Alex Murdaugh broke down in tears as police bodycam footage was played at his trial – while the first police officer on the scene of the grisly murders told the court that the disgraced legal scion appeared to have “no tears” in his eyes at the time of the killings.
Bodycam footage was played in Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, on Thursday morning as the high-profile double murder trial got underway.
Colleton County Sheriff’s Office Sgt Daniel Greene was the first witness to take the stand, where he described how he was the first law enforcement officer to respond to the scene of the grisly murders of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22.
Sgt Greene told the court that Mr Murdaugh seemed “upset” and repeatedly asked if his wife and