Alex Murdaugh had a surviving son testify for the defense in his double-murder trial

Murdaugh’s alleged schemes in the months after the murders: A witness testimony before a judge reconsidered the trial of her husband, Paul,

Two investigations that could have exposed Murdaugh’s alleged wrongdoing were coming to a head at the time of the murders. The chief financial officer of his law firm said she confronted Murdaugh about the missing funds hours before the killings. The internal investigation of the funds took a backseat after the murders.

The testimony of Jeanne Seckinger, CFO of the firm formerly known as PMPED, was heard Thursday morning without the jury present as Judge Clifton Newman weighs whether to allow the admission of evidence about Murdaugh’s purported schemes, for which he faces 99 charges separate from the murder case.

Murdaugh tells officers on the scene he was not at the crime scene that night. He says he came back from his mother’s hospital room and found his wife and son dead.

Seckinger testified that in May 2021, they realized they had not gotten a fee check from a case Murdaugh and another attorney, Chris Wilson, were involved in.

Seckinger told Murdaugh that she had reason to believe he had not received the funds himself and he needed to prove it to her.

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 alleges that Murdaugh should not have allowed Paul to use his boat because of his alcohol problems.

When questioning him, prosecutor Creighton Waters noted Murdaugh, for years, looked his clients in the eye and lied about their settlements while taking the money for himself, just like he lied for months to investigators, family and friends about what he did the night of the killings. There were discrepancies in the new timeline of events.

The June 10 hearing was canceled, but the firm decided not to address the missing money because of the deaths of Maggie and Paul.

“Alex was distraught and upset and not in the office much” after the killings, Seckinger said. When we had a few months to clear the mess, nobody wanted to harass him about it. So we were not going to harass him at that point in time.”

The Murdaugh murders of a man in South Carolina: a cross-examination to a friend of Paul, and the prosecution’s motive

The fresh indictments allege Murdaugh stole more than $2.2 million meant for four clients. There are new charges for breach of trust with fraudulent intent and computer crimes.

The defense argued that the fraud cases were irrelevant to the question of whether or not Murdaugh was guilty of murdering his wife and son. If the evidence is admitted, it could add weeks to the trial.

But Creighton Waters of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office – which is prosecuting the case due to the Murdaugh family’s decades-old ties with the local solicitor’s office – indicated to the judge the state hoped to focus on “just a few areas” most closely connected to the case.

“There are two things very temporally connected with this particular crime. Waters said the confrontation was over missing fees that had been percolating for a while. The pending hearing in the boat case will be that week.

Can you think of a reason? Waters was referring to the defense’s cross-examination of a friend of Paul’s, who was asked if he could theorize why Murdaugh would commit the murders. The friend said he could not.

Waters said that all of this going on in his life was just a stellar series of events. It is relevant for the jury to take into account what was happening to this man on June 7th.

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, prosecutors argued. And the opportunity was Murdaugh’s presence at the crime scene, as revealed in a pivotal video and confirmed by his own testimony, minutes before the murders.

Waters separately took the law firm CFO through a long list of instances in which he allegedly misappropriated funds stemming from the settlements in cases he handled. Seckinger verified documents from case after case on the stand Thursday, testifying Murdaugh “stole” what amounted to millions of dollars from clients and the law firm. She said that the firm was responsible for paying back the stolen money.

The trial of an ex-lawyer who was once sued by a man and woman for murdering his wife and son in August 2021

“And it was my understanding that Alex admitted it and that it was determined he would resign,” Seckinger said, adding the firm decided not to announce his resignation until the beginning of the following week.

The jury also has heard testimony about a roadside shooting that injured Murdaugh in September 2021, months after the killings. Murdaugh is said to have arranged for another person to shoot him so he could get a million dollar life insurance policy.

Disgraced former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, who is on trial for murder in the deaths of his wife and son, was back on the stand Friday for more cross-examination from the prosecution.

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.

