The jury took less than three hours before unanimously finding Murdaugh, 54, guilty of the two murders
WALTERBORO, S.C. — Alex Murdaugh, the fourth-generation heir to a powerful South Carolina legal, law enforcement and political family, was found guilty Thursday of murdering his wife and son in a case that brought the glare of national and international media attention to a long-secluded but corrupt corner of the state’s Lowcountry region.
After a poll of the jurors found the decision to be supported unanimously, Murdaugh’s defense team made one final move to have Judge Clifton Newman set aside the verdict and declare a mistrial.“The evidence of guilt is overwhelming and I deny the motion,” he said, before telling the jury, “All the evidence pointed to one conclusion, and that is the conclusion you-all reached.”
One of Murdaugh’s lawyers, Dick Harpootlian, said after the verdict he was “disapppointed” and would have more to say after Newman passes sentence Friday. To overcome that hurdle, prosecutors introduced hundreds of pieces of evidence, ranging from police interrogation videos, gunshot residue tests, car and cellphone data and — most importantly — a cellphone video taken from Paul’s phone that showed Murdaugh at the dog kennels in the minutes just before his wife and son were murdered. Murdaugh had repeatedly told investigators that he hadn’t seen Paul or Maggie for at least an hour before they were believed to have been killed.
Another major hurdle faced by prosecutors was the apparent lack of a motive. To make understandable to the jury why a seemingly happy family man such as Murdaugh might kill his wife and son, Waters introduced a theory called “family annihilation,” which says that an outwardly successful person who has lived a hidden life and suddenly faces exposure, might suddenly kill those closest to him.
Maggie, although not enamored with life in the country, enjoyed being with her two sons and their friends at Moselle, and going on trips with Alex and the boys, witnesses said. Jurors appeared to be ordinary, working class people, dressed in comfortable informal clothes. One man who appeared to be in his 20s wore a coat and tie for the entire trial. Among them were a student, a letter carrier, a pharmacy technician, a warehouse manager, an employee of a truck accessory store and a payroll processor
At the trial, one of Murdaugh’s law partners revealed that Murdaugh had embezzled more than $10 million from of the law firm and its clients, and although insurance had compensated some of the firm’s clients for their losses, firm members had to borrow money to reimburse other clients. The murders had taken place at night, the crime scene had been overrun by Murdaugh’s friends and family until it was sealed off and there were no witnesses except the family’s dogs who barked at investigators from their cages. The state was never able to produce the murder weapons, a shotgun and a .300 Blackout assault-type rifle.
In testimony that was in turn tearful, defiant and litigious, the disbarred attorney denied killing his wife and son. Ballistics experts also matched a family gun to the weapon that killed Maggie and the state used family’s phones and data from Murdaugh’s car to map out a minute-by-minute timeline of events, casting doubt on the defense’s improbable claim that Murdaugh missed the killings by mere minutes.
In court, the 6-foot-4 Murdaugh often appeared gaunt, his once red hair turned almost white. He frequently rocked back-and-forth and openly wept during testimony.
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