Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh denied killing his wife and son but admitted lying about when he last saw them.
Prosecutors spent four weeks of the trial painting Murdaugh as a liar who stole money from clients and decided to kill his wife and son because he wanted sympathy to buy time to cover up his financial crimes that were about to be discovered. They have detailed what they called lie after lie, saying Murdaugh reacts violently when the truth is about to emerge, like trying to arrange his own death after his law firm fired him three months after the killings.
The once-prominent attorney had told police that he was napping and did not go to the kennels before leaving the house to visit his ailing mother in another town. But several witnesses testified that they believed they heard Murdaugh’s voice along with his son and wife on cellphone video taken at the kennels about five minutes before the shootings. It took investigators more than a year to hack into Paul Murdaugh’s iPhone and find the video.
He said that, after returning home from visiting his mother, neither his wife nor his son was in the house. After several minutes, Murdaugh said, he drove his SUV to the kennels where he said he last saw them. Murdaugh said he never saw a blue rain jacket that prosecutors found at his mother’s home with gunshot residue on the lining. He said his mother’s caretaker was mistaken when she said he came by unexpectedly at 6:30 a.m. acting oddly.
Defence attorneys told the judge that Murdaugh might not have testified at all if prosecutors hadn’t been allowed to introduce evidence of financial crimes. Murdaugh is charged with about 100 other crimes, ranging from stealing from clients to tax evasion. He is being held without bail on those charges, so even if he is found not guilty of the killings, he will not walk out of court a free man. If convicted of most or all of those financial crimes, Murdaugh would likely spend decades in prison.Article content
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