Alex Murdaugh’s friend testified that he admitted to drug addiction

Dove and Murdaugh confessed to shooting a dog and killing a woman in Almeda, Alabama, at the time of his murders

Prosecutors believe one of those voices belongs to Murdaugh, and that voice is the only other on the video besides the victims and places him at the scene at the time of the murders. The witness backed up that claim.

Paul filmed a video of a friend’s dog as his father’s voice could be heard in the background. The video, much discussed in this month-old trial, prompted the elder Murdaugh to change his narrative about where he was that night.

Three different voices could be heard in the footage, Dove testified Wednesday. And while Dove did not personally know the voices, he said, “You can tell that they’re different voices.”

The key proof came from a video, which Paul recorded moments before he was gunned down and killed. There is a family with dogs on their property. Alex Murdaugh was placed at the crime scene after it captured his voice in the background.

Murdaugh had long denied that he went to the kennels that night, but a video taken by Paul’s phone at 8:44 p.m. includes audio of Murdaugh’s voice in the background.

“I knew she had gone to the kennel,” Murdaugh said in the recording, which was played for the jury. He stated in the video that he was at the house and looked at Owen in the driver’s seat.

That video is at the center of the case against Murdaugh. There isn’t anything direct to prove the disbarred attorney killed his family, so the prosecution focused only on circumstantial evidence of his opportunity and motive.

The prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence, including phone and vehicle tracking systems, in order to prove that Murdaugh was at the scene.

Afterward, Murdaugh drove to his mother’s home in Almeda and made a series of calls and texts in what Waters said was an attempt to manufacture an alibi. When he returned, he came upon the bodies of his wife and son and called 911.

According to Dove’s testimony Tuesday, the night she was killed, Maggie read two text messages – at 8:31 p.m. and 8:49 p.m. – in a group chat with family about Murdaugh’s father, who was in ailing health, seconds before her phone locked for the final time.

During his opening statement last week, Waters told the jury that Murdaugh was going to visit his mother in Almeda, South Carolina after texting his wife that he was going.

Moller’s phone on the night of June 7, 2021: Alex Murdaugh lied to police about his murder and financial misdeeds

The display of Maggie’s phone turned off minutes later, at 8:53 p.m. Dove said that the phone was moved at 8:54pm, when the orientation became landscape, and the camera tried to get to her face in an unsuccessful attempt.

Dove said Wednesday that call logs showed a discrepancy in calls between June 4 and June 7.

Dove said that a gap like that would indicate that calls had been taken out of the log.

According to Dove, Murdaugh had a habit of checking texts within 5 minutes or 30 to 40 minutes.

Murdaugh testified he lied because of “paranoid thinking” stemming from his opioid addiction. During Wednesday’s panel discussion, attorney Glenda Hatchett said that his admission might have come too late.

Witness testimony described Murdaugh as a loving husband and father. As for the accusations of financial misdeeds that arose in Murdaugh’s law firm the morning of June 7, 2021, Griffin insisted it was not different from any other day in the “frenetic” life of Alex Murdaugh.

Murdaugh later asked Wilson to rewrite the check and make it out to the law firm, he testified. Murdaugh wired him back $600,000 but said he didn’t have the full funds, so Wilson had to spend $192,000 of his own money to cover the difference, he said.

“They’ve got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they have about a murder and evidence of guilt in a murder case,” defense lawyer Jim Griffin said in court during a debate on the relevance of this testimony.

He and Murdaugh won a personal injury case together and got a huge verdict with each attorney earning over a million dollars. Murdaugh asked Wilson to write the check to him personally rather than his law firm, and Wilson did as requested.

Much of the testimony this week has focused on Murdaugh’s financial issues. The judge overseeing the case ruled on Monday to allow such evidence, saying it was “so intimately connected” with the state’s case “that proof of it is essential to complete the story.”

Michael Satterfield testified in court about how he was defrauded by Murdaugh.

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.

The Trial of Murdaugh, Attorney Mark Tinsley, in the Court of a Criminally-Incriminated Man, Revisited

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

Thursday’s session ended with attorney Mark Tinsley on the stand. He is the attorney for the parents of 19-year-old Mallory Beach who was killed in a boat crash in February 2019.

The defense is trying to prove that the killings could have happened after Murdaugh left the stables, as opposed to the time period the prosecutors have presented.

On Thursday, the prosecution asked Tinsley about how that lawsuit was proceeding. He testified that he wanted $10 million from Murdaugh, but was told that he was broke and might only be able to find $1 million. Tinsley was not cross-examined Thursday and is expected to resume his testimony Friday morning.