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, as well as threats that he may have received from “unsavory people” regarding the boat accident in which a young woman was killed.

Upon returning home to the family’s sprawling estate, he told investigators, he found the bodies of his wife and son on the ground by their dog kennels and called 911.

The defense’s first witness was Richard Harvey who said he estimated the deaths of Paul andMaggie to take place on June 7, 2021.

Prosecutors, however, have used a piece of video evidence to argue that Murdaugh was at the crime scene shortly before 9 p.m. – which they say would contradict Murdaugh’s assertion to investigators that he had not been to the kennels that night before finding the bodies.

An almost minute-long video filmed on Paul’s phone beginning at 8:44 p.m. shows one of the family dogs and appears to have been taken at the kennels, Lt. David Dove was a supervisor in the computer crimes center.

The Murdaugh case for a fatal boat crash at a bridge in Beaufort County, South Carolina, was reopened by the South Carolina Attorney General

He changed his story last week, admitting that he lied to the jurors about his whereabouts on the night of the killings, and acknowledging that his voice could be heard in the clip. But Murdaugh denied that he shot his wife and son.

The case brought national attention – including Netflix and HBO Max documentaries – to Murdaugh, the former personal injury attorney whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as prosecutors for a portion of southern South Carolina from 1920 to 2006.

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the family and their involvement in a murder-for-hire plot to get millions of dollars in life insurance.

In 2006, then-Gov. Mark Sanford appoints attorney Duffie Stone to serve as the 14th Circuit Solicitor, making him the first non-Murdaugh in the position. He has been elected multiple times to the position, most recently in 2020.

Satterfield died in an accident at the Murdaugh home, according to an attorney who is representing her estate.

A boat crashes at a bridge near Parris Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, on February 24, killing 19-year-old Mallory Beach, according to the South Carolina Attorney General in documents obtained by CNN.

Paul Murdaugh is indicted in April on charges of boating under the influence (BUI) causing great bodily harm and causing death in connection to the crash, court records show. He pleads not guilty.

SLED releases basic information about the June 7 killings in which Alex Murdaugh called for help.

A statement by a family representative indicates that the injury was more serious than the superficial wound that Alex Murdaugh sustained. The spokesperson also says an unknown person was to blame.

The case of the unsolved death of Stephen Smith, who was 19 years old at the time, was reopened by SLED on June 22. The agency says the probe is being reopened based on information gathered while investigating the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

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.

September 4: Murdaugh calls 911 and reports he was shot early Saturday afternoon on a road in Hampton County, according to a SLED spokesman. He was taken to a hospital in Georgia where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the head.

The law firm said Murdaugh resigned after discovering that Alex misappropriated funds.

Investigation of alleged misappropriation of funds at Murdaugh’s law firm, SLED, as requested by a coroner

“Alex pulled over after seeing a low tire indicator light. A male driver in a blue pickup asked him if he had car troubles, as soon as Alex replied, he was shot,” the statement said.

SLED announced it has started an investigation into Alex Murdaugh for allegedmisappropriation of funds at his law firm.

Alex Murdaugh allegedly took insurance money from Gloria Satterfield and the family of her former spouse to sue him for the money, according to affidavits.

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.

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.

December 14: 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 was necessitated by a request from the coroner that led to the opening of a criminal investigation into his death.

An autopsy was not performed at the time of the death. The manner of death was ruled Natural, which was inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident, according to a request to the law enforcement division.

Murdaugh’s struggle with the jury: Why he lied about being at the dog kennel where his wife and son were killed

He said various factors contributed to his “paranoid thinking” which led to his decision to lie to police, including his “distrust of SLED,” (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division), questions about his relationship with his wife and son, and “the fact that I have a pocket full of pills in my pocket,” he said. The police interview was played by the prosecution.

Griffin acknowledged Murdaugh had lied about being at the dog kennels where his wife and son were killed on the night of the murders. He said the lies were to hide his addiction and financial problems because he had killed his family.

