America is interested in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial

Murdaugh and Waters had to answer a huge question to Waters during the trial – evidence that he wasn’t there

That’s because the prosecution pointed to a huge question throughout the trial that he had to answer: Multiple witnesses identified Murdaugh’s voice in a video clip filmed at the family’s dog kennels, which authorities say was recorded shortly before the killings and near where the bodies were found.

Waters told the court that witnesses would identify the voices of Paul, Alex andMaggie, when they saw the video. Murdaugh “told anyone who would listen he was never there … The evidence will show that he was there. He was with the victims at the scene of the murders.

There were three different voices heard in the footage. Dove said you can tell that the voices are different because he did not personally know them.

Murdaugh reveals how his wife, Maggie, and Paul left the family home in Moselle, Maryland, in a phone conversation with Waters

Murdaugh claims he last sawMaggie and Paul in the evening. They ate dinner together before Murdaugh took a nap and then drove to Almeda, to visit his mother, he has said. He told authorities that when he came back to the family’s property in Moselle, he discovered the bodies of his wife and son and called 911.

Griffin replayed the video Paul took in the kennels around 8:44 p.m., minutes before prosecutors say the shooting started. It captured Alex, Maggie and Paul talking about dogs.

Defense attorneys are tasked with convincing the jury that Murdaugh is telling the truth about leaving the scene and coming back later to look for his wife and son, since he admitted lying to investigators.

In his own opening statement, Harpootlian said the audio simply showed Murdaugh and his wife having a “normal discussion” with “no animosity.” Paul is “very happy,” Harpootlian said. “Nobody’s down there threatening him. Daddy isn’t murdering him with a shotgun.

The son of a powerful family of lawyers and solicitors was found guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the deaths of his mother and father.

Murdaugh was in the hospital after being shot in the head. He confessed to asking a client to kill himself so Murdaugh’s oldest son could get an insurance payment.

Dove testified that the phone showed a lot of missed calls, as well as evidence that the phone had switched to portrait mode. That, the expert said, was another indication the phone was likely held in someone’s hand. A final call from Murdaugh wasn’t heard by 10:00 p.m.

Waters said in his opening statement that Murdaugh was texting his wife and calling her as he was planning on going to visit his mother in South Carolina.

Griffin ran through phone data reflecting the minutes after 8:49, laying out a theory in which the slain mother and son might have simply set down their phones at the kennels. He said that it was possible that she was still holding her own phone, or that a “bad guy” had it.

Dove was unsure of whether or not the calls were deleted from the log, and noted there was no way to know when or who deleted them.

Dove explained that a gap like that would indicate that calls were removed from the log.

A Murdaugh lawyer says he stole money from his former housekeeper to avoid personal financial ruin, and he allegedly did so in response to a family friend

This behavior appeared to be outside Murdaugh’s typical texting habits, Dove testified, saying Murdaugh typically had a habit of checking texts within 5 minutes, or sometimes 30 to 40 minutes.

An attorney who claimed he was Alex Murdaughs best friend testified Thursday that he had a drug addiction and stole money from his law firm and clients.

The chief financial officer of his law firm said that on the morning of June 7, she confronted Murdaugh about missing funds. Internal investigations into the funds were put on hold after the murders.

Prosecutors accuse Murdaugh of committing the killings to distract attention from a series of alleged illicit schemes he was running to avoid “personal legal and financial ruin,” per court filings.

For the defense, the financial evidence amounts to little more than “speculation” and “conjecture,” defense attorney Dick Harpootlian has argued. They have highlighted Murdaugh’s loving relationships with his family and ridiculed the prosecution’s focus on what they are framing as irrelevant financial misconduct charges.

He and Murdaugh had worked together on a personal injury case that ended in a verdict of $5.5 million. Wilson did as instructed after Murdaugh asked him to write the check to him personally.

The checks ultimately played a key role in Murdaugh’s law firm’s discovery that he had been misappropriating funds, according to testimony from his coworkers.

October 16: A pair of affidavits are released that allege Alex Murdaugh coordinated with the family of Gloria Satterfield, his former housekeeper, to sue himself for insurance money that he then pocketed for himself.

Satterfield testified that he learned of the settlement from his family, who heard about it through media reports. He said when he asked Murdaugh about it in June 2021, Murdaugh told him “it was still making progress” and to be ready to settle by the end of the year.

Murdaugh’s case against the murder of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old boy who was killed by a boat in February 2019

The CEO of the local bank testified that Murdaugh’s account was overdrawn by about 350,000 dollars. As of August 2021, Murdaugh had a total debt to the bank of $4.2 million, according to Palmetto State Bank CEO Jan Malinowski.

Lawyer Mark Tinsley took the stand on Thursday. He represents the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, crashed.

Seckinger and Griswold said sympathy and consideration for Murdaugh’s loss was more important than concern over the missing funds.

Tinsley was asked about the lawsuit on Thursday. He said that he wanted $10 million from Murdaugh, but was told he would only be able to get $1 million. Tinsley is expected to resume testimony Friday morning after being not cross-examined Thursday.

“We weren’t going to go in there and harass him about money when we were worried about his mental state and the fact that his family had been killed,” the CFO, Jeanne Seckinger, testified.

He had a day of imprisonment, but it didn’t last for another few months when his law firm confronted him again about misappropriated funds.

