The trial of the ‘Murdaugh Murders’ was held in South Carolina

The Murdaugh – Michael Satterfield case at Moselle, South Carolina, June 7, 2021: Correlation with the Case with the State of the Case

Earlier this month, an attorney who said he was Alex Murdaugh’s best friend testified that Murdaugh admitted he had a drug addiction and had been stealing money from his law firm and clients.

The chief financial officer of his law firm testified she confronted Murdaugh about missing funds hours before the killings. The internal investigation into the funds was put on hold after the murders.

Murdaugh, 54, is accused of fatally shooting his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh by the family’s dog kennels at their sprawling property known as Moselle in Islandton, South Carolina, on the night of June 7, 2021. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges.

The defense has claimed that Murdaugh was wrongly accused of the killings because of a mishandled investigation and crime scene.

Much of the testimony this week has focused on Alex Murdaugh. The judge ruled 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.”

Murdaugh offered to file a claim against his insurance company to get money for his housekeeper’s sons, Michael Satterfield testified. Satterfield didn’t know that Murdaugh had collected more than $4 million in settlements.

Prosecutors had argued Murdaugh’s motive was to distract and delay investigations into his growing financial problems. They claimed he stole millions of dollars from his clients and law firm and lied to cover his tracks – he even admitted to doing so in court.

Also in court Thursday, Michael “Tony” Satterfield, the son of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, testified about being defrauded by Murdaugh.

Satterfield testified that he learned of the settlement from his family, who heard about it through media reports. When he asked Murdaugh in June of 2021 about the status of it, he was told that it was making progress and ready to settle by the end of the year.

Murdaugh’s attorney general in the case of a 17-year-old girl killed by a boat in February 2019, according to Seckinger, the CFO, and the maid

The CEO of a local bank testified for the jury that Murdaugh’s account was overdrawn by about $350,000. The total debt to the bank of Murdaugh was $4.2 million in August of 2021 according to the CEO.

Second, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by his son Paul, crashed. The hearing on the civil case was to be held in June 10, 2021, and it was delayed after the murders, prosecutors argued.

On Thursday, the prosecution asked Tinsley about how that lawsuit was proceeding. He testified that he was seeking $10 million from Murdaugh but that he may only get $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.

He resigned from his law firm after they confronted him about more misappropriated funds, a murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot, and dozens of financial crimes.

Murdaugh is accused of numerous financial crimes, including defrauding his clients and the government of about $9 million.

The maid testified that Alex Murdaugh was not telling her everything she needed to know in the days before his wife’s murder.

Turrubiate-Simpson said that she was concerned about the amount of money being requested in the lawsuit. She said she knew what they were asking for.

There was going to be a lot of people stopping by and bringing food. He told me that he wanted the house to look likeMaggie would want it to. I went to the house after I said okay.

Ahead of Turrubiate-Simpson’s testimony, some Murdaugh relatives were ordered this week to sit farther back in the South Carolina courtroom due to inappropriate contact and conduct, the Colleton County clerk of court said.

Alex Murdaugh was given a book by 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 not known what was in the book but Murdaugh was already in his jail cell when it was discovered. John Grisham’s “The Judge’s List” was taken away.

Hill said that the younger Murdaugh was admonished for the incident. Lynn Murdaugh Goettee and the other person have been warned that they will not be allowed in the courtroom if they violate any more rules.

Hill said that the bomb threat that came in to the clerk’s office interrupted testimony on Wednesday. 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 hoped to rest its case by the middle of next week, prosecutor Creighton Waters said, while the defense will need at least a week, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said, noting it could be on the shorter side because of how long testimony already has lasted.

The length of the state case is making it hard and expensive to schedule out-of-state experts who will require travel and lodging. The state so far has called 44 witnesses and introduced more than 400 exhibits of evidence.

The jury was allowed to view Murdaugh’s property in Islandton where the bodies of his wife and son were found, after a request from the defense. That visit will happen sometime after the rebuttal witnesses’ testimony, Newman said without specifying a day.

The video had been shown to the jury in January, but Monday was the first time the public could watch Murdaugh’s actions as deputies arrived at his home on the family’s estate after he placed a 911 call.

