Alex Murdaugh’s alibi turned out to be a bust

In Alex’s now-infamous 911 name on the day of the murders, he claimed he arrived at his household’s canine kennels at their “Moselle” property after spending a while along with his mom, solely to seek out the our bodies of his spouse and son. Prosecutors allege as an alternative that he lured his household there (his sudden curiosity in getting her out to the closely wooded home prompted Maggie to textual content a good friend that he was “appearing fishy”) and shot them with two completely different weapons.

To attempt to show it, the prosecution opened with a never-before-seen cellphone video from Paul’s cellphone shortly earlier than the murders. Whereas on the kennels, Paul took a video of himself taking part in with one of many canines. Prosecutors argued that within the background, you’ll be able to hear two extra voices — implying that one in every of them is Maggie and the opposite is Alex.

Prosecutors alleged that this video, which was filmed on Paul’s cellphone at 8:44 pm, came about roughly 5 minutes earlier than the shootings, based mostly on when Paul and Maggie stopped taking a look at their telephones and replying to texts. That will place Alex firmly on the scene earlier than the murders, contradicting his model of the timeline. Alex Murdaugh in the end admitted that his earlier declare he hadn’t been on the kennels was a lie.

The prosecution’s reliance on this video was essential, since they don’t have GPS location information from Alex’s cellphone on the night time of the murders. Exercise information from Alex’s cellphone, alternatively, signifies about an hour inside the time-frame earlier than the murders throughout which no steps had been recorded, indicating Alex may have been driving a car.

On the opening day of testimony, the court docket considered Alex’s preliminary, half-hour interview with police, which occurred shortly after the murders. In that footage, Alex is carrying a shirt that seems to be utterly clear, and speaks in a method that has led to questions on whether or not he’s faking tears. Investigators on the scene had been initially suspicious of Alex due to his total calm demeanor when discussing particulars.

Numerous this forensic proof is circumstantial — however that doesn’t make it any much less damning

Forensic proof within the case was skinny — however what was there was compelling. For instance, on February 3, fingerprint skilled Thomas Darnell testified that he couldn’t determine particular prints on the gun or telephones discovered on the scene, so hopes of a telltale fingerprint Alex could have left behind appeared dashed.

Among the many key proof the prosecution offered was ballistics proof, primarily pertaining to gunshot residue discovered on Alex’s clothes and throughout his automobile, together with the seat and seatbelt. In his opening assertion, Waters additionally promised the jury they might study a blue raincoat that Murdaugh apparently took and left at his mom’s home following the murders — which had gunshot residue all around the inside.

However gunshot residue, although compelling, remains to be shaky forensically — it could switch to an individual who merely holds a gun with out firing it, and it could switch simply from one individual to a different. The protection claimed the gunshot residue was as a consequence of Alex choosing up one of many weapons after the homicide, although it didn’t deal with why Alex would do this.

The presence of gunshot residue, nonetheless, offered a mini-mystery: It didn’t clarify why Alex’s garments largely seem to haven’t any bloodstains, mud, or any dust from contacting the victims. In Alex’s telling, he checked the our bodies of his spouse and son to see in the event that they had been nonetheless alive. This lack of residue may have been a mark in favor of the protection (he didn’t shoot them, so he didn’t get blood on himself) or for the prosecution (he modified garments to cover the blood or wore the raincoat to guard himself from splatter).

A lot of the opposite ballistics proof was extra damning — proof that the protection had beforehand fought and didn’t exclude. The prosecution claimed merely that the ammunition used to kill Alex’s spouse and son matched ammo discovered all around the Murdaughs’ appreciable property. Particularly, the 300 Blackout rounds used to kill Maggie and the 12-gauge shotgun shells used to kill Paul each matched ammunition on the property. Examples of matching ammo included unused packing containers within the household “gun room” and spent shell casings discovered across the property’s looking grounds. Witnesses additionally testified that Murdaugh had a personalized AR-15-style rifle made for him. This sort of gun is appropriate with the bullets used to kill Maggie and aligns with the proof that Murdaugh used such a rifle to kill her. Professional testimony additionally painted a graphic image of the way in which Murdaugh allegedly “ambushed” his victims, attacking Paul with one gun first earlier than opening fireplace on Maggie.

“I” vs. “they,” and different unanswered questions

One investigator claimed on the stand in late January that, whereas chatting with him by means of tears, Murdaugh stated, “I did him so dangerous,” referring to the state of Paul’s physique. This led to a melodramatic trade by which the protection offered a slowed-down model of the frankly indecipherable audio in query and requested him whether or not he heard “I” or “they.” Whereas the agent caught to his unique declare that he heard the phrase “I,” the Rorschach nature of the audio solely underscored that up to now, the state’s evidentiary case had been missing in onerous proof.