Maggie Murdaugh was worried about money possibly being demanded of her family in a lawsuit and suspicious her husband wasn’t being entirely honest with her in the days before her killing, housekeeper Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson testified Friday in the double-murder trial of Alex Murdaugh.

“She was concerned about the amount of money that they were requesting in that lawsuit – $30 million is what she told me,” Turrubiate-Simpson said. She knew the amount of money they were asking for.

“He said there was going to be people probably stopping by and bringing food and stuff,” Turrubiate-Simpson said. He wanted the house to look like the one he wanted it to look like. So, I said OK and I went to the house.”

Appellate Expert Witnesses in a South Carolina Insurance Fraud Case: Alex Murdaugh, Brian Turrubiate-Simpson, and Mark Tinsley

Alex Murdaugh is arrested on September 16 in connection with an insurance fraud scheme that involved him arranging for his own death. According to a statement from the police, he is charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report.

The Murdaugh relatives were told to sit back in the South Carolina courtroom due to inappropriate conduct and contact before Turrubiate-Simpson testified.

In court Wednesday, Alex Murdaugh’s sister Lynn Murdaugh Goettee passed him a book through a member of his defense team. It was not shared with the victim’s advocate, and Goettee had been admonished just five minutes before that, a source with knowledge of the incident told CNN.

It was Mark Tinsley who was giving testimony when Buster Murdaugh allegedly made an obscene gesture. It also misstated which John Grisham book was confiscated from Alex Murdaugh; it was “The Judge’s List.”

Hill said the youngerMurdaugh was admonished for the incident. Lynn Murdaugh Goettee and Buster Murdaugh have been warned that any more violations will result in them being barred from the courtroom.

Amid the book incident, Wednesday’s testimony was interrupted when a bomb threat was called into the clerk’s office and the courthouse in Walterboro was evacuated, Hill said. The court resumed hours later.

Legal teams on Thursday offered a glimpse into the remaining trial schedule: Closing arguments could start around February 23, based on attorneys’ estimates – weeks after Friday’s originally scheduled end date.

The state might not be able to finish its case until next week because of how long testimony already has been, but the defense might need at least a week to finish.

The defense has out-of-state expert witnesses who will require travel and lodging, Harpootlian said, pointing out the length of the state’s case is making that difficult and expensive to schedule. The state so far has called 44 witnesses and introduced more than 400 exhibits of evidence.

Harpootlian planned to ask the judge to let jurors visit Moselle, the hunting property where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed, he said in opening statements.

During the trial, prosecutors have tried to have Murdaugh at the scene of the killings, with the help of a video clip authorities say was recorded shortly before the killings.

In the prosecution’s telling, the motive was Murdaugh’s attempt to distract and delay investigations into his growing financial problems. The means were two family-owned weapons, Waters argued. Minutes before the murders, there was a crucial video showing Murdaugh at the crime scene.

The deputy asked where the gun was and Murdaugh told him that it was leaning against his vehicle. The deputy watches Murdaugh’s shirt before talking.

“This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck … months back. He’s been getting threats,” Murdaugh says. Most of it has been benign. We were not serious and he has been getting punched. I know that is what it is.

Data showed that Murdaugh stayed at his parents’ home for about 20 minutes that night before leaving to head back to the Moselle property, the investigator testified.

When Maggie and Paul Murdaugh Were Shocked, Laura Riemer and the Shooting of Paul by a Blackout Rifle

Ellen Riemer, a pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, gave graphic testimony Monday about the injuries that were suffered by Maggie and Paul and their autopsy results.

Alex Murdaugh cried when Riemer detailed the extent of the wounds to his son and wife, and dabbed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He shook his head as he was listening.

Waters said Paul was killed by shots from a shotgun. The prosecutor said that investigators determined that two fired shells that killed Paul had “class characteristics” that were similar to a 12-gauge shotgun.

“I don’t see anything on his hands that would indicate he had his hands up to his face in anticipation of the injury that was about to happen,” Riemer testified. “That first shot, his arm was down, and I don’t see any evidence of injury to his hands from the second.”

Maggie was killed by a Blackout rifle and Paul was killed by a shotgun, prosecutor Creighton Waters said, adding that both were family weapons. There were witness testimony that showed that the bullet shells from the Blackout rifle that was used in the killing were similar to the ones found on the property.

The Murdaugh-Mumford Dynasty: a Positive Attitude and a Fair Treatment of a Mishandled Investigation

The jurors will be tested again Wednesday. Prosecutors and defense attorneys discussed with the judge postponing the day’s proceedings, but Judge Clifton Newman said jurors would wear masks and “they have a positive attitude.”

Editor’s Note: The HBO docuseries “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” chronicles the family’s influence in South Carolina. CNN will broadcast it on Sunday, February 19 at 8 pm.

Murdaugh also offered jurors alternatives as to who may have committed the crime – therefore helping sow reasonable doubt, Jackson said. Murdaugh talked about his addiction – hinting at “unsavory people” he may have been coming into contact with for drugs who may have harmed his family – and also nodded at threats that Paul allegedly received after his involvement in a 2019 boating accident in which a young woman was killed.

Later that month, on May 26, Maggie searched on Google “green gel pill p30,” which matches the description of a nonprescription nighttime cold and flu medication.

Defense attorney Phillip Barber showed a text Alex Murdaugh sent to his wife the following day, on May 7, 2021, which read: “I am very sorry that I do this to all of you. I adore you.