“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.

Indeed, that “day of reckoning” didn’t come for another three months, when his law firm again confronted him about misappropriated funds, leading to his resignation, a bizarre murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot, a stint in rehab, dozens of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.

According to legal experts, the video left Murdaugh with no choice but to take the witness stand and explain to the jury why he lied multiple times to authorities about his location.

In one video a sheriff’s sergeant talks about his job. Daniel Greene encounters Murdaugh, who is dressed in a white T-shirt and cargo shorts, outside the property’s kennels. As Green arrives, Murdaugh, standing near the bodies – which are blurred in the video and are situated yards apart – tells him “because of the scene, I did go get a gun and bring it down here.”

The deputy asks where the gun is, and Murdaugh tells him it is leaning against Murdaugh’s vehicle. The deputy checks Murdaugh’s shirt before talking further.

“This is a long story. My son was in the wreck for a long time. He has been receiving threats, says Murdaugh. “Most of it’s been benign stuff. We didn’t take serious, you know, he’s been getting like punched. Um, I, I know that’s what it is.”

Murdaugh testified that he returned home from work around 6:45 p.m., after which he and his son Paul rode around the property. Later, Murdaugh returned to the main house, he said, by which time his wife had arrived home. Murdaugh said he sat on a couch and took a shower.

Multiple shootings in the Murdaugh family, claimed by a child of the family of Los Angeles, killing his mother, Maggie, and his partner Paul

Ellen Riemer, a pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, gave graphic testimony Monday about the injuries caused toMaggie and Paul.

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 heard something.

Paul Murdaugh was shot twice with a shotgun, Riemer said. The first shot went through part of the left side of his chest and left arm and was not fatal, though it damaged his lung, Riemer testified. The second shot came out the right side of the top of the head and entered through the left side of his shoulder.

“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. He had his arm down in the first shot, and there was no evidence of injury to his hands in the second shot.

Maggie was killed by a Blackout rifle and Paul was killed by a shotgun, prosecutor Creighton Waters said, adding that both were family weapons. Testimony from a weapons expert proved that Blackout rifle bullet casings discovered near Maggie’s body matched casings found on other parts of the family’s property.

The Murdaugh Dynasty: The First Trial Trial in South Carolina Ends on Monday, May 7, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.

The jurors were tested Monday and will be tested again Wednesday. The judge said the jury would wear masks and that they had a positive attitude, despite prosecutors and defense attorneys talking about postponing the proceedings.

Editor’s Note: The HBO docuseries “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” chronicles the family’s influence in South Carolina. It is on CNN on February 19 at 8p.m.

After calling more than 60 witnesses to bolster their case, prosecutors ended their case on Friday.

Cell phone records showed that on the same day, Maggie Murdaugh searched on Google “white pill 30 on one side rp,” prosecutors said. The description matches a 30 mg Oxycodone Hydrochloride pill. Maggie then deleted her searches for the pills, the prosecution said.

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 love you.

The defense has portrayed the defendant as a loving father and husband who called 911 after finding his wife and son, and who is being prosecuted after a poorly handled investigation while the real killers remain at large.

Witnesses to the Murdaugh Case on the night of the death of his wife, Margaret, and their son Paul, at the Islandton property, South Carolina, testified on Friday

More than a week ago, Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey testified that he estimated the time of death to be around 9 p.m. – just minutes after Murdaugh’s voice was captured on the video – based in part on armpit checks he conducted to feel how warm the bodies were.

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 Murdaugh speeded down rural roads on that nighttime trip, reaching speeds up to 80 mph on the rural roads – far above posted speed limits. He drove past the place where the phone was found.

The jury will be allowed to view the Islandton property where Margaret Murdaugh and her son Paul were killed, after a judge approved a request on Monday. That visit will happen sometime after the rebuttal witnesses’ testimony, Newman said without specifying a day.

According to previous testimony, he told investigators on the night of the killings that when he arrived at the crime scene and discovered the bodies, he tried to turn Paul over, then attempted to check Paul’s cell phone, and then attempted to tried both of their pulses, before calling 911.

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.

The tape was played in court on wednesday and showed SLED agents questioningMurdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his statements to law enforcement.

When Rogan and Marian met Murdaugh during the night of the killings, and when they met a sapling at Moselle, Maryland,

“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. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”

The footage played Wednesday also showed the agents confront Murdaugh about another piece of footage filmed by Paul the night of the killings: A Snapchat video showing Murdaugh looking at a sapling 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 of you and Paul on the farm. You’re wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt … When I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt,” Owen said. “At what point in the evening did you change clothes?”

