Alex Murdaugh Trial

2023-01-26 19:04:10 Written by Alex

The trial of Alex Murdaugh, a disbarred attorney charged with the murders of his wife Margaret and youngest son Paul, began on Wednesday in Walterboro, South Carolina. Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Prosecutors plan to seek a sentence of life in prison without parole if Murdaugh is found guilty of the killings, which occurred on June 7, 2021. Murdaugh called 911 the night of the killings to report he’d found his wife and son shot dead at the family’s home.

 Alex Murdaugh trial,No defensive wounds, a family weapon and more evidence prosecutors say ties Alex Murdaugh to the killings of his wife and son

But prosecutors accuse him of committing the murders to distract attention from a series of alleged illicit schemes he was running to stave off “personal legal and financial ruin,” according to court filings. Evidence will show, the state claims, that Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes were “about to come to light” when his wife and son were killed.

“You’re gonna hear some of what was going on in Alex Murdaugh’s life, leading up to that day – stuff that happened that very day, stuff that was leading up to a perfect storm that was gathering,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said in his opening statement Wednesday, after two days of jury selection ended with 12 trial jurors and six alternatives being seated.

“Listen for that evidence,” Waters said. “Listen to that gathering storm that all came to a head on June 7, 2021 – the day the evidence will show he killed Maggie and Paul.”

The defense attorney for Alex Murdaugh, Dick Harpootlian, argued that the prosecution's opening statements were filled with nothing but speculations and assumptions. He emphasized that his client, who was present in court wearing a navy sport coat and glasses, was a loving father to Paul and a loving husband to Maggie.
Harpootlian added that not a single witness would testify that Murdaugh and Maggie's relationship was anything but loving. He also said that Paul was the apple of his father's eye, as depicted in a Snapchat video the jury will see from the night of the killings, which shows the father and son bonding and laughing over trees they planted together. Harpootlian argued that it would be hard to believe that Alex Murdaugh would murder his son, whom he loved so much, within an hour of bonding and in such a brutal manner, after which the jury is expected to find him guilty.


Alex Murdaugh was indicted by a Colleton County grand jury for the deaths of his wife and son thirteen months after the killings occurred. At that point, Murdaugh had "fallen from grace" as described by his own attorney, facing a multitude of accusations of white-collar theft and fraud. In addition to the murder charges, the state attorney general's office has stated that Murdaugh faces 99 charges stemming from 19 grand jury indictments for various crimes, including allegations of defrauding his clients and the former law firm of nearly $9 million.
Recently, the AG's office announced that Murdaugh had been indicted for tax evasion for failing to report almost $7 million in income earned through illegal activities, for which he allegedly owes the state almost $500,000.

The trial of Alex Murdaugh has been somewhat complicated by the prominence and history of the Murdaugh family and name. The tragedy of the murders, which would have been gripping in its own right, has taken on an added layer of interest due to the fact that three generations of Murdaughs have served as solicitor for the 14th Circuit over the past 87 years, which oversaw prosecutions throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry.
As a result, the case is being prosecuted by the office of South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson because of the close ties between the Murdaugh family and the local solicitor's office. In fact, in the courtroom where Murdaugh pleaded not guilty last summer, there is a portrait of his late grandfather, who was one of the solicitors, hanging on the wall.
The portrait was removed ahead of Murdaugh’s trial.
Victims had no defensive wounds, prosecutor says
In his opening statement, prosecutor Creighton Waters outlined the evidence that the state has collected against Murdaugh, including the fact that he called his wife twice after she had already been killed, from a location that was a third of a mile away. Waters said that Maggie's phone was locked for the final time around 8:49 p.m.
 on the night of the killings, and Murdaugh's phone activity recorded little activity for about an hour beginning at 8:09 p.m. Murdaugh then called his wife at 9:02 p.m., but she didn't answer and he called again just four minutes later. He then sent a text message to his wife that he was going to visit his mother, and drove to Almeda, South Carolina. Waters told the jury that it is up to them to decide whether or not Murdaugh was trying to create an alibi.
The victims, who were shot at close range, had no defensive wounds – as if they “didn’t see a threat coming from their attacker,” Waters said.