The defense believes that Murdaugh and his wife were wrongly accused of the deaths after a mishandled investigation and crime scene.

The time of death was estimated by the Coroner more than a week ago, based on his armpit checks and the voice captured on the video.

The court also earlier on Friday heard from an investigator who offered a timeline of the night Maggie and Paul were killed, combining data from cell phones and vehicle systems which showed Alex Murdaugh drove by the spot where his wife’s phone was later found and that he called police seconds after his car arrived in the area the bodies were found.

During his testimony on Friday, Peter Rudofski, an investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said he was able to plot Murdaugh’s movements on the night of the killings through latitude, longitude and speed data provided by General Motors.

The vehicle records show that Murdaugh traveled well past the posted speed limit, reaching speeds up to 80 mph on the rural roads. He also drove past the spot on the roadside where Maggie’s phone was later found.

Murdaugh turned into the front entrance at the Moselle property at roughly 10 p.m. that night, and shortly after, headed over to the family’s dog kennels located on the property, arriving there at 10:05 p.m., the investigator testified.

The Murdaugh Case Revisited: “As an Attorney General, I Know What I Saw and When I Knew That I Was Seeing,” a Lawyer’s Perspective

According to previous testimony, he told investigators on the night of the killings that when he arrived at the crime scene and found the bodies, he tried to turn Paul over, and tried to look at his phone, but was unsuccessful before calling for help.

The case was transferred that same day from the local solicitor to the Attorney General’s Office, which has been prosecuting the case due to the Murdaugh family’s long ties with the local solicitor: Three generations of Murdaughs served as the 14th Circuit Solicitor over about 87 years.

Finally, Murdaugh was able to use his decades of experience as an attorney to control the narrative when he was questioned by prosecutors, experts said. According to legal experts, prosecutors want to drive their point home during those lines of questioning by asking only “Yes” or “No” responses. But Murdaugh continuously gave long explanations when responding. In that way, experts noted, he potentially was able to humanize himself more, and look more sympathetic to the jurors.

“And Rogan’s been around your family for pretty much all his life,” Owen said, something Murdaugh agreed with. “And he recognizes your voice, and you have a distinct voice. Is there any other person with the same voice as yours that he might have misinterpreted?

Murdaugh’s Agents and the Victims of Two Explosives: What Did They Tell Us About Their Lives, Their Life, and Their Relationships?

The tape shows the agents confront Murdaugh about the video he was shown looking at on the family’s property. In it, Murdaugh is seen wearing pants and a blue shirt. But later, he was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt.

There was a video on Paul’s phone of you and him on the farm. When I first met you, you were wearing shorts and a T-shirt, Owen said. What time did you change your clothes?

The wife wouldn’t have intended to see her husband that night, because she was enjoying her home at Edisto Beach. Alex Murdaugh’s father was dying and his mother was not well enough for Alex’s sister to support him.

You were not concerned about the clothes, that’s why you did not. Your investigation had been focused since early June on the T-shirt he was wearing, the shorts he was wearing and shoes he was wearing at the time he called 911,” Griffin said.

Owen told the grand jury that an expert found blood spatter on the front of a T-shirt, and that it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.

“Y’all completely overlooked the fact that when you did a HemaTrace test to confirm whether there’s blood, it came up negative. Was that not taken care of? asked Griffin.

“Whoever killed Maggie and Paul would likely have biological material on them from the blasts that killed the two victims, right?,” Griffin asked Owen.

Murdaugh had time to return to court, but no evidence had been given during the shooting. The prosecutor and jurors should listen to “what happened to me at a drug gang”

Before Murdaugh testified Thursday, the defense had asked the judge to limit the scope of questioning he would face because of allegations of financial wrongdoing.

The defense appeared to suggest last week that the killings could be related to a financial dispute with a drug gang, saying Murdaugh was buying $50,000 worth of drugs each week from a man who was in significant debt to a gang.

He said the big question for jurors was if Murdaugh had time to commit murder, to clean himself up and to return in 17 minutes. Or is there a reasonable doubt?”

Asked if a cell phone analysis had been performed to see if any of the drug gang members were in the area the night of the killings, Owen said drug gang members typically use burner phones, and he didn’t have their phone numbers. Owen said that state investigators identified only the first responders as arriving at the scene.

The defense attorney also asked Owen if any DNA analysis had been done to match a small amount of unknown male DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.

In response, the prosecution urged the jurors to pay attention to “common sense” and “facts,” after hearing an abundance of testimony about Murdaugh’s character.

Defense attorneys point to what they describe as a mishandled police investigation, adding Murdaugh is a troubled but loving father and husband whose other misdeeds still do not add up to him being a murderer.

Legal experts who followed the trial told CNN that it is difficult to convict when there is no direct evidence.

“It does make the case more difficult,” said trial attorney Misty Marris. “But at some point, if the prosecutors have enough evidence that they can put together that story, and show motive and opportunity, it can certainly rise to the level needed to get a conviction.

“Jurors want science, jurors want DNA, jurors want something that’s persuasive,” Azari said. “But because (prosecutors) lack it … their focus is now on the tenuous motive and the lies after the fact, but neither of those things … substitute the evidence that they need.”