The sister of the man who wanted the man to come to Moselle said on Tuesday that he was Murdaugh. Marian said that Maggie was staying in the family’s Edisto Beach property and didn’t want to go to Islandton.

According to Blanca Simpson, Alex had asked both Paul andMaggie to go to Moselle because he wanted them to know what was going on.

A Murdaugh man’s murderer and his family were robbed of their life, and his son was killed in the roadside

You didn’t worry about those clothes because you didn’t. Your investigation was focused on the T-shirt he was wearing, shorts and shoes he wore when he called for help.

Owen testified that he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and 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. Wasn’t that overlooked? askedgriffin.

Owen asked if the two people killed in the blasts would have biological material on them.

The jury also has heard testimony about a roadside shooting that injured Murdaugh in September 2021, months after the killings. Authorities have alleged that Murdaugh arranged for another man to shoot him so that Buster could obtain millions of dollars in life insurance.

Owen testified that the gang was not concerned with the money because it knew it was going to get paid.

The prosecutor asked if Alex Murdaugh had ever mentioned to him anyone that might have been involved in his son’s or wife’s murder.

Owen wasn’t certain if a cell phone analysis had been done to see if any drug gang members were in the area on the night of the killings. Owen said state investigators identified only the first responders who would arrive at the scene.

Owen was asked by the defense attorney if any DNA analysis had been done to identify the male who was found beneath Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.

After defense attorneys rested their case yesterday, prosecutors plan to call a number of rebuttal witnesses on Tuesday when the jury travels to Murdaugh’s estate where his wife and son were shot to death.

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 have followed the trial told CNN that it is easier to convict when the prosecution doesn’t have any direct evidence.

The case becomes more difficult due to it. If 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 are looking for something that is persuasive, and scientists are looking for something that is science. “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.”

A family friend of the Murdaughs in Islandton, South Carolina, says he took money from his client’s law firm PMPED

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

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 tried to put forth an explanation of why Murdaugh would kill his wife and son.

The defense team for Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina Attorney charged in the murders of his wife and son, is about to deliver its closing argument.

The defense calledBuster Murdaugh as the first witness. A source familiar with the case told CNN that an accident reconstructionist would likely look at how the scene was treated and what conclusions were drawn from it.

Murdaugh admitted on Thursday to stealing millions of dollars from his clients and law firm, then known as PMPED and since renamed Parker Law Group, telling prosecutor Creighton Waters, “I took money that was not mine and I shouldn’t have done it.”

Murdaugh told the prosecutor that he took money from someone else and shouldn’t have done it.

Upon returning to the house in Islandton after visiting his mother, Murdaugh said, Margaret and Paul weren’t there – and he assumed they still were at the kennels, so he went back there.

Murdaugh recalled calling 911 and “trying to tend” to Paul and Maggie, going back and forth between them while on the phone. Paul’s injuries were particularly bad, Murdaugh said, and he recalled trying to check his son’s body for a pulse and trying to turn him over.

“I don’t know why I tried to turn him over,” an emotional Murdaugh said. “I mean, my boy’s laying face down. He’s done the way he’s done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain on the sidewalk. I did not know what to do.

Murdaugh rebutted testimony that showed he searched for a restaurant in Edisto Beach and read a group text message after finding the bodies.

He had a pill addiction, but was able to maintain his practice, even though he had an addiction for over two decades.

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.

Murdaugh and Waters: No Alibi, No Drug Use, No Whereabouts. A Cross-Examination After the Killing of June 7, 2021

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.

You do not disagree with my characterization that you have a photographic memory about the details that have to fit now, but they are fuzzy on other things? You disagree with that?”

After the lunch break, the cross examination continued. Waters pointed out inconsistencies in Murdaugh’s videotaped statements to police after the killings – including his claim that he had not been at the dog kennels. The jury saw some parts of the taped interviews.

I know what I wasn’t doing but I believe Mr. Waters implied that I was putting guns in a raincoat or cleaning off guns. “I promise you that I was not doing that.” Murdaugh said.

“I never manufactured any alibi in any way shape or form because I did not, and would not, hurt my wife and my child,” he said. 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.”

Moyer said he had 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932s, but he still didn’t think Murdaugh was lying about what happened on June 7, 2021.

And he hounded Murdaugh about his many lies over the years — lies to clients, lies to coworkers and lies to law enforcement — in an effort to erode Murdaugh’s credibility with the jury after the bombshell admission that he had lied about his alibi.