Murdaugh said that on days he did not have enough to take, he would take up to 1,000 milligrams a day, up to 1,200 if he needed it.

Having Murdaugh testify was a bold move and likely a calculated risk by the defense, legal experts told CNN. While many attorneys don’t like to put their clients on the stand because it’s hard to predict what questions prosecutors will ask and how the jury will perceive the accused, Murdaugh was the prime defendant for the job, experts said.

“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 only takes a single juror to connect with him.

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. During those lines of questioning, prosecutors ideally want to elicit only “Yes” or “No” responses from a defendant to try and drive their point home, legal experts said. But Murdaugh continuously gave long explanations when responding. Experts pointed out that he could look more sympathetic to the jurors by humanizing himself.

Sara said that he was convicted with conviction. There was going to be a struggle in this jury room. I think they couldn’t get past the lie” about the kennel video.

Several attorneys said that the key will be whether or not Murdaugh could convince at least one person on the jury panel that he was innocent of the charges and that he would be spared a life sentence.

He has a problem with addiction and they want to use it to show that he can be helped, that he is sympathetic for trying to wrestle with it, that he distrusts the police, and that he lied to them about not being there.

“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.”

“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.

Murdaugh, a father and an expert in crime scene reconstruction, blood spatter analysis, and murder charges in the 2021 shootings of their dog kennels

Experts said that Murdaugh was a model witness. 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 called his son “Paul-Paul,” during testimony, and often referred to his wife as “Mags.”

One of the biggest issues for the prosecution in this trial is whether or not he will really do this, says a law professor. “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 of Alex Murdaugh hired a former professor of forensic science from the University of New Haven to review the crime scene and analyze it.

“It’s structurally difficult for the shooter to have two long (weapons) and no practical reason for that to happen,” he testified. “Add that to what I believe happened to the shooter who fired first with the shotgun, and I think it tips in favor of the probability of two shooters.”

He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the fatal shootings at the dog kennels of their family estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021. He is accused of financial crimes and they will be dealt with at a future date.

Murdaugh’s Left-Right Action: Judicial Witness Witnesses and Paul’s Remains in the Execution Room

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.

John Marvin Murdaugh was the 14th and final defense witness and testified that law enforcement released the crime scene without removing Paul Murdaugh’s remains.

It had not been put away. He described seeing blood, brains, and pieces of skull. “For some reason I thought it was something that I needed to do for Paul to clean it up. It felt like it was the right thing to do. I started cleaning after feeling responsible for him. I can promise you that your family will never have to see or do what I did that day.

The defense also worked to show that investigators had done a shoddy job with the case, particularly in securing the crime scene. There were no barricades or police tape around the entrance to the property and Mark said that there was still Paul’s remains there when investigators left.

They have tried to prove that he lied to investigators about being at the scene of the crime, in a bid to distract the investigations into his actions.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/us/alex-murdaugh-murder-trial-monday/index.html

Murdaugh, a former financial offender in South Carolina, was found guilty in a criminal trial on Jan. 25, 2009 at the CFO Jail

The CFO testified that they wouldn’t be harassed about money or worried about his mental state when they were worried about his family being killed.

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.

“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.

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 Clifton Newman is then expected to give final instructions to the jury, and charge them with coming to a verdict.

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

His defense team has sought to sow doubt about the work by police and forensic teams, saying they did not preserve evidence from the scene of the crime and the main house.

The case of Alex Murdaugh: A strange-than-fiction trial that focuses on personal injury, phone forensics and financial misconduct

The judge told the jury that a juror would be replaced during the court session. 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.

The woman was thanked by Newman for her attentive and positive attitude throughout the case. He said she would be replaced to make sure the integrity of the trial remained intact.

A light moment then erupted shortly before the juror left, as she said she needed her purse from the other room — along with a dozen eggs that another juror had brought in for everyone on the panel.

The trial is winding down one week after Murdaugh took the stand himself, to admit he had lied repeatedly to investigators when he said he wasn’t with his wife and son at the dog kennels at Moselle shortly before they died.