The Murdaugh family and the boat accident in the Islandton, South Carolina, attorney charged in the murders of a 19-year-old son and wife

The video focuses on one of their dogs and appears to have been recorded at the kennels at their family home in Islandton. In the background, three different voices can be heard in the footage, and family friends identified those voices as that of Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh.

The prosecution has used that Snapchat video to try to disprove his assertion that he was asleep, and other testimony has also cut into his claims about how long he had been with his mother.

State prosecutors sought to explain why Murdaugh would kill his wife and son.

Alex Murdaugh’s defense team is making its final bid to prevent him from spending decades in prison, delivering their closing argument in the trial of the disbarred South Carolina attorney charged in the murders of his wife and son.

The defense called the first witness of the day,Buster Murdaugh. He is expected to be followed by an accident reconstructionist who will likely focus on investigators’ findings at the killing scene, including how the it was treated and what conclusions were drawn as a result, a source familiar with the case previously told CNN.

The stranger-than-fiction case has brought national attention – including Netflix and HBO Max documentaries – on Alex Murdaugh, the former personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as the local prosecutor consecutively from 1920 to 2006.

Indeed, if ever a true-crime docuseries would have benefited from using a narrator, it’s this one; instead, the producers let the group of friends who were swept up in the tragic boat accident that claimed the life of 19-year-old Mallory Beach drone on, augmenting their accounts with blurry reenactments that look like something out of a cheap horror movie.

Those who were on board speak of Paul, who often drank excessively, driving the boat, and the Murdaugh family – thanks to patriarch Alex, a well-connected South Carolina attorney – allegedly using its wealth and influence over the authorities to protect him.

As the details gradually come out, there are other inconsistencies and allegations about occasions where the Murdaughs escaped scrutiny in the face of suspicious events, including the death of a housekeeper and nanny, Gloria Satterfield, who, they claimed, was seriously injured when the family dog caused her to fall down a flight of stairs.

The law firm that Murdaugh had been at, the PMPED, was renamed theParker Law Group after he admitted to stealing from it.

“I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Murdaugh said in response to prosecutor Creighton Waters during the prosecution’s cross-examination.

The day after his death, Murdaugh was able to go back to his house and pretend that he wasn’t going to help his son

He went back to the house in Islandton because he assumed Margaret and Paul were still there.

Murdaugh recalled calling 911 and “trying to tend” to Paul and Maggie, going back and forth between them while on the phone. Paul was badly injured, and he remembered trying to help his son by checking his body for a pulse and attempting to turn him over.

Murdaugh was emotional as he said he didn’t know why he tried to turn him over. I mean, my boy is laying down. He has done the way he has done it. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I did not know what to do.

An earlier testimony showed that Murdaugh had searched for a restaurant in Edisto Beach and read a group text message shortly after finding the bodies.

In the months leading up to deaths of his wife and son, Murdaugh took over 2,000 ecstasy tablets per day, he said on Friday. He testified that the drugs gave him energy and made his work more interesting.

Murdaugh, who says he is now drug-free, testified he took the high doses in part to avoid the symptoms of withdrawal, which can include vomiting, dizziness, depression and confusion.

A criminal investigation into the murders of a housekeeper in Murdaugh’s South Carolina man killed by a boat crash on February 7, 2016

Over three generations, a member of the Murdaugh family has served as the 14th Circuit Solicitor, which leads prosecutions for Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties in the southern part of South Carolina.

But now, the family has been closely connected to a bloody tragedy, allegations of embezzlement and a bizarre murder-for-hire plot to score millions in life insurance.

Duffie Stone was appointed to the 14th Circuit Solicitor position in 2006 by Gov. Mark Sanford, becoming the first non-Murdaugh in the position. He was elected to the position at least four times, most recently in 2020, according to the website.

Gloria Satterfield, a longtime housekeeper for the Murdaugh family, dies in what is described as a “trip and fall accident” at the Murdaugh home, according to attorney Eric Bland, who is representing her estate.

The South Carolina Attorney General told CNN that a boat crash near a bridge in South Carolina killed a teenager on February 24.

Connection to boat crash: Waters questioned Murdaugh about the idea a “random vigilante” could be involved in the murder of his wife and son. Murdaugh said that he thought a fatal boat wreck that he was involved in was the reason for the killings. He thought someone who heard about the murders might have been involved with the boat wreck, because he didn’t think anyone had anything to do with it.

In June, the SLED releases basic information about the June 7, 2016 killings. Alex Murdaugh called at 10:00 PM and investigators collected evidence that night and the next morning.

September 10: A family spokesperson issues a statement about Alex Murdaugh’s shooting that indicates the injury was more serious than a superficial wound. The person was to blame, according to the spokesman.

September 15: SLED announces it is opening a criminal investigation into the February 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield, a housekeeper for the Murdaugh family, and the handling of her estate.

Stone, the solicitor, writes a letter to South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson saying he intends to recuse himself from the Murdaugh death investigations, CNN affiliate WCSC-TV reports.

Murdaugh, a Survivor of Gloria Satterfield, is charged with misappropriating settlement funds and computer crimes for the 2019 boat crash

According to authorities, Murdaugh reported he was shot in the head near a road three months after the killings.

Murdaugh said in a statement that he was quitting the law firm and entering rehabilitation. Murdaugh’s other attorney, Jim Griffin, says his client has an opioid addiction.

“Alex pulled over after seeing a low tire indicator light. The statement said that a male driver in a blue pickup had asked Alex if he had car trouble, and that Alex replied, “I was shot.”