Over the course of six hours of cross-examination on Thursday and Friday, prosecutor Creighton Waters pressed Murdaugh about his financial crimes, his opioid addiction and his whereabouts on the night of the killings.

They are real people, that’s right. They are 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 can’t say whether that came from me looking at them in the eye or not. I agree with you that most of the people that were victims of my theft trusted me because I looked them in the eye.

“I did lie to them,” he said of his comments to investigators that he had not been that day to the estate’s dog kennels, where the bodies of Maggie and Paul were found, until he found them dead. He said that he lied because of paranoid thinking caused by his addiction to opiate painkillers.

Three months after the killings, Murdaugh reported that he had been shot near a road and was treated for a superficial gunshot wound to the head.

Murdaugh – A Charged Man in South Carolina for a Serendipitous Assault in the Second Grand Unified Supervision Trial

He testified that after finding all those things, along with my distrust for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division caused me to have paranoid thoughts. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. I am so sorry that I lied about being there.

Murdaugh faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s found guilty of two counts of murder and other charges. He is being tried in Walterboro, South Carolina.

During his testimony, Murdaugh offered multiple explanations for his decision to lie to investigators: He was paranoid due to his drug use, he said. He said questions about his relationships and a gun test made him feel like a suspect. He was not comfortable with the law enforcement agency leading the investigation because of previous encounters.

“You still told the same lie, and all those reasons that you just gave this jury about the most important part of your testimony was a lie too,” Waters said.

Shortly after, Murdaugh testified that he would have killed himself rather than his family. He said he would hurt himself and one of them at the same time.

The Two-Mirrors of James J. Murdaugh in Charleston, SC: “Your last moments with a dog weren’t really there”

“You told this jury how cooperative you’ve been and how much information you wanted to provide, but you left out the most important parts, didn’t you?” Waters asked.

The exchange between Waters and Murdaugh turned testy multiple times. Waters blamed Murdaugh for being “fuzzy” on details as the two went back and forth about his final moments with his family.

Waters began with the first interrogation by lead South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigator David Owen, held in a car hours after the killings.

Murdaugh was asked in a June 10 interview with Owen and other investigators if the last time he saw them was when they were eating supper.

Murdaugh said that he sat in a golf cart at the kennels. He left the golf cart to get a chicken out of his dog’s mouth.

Waters said that cell phone location data indicated that Murdaugh did not bring his phone to the kennel. Murdaugh admitted that his phone wasn’t in his possession, but said that it was not uncommon for him to leave his phone in the house.

Early in the evening of June 7, his phone seemed to be sitting immobile at the main house. When Murdaugh took 283 steps in less than four minutes, he was in a burst of activity. experts say that the murders took place immediately after.

In his testimony, Murdaugh provided no details about the journey to his mother’s house, despite being prodded by Waters.

Waters inquired why Murdaugh didn’t just come by the boarding house to speak with her after he left and didn’t get her on the phone. Waters said there was a driveway right there.

A South Carolina jury hears from Murdaugh after he took the stand in the case of a murder trial man who lied for 20 years

In the months prior to the killings, he took more than 60 pills a day. At the time, he said, he was buying various types of 30-milligram pills of oxycodone.

On the stand, Murdaugh repeatedly said he could not remember details or precise conversations — but he declined to dispute the prosecutor’s accounts of the misdeeds.

Waters also questioned Murdaugh about a solicitor’s badge he carried for years — a credential he received from his father when he volunteered at the circuit solicitor’s office that elder generations of the Murdaugh family led for some 86 years.

Waters displayed a photo of Murdaugh wearing the badge as he spoke to people on the night of his son Paul’s boating accident in 2019, which left one woman dead. Murdaugh believes it is linked to the execution-style killings, and that the family was thrust into an unwanted spotlight.

After hearing from dozens of witnesses in the high-profile murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, a South Carolina jury last week heard from the man himself after he took the stand – a move legal experts say was risky but could have helped his case.

“If you’re going to have somebody testify, having a lawyer who’s smart, who’s been in the courtroom, who’s lied for 20 years … that’s the guy you want on the stand,” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark Eiglarsh said. It takes just one juror to connect with him.

In this case it was almost impossible for Murdaugh to not testify, as several attorneys told CNN.

It was a million dollar question that everyone wanted to know why you lied. So he had to give an explanation as to that,” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Bernarda Villalona said. “That’s what I think is the main reason why the criminal defense attorney in this case made a calculated decision to put him on the stand.”

