COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Jurors in Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial will get to see for themselves the rural hunting estate where his wife and son were killed,…
In some cases, however, crime scene visits can be useful to give jurors a sense of distance or other physical features that don’t come across in photos and other evidence presented in court, said Steven Benjamin, a Richmond, Virginia, defense attorney who is not involved in the Murdaugh case.
The distance between the kennels where the bodies were found and the home where Murdaugh says he had been napping has been a key component of the trial. Bill Nettles, a criminal defense lawyer and former South Carolina U.S. attorney who is not involved in the case, said the visit could give jurors a “sense of scale” to make more-informed decisions about the timeline and other questions — such as whether Murdaugh could have heard the gunshots across the grounds — that have arisen during the trial.
The building had been sealed off and left largely untouched — except for the removal of victims’ bodies and some personal items — before jurors visited last year and retraced the steps Cruz took on Feb. 14, 2018. Inside, they saw bullet holes in walls and shards of glass from windows shattered by gunfire. Large pools of dried blood still stained classroom floors.
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