In one video, Colleton County sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Greene encounters Murdaugh, who is dressed in a white T-shirt and cargo shorts, outside the property’s kennels. Murdaugh, standing near the bodies that are blurred in the video and are situated yards apart, told Green that he wanted to bring a gun with him because of the scene.

The deputy asked where the gun was and Murdaugh said it was leaning against his vehicle. The deputy looks at Murdaugh’s shirt.

This is not a short story. My son was in a boat wreck months ago. He’s been getting threats,” Murdaugh says. “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.”

The investigator testified that Murdaugh stayed with his parents for 20 minutes before heading back to the Moselle property.

Waters said that Paul Murdaugh was killed by shots from a shotgun. The shells used to kill Paul had class characteristics that were similar to a 12-gauge shotgun. Waters added that Alex Murdaugh had this shotgun with him on the night of the killings and that “Maggie’s DNA and blood” were found on the receiver of the gun.

Tim Murdaugh and Ellen Riemer, the father of two young women, testified at a conference call on traumatic trauma victims in South Carolina

Under questioning from the prosecution, Ellen Riemer, a pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, gave graphic testimony about the injuries suffered by the two young people.

Alex Murdaugh cried as Riemer explained the extent of the wounds to his son and wife. He shook his head as he listened.

Paul Murdaugh was killed by shots from a shotgun, one of Paul’s “favorite guns,” Waters said. A prosecutor said that the shells that killed Paul 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.”

The next shot went through the left side of her face after going through her chest. Riemer said she attributed that to the first two shots causing Maggie to double over, with her head bent over. This wound would have been immediately fatal, she said. Riemer testified that the last shot was to the back of the head.

The Murdaugh Dynasty: A Case of Mistaken Identity and a Neglective Sheriff’s Attorney (Judicial Circuit Court)

The jurors were tested Monday and will be tested again Wednesday. The day’s proceedings were delayed, but the judge said jurors would wear masks for safety, and that they had a positive attitude.

The Murdaugh Dynasty is the subject of a docuseries on Hbo. It will be on CNN on February 19 at 8pm.

Evidence was presented in court that showed the son of Alex Murdaugh confronted his father about pills one month before both of them were killed.

On May 26 there was a search for “green gel pill p30” on the internet, which matches the description of a nonprescription nighttime cold and flu medication.

Dick Harpootlian said the audio showed a normal discussion between Murdaugh and his wife. Harpootlian claimed that Paul is very happy. Nobody is threatening him. Daddy is not going to kill him with a shotgun.

The defense has presented the case as a case of mistaken identity, with the man being prosecuted after a poorly handled investigation and the real killers still at large.

The killings could have been tied to a money dispute between Smith and Murdaugh, according to the court. Owen said he has been told the same.

The defense on Friday called to the stand its first two witnesses, including Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey who said he estimated the time of death for Paul and Maggie to be around 9 p.m. that night, based on armpit checks he conducted. Harvey said that they could have been shot anywhere between 8 and 10 pm or any time in between.

During his testimony on Friday, Peter Rudofski told us that he was able to plot Murdaugh’s movements on the night of the killings thanks to the data provided by General GM.

Rudofski said that Murdaugh took a drive by the spot on the road where the cell phone was recovered.

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 audio interview of Murdaugh with the Special Investigative Group (SLED) during the August 11, 2021 killings of his wife, Rogan, and son

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 interview Murdaugh had with the SLED on August 11, 2021, was the third that he had with the agents, and they were investigating the murders of his wife and son.

The case was moved to the Attorney General’s Office due to the Murdaugh family’s long ties with the local solicitor.

The footage played in court Wednesday showed SLED agents confronting Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his earlier statements to law enforcement.

Multiple witnesses – including now Murdaugh himself – have testified that Murdaugh’s voice can be heard in the background of the video, which was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m.

Owen and Murdaugh agreed that Rogan has been a part of your family for most of his life. “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 defense asked if investigators had seen the blue shirt and pants he was wearing in the video but didn’t ask about it. Owen didn’t ask Murdaugh for those clothes.

“There’s a video on Paul’s phone of you and him on the farm that night. Owen said you were in shorts and a T-shirt when he met you. “At what point in the evening did you change clothes?”

Eliminating Biological Material from Murdaugh and Smith’s Property in Almeda, Maryland, Just Before the September 2021 Shootings

Two witnesses disagree: On Tuesday, Maggie’s sister testified it was Murdaugh who wanted Maggie to come to Moselle. On the day of the murders, they had a conversation in which they stated thatMaggie was staying in Edisto Beach and wouldn’t go to Islandton.