“They’re trying to use it for a very positive effect, to show that he had a problem (with addiction), he is sympathetic for trying to wrestle with it and that that may have made him paranoid and caused him to distrust the police and telling them this lie about not being there,” defense attorney Shan Wu said.

“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’s a double-edged sword.”

The prosecutors are saying he is a cheat, that he cannot be trusted and that he should not be taken at face value, said criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal analyst Joey Jackson.

Murdaugh’s Model Witness in the Case of Two Theft Shot at the Dog Kennels in Islandton, South Carolina, in June 2021

In many ways, Murdaugh was a model witness, experts said. He looked straight at jurors when he spoke, and grew visibly emotional talking about his slain wife and son, often referring to them by endearing nicknames. He referred to his wife as “Mags” and called his son “Paul-Paul” during testimony.

“That’s one of the biggest sticking points for the prosecution in this trial: it’s would he really do this?” said Jessica Roth, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law. Is he really going to kill his wife and son?

What will be key in the end, several attorneys said, is whether Murdaugh’s long-winded answers were able to convince at least one person on the jury panel – which could save him from conviction on the charges and potentially spending the rest of his life behind bars.

An expert in crime scene reconstruction and blood spatter analysis testified on Monday that the evidence shows two people shot Margaret and Paul Murdaugh in June of 2021.

An autopsy was done on the case by a professor of forensic science from the University of New Haven.

“It’s structurally difficult for the shooter to have two long (weapons) and no practical reason for that to happen,” he testified. I believe that the probability of a two shooter increase due to how the shooter shot first with the shotgun.

He pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in relation to the fatal shootings at the dog kennels at their family estate in Islandton, South Carolina. He separately faces 99 charges for alleged financial crimes that will be adjudicated at a future date.

The Murdaugh Crime Scene in St. Petersburg, Va. (Arp 24/2018) 10:00 AM ETST 3/M3822

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. Judge Clifton Newman also ruled jurors will be allowed to visit the family’s sprawling estate after the rebuttal witnesses but prior to closing arguments.

The 14th and final defense witness was the defendant’s brother John Marvin Murdaugh, who testified in emotional terms that law enforcement released the crime scene back to the family without cleaning up Paul Murdaugh’s remains.

“There was a piece of Paul’s skull about the size of a baseball laying there,” he said. “It just infuriated me that this young man had been murdered and there was still his remains there.”

The defense argues that the crime scene was mishandled and that it was not secure. One witness, Mark Ball, one of Murdaugh’s former law firm colleagues, testified no barricades or police tape were set up to block several visitors from entering the property the night of the killings.

They tried to prove he lied to investigators about being at the scene of the crime and painted a picture of a con man who killed his wife and son in a desperate attempt to distract from his actions.

That shooting was followed by a stint in rehab for drug addiction, dozens of allegations of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.

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 on Monday, after calling 14 witnesses including Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges.

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.

A Forensic Pathologist and a State Attorney General Investigating the Murdaugh Families, Including a “Family Weapon”

Harvey said he arrived at the scene at 11:01 p.m., and testified that rigor mortis was not yet set in, and that it can take up to three hours to develop.

Jonathan Eisenstat, a forensic pathologist, testified Monday that he does not believe in using armpit temperature checks to make a determination of time of death.

Someone arriving on scene should check the ambient temperature of the area where the body was found first, and then take a rectal temperature in order 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 the coroner if he knew when the killings occurred since he didn’t take exact temperatures.

The senior assistant deputy attorney general is the lead prosecutor. He has been involved with the case since 2021. The state attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case because of the Murdaugh family’s close ties to the local solicitor’s office.

According to Waters, the evidence shows that the man was addicted to money, and that he stole because he wasn’t getting enough legal fees.

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 changed everything. Why did it change everything? Opportunity. Being at the scene of the crime when the murders occurred,” Waters said. The most important thing the defendant could have told the law enforcement was lies. ‘When was the last time I saw my wife and child alive?’ Why in the world would an innocent, reasonable father and husband lie about that, and lie about it so early? He didn’t know that (video) was there.”

The friend of Paul’s testified that his friend shot his.300 Blackout rifle a month or two before the murders. The gun was at Moselle recently, and that shows it was there, he said.

Prosecutors say a “family weapon” was used to kill Maggie. They never produced the murder weapon used on Paul, a 12-gauge shotgun.

Murdaugh’s daughter, Maggie, and Paul, were dressed in a Moselle outfit after the murders of two brothers in 1978-2007

There is a central contention by Murdaugh’s defense team, that sloppy police and forensics work undermines the evidence against him.

