March 2, 2023 - Alex Murdaugh found guilty in the murder of his wife and son | CNN (2024)

Alex Murdaugh’s legal team says it will not be commenting prior to the sentencing hearing, which will take place Friday at 9:30 a.m. ET.

“The expectation for that press conference is for it tooccur about an hour after the completion of the sentencing hearingbut more specifics will be provided tomorrow morning,” Murdaugh’s legal team said in an email.

Following the sentencing hearing tomorrow,defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin will be addressing the media, according to the legal team.

“This will occur in front of the Colleton County Courthouse,” the email read.

A jury Thursday found Murdaugh guiltyof the murder of his wife and son. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours.

The disgraced South Carolina attorney was convicted on all four counts that he was facing — two counts of murderand two counts of possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said a person’s position and power are not above the law, and Alex Murdaugh’s guilty verdict Thursday proved just that.

“It’s been a long six weeks, but Maggie and Paul Murdaugh deserved justice, and they certainly did not deserve to brutally die at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect them,” Wilson said in a statement. “Alex Murdaugh’s house of cards, built on the foundation of lies, manipulation, and theft, came crashing down.”

As the verdict was read in the Colleton County courtroom for former attorney Alex Murdaugh, his only remaining son, Buster Murdaugh, could be seen wiping tears away from his eyes.

It appeared Alex Murdaugh mouthed the words “I love you,” to his son as he was placed in handcuffs.

Members of the jury kept their heads down and did not look in the direction of Alex Murdaugh.

After a six-week trial, Alex Murdaugh has been found guilty of murdering his wife and son. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders, sparing him the death penalty.

Sentencing has been arranged by Judge Clifton Newman for Friday at 9:30 am.

Take a look at scenes from today’s guilty verdict below:

Eric Bland, family attorney of the Murdaugh family’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, said Alex Murdaugh’s “life of lies and deceit ended today” after a jury found Murdaugh guilty of the murder of his wife and son.

“Through the verdict returned by the courageous jury in Colleton County, Alex Murdaugh will drink from the same cup of justice as every other citizen and other convicted murderers,” a statement from Bland read. “His power, prestige and money afforded him no special treatment.The people have spoken.Alex’s life of lies and deceit ended today.Maggie and Paul are vindicated.Justice prevails.”

Satterfield, who spent more than two decades with the Murdaugh family, died in 2018 in what was described as a “trip and fall accident,” according to Bland.

After Satterfield’s death, a $500,000 wrongful death claim was filed against Alex Murdaugh on behalf of Satterfield’s estate, Bland said. In 2021, Murdaugh agreed to a $4.3 million settlement with Satterfield’s family, according to Bland.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters thanked his team during a post-verdict news conference Thursday and responded to Alex Murdaugh’s conviction by thanking the jurors.

“We had no doubt that if we had a chance to present our case in a court of law, that they would see through the one last con that Alex Murdaugh was trying to pull. They did, and we’re so grateful for that,” Waters said at a press conference Thursday.

Murdaugh was found guilty in the murder of his wife and son. In response to the verdict, Waters said “justice was done today.”

“It doesn’t matter who your family is,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or people think you have. It doesn’t matter what you think, how prominent you are. If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina.”

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he hopes the murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh proves that no one is above the law.

“Today’s verdict proves that noone, no one — no matter who youare in society — is above the law,” he said, speaking in Walterboro after the verdict was read.

Wilson thanked his team and said the “justice system worked tonight” by giving a voice to Paul and Maggie Murdaugh who were killed in June 2021.

Wilson said their voices came through in the evidence and testimony presented during the trial.

Justin Bamberg, a lawyer representing the alleged financial crime victims of Alex Murdaugh, said his clients have told him that Murdaugh’s guilty verdict is “bittersweet” for them.

“They were happy to hear Alex admit, ‘Yes, I lied and yes I stole.’ But, that’s not enough,” Bamberg told CNN. “Every single person who’s been victimized by Alex has wanted one thing: Complete accountability.”

He said that “complete accountability” began with today’s jury verdict, and his clients “are happy about that.”

Alex Murdaugh has been convicted of killing his wife and son. Despite the lack of direct evidence, the prosecution spent weeks outlining how Murdaugh had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the murders.