According to prosecutor Creighton Waters, Maggie was killed by a rifle that was part of the family's weapons, an AR-style rifle that Murdaugh bought for his son to replace another rifle that had gone missing. The replacement rifle cannot be found. Waters said that in the weeks leading up to the murders, Paul and his friends had fired the weapon multiple times on the family's property and at a shooting range across the street, leaving empty shells in the flower bed and at the range. Waters stated that the prosecution will present evidence to the jury showing that the empty shells found at the scene of the crime were ejected from the same weapon that killed Maggie.

And while Murdaugh “told anyone who would listen” he was not present at the scene of the killings, the evidence will show he was there, Waters said, holding up a cellphone.

Murdaugh’s voice, the prosecutor claimed, will be heard in video Paul recorded from the kennels on the family’s property the night of the killing, along with his wife’s and son’s, minutes before his son’s phone “locks forever.”

Murdaugh was ‘hysterical in grief’ after finding bodies, attorney says In his own opening, Harpootlian acknowledged the brutality of the murders, saying Maggie and Paul Murdaugh had been “butchered.”

Murdaugh “comes home and finds his son laying in his own blood, with his brain laying at his feet, shot to hell,” Harpootlian said. “He goes over, tries to get a pulse out of Maggie, calls 911.”

“I want you to hear that 911 tape,” the attorney said. “It is a man, hysterical in grief, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Paul’s head, Harpootlian said, “exploded” – an injury he suggested would cover the perpetrator in blood head-to-toe, particularly if the killer shot the 22-year-old at close range. But investigators took Murdaugh’s clothes that night, the attorney said, and while they tested a number of spots on the defendant’s shirt and pants, they found no blood.

Harpootlian also offered a counter to the prosecution’s description of the missing rifle, saying Paul was “very irresponsible with guns, cars. He’d leave guns around, he’d leave guns in cars.”

“I can’t tell you whether he was shot with his own weapon or not, or his mom was shot with his weapon or not,” Harpootlian said. “But I can tell you that they weren’t shot by Alex. They don’t have the guns. There’s no way to tell conclusively without having the weapons.”

Ultimately, Harpootlian said, investigators concluded the night of the killings that Murdaugh was guilty, pointing to what he described as “aggressive” questioning. “Without forensics, without cell phones, without any of that,” he said. “And they’ve been pounding that square peg in the round hole” since the killings, he said.

Harpootlian stressed to the jury his client is presumed innocent and it’s the state’s job to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Your mental framework is, he didn’t do it,” Harpootlian said. “They have to prove it to me beyond a reasonable doubt.”

A fall from grace
Murdaugh’s facade as the scion of a prominent legal dynasty began to crumble several months after the killings, when he called 911 to report he’d been shot on the side of the road in Hampton County, not far from his home.

But he later told authorities he conspired with a former client, Curtis Edward Smith, to kill him as part of an insurance fraud scheme, per court documents, purportedly so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance payout.
Murdaugh had resigned from his law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick, or PMPED, the day prior to the shooting. His attorneys said he struggled with an opioid addiction and was entering rehab, while the firm said his resignation followed “the discovery by PMPED that Alex misappropriated funds in violation of PMPED standards and policies.”

The Murdaugh killings also led to renewed interest in other deaths within the family’s orbit, including that of their longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. She died in 2018 in what was described as a “trip and fall accident” at the family’s home. Prosecutors would later allege Murdaugh connected Satterfield’s family to another attorney to help them sue Murdaugh himself for insurance money he ultimately pocketed.

The case of Murdaugh is also associated with the death of Mallory Beach, who died in a boating accident in February 2019. Paul Murdaugh, who was driving the boat, was facing charges of boating under the influence causing great bodily harm and causing death. After his death, the charges were dropped and the Beach family filed a lawsuit against Alex Murdaugh, the owner of the boat. The financial records of Murdaugh were to be exposed in a court hearing scheduled for June 10, 2021, three days after the murders of Maggie and Paul. Following their deaths, the hearing was canceled, postponing what prosecutors described as a "day of reckoning" for Murdaugh's alleged misdeeds.


The state has presented various financial crimes as a possible motive for Murdaugh's alleged murder of his wife and son. The prosecution claims that Murdaugh's alleged financial schemes were about to be exposed and that this was the reason he killed his family. Additionally, the case of Mallory Beach's death, which was set to bring to the light financial information that would implicate Murdaugh, is also suggested as a potential motive. Despite the accusations against him, Murdaugh has maintained his innocence and stated that he wishes to be tried by both God and country.

Source: cnn: nytimes:abcnews