September 22: Connor Cook, a survivor of the 2019 boat crash, files a lawsuit against Murdaugh claiming the former attorney attempted to orchestrate a campaign to falsely blame him for the crash. Cook also alleges that Murdaugh should have been aware that his underage son, Paul, had alcohol issues and should not have been allowed to use his boat.

October 14: After being released from a drug rehabilitation center, Alex Murdaugh is arrested in Orlando, Florida, on suspicion of misappropriating settlement funds in connection with Gloria Satterfield’s 2018 death, authorities said.

November 12: Alex Murdaugh cites privilege against self-incrimination in declining to respond to allegations by his former law firm that he converted firm and client money to his own personal use, according to court filings.

August 19: Murdaugh is indicted by a grand jury on nine charges, including four counts of obtaining signature or property by false pretenses, three counts of money laundering and two counts of computer crime, the attorney general says.

The indictments include four counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent; seven counts of obtaining signature or property by false pretenses; seven counts of money laundering; eight counts of computer crimes; and one count of forgery.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/us/murdaugh-family-deaths-timeline/index.html

Paul Murdaugh, the Family of Gloria Satterfield, and a Criminal Investigation into the Dec. 14th Stabbing of a Housekeeper in Hampton, South Carolina

December 14th Murdaugh agrees to a $4.3 million settlement with the family of Gloria Satterfield, his former housekeeper, according to family attorney Eric Bland.

The exhumation stems from a Hampton County coroner’s request that led to the state law enforcement division opening a criminal investigation into Satterfield’s death.

The Coroner did not perform an autopsy on the person or report their death at the time. The manner of death on the death certificate was found to be natural and was not consistent with the injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident.

After about six hours of testimony Friday – which included a prosecutor grilling the former disgraced South Carolina attorney over lies, drug use and details in the grisly case – the court adjourned for the weekend and is set to resume Monday morning.

I think that you don’t agree with my notion that you’ve got a photographic memory about the things that have to fit and that you’re not clear about the other things that complicates that? You don’t agree with that?

At one point on Friday, Waters askedMurdaugh if the dogs at the kennel on his property were making noise when he was there with his wife and son.

I know what I was not doing, Mr. Waters, and I believe you are referring to it as washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat. Murdaugh said he was not doing any of that.

He said he never made an alibi because he did not hurt his wife or child. “So I know for a fact that I never, ever, ever created an alibi.”

“I can tell you for a fact that the person or people who did what I saw on June 7, they hated Paul Murdaugh,” he testified. “And they had anger in their heart.”

He said he didn’t believe the wreckers had anything to do with the murders. But he said he suspected the killer was someone who had heard about what happened.

Waters went through a list of people Murdaugh had lied to, with the guy admitting that he did not tell the whole truth.

Murdaugh’s defense attorney began questioning him again after a brief break shortly before 4 p.m. after Waters concluded his cross examination. The court adjourned for the day shortly after the questioning was over.

Murdaugh: The Most Admired Criminal Defense Attorney in the State of California, and why he’s not supposed to be at the kennels

The people are not fake. They’re good people. They’re all people that I care about … And a lot of them people that I love and I did wrong by them,” Murdaugh said.

I cannot answer that, whether that came from me looking at them or not. I agree that the people that I stole money from were the ones that trusted me the most.

Waters said, “Everyone thought they were close to him, and that’s the reason he fooled them.” “He fooled Maggie and Paul, too, and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t let him fool you, too.”

His paranoia caused him to lie to police about his relationship with his wife and son, as well as about the fact that he has a pocket full of money. The prosecution played clips of the police interview.

Having Murdaugh testify was a bold move and likely a calculated risk by the defense, legal experts told CNN. Murdaugh was the top choice for the job, as it was hard to predict the questions prosecutors would ask and the jury’s perception of the accused.

Mark Eiglarsh is a former prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer who has worked for the state. “And all it takes is one juror to connect with him emotionally.”

While defendants can often find themselves at a disadvantage when taking the stand, in this case, several attorneys told CNN Murdaugh practically had no choice but to testify.

Everybody wanted to know why you lied about not being at the kennels. Criminal defense attorney Bernarda Villalona said that he had to give an explanation. I believe that is the main reason why the criminal defense attorney decided to put him on the stand.

Jurors have gotten a massive amount of information about Murdaugh’s character, from his former law colleagues and clients who said he stole millions of dollars, to the multiple stories about his alibi.

He is sympathetic for struggling with the addiction and that may have made him paranoid, and they are trying to use the situation to show how bad of a problem it is.

“But if he was that addled by the addiction, he might have been acting very irrationally at the time and the jury might believe that this very opioid-addicted person went off into this paranoid frenzy and did slaughter his own family,” Wu noted. So, it was a double-edged sword.

“What they’re doing, the prosecutors, is saying he’s a liar, he’s a cheat, he can’t be trusted and you should not at all take whatever he says at face value,” criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson said.

“I think it actually went very well for the defendant and rather poorly for the prosecutor,” Wu said. “Murdaugh (was) a tough witness, I mean he’s a skilled lawyer himself. He really changed the whole tempo of this from a cross (examination), where the person doing the cross should be controlling him, into one where he was able to control the pace.”

A law professor at the Cardozo School of Law says that is one of the main points of dispute in the trial. “Despite all the other crimes he’s admitted to, would he actually kill his wife and son?