The case hinged on circ*mstantial evidence: Proving Murdaugh was at the crime scene that night and that he lied to investigators, and painting him as a fraudster who killed his family in a desperate bid to distract the investigations into his actions.

Motive

A series of witnesses have accused Murdaugh of extensive financial wrongdoing at his namesake law firm and presented evidence that he lied to nearly everyone around him in a yearslong fraud. A “day of reckoning” was coming from several different angles, so he killed his family to distract and delay those financial investigations, the prosecution argued.

Two investigations in particular that could have exposed Murdaugh’s wrongdoing were coming to a head at the time of the killings.

For one, thechief financial officer of his law firm testifiedshe had confronted Murdaugh about missing funds on the morning of June 7, 2021, hours before the killings. After the murders, the internal investigation into the funds took a backseat.

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 Paul, crashed. A hearing in that civil case was scheduled for June 10, 2021, and had the potential to reveal his financial problems, prosecutors argued.

Means

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.

Waters noted this weapon went missing and Murdaugh could not account for it.

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

Opportunity

One of the prosecution’smost compelling pieces of evidence was recorded audiothat it said placed Murdaugh at the crime scene on the night of the murders. The video focuses on one of their dogs and appears to have been recorded at the kennels at their family home in Islandton, South Carolina. Three different voices can be heard in the background of the video, and family friends identified those voices as that of Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh.

A video was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just minutes before Paul and Maggie were shot dead, according to Lt. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Murdaugh’s presence there contradicted his original claim to investigators that he was not at the kennels that night, prosecutors said.

Murdaugh “told anyone who would listen he was never there,” the prosecution said in opening statements. “The evidence will show that he was there. He was at the murder scene with the two victims.”

Murdaugh later admitted to lying, testifying during the trial that he misled law enforcement because of addiction-induced paranoia.

Judge Clifton Newman thanked members of the jury for doing their civic duty and considering all the evidence. They have been released from service and the court is in recess.

Newman said the verdict the jury reached collectively was supported by the facts that were presented during the trial.

“Circ*mstantial evidence, directevidence, all of the evidencepointed to only one conclusion,and that’s the conclusion that you all reached. SoI applaud you all for, as a group, andas a unit and individually, evaluating the evidence andcoming to a proper conclusion asyou saw the law, as you saw the facts,” the judge said before dismissing the jurors.

Newman also thanked the alternate juror, who was required to stay at the court even though they were not part of the deliberations.

Murdaugh will reappear for sentencing Friday morning. Clifton told the jury they have no obligation to attend, but they are welcome to come back as a member of the gallery.

JudgeClifton Newman denied the defense’s motion for mistrial, saying that there has been an “overwhelming amount of testimony and evidence” presented to the jury.

He said this was a matter for the jury to determine and the court found that there “was sufficient evidence to find the defendant guilty if the evidence was believed by the jury.”

Alex Murdaugh was found guilty on two counts of murder in the killing of his wife and son. The jury deliberated for under three hours after hearing weeks of testimony by dozens of witnesses.

The jury in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh has found him guilty of murdering his wife and son, the grisliest and most severe of the allegations faced by the disgraced former South Carolina attorney.

Murdaugh, the 54-year-old scion of a prominent and powerful family of local lawyers and solicitors, was also found guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the killings of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh on June 7, 2021.

Prosecutors have indicated they will seek life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders, sparing him the death penalty.

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

The jury has reached a verdict in the double murder trial of former attorney Alex Murdaugh afterjust hours of deliberations.

Murdaugh pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the fatal shootings of his wife, Margaret“Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul at their family estate in Islandton, South Carolina, in June 2021.

The jury must be unanimous in its decision to either acquit Murdaugh or convict him.

The jury has been told they can deliberate until 10 p.m. ET tonight, a source familiar told CNN.

The jury has asked for monitors, the source said, likely to watch interviews and other important videos that were played in court.

As of now, there is no plan for the jury to deliberate over the weekend if they do not reach a verdict before then.

After receiving detailed instructions from the judge, the jury is now deliberating in the case against disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh.

The jury will consider two counts of murder and two weapons charges in thekillingsof Murdaugh’s wife and sonat the family’s estate, a property known as Moselle.