The prosecutor told the jury that this person has fooled everyone, everyone who thought they were close to him. He fooled everyone who thought they knew who he was. They paid for it with their lives, because he fooled them too. Don’t let him fool you, too.”

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.

I find it offensive that the defense is saying that law enforcement didn’t do their job while they are preventing justice by not saying they were down at the kennels.

The strange-than-fiction case has brought Alex Murdaugh, former personal injury attorney and member of a family with strong roots in the area, to the attention of both national and local media.

The jury did not hear from the prosecution, nor did it listen to the defendant’s family, which included murdering Murdaugh’s wife and son

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

And that is what addiction does. Addicts lie,” Griffin said. He lied because he had a large amount of skeletons and didn’t want anyone looking at him.

Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole on Friday, after he was found guilty of killing his wife and son.

Amazingly you came and testified that it wasn’t really a big deal. ‘My wife and son and I were out just enjoying life.’ Not credible. It is not believable. You can convince yourself about it but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else about that,” Judge Clifton Newman said moments before handing down two consecutive life sentences.

You must see Paul and Maggie at night when you attempt to go to sleep. The judge told Murdaugh that he was sure they would come and visit him.

The victim impact statements are typically included in sentencing hearings. There were no on Friday. Newman and Murdaugh sparred directly, as the judge said the defense 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.”

The question is when it’s over? Newman said something. “When will it end? The jury has concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony.

The lead prosecutor said at a news conference that justice had been done. “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.

The defense after the verdict asked for a mistrial, but Newman denied it, saying the jury had gotten enough time to consider the evidence – and the evidence of guilt was “overwhelming.”

A juror said that his vote was guilty from the beginning, and that the jury began deliberations with a vote.

Paul Murdaugh, the victim of his own murder, and his former law firm, Parker Law Group, stepped toward justice in the wake of his tragic death

The video was recorded by Paul near the family’s dog kennels, and his voice is captured in the background.

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. Several members of the law group testified during the murder trial.

Alex Murdaugh’s actions are shocking to everyone. Tonight’s verdict, which was rendered after a thorough and fair trial, brings justice and some closure to this awful matter,” the firm said on Facebook. For reasons that may never be fully understood,Maggie and Paul died tragically. They were much beloved, and we will forever mourn their loss.”

One thing you can definitely take away from this is the fact that he had been lying to a lot of people for a long time, and so he had got to be pretty good at it.

He would likely have been found not guilty if he went in there and they believed him. But once they decide that he’s willing to put himself out there and they don’t believe him, that’s kind of a tough hill to get over,” he added.

He told CNN that the jury concluded that he was lying to them as well.

“Every single person who’s been victimized by Alex has wanted one thing: complete accountability,” he said. “And complete accountability started today with this jury verdict.”

The judge allowed evidence of his past financial wrongdoing to be shown to the jury, which is likely to be appealed on his murder conviction.

He testified that he should never have taken money that wasn’t his. I hate that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it. I feel bad for my son. I am embarrassed for my family.

An appeal would likely focus on the question of whether Judge Clifton Newman ruled appropriately in allowing the prosecution to present evidence about Murdaugh’s extensive financial wrongdoing.

Newman told the jury to only consider the evidence of financial crimes as it fit the reason for them, and not how it reflected on Murdaugh.

“Once they got that character information – ‘he’s a thief, he’s a liar’ – then this jury had to think that he’s a despicable human being and not be believed,” defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said. “So it was about character, it wasn’t about motive.”

He told CNN that after two and a half weeks people will not be inclined to defend him.

The situation makes the decision not as great because the man is going to jail, so does the outcome of the decision make any difference to him? No, said the leader of the opposition. “I think that was a problem in the jury deliberations. That’s why it did not get as serious a deliberation as we expected.”

He said that Judge Newman issued a well-thought-out ruling, and that he was confident that it would be upheld.