A “humanizing” birthday video — and a serious protection mistake that opened the door to a stunning timeline reveal

On February 1, the protection unexpectedly entered a brief video into exhibit that confirmed Alex celebrating his birthday at dwelling with household and mates. The video confirmed Alex smiling and laughing as a gaggle gathers round to sing “Completely satisfied Birthday.”

However the video, which the protection launched to point out a softer facet of the defendant, had an sudden consequence: As a result of it launched a personality argument into the trial, it created a gap for a wealth of prosecutorial proof that the decide had beforehand dominated inadmissible: Alex Murdaugh’s alleged years of monetary fraud and associated schemes, which had been unraveling within the lead-up to the murders of his spouse and son.

The sudden reintroduction of all this proof meant that the trial was halted a number of occasions all through the week to permit the decide to entertain whether or not particular items of testimony might be admitted. A few of that testimony, given with out the jury current, has included allegations that Alex created fraudulent financial institution accounts, in addition to tearful testimony given on February 2 from one in every of Murdaugh’s former greatest mates, lawyer Chris Wilson.

Wilson testified that regardless of their lifelong shut friendship, Murdaugh manipulated him after their corporations labored collectively on a lawsuit. When the time got here to separate the proceeds, Wilson claimed that Alex had requested him to make out a $792,000 settlement test on to him, Alex Murdaugh, as an alternative of to his regulation agency. When Wilson referred to as him out, Murdaugh returned $600,000 to him however requested Wilson to entrance him the opposite $192,000. Wilson did, and Murdaugh by no means paid him again the cash. Wilson’s testimony was essentially the most emotional level of the trial up to now, with each he and Murdaugh showing visibly moved. “I had beloved the man for therefore lengthy, and I most likely nonetheless beloved him slightly bit,” Wilson stated, “however I used to be so mad.”

The identical day, the decide heard from Jeanne Seckinger, chief monetary officer of the Parker Regulation Group, the agency the place Murdaugh labored till he resigned in September 2021. Seckinger revealed that she had confronted Alex on the morning of the murders concerning the lacking $792,000 settlement test from Wilson — funds she believed he had saved for himself slightly than flip over to the regulation agency. She stated Alex gave her “a grimy look” and informed her he had the funds and would return them quickly. (Seckinger is the sister-in-law of one other participant on this saga — Russell Laffitte, a former financial institution CEO who was convicted final 12 months of monetary crimes related to Murdaugh’s alleged monetary schemes.)

This startling information put the timeline of Maggie and Paul’s dying in a brand new perspective. It additionally pointed towards the prosecution’s concept that Alex’s motive for the double murder could have been to distract the agency from his alleged embezzlement and purchase himself time to recuperate the funds. By Seckinger’s account, it labored: “No one needed to harass him” after the murders, she stated, describing him as “distraught and upset and never within the workplace a lot.”

The query of motive remained considerably murky all through the trial, regardless of all of the damning proof of Murdaugh’s monetary crimes. The prosecution leaned into the concept that Murdaugh needed to realize sympathy for himself by killing his spouse and son, whereas drawing on the insurance coverage cash — and we all know that he needed that for his remaining son, Buster, as a result of he later admitted to making an attempt to stage his personal homicide to make it occur. As far-fetched because it might sound {that a} double murder, timed because it was, would level scrutiny away from Murdaugh, a number of witnesses together with Seckinger testified that the murders did take the warmth off their investigations into Alex’s misdeeds. Ultimately, the jury appeared to agree there have been simply no different suspects who had good purpose to kill both Paul or Maggie, or to implicate Alex of their deaths.

Nonetheless, questions stay: Did he have assist? Neither Paul nor Maggie had defensive wounds; it appears unlikely that Alex would have been capable of kill them each with completely different weapons with out one or each of them placing up a battle. Provided that the proof factors to an “ambush,” per the prosecution’s opening statements, how would Murdaugh be capable of kill them each? And if he had assist, who was it from? Some have recommended Eddie Smith, the alleged drug seller who wound up serving to Alex stage his botched faux homicide try. Alex had paid Smith greater than $150,000 within the months earlier than the murders, however we nonetheless don’t actually know why.

Though the prosecution painted a sweeping and efficient portrait of Murdaugh’s guilt at trial, some issues concerning the Murdaugh saga won’t ever fairly be resolved. Finally, even with Alex lastly being delivered to justice, this case has left us with extra questions than solutions — lots of which, as a result of deaths of Paul and Maggie, will stay ceaselessly unanswered.

Replace, March 2, 10 pm ET: This story was initially revealed on February 2 and has been up to date a number of occasions to incorporate the newest developments from the trial.