Many people were allowed onto the Moselle grounds 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.

Mark Ball was Murdaugh’s law partner and said that more and more people showed up. He said that first responders were walking around inside a taped-off area and that he saw water dripping from the kennel roof onto Paul’s body.

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.

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

Maggie was enjoying her home in nearby Edisto Beach and hadn’t planned to see her husband that night, Proctor said. Alex Murdaugh’s father was dying and his mother was sick, which prompted the encouragement of her sister to support him.

Murdaugh had a different case to concentrate on after the murders, even though Paul was charged with manslaughter in the fatal boating accident. It struck her as odd.

Both Paul and his brother were given custom rifles by the Murdaughs as Christmas gifts. A new gun was purchased after the old one was stolen, but the newer one has not been found.

The idea that Murdaugh was too tall to shoot Paul because of the chaotic scene and the potential of firing from a kneeling position was rejected by prosecutors.

Kenneth Kinsey told Alan Wilson that the defense’s theory that the shooter was shorter than Murdaugh had been “preposterous”.

What were you spending your time doing? Waters, the prosecutor, asked Murdaugh. The accused man didn’t give details, saying only that he was getting ready to visit his mother, who has Alzheimer’s.

Smith said Murdaugh stopped by that night for 20 minutes. But, she added, Murdaugh later tried to convince her the visit was more like 30 to 40 minutes. Smith called her brother, who works in law enforcement, as she felt so uncomfortable.

Murdaugh didn’t do that. The blue raincoat was found at the house, leading to the theory that it had been wrapped around a recently fired weapon.

Paralegal Annette Griswold described Murdaugh as a “Tasmanian devil” who showed up late for work and was all over the place. It was Griswold who first discovered missing settlement fees from early 2021. When she first heard that Murdaugh had forgotten them, she assumed he had. She told the firm’s CFO, Jeanne Seckinger.

Seckinger, who has known Murdaugh since high school, said that when she went to confront him about the missing money on June 7, he shot her a dirty look that she’d never seen before, asking, “What do you need now?”

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. She said she was beside herself as it hit her hard. He’d been lying the whole time.”

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.

It comes down to two issues that prosecutors must contend with. CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates anchored the panel discussion and said that she was talking motive and opportunity. Key ideas from the legal experts discussion of the case are listed.

Hatchett said he believes that the credibility of the case was damaged by the fact that he waited until there was testimony from multiple people, and then said that he was paranoid.

Hatchett was the chief presiding juvenile court judge in Georgia and he said that credibility gaps can taint testimony, even if you are credible.

“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.

Loni Coombs, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, thinks that the kennel video will be the most important evidence in the case. “I’m talking about the big lie of his alibi, where he (initially) said, ‘I was not there at the crime scene.’”

A CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Describes the Treatment of Opioid Addiction and How to Avoid Its Effects on the Patient’s Behavior

Patients typically start at 10 to 20 milligrams a few times a day, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday night. It is possible to take that much daily, he said.

People can build up tolerance to the drugs over time. This is not unheard of,” Gupta said. “Over time, people can increasingly escalate the dose.” It is “tough to know” what the impact of opioid addiction would have on a specific person’s behavior, Gupta added.

“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.

The trial resumed shortly after 9:30 a.m. Thursday — the day the case is expected to go to the jury, more than a month after the court heard opening statements on Jan. 25.

After the defense presents its closing argument, the prosecution will offer a response. Judge Newman will charge the jury with coming to a verdict after he gives his final instructions.

A juror was replaced as Thursday’s court session began. The court received a complaint from a person who claimed that a juror talked to people who weren’t involved in the case.

The woman was thanked by Newman for her attentive attitude and investment in her time. She will be replaced so that the trial’s integrity remains intact, he said.

A light moment followed, as the juror needed her purse from the other room and another juror had brought in a dozen eggs for everyone on the panel.

The Trial of Alex Murdaugh, the Disbarred South Carolina Attorney, in the February 7, 2021, Deaths of his wife and son

Earlier in the day, Murdaugh’s defense team made 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 lawyers for Alex Murdaugh were Jim and one of them. Harpootlian practices criminal defense in Columbia, and is a South Carolina state senator.

The South Carolina Circuit Court judge hearing the case. He has been on the bench since 2000. Newman presides over various proceedings in the case.

Alex Murdaugh’s younger brother. He is listed as a witness at trial and has accompanied Buster Murdaugh to court. In the summer of 2021. Paul was living with John Marvin and doing work for him.