Monday’s testimony was headlined by an expert in crime scene reconstruction and blood spatter analysis who testified that the evidence suggests two shooters carried out the killings of Margaret and Paul Murdaugh in June 2021.

The defense hired a former professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven to analyze the crime scene to help with their case.

In defending his two-shooter theory, he noted that Paul was shot by a shotgun and Margaret was shot by a Blackout rifle. He also determined the shooting of Paul came first and was from such a close range that the shooter would have been temporarily stunned by the explosive violence.

Paul Murdaugh, 43, of Islandton, SC, was killed in a dog park in July 2005 by a man with a large body

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges of killing two people and wounding another person at a dog park on his family’s estate in Islandton, South Carolina. He is facing 99 charges for financial crimes that will be decided at a future date.

The prosecution, which featured 61 witnesses over three weeks of testimony, said they plan to seek testimony from four or five rebuttal witnesses on Tuesday. Jurors can visit the family’s estate after rebuttal witnesses but prior to the conclusion of the trial.

John Marvin Murdaugh testified during the final defense that law enforcement released the crime scene back to the family without removing Paul Murdaugh’s remains.

“There was a piece of Paul’s skull about the size of a baseball laying there,” he said. I was enraged that the young man had been murdered and his remains were still there.

It was shown by the defense that investigators did a poor job securing the crime scene. Mark Ball, who was a partner in the law firm, testified that there were no barricades or police tape at the entrance of the property, so Paul was still there after investigators left.

They have tried to prove he was at the scene of the crime because he lied to investigators about how he killed his wife and son.

He was charged with murder after the shooting, and went to rehab for drug addiction, among dozens of allegations of financial crimes.

The Defense of the June 7, 2021, rigor mortis, trial of Murdaugh, a former dog kennel, was sentenced to three murders

The state plans to call four or five witnesses to testify on issues raised by the defense, and hopes to finish with all of them by the end of the Tuesday, prosecutor Creighton Waters said.

The defense rested its case Monday after calling 14 witnesses, including Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the June 7, 2021, killings.

“If I was under the pressure that they’re talking about here, I can promise you I would hurt myself before I would hurt one of them, without a doubt,” Murdaugh said on the stand Friday.

Prosecutors have used a video filmed at the dog kennels shortly before authorities say the killings took place to argue Murdaugh was at the scene just minutes before the fatal shootings.

One to three hours following the death of a loved one, rigor mortis, the stiffening of the body’s joints and muscles, typically starts, according to testimony by Harvey.

A forensic pathologist, Jonathan Eisenstat, testified Monday that armpit temperature checks are “just not a valid method to try to make a determination of time of death,” calling the technique “just a guess.”

Instead, he said, someone arriving on scene should first check the ambient temperature of the area where the body is found and then take a rectal temperature to get as close to a core body temperature as possible.

Harvey testified earlier that he did not take rectal temperatures that night. During cross examination, prosecutors asked if the coroner had an idea of when the killings occurred since he did not take exact temperatures.

“The evidence that you’ve heard shows that the defendant became so addicted and so dependent on the velocity of money that the millions of dollars in legal fees that he was receiving was not enough and so he started to steal,” Waters said.

Defending the Innocence of a “Family Weapon” During the Moselle Assault Using Waters’ Phone Forensics

Primarily using phone forensics, Waters reconstructed a timeline of the prosecution’s version of events before, during and after the murders by the kennels at Moselle.

That had a profound affect on everything. Why did it change so much? Opportunity. Waters said that he was at the scene when the murders occurred. exposing the lies of the suspect about the most important thing that he could have told law enforcement. ‘When was the last time I saw my wife and child alive?’ Why wouldn’t a reasonable husband and father lie about that at an early age? He wasn’t aware that video was there.

The prosecutor recalled testimony from a friend of Paul’s who said he and Paul shot his .300 Blackout rifle — which prosecutors say was used to kill Maggie — a month or two before the murders. The gun, which hasn’t been located, was recent at Moselle.

Prosecutors say a “family weapon” was used to kill Maggie. But they never produced the murder weapons — a .300 Blackout assault-style rifle prosecutors say was used on Maggie and a 12-gauge shotgun used on Paul.

Murdaugh, Waters and the Moselle Grounds – where the police came to investigate a gun-powder crime, and how they tidied up the house

Police seized Murdaugh’s hand for gunpowder and asked about his relationships with his family when they questioned him about his addiction and distrust of investigators.

The reason that you gave the jury for the most important part of your testimony was also a lie, Waters said.

The central contention by Murdaugh’s defense team was that the police and forensic work undermined the evidence against him.

Numerous vehicles and people were allowed onto the Moselle grounds in the hours after the killings, including Murdaugh’s relatives and friends. And on a night with misting rain and drizzle, Paul and Maggie’s bodies were covered by sheets rather than tarps.

“People just kept piling in, just more and more people kept showing up,” said Mark Ball, Murdaugh’s former law partner. He testified that the water was dripping from the kennel roof onto Paul’s body, and he saw first responders walking around in a taped-off area.

Ball said his large group eventually left the area – but instead of being sent away, they were told to go inside the main house, despite Ball’s own concern that it could be part of the crime scene. Some of them tidied up the house, he said.

