Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, on trial for the brutal 2021 murders of his wife and son, admitted on the witness stand that he lied to police on the night of the murders but denied killing his family.
Summary
Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, on trial for the brutal 2021 murders of his wife and son, admitted on the witness stand that he lied to police on the night of the murders but denied killing his family.
- Prosecutors aggressively cross-examined the now-disbarred trial attorney for hours. Murdaugh offered a series of evasive answers and made a concerted attempt to persuade jurors to believe in his innocence.
- Murdaugh confessed on the stand on Thusday that he was in fact at the kennels on the Murdaugh family compound shortly before his wife Maggie and son Paul were shot to death there.
- Murdaugh had long claimed to be napping at the time, but earlier in the trial prosecutors showed a video taken by his son about five minutes before his death where Murdaugh’s voice could be heard in the background.
- Prosecutors also hammered Murdaugh on his history of lying to cover up his financial crimes, his admitted drug addiction and the gory details of his wife and son’s murders. Murdaugh completed his testimony on Friday after about six hours, and the trial adjourned until Monday.
- The Washington Post’s explainer on the trial summarizes Alex Murdaugh’s background and family history along with other key aspects of importance in the trial. The Post also assesses the prosecutors’ strategy and what is known so far about the night of June 7, 2021.
- According to CNN, the key moments of Murdaugh’s testimony included when he confirmed he lied to law enforcement, when he admitted that “I took money that was not mine,” the moment he cried on the stand when discussing the murders, and when he detailed the extent of his addiction to oxycodone.
- The New York Times’ Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs wrote the prosecutor “hammered” Murdaugh during an “intense cross examination” that focused on where he was on the night of the murders. Prosecutors made the case that Murdaugh’s alternative theory “is difficult to reconcile with the timeline of the murders.”
- According to the Wall Steet Journal, Murdaugh and his attorneys made a “last-minute decision” for him to testify, in part because as “[a] trial attorney with more than 25 years experience, Mr. Murdaugh was known in South Carolina legal circles for his ability to win people over.”
- The New York Post covered the testimony of a former law partner of Murdaugh, Mark Ball. Ball told the court about the “shoddy job” the police did processing the murder scene. According to Ball, police even left behind a piece of Paul Murdaugh’s skull “about the size of a baseball” in the dog kennel.
- Fox News’ “Top 5 testimony highlights” included when Murdaugh admitted he lied to investigators, when his only surviving son Buster took the stand and defended his father, and when Murdaugh’s attorney, Democratic state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, pointed a gun at the prosecution.
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
