Prosecutors in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial wove an elaborate schedule during closing arguments Wednesday, trying to convince a South Carolina jury that the once-reputable attorney became a «family killer» when he killed his wife and youngest son to evade responsibility for a series of financial misdeeds.
Using electronic data and video extracted from the victims’ cell phones, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters placed Murdaugh at the crime scene on June 7, 2021, saying he had access to the family’s firearms when he ambushed them. his son, Paul, before shooting his wife, Margaret, multiple times. times on the grounds of the family’s hunting estate in rural Colleton County.
«She heard that shot and was running to her baby when she was run over by the only person we have conclusive evidence of who was at that scene a few minutes earlier,» Waters told the jury.
The state relied on weeks of testimony and hundreds of pieces of evidence in his sprawling case, and Waters spent much of his closing argument highlighting all the times Murdaugh had lied, including to investigators about his alibi.
«There is only one person who had the motive, who had the means, who had the opportunity to commit these crimes, and also whose culpable conduct after these crimes betrays him,» Waters said.
“The forensic chronology places it there. The use of his family’s weapons corroborates it, ”he added. «And his lies and his subsequent guilty actions confirm it.»
Early Wednesday, at the request of the defense team, jurors were given more than an hour to visit the outdoor property, the kennels and the shed where Margaret and Paul had spent their last moments. Since then, the property has been unoccupied, with the grass unmowed, the kennels empty and items like a deflated football and a tube of disinfectant wipes seemingly untouched.
A concrete pad was still visible where Paul had fallen after being hit twice by a shotgun. Margaret, whose body was found several feet away, suffered five gunshot wounds from a different weapon. While the interior of a feeding room appeared renovated, large bullet holes remained in a rear window.
Prosecutors have said investigators have found neither murder weapon: a .12-gauge shotgun and a .300 Blackout-style assault rifle. Shell casings were used to match the type of weapons that killed Paul and Margaret to firearms known to be owned by the family.
Waters presented a «rising storm» of events engulfing Murdaugh’s life as he faced an investigation by his family’s law firm on the same day as the murders.
«Those pressures build,» he said, «and that person becomes a family destroyer.»
Murdaugh’s trial, which began in late January and was initially expected to last a month, included 61 prosecution witnesses and more than a dozen defense witnesses.
The 12-person jury heard from a variety of police investigators and crime scene analysts; experts in forensic analysis of GPS and mobile phone data; Murdaugh’s former law firm colleagues and banking partners; family members, including his surviving son, Buster; and the defendant himself.
Few trials in recent memory have captivated this region of South Carolina, known as the Lowcountry, where for nearly a century three generations of Murdaugh patriarchs wielded power as top prosecutors for a handful of counties. Murdaugh himself served as a part-time prosecutor, trying cases in the same Colleton County courthouse where his double murder trial is taking place.
The prosecution secured a major victory earlier in the trial when Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman agreed that testimony about Murdaugh’s financial crimes could be admitted as evidence to support the state’s plea that he killed his wife and son to obtain sympathy and stop the impending investigation into $792,000. losing the settlement money, he is accused of stealing from his family’s law firm.
According to prosecutors, Murdaugh had been defrauding clients for years and used the money, in part, to feed his addiction to painkillers.
Murdaugh had also been under pressure from a lawsuit involving Paul, who at the time of his death was facing trial for three felony boating under the influence in connection with a 2019 boating accident that claimed the lives of a teenage passenger.
A lawyer for the victim’s family testified that he thought he would have to drop the lawsuit if it turned out that the murders were related to Paul’s involvement in the boating accident.
During the state’s closing arguments, Waters said Murdaugh had a lot to lose if his financial malfeasance was exposed, but the deaths of his wife and son quickly halted the law firm’s investigation and blocked the boating accident case in his favor. .
«The pressures on this man were unbearable, and they were all coming to a head the day he murdered his wife and son,» Waters said.
Key moments in the Murdaugh trial
Murdaugh, however, has long maintained his innocence in the murders, telling investigators that he had taken a nap and then went to visit his ailing mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, at the time the murders occurred. .
But prosecutors revealed key evidence during the trial of a video that placed him at the scene of the crime minutes before they said the murders occurred around 8:50 p.m. In response, Murdaugh took the stand last week, saying he had lied to investigators several times, admitting that he was dishonest about his location before the murders due to his drug addiction and general paranoia.
Waters took advantage of his story change to cast doubt on Murdaugh’s credibility.
«Why would I lie about that, ladies and gentlemen?» he asked the jury. «Why would he even think of lying about it if he was an innocent man?»
He also suggested that Murdaugh knowingly used two different types of weapons in the murders to confuse investigators.
Data taken from Murdaugh’s cell phone and tracking his steps showed that, immediately after the murders, he was moving at a much faster pace before leaving the property to go to his mother’s house.
«He didn’t even admit he was on the scene until he was forced to,» Waters said. «And then he’s busier than ever.»
Murdaugh’s defense team, led by veteran attorneys Jim Griffin and Richard «Dick» Harpootlian, has previously argued that the state has offered no evidence to show that Murdaugh would derive a financial windfall from the death of his wife and son, such as life insurance payment, or that they knew of any alleged impropriety, which he tried to hide by killing them.
The defense had yet to deliver its closing arguments on Wednesday.
If convicted, Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison without parole on the two counts of murder, and another five years in prison on two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
This is developing news. Please check for updates.