When Paul Murdaugh walked into the house to find out what happened to him, and he shot him in the stomach, killing him

“Murdaugh said his top goal was clearing Paul’s name, and that’s when I cried,” she said. I thought that was strange because my goal was to find out who killed my sister and Paul.

The Murdaughs originally had two custom Blackout rifles, given to Paul and his brother, Buster, as Christmas presents. Paul’s was apparently stolen in 2017, and a replacement was bought; that newer gun has not been found.

There were many variables involved in deciding if Murdaugh was too tall to have fired the shots that killed Paul.

The state’s final rebuttal witness, forensic expert Kenneth Kinsey, told Attorney General Alan Wilson that the defense’s theory the gunman had to be shorter than Murdaugh’s 6-foot-four-inch frame was “preposterous.”

The outfit matches testimony from Turrubiate-Simpson, the housekeeper, who even recalled fixing Murdaugh’s collar that morning. She also told jurors about a conversation with her employer two months after the murders.

Early in the evening of June 7, his phone seemed to be sitting immobile at the main house. But cellphone data then shows Murdaugh in a burst of activity starting at 9:02 p.m., when he took 283 steps in four minutes. It was after experts say the murders took place.

What did you do that was so busy? Murdaugh asked Waters, the prosecutor. The accused man didn’t give details, saying only that he was getting ready to visit his mother, who has Alzheimer’s.

Smith also said she’d never seen Murdaugh visit his parents’ home at 6:30 in the morning. But, she said, that’s what he did one day shortly after the shootings, carrying what looked like a blue vinyl tarp that was bundled up as if something was inside.

Murdaugh denied doing that. The blue raincoat was found with gunshots on it at the house, leading investigators to believe that it was wrapped around a weapon.

Murdaugh is a “tausmanian devil”, according to Paralegal Annette Griswold. It was Griswold who first discovered missing settlement fees from early 2021. She assumed Murdaugh had left them behind. She told the firm’s chief financial officer, who was suspicious.

Seckinger, who has known Murdaugh since high school, said that when she confronted him about the missing money, he shot her a dirty look that she had never seen before.

Months after the murders, Griswold testified, she was getting a file in her boss’s office when a check “floated like a feather to the ground,” revealing he was siphoning money. It hit her hard, she said: “I was beside myself. … He’d been lying the whole time.”

Two things are what every prosecutor has to contend with. I’m talking motive and opportunity,” said CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates, who anchored the televised panel discussion. Here are key takeaways from the legal experts’ discussion of the case:

Hatchett said that the fact he waited until there were testimony from other people created a credibility gap.

Hatchett, a former chief presiding juvenile court judge in Georgia, believes that a credibility gap can taint other testimony.

“The prosecution, to get their conviction, has got to do away with – to exclude – every reasonable hypothesis of innocence,” said criminal defense lawyer Mark O’Mara, who represented the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.

“I think this kennel video is the most important piece of evidence in this case for the prosecution because it explodes the big lie,” said Loni Coombs, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor. He initially claimed he wasn’t at the crime scene, but later changed his story.

“As my addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations or circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking,” Murdaugh said on the stand. On June the 7th, I was not thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. I lied about being down there.

The Trial of Murdaugh’s Psychiatric Offender, Physicist Vincent A. Gupta, at the Pulsar’s Kennel

Patients typically start at 10 to 20 milligrams a few times a day, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday night. While 2,000 milligrams sound astronomical in comparison, taking that much daily is possible, he said.

“People can gradually build up increasing tolerance to these drugs, these opioids. Gupta said this was not uncommon. “Over time, people can increasingly escalate the dose.” It’s hard to know the impact of drug use on a specific person.

“People can start to develop significant tolerance to the point where they’re no longer taking the medication to get high, to develop euphoria, but rather just to feel normal and not have withdrawal,” Gupta said.

After the defense presents its closing argument, the prosecution will give a response. It is expected that Judge Newman will charge the jury with coming to a verdict, after giving final instructions.

Judge Newman announced at the start of the court session that a juror was being replaced. The court received a complaint from a member of the public saying the juror, a woman identified only as juror No. 785, had “improper conversations” with people not involved with the case.

Newman thanks the woman for her positive attitude and investment of time in the case. But, he said, she would be replaced so that the integrity of the trial would remain intact.

Shortly before the juror left, she asked if she could get her purse out of the other room, because another juror had brought eggs to everyone on the panel.

In his closing argument, Waters stressed to jurors that he thinks one thing was missing from the two days Murdaugh spent testifying. If the new alibi is true, Waters asked, why hadn’t Murdaugh voiced any regret that he didn’t remain at the kennel, to protect his wife and child?

Murdaugh kept a stony face while the verdicts were read. His only remaining son, Buster Murdaugh, could be seen wiping tears from his eyes. Murdaugh appeared to mouth “I love you” as he was being placed in handcuffs.

The verdict came after a six-week trial that was very heavy on gruesome gore, phone forensics, and extensive financial wrongdoing.

“I find it offensive that the defense … is claiming law enforcement didn’t do their job, while he is withholding and obstructing justice by not saying ‘I was down at the kennels.’ ”

Murdaugh’s separate case is still to go to trial: Indictment of a man accused of murdering his wife, killing him and the government

In a separate case yet to go to trial, Murdaugh continues to face 99 separate charges stemming from a horde of alleged financial crimes, including defrauding his clients, former law firm and the government of about $9 million.