The chief financial officer of Parker Law Group, where Alex Murdaugh practiced when the firm was known as PMPED (Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick, PA). Seckinger testified February 7 that on the day of the killings, she confronted Murdaugh about missing fees from the law firm that he kept for himself. The sister-in-law of Russell Laffite was convicted of 6 counts of financial fraud crimes in November, and she is also related to the former president of Palmetto State Bank.

A veteran attorney who is part of the prosecution team. After four years working for the Attorney General’s Office, he retired from the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office. He has tried hundreds of murder trials, and was hired by the US Attorney’s Office.

An overnight caretaker for Alex Murdaugh’s mother, Libby, who was there when Murdaugh visited the night of the murders. She testified February 6 that Murdaugh was there 15 to 20 minutes and that he later told her it was actually “30 to 40 minutes.” She called her brother to tell him about the comment which upset Smith, she testified. Smith also described a blue tarp that Murdaugh carried into the house and took upstairs.

The expert analyzed the shirt Alex Murdaugh wore on the night his wife and son were killed. In a motion filed just before the trial, the defense asked the court to prohibit Bevel from testifying. The state never called Bevel to testify, as had been anticipated.

Murdaugh kept an expression on his face as 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” to Buster as he was being placed in handcuffs.

The verdict came after a six-week trial heavy on brutal gore, phone forensics, a mysterious blue tarp, extensive financial wrongdoing and the defendant’s own lies.

The defence is pretending that law enforcement didn’t do their job, while he isn’t saying “I was down at the kennels.”

A Second Murdaugh Trial for Financial Crimes and the Effects on a South Carolina Superior High Court Ninth Circuit Circuit Court Judge Paul Newman

In a separate case that has not yet gone to trial, Murdaugh faces 99 charges stemming from a slew of alleged financial crimes, including defrauding his clients, former law firm and the government of millions.

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

That is what people who are addicted do. “People with addictions lie,” he said. “He lied because he had a closet full of skeletons, and he didn’t want any more scrutiny on him.”

Murdaugh faced at least 30 years to life in prison for each murder conviction. The prosecutors wanted Murdaugh to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The prosecutor said justice was done after the verdict. “It doesn’t matter who your family is. People may think you have a lot of money, but that doesn’t matter. What you say about how prominent you are does not matter. If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina.”

The evidence in the case was overwhelming and Judge Newman denied the defense request to declare a mistrial.

The judge concluded the six-week trial that enthralled South Carolina and the nation. Media coverage included live broadcasts of the trial itself, true crime podcasts and a docuseries on Netflix.

SLED catches Murdaugh when he kills his wife and son, and then drives him off-the-grid to visit his mother, Paul, and spends his life in jail

Prosecutors said the once influential lawyer lied to those close to him when he stole millions of dollars from his colleagues and clients and — in an act of desperation, as his financial pressures were mounting — fooled his wife and son, too, when he killed them.

Murdaugh would have been left off the list of potential suspects had the SLED done a good job of gathering evidence.

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

The SLED never took DNA samples from Paul’s clothes and they only took samples from Alex’s clothes. 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.”

But when the state was faced with mixed results and questions over tests of Murdaugh’s shirt, Griffin said, they embraced a “Mr. Clean theory,” which purported that Murdaugh committed the grisly murders, quickly washed himself off with a hose and got into a golf cart “butt-naked, I guess,” to drive back to the house, before leaving to visit his mother.

He said the state never explained if the tests were done on hair or fingers, because they had a list of failures. He pointed out that after the phone was found, investigators didn’t try to stop it from continuously pinging gps locations, which he said ended up overwriting data from the night of the murders.

John Meadors – A Realist and a Defender of Murdaugh’s Crimes: A Case of Premeditation in the State of South Carolina

John Meadors, a veteran of murder trials who rejoined the state’s case earlier this year, delivered the rebuttal closing argument. In a rousing speech that made you want to burst out in applause, Meadors told the jurors to look beyond the lies the trial has exposed.

Murdaugh said repeatedly that he didn’t go with his wife and son to the dog kennels where they were shot and killed, saying that he stayed in the house, and took a nap before leaving to see his ailing mother.

South Carolina law does not require the state to prove premeditation in a murder case. He believes that the case against Murdaugh is proof that nobody else could’ve done it.

“This is a real episode of Columbo, except that it’s real and Murdaugh made crucial mistakes like the killers in the TV show,” said Meadors.