“And the reason you didn’t, (was because) you weren’t concerned about those clothes. 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 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?” 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.

Griffin established that Murdaugh’s mother’s property in Almeda was not searched until months after the killings, in September 2021. No weapons were found on that property, Owen testified.

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.

Griffin said Smith owed a lot of money to a drug gang, and Owen testified that he was told the gang was not worried about the money because it knew it was going to get paid.

“Prior to that day, had Alex Murdaugh ever mentioned to you Curtis Edward Smith or anyone else that might have been involved in his son’s or his wife’s murder?” prosecutor John Meadors asked.

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. But state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and had identified only first responders as coming to the scene, Owen said.

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.

The jury in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh found him guilty of murdering his wife and son after just three hours of deliberations.

The first witness for the day was 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.

He told investigators that after he returned home, he found his wife and son dead on the ground near their dog house and called for help.

A short video was recorded on Paul’s phone beginning at 8:44 pm, showing one of the family dogs being taken at the kennels. David Dove was a supervisor in the computer crimes center.

Officers with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office wrote in reports that they had discovered several shell casings and had called a tow truck company to the scene. They said they looked for cameras in the neighboring homes and businesses, but police reports that were heavily redacted did not say whether or not they found any.

Murdaugh’s Intercourse with the Police: a Connection to the Boat Wreck and to a “Random Vigilant”

Mr. Murdaugh soon admitted that he had asked Mr. Smith to shoot him in the head. According to Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyer, he came up with a plan to make his suicide look like a murder to get more life insurance for his older son.

Various factors led to his paranoid thinking, which led to him lying to police, including his distrust of SLED and questions regarding his relationship with his wife and son. The clips of the police interview were played.

Murdaugh denied that he was trying to make an alibi when he was asked if he had made any calls after she and her son were killed. Waters was asking about something before he left to go to his mom’s house.

This is a connection to the boat crash. Murdaugh’s wife and son were murdered and the idea that a “random vigilante” could be involved was questioned by Waters. Paul Murdaugh said he believed the killings were due to the fatal boat wreck that he was involved in. He suspected someone who had heard about the killings might have been involved in the wreck, since he didn’t think anyone had anything to do with it.

Pill addiction: In the months leading up to the deaths of his wife and son, Murdaugh said he took more than 2,000 dosages of the pain killer every day.

Paul Murdaugh, a young man killed in the dog kennels of his family estate, Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021

A former professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven, Timothy Palmbach, was hired to review the case and analyze the crime scene.

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.

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 faces various charges for alleged financial crimes 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. 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 has also tried to portray the investigation into the case as shoddy, arguing that the crime scene was not secure or handled carefully. 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.

In particular, they have tried to prove he was at the crime scene that night, worked to show he lied to investigators and painted a picture of a fraudster who killed his wife and son in a desperate bid to distract the investigations into his actions.

He was accused of financial crimes, disbarment and the murder charges after a shooting that followed a stint in rehab for drug addiction.

Murdaugh, a stranger-than-fiction attorney, talked about rigor mortis and robbery in the Lowcountry

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.

“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.

When Harvey arrived on the scene at 11:04 p.m., he testified that rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in, and that it normally starts developing one to three hours after death.

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 denied that he took 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.

Everyone thought they were close to him, Waters told the jury. “Everyone who thought they knew who he was, he’s fooled them all. He tricked Paul too, and he paid for it with his life. Don’t allow him to fool you too.

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.

“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.

The crime victims of Alex Murdaugh, 37, killed by a dog kennel, defense attorney Justin Bamberg argues that law enforcement didn’t do their job

Waters used phone forensic techniques to reconstruct the prosecution’s version of events before, during and after the murders at Moselle.

“That changed everything. Why did everything change? Opportunity. Waters said they were at the scene when the murders occurred. The information the defendant lied about was the most important thing he could have told law enforcement. When was the last time my wife and child were alive? Why would a reasonable father lie about something so early in his life? He didn’t know that video was there.

He stated that the shotgun with Alex Murdaugh in the night of the killings hadMaggie’s blood on it.