He said the agency failed to investigate hair found in Murdaugh’s wife’s hand, take fingerprint evidence, examine footwear and tire impressions, or perform genetic testing on the victims’ clothes.

Because that is what drug users do. Addicts lie,” Griffin said. He lied because he had a lot of skeletons and he didn’t want any scrutiny on him.

After about three hours of deliberations, the jury found him guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of using a weapon during a violent crime. Murdaugh showed little emotion as the verdicts were read.

“Justice was done today,” prosecutor Creighton Waters said after the verdict. “It doesn’t matter who your family is. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or people think you have. It doesn’t matter how prominent you are. If you commit crimes in South Carolina, then justice will be done.

Judge Clifton Newman described the evidence of guilt in the case against Murdaugh as “overwhelming” and denied a request from the defense to declare a mistrial.

The judge’s comments concluded the six-week trial, which captivated South Carolina — and the nation. The trial was broadcasted live, as well as a docuseries on the internet.

“Mr. Clean” Alex Murdaugh, whose murders and wife killed him in South Carolina, lied to investigators when he didn’t

In an act of desperation, he deceived his wife and son as well, when he stole millions of dollars from clients and colleagues, and when he killed them.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin said law enforcement was biased against Alex Murdaugh from early on — adding that they later fabricated evidence against him. Pulling at threads of the prosecution’s case, Griffin said state investigators “failed miserably in investigating this case.”

Had the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, done a “competent job” of gathering evidence, Griffin said, Murdaugh would have been excluded from the list of potential suspects long ago.

“Unless we find somebody else, it’s gonna be Alex,” Griffin said, giving his version of investigators’ thinking. He said his client’s opioid habit made him an easy target for SLED. They started making up evidence against Alex.

SLED took samples from Alex Murdaugh’s clothes, but they never took DNA samples off Maggie and Paul’s clothes, Griffin said. Once investigators seized on the idea that tests showed high-velocity blood spatter on Alex Murdaugh’s T-shirt, he added, they refused to dismiss that idea and pursued it “with vengeance.”

There were mixed results and questions over Murdaugh’s shirt, but they embraced a ” Mr. Clean theory,” which said that Murdaugh committed the murders and washed himself off in a golf cart.

Griffin accused the agency of a list of failures, saying the state never explained if tests were performed on hair he said was found in Maggie’s fingers. He faulted the way the phone was secured, accusing investigators of failing to prevent the device from continuously pinging gps locations, which he said eventually overwrote the data during the murders.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160581579/alex-murdaugh-murder-trial-verdict

Murdaugh’s lawyer in a South Carolina jury is guilty on Thursday night of murdering a man and his wife at a dog shelter

The defense’s efforts to undermine the facts of the case, rather than the facts themselves, was what he found to be real. He used credibility and common sense many times.

Meadors also mocked the defense’s theory of what happened that night. A killer who didn’t commit the murders would have to know when Murdaugh left his wife and son at the dog shelter and how many guns there were to carry out an execution-style killing.

He noted that South Carolina law doesn’t require the state to prove premeditation or motive in a murder case. But, he added, he believes the motive and other elements of the case against Murdaugh are proven, adding, “Nobody else could’ve done it.”

“This is an episode of Columbo, but it’s real, and just like the killers in that show, Murdaugh made some crucial mistakes,” he said.

“Paul had that insurance, and there’s a video in it, in which Maggie and Alex talk about their dog and the chicken he snatched from them,” he said of the video.

When he was put under real pressure by Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes, he showed he loved himself more. He said that Murdaugh did everything he could to protect himself.

The pressures on his client have been overblown, Griffin said. The attorney said that Murdaugh asked his cousin to shoot him in September after finally feeling pressure.

Who is he? A jury in South Carolina found a well-known attorney guilty on Thursday night in the murders of his wife and son.

Why is Crime so Popular? The Case of Neal Baer: The Case against a Charged, Reviled, Executed Victim

What’s the big deal? The murders have implications that are very close to home. It also became a story that gripped people everywhere, in part because of the wide platform it received.

Why is America so obsessed with this story? Neal Baer is a former executive producer of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. In that role he consulted with experts and researchers to understand the issues that were worrying people, and what they wanted to understand from this genre. This is his analysis.

In this case, the victims are dead, but we still want to seek some kind of justice. These are cases of human behavior that go way, way, way to the nth degree that we don’t experience in our own lives every day. We’re drawn to these kinds of people and what makes them tick. What made them do it?

It’s of interest everywhere. I think it’s because we are interested in other people’s behavior, and the more far-fetched it seems, or the more grandiose or frightening, the more we’re drawn to it.

There is a fascination with the characters and maybe we see ourselves in them. We might think that we’re being so scared that we’re forced to make decisions that we don’t know what to do. And most of us, I hope, wouldn’t go so far as to murder our families … But we can identify with it because we’ve all been pushed into the corner.

Some people like endings and some people like justice. I think that’s been a big, big selling point for Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, that we get the bad guys. The bad guy gets away on a lot of podcasts but we never find him. Those are very rare.

I think there is a tendency for people to disengage with crime in order to feel safer when they’re at home. But, you know, on the other hand, we don’t know who’s carrying a gun in many places now in the United States. So it’s a very scary place to be.

I think there’s more fear, so we look to these programs to provide some hope, but in fact they probably promote more fear because they give us some sustenance and hope.