“Paul had insurance on him and he had a dog who snatched a chicken in his mouth and he talked about it in a video”, said Meadors.

When he learned of Murdaugh’s financial crimes, he showed that he loved himself more. He said that Murdaugh did all he could to protect himself.

The pressures on his client have been overblown, Griffin said. The attorney said that when Murdaugh finally felt pressure, he took steps to end his own life, asking his cousin to shoot him.

The trial in the criminal legal system is similar to the instant-replay review of a college football game, stated Griffin in his statement. He told the jury that even though Murdaugh was accused, the call on the field was for him to be innocent. The prosecution has the job of proving Murdaugh’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Judge Clifton Newman spoke about Alex Murdaugh’s lies during the investigation, saying that his slain wife and son must “come and visit” while he is trying to fall asleep, to which Murdaugh responded that he sees them “all day and every night.”

“Remind me of the expression you gave on the witness stand. … ‘Oh, what tangled web we weave.’ What did you mean by that?” he asked, and Murdaugh responded, “I meant that when I lied, I continued to lie.”

The judge then said, “And the question is, when will it end? When will it end? It ended for the jury because they realized that you lied throughout your testimony.

A South Carolina lawyer sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and son, Maggie, during the evening of April 24, 2021

Judge Clifton Newman sentenced disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and son Friday, less than 24 hours after a jury found Murdaugh guilty in the 2021 slayings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

You came and testified that it was just another ordinary day. ‘My wife and son and I were out just enjoying life.’ Not credible. Not believable. You can try to convince yourself that it is true. You have the inability to convince anyone else about it, Judge Newman said before handing down two life sentences.

“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you’re attempting to go to sleep. I’m sure they come and visit you, I’m sure,” the judge told Murdaugh at one point in the Colleton County courtroom.

Typically, sentencing hearings include victim impact statements. There were none on Friday. Instead, the hearing stood out for Newman’s direct exchanges with Murdaugh, whose defense the judge said represented “an assault on the integrity of the judicial system.”

“But as I sit here in this courtroom and look around (at) the many portraits of judges and other court officials and reflect on the fact that over the past century your family, including you, have been prosecuting people here in this courtroom and many have received a death penalty probably for lesser conduct.”

Paul Murdaugh, the victim of his double homicide, had no remorse in his lie-exposing his father’s web

After sentencing, Murdaugh was released into the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections. Wearing a brown jumpsuit and handcuffs, he could be seen leaving the courtroom under the watch of a law enforcement official.

The jury started its deliberations with a vote: Two not guilty, one not sure, and nine guilty.

In the end, “it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Florida’s Palm Beach County, told CNN Thursday night about the trial.

Murdaugh’s former law firm – which renamed itself Parker Law Group in light of his actions – called Thursday’s verdict a step toward justice. The murder trial was attended by members of the law group.

“The one thing you can clearly take away from this was, he had been lying to a lot of people that he loved for a long time, and so he had obviously gotten to be pretty good at it,” Bill Nettles told CNN.

“If he went in there and they believed him, then he would have likely been found not guilty. It is difficult to get over once they decide that he is willing to put himself out there and they do not believe him.

“I truly think that the jury recognized this man lied to everybody,” including clients, and that the jury concluded he was lying to them also, he told CNN.

“Murdaugh continued to lie and showed no remorse as the depravity, callousness and selfishness of these crimes were stunning,” Waters said.

The judge said he didn’t question prosecutors’ decision not to seek the death penalty in the case — but he noted that over the decades in which Murdaugh’s family controlled the circuit solicitor’s office, “many have received the death penalty — probably for lesser conduct.”

“It might not have been you,” Newman told Murdaugh of the person who committed the terrible acts. He thinks that Murdaugh’s drug addiction may have caused him to become another person.

But it was one of his victims – his son – who would provide key proof after his death that legal experts say exposed his father’s web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction in the double homicide.

And in a case with little to no direct evidence linking Murdaugh to the scene, South Carolina’s top prosecutor credited the video clip for the quick conviction by the jury.

The jury didn’t buy that clarification. He was always lying before he got to the courtroom and that jury thought he was lying on that stand.

The Department of Corrections to the Charged Servant Spectator in the Columbia Department of Higher Education (SECEC). The case of Yukawa-Mills

The department said in a news release that he was processed at a reception and evaluation center in Columbia. He had his head shaved as part of the process, according to a department spokeswoman.

Over the next month and a half, department officials will take into account the results of his tests and assessments as well as his crime and sentence in deciding which maximum-security prison he will be sent to, the department said.