There is a family that killed a person. It was present just a couple months prior to the murders and it’s gone now. A family weapon the defendant cannot account for killed Maggie.”

The verdicts were read and Murdaugh kept a stony face. His only other son could be seen crying while wiping his eyes. Murdaugh appeared to mouth “I love you” to Buster as he was being placed in handcuffs.

A lawyer representing alleged financial crime victims of Murdaugh also was surprised by the speed of the verdict, he said. When Justin Bamberg heard a verdict had been reached less than three hours after deliberations started, he suspected Murdaugh would be convicted, he said.

Earlier Thursday, Murdaugh’s defense team delivered closing arguments, saying law enforcement was too quick to pinpoint him as the main suspect in the killings by the dog kennels on the family’s sprawling estate.

The defense is asserting that the law enforcement didn’t do their job, while he is not stating that he was down at the kennel.

Murdaugh, his wife and their son charged with robbery, murdering and killing a woman and a boy, and sentenced to two life sentences

He claimed the agency failed to investigate hair found in Murdaugh’s wife’s hand, or examine footwear and tire impressions.

“Because that’s what addicts do. Addicts lie,” Griffin said. He lied to get rid of any scrutiny on himself and to have a closet full of skeletons.

Less than 24 hours after a jury found Murdaugh guilty of killing his wife and son, the judge sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences.

“Amazingly to have you come and testify that it was just another ordinary day. I and my wife and son were enjoying ourselves. Not credible. Not believable. You can convince yourself that it’s true. but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else about that,” Judge Clifton Newman said moments before handing down two consecutive life sentences.

I know you have to see Paul andMaggie at night when you are trying to sleep. At one point in the courtroom, the judge told Murdaugh he was sure they would visit him.

There are victim impact statements that can be included in sentencing hearings. There were none on Friday. The judge said Murdaugh represented an attack on the integrity of the judicial system, and so the hearing stood out for his direct exchanges with Newman.

“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 will it end? Newman said. When will it end? This ended already for the jury because they’ve concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony.”

Murdaugh and the State of the Art: The Juvenile Trial Revisited in a Murmur-In-the-Field News Conference

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.

In a Thursday night news conference, the lead prosecutor said 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.”

The jury began its deliberations with a vote: “It was two not guilty, one not sure and nine guilty,” he said Friday, adding his vote was guilty from the start.

Murdaugh then testified the voice was his – and that he’d lied to investigators about his whereabouts because he grew paranoid, which he blamed on his addiction to opioid painkillers.

Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for Florida, said that the victim was the one who solved their own murder.

The former law firm renamed itself after Murdaugh called Thursday’s verdict a step toward justice. Several members of the law group testified during the murder trial.

Sara said that he was convicted with conviction. I thought there was going to be a fight in this jury room. They could not get past the lie about the kennel video.

He had lied to many people he loved for a long time and had gotten good at it according to Bill Nettles.

“If he went in there and they believed him, then he would have likely been found not guilty. He stated that it would be difficult to get over the fact that they don’t believe him after they decide he’s willing to put himself out there.

The jury concluded that the man lied to them also, and that he lied to clients as well, he told CNN.

He said that every person who has ever been a victim of Alex wanted complete accountability. “And complete accountability started here today with this jury verdict.”

“These crimes are stunningly callous and selfish as Murdaugh continued to lie and show no remorse,” Waters said.

Over the decades in which Murdaugh’s family ran the circuit solicitor’s office, “many have received the death penalty for lesser conduct” according to the judge.

“I’m not sure if it was you who committed the terrible acts,” Newman told Murdaugh. He said it might be that Murdaugh’s noted drug addiction caused him to become another person.

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.

Stephen Smith’s death, and the Murdaughs’ autopsy, ruled a hit and run, is going to gofundme

After eight years, the family of a teenager who was found dead on a road near Alex Murdaugh’s hunting estate say they plan to exhume his body for an autopsy.

Stephen Smith’s death was initially ruled a hit and run, but his mother has insisted that she wants the new autopsy to prove what really happened to her son.

“Our family is so very grateful to all of you who came together to help us in our fight for justice for Stephen,” Sandy Smith wrote on a GoFundMe page that had raised more than $60,000 to pay for the exhumation.

The agency would look into Smith’s death based on the information they got during the double murder investigation of the Murdaughs.