Earlier Thursday, Judge Clifton Newman removed a juror and replaced them with an alternate after a member of the public reached out to report improper conversations with parties not associated with the case.

The court is back after closing arguments and a lunch break.

The judge is now charging the jury before they start deliberations.

The prosecution and defense have wrapped up their closing arguments.

The court is in a break for an hour and 15 minutes.

Prosecutor John Meadors argued in court Thursday that Alex Murdaugh’s drug use doesn’t explain his lying to police and general behavior on the night of his wife and son’s killings.

Murdaugh has admitted he lied to investigators about whether he had been to his estate’s dog kennels shortly before their deaths, blaming “paranoid thinking” stemming from his opioid addiction.

Responding to the defense’s closing arguments, Meadors said that explanation doesn’t stand up to a test of common sense. He implored the jury to think about the video they watched of Murdaugh’s initial interview with law enforcement on the night of the killings.

“Tell me what he was like in that car, you’ve got the video,” the prosecutor said.

Meadors said the video showed Murdaugh appearing to understand questions, making timely answers and responding appropriately.

“Was he in his right mind? Of course he was,” the attorney said.

Meadors also argued that if Murdaugh had taken the number of pills he claimed to have taken, “he’d be dead.”

“You can’t take that many pills,” the attorney said. “That’s your common sense.”

Some context: Murdaugh said he sometimes tookmore than2,000 milligrams of oxycodoneper day in the months leading up to the deaths of his wife and son.

It is virtually unheard of for a doctor to prescribe a patient more than 100 milligrams of oxycodone a day, even for the most severe acute or chronic pain.

While 2,000 milligrams sounds astronomical in comparison, taking that much daily is medically possible, according to CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.

Prosecutor John Meadors said when Alex Murdaugh took the stand last week, he “corroborated that he’s a liar.”

“He corroborated the fact that he doesn’t tell the truth,” Meadors said.

Meadors said the defense is trying to place the blame on investigators instead of Murdaugh.

“You don’t lie and misremember being at the scene of a murder when you said you weren’t even there, or being at the scene where your family was brutally murdered,” Meadors said. “You don’t lie about that. That’s not a mistake.”

Murdaugh repeatedly lied to investigators about his whereabouts on the evening that his wife and son were killed. In last week’s testimony, he admitted to lying, saying he was at the family’s dog kennels on the night they were killed. He attributed the lies to a drug addiction.

Prosecutor John Meadors told the jury that the case comes down to credibility and believability, again arguing the significance of Alex Murdaugh lying to investigators about where he was the night of the murders.

Delivering a rebuttal for the state, he said jurors’ life experiences have prepared them to decide a verdict.

“This is a common sense case,” he said.

Meadors argued the defense is trying to take the jury away from the facts and credibility of the case. Pointing to a long family history of solicitors, Meadors said he found it offensive that the defense claimed law enforcement was inconsistent or that evidence was fabricated.

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

“Can you imagine not telling law enforcement? Lying that, ‘I was down there and I saw them, I was right there’ — why wouldn’t you tell them that?” he said.

The prosecution now has a chance to offer a response to the defense’s closing arguments in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin just finished addressing the jury.

Now, John Meadors will make final remarks on behalf of the state.

The defense has finished its closing argument in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin laid out his team’s side of the case to the jury for more than two hours, arguing that the circ*mstances presented by the state do not point to Murdaugh’s guilt in the killings of his wife and son in June 2021.

Griffin urged the jury to find Murdaugh not guilty.

“There are two words that justice demands in this case, and those two words are ‘not guilty,’” Griffin said.

“On behalf of Alex, on behalf of Buster, on behalf of Maggie, and on behalf of my friend Paul, I respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another,” he said.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin dismissed the prosecution’s argument that Alex Murdaugh could have shot his son at close range and then immediately picked up a new gun to shoot his wife in order to present a two-shooter scenario.

Griffin, leaving the lectern to act out the allegation, questioned how Murdaugh could’ve used a shotgun on his son, put down that weapon, and then picked up a .300 Blackout rifle to kill his wife.

He said prosecutor Creighton Waters had to go though “gymnastics” to present a staged two-shooter theory.

“Where in the world does that scenario reside other than in Mr. Waters’ mind? It doesn’t, it doesn’t,” Griffin said. “There’s no evidence to support anything like that. None, none.”

h defense addressed Alex Murdaugh lying about being at the family’s dog kennels on the night that his wife and son were killed, with attorney Jim Griffin attributing it to Murdaugh’s drug use.

“He lied because that’s what addicts do,” Griffin said. “Addicts lie.”

“He lied because he had a closet full of skeletons,” Griffin said, adding Murdaugh “didn’t want any more … scrutiny on him.”

Griffin also said the prosecution’s argument is “the most ironic thing in the world, because … their theory is that he slaughtered his wife and son to distract from an impending financial investigation, but he puts himself in the middle of a murder investigation, and he puts himself in the spotlight of a media firestorm?”

Griffin said Murdaugh lied because he was “in the throes of addiction,” but he didn’t lie about the murders.

In his closing arguments Thursday, defense attorney Jim Griffin played back testimony from Alex Murdaugh’s trial that he said illustrates the healthy relationship Murdaugh maintained with his wife and son, whom he is accused of killing.

Griffin argued that a loving relationship between Murdaugh, his wife Maggie and son Paul contradicts the prosecution’s argument that the father would gun down his family just to distract attention from a series of alleged financial crimes.

He said witnesses who truly knew the family “testified under oath how much Alex adored Maggie —that was, she was ‘his all.’ Some people described Paul as Alex’s best friend. His relationship with him was awesome. And that was unanimous.”

Griffin then played a video fromhousekeeper Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson’s testimony.

“He adored her,” Turrubiate-Simpson said of Alex’s relationship with Maggie. “He loved her. He adored her.”

Griffin also replayed testimony from Roger Dale Davis Jr., who twice-daily cleaned the Murdaugh’s dog kennels.

Davis acknowledged earlier comments he made referring to Alex and his wife as “lovey dovey,” and testified under cross-examination he had never seen Alex raise his voice at Maggie.

“Anything she wanted, or the boys wanted, he would try to get it,” Davis said of the Murdaugh patriarch.

“Why, why, why, would Alex Murdaugh, on June 7, execute his son Paul and his wife Maggie, who he adored and loved?” Griffin said after he played the clips.

Court is now in recess for a 10-minute break in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin has been presenting his closing argument in the case today.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin alleged investigators “started fabricating evidence” against Alex Murdaugh in the killings of his wife and son.

“Some of my best friends are law enforcement; I don’t make that claim lightly,” Griffin said in his closing arguments.

Murdaugh’s financial and drug issues made him an “easy target” for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as SLED, he said.

Griffin said investigators produced a report that said Murdaugh’s T-shirt had high-velocity blood spatter on it, but a previous HemaTrace test had not detected blood.

“They went from Mr. Bloody Shirt leading up to this trial to Mr. Clean during this trial,” he said, adding that no one asked about Murdaugh’s clothing until months after the killings.

The issue of Alex Murdaugh changing his clothes the night his wife and son were killed was “late to the dance,” Griffin added.

When the defense team asked about the blood allegations, Griffin told the jury that SLED agent David Owen said he never got email about the test that indicated no blood splatter.

“Did the dog eat his email?” Griffin asked. “How does the lead investigator in the case not get the lab report that says there’s no blood on the shirt?”

On Feb. 15, Owen testified 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.

“I had never seen that report,” responded Owen, who admitted he did not see it until November 2022, just months before the trial began.

Last week, Murdaugh said during his testimony that “there’s no way I had high-velocity blood spatter on me.”

“I have seen reports that said that,” Murdaugh added. “I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot.”

CNN’s Dakin Andone, Dianne Gallagher and Emma Tucker contributed reporting to this post.

In his closing arguments on Thursday, defense attorney Jim Griffin said investigators made missteps in the murder case against Alex Murdaugh.

“We believe that we’ve shown conclusively that (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) failed miserably in investigating this case,” Griffin said. “And had they done a competent job, Alex would have been excluded from that circle (of suspects) a year ago or two years ago.”

He said that hair was found in the hand of Alex Murdaugh’s wife Maggie on the night she was killed, but he has not seen any testing or conclusions about it.

Previously during cross examination, Griffin had questioned a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agent’s notes in her report that night which said Murdaugh’s wife appeared to have strands of brown hair in her hands and fingers and that Paul appeared to have scratches on his face.

Griffin said agents failed to properly take fingerprints, footwear and tire impressions, and DNA samples off of Maggie and their son Paul’s clothes — even though investigators took samples from Alex Murdaugh’s clothing.

He also alleged Maggie’s phone was not secured properly after investigators found it on the side of a road.

Closing arguments have resumed in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh.

Attorney Jim Griffin, one of Murdaugh’s attorneys, is presenting the defense’s closing argument.

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters presented for the state Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, Judge Clifton Newman announced that one juror would be removed and replaced by an alternate after a member of the public reached out to inform the court that the juror engaged in improper conversations with parties not associated with the case.

Newman said they interviewed the juror and interviewed two of the people who were believed to be involved. Both waffled on the nature and extent of the contact, said the judge before announcing that the juror would be removed.

“I’ve concluded that despite my order to not discuss the case with anyone, that intentionally or unintentionally, you’ve had some discussions with some folks not on the jury, which is going to require me to remove you from the jury,” he said.

He then thanked the juror for their service.

“You have been a — by all accounts — a great juror and smiled consistently and seemingly been attentive to the case and performed well,” he said.

“I certainly want to thank you for your service and not suggesting you intentionally did anything wrong, but in order to preserve the integrity of the process and in fairness to all the parties involved, we’re going to replace you with one of the other jurors,” the judge continued.

Newman then asked the juror if she had left anything in the jury room, and she said “a dozen eggs and my purse,” to which the judge replied, “say that again, a dozen eggs?” leading to a burst of laughter in the courtroom.

State prosecutors said in closing arguments ofAlex Murdaugh’s murder trialWednesday that he was the only person who had the motive, means and opportunity to kill his wife and son in June 2021 – and that his lies afterward betrayed him.

“People lie because they know they did something wrong. That’s why he lied, ladies and gentlemen,” prosecutor Creighton Waters said.

The prosecution described the weeks and months leading up to the murders of Alex Murdaugh’s wife and son as a “gathering storm” which came to head on the night of the killings.

In the prosecution’s telling, the motive was Murdaugh’s attempt to distract and delay investigations into his growing financial problems. The means were two family-owned weapons, Waters argued. And the opportunity was Murdaugh’s presence at the crime scene, as revealed in a pivotal video, minutes before the murders.

“This defendant… has fooled everyone, everyone, everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters told the jury. “Everyone who thought they knew who he was, he’s fooled them all. He fooled Maggie and Paul too, and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t let him fool you, too.”

How the shootings played out: Waters described what he said was the scene when Paul and Maggie were fatally shot. He said after Paul was hit, Maggie was shot twice at close range when she ran over to him. She is then shot a third time where the bullet goes through the left side of her head, Waters said. Maggie is then shot for a fourth time in the back of the head, he said.

An alibi: Waters argued to the jury that Alex Murdaugh was “manufacturing an alibi” by calling and texting his wife and son, among others, after they were killed. He said any “reasonable person” would remember the last conversation they had with their loved one if they were killed, but argued that Murdaugh “lies convincingly and easily and he can do it as a drop of a hat.”

The prosecutor also noted the kinds of questions Murdaugh asked law enforcement after the murders. He said one of the first things Murdaugh did was point out to police how many phone calls he made that night.

The big picture: The prosecution’s focus on Murdaugh’s financial motive and lies underscores thelack of any direct evidence, such as a murder weapon, bloody clothing or eyewitnesses, that connects Murdaugh to the killings. Instead, they have hinged their case on circ*mstantial evidence,including the consequential video placing Murdaugh at the crime scene that night.

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02:32 - Source: cnn

Disgraced South Carolina attorneyAlex Murdaughis on trial for murder in connection to the killing of his wife and son. The defense is set to present its closing argument today.

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

Here are the key people to know as the trial comes to a close:

The prosecution:

The defense:

For 87 years,the Murdaugh family namecame to represent a legal dynasty in coastal South Carolina, where three successive generations controlled the local prosecutor’s office.

But that has all fallen apart in recent years. Now, among other legal and financial problems, Alex Murdaugh is on trial after being accused of killing his wife and son.

Here’s a look at the timeline:

June 2021

September 2021

July 2022

You can read the full timeline — with everything we know about Murdaugh’s other legal and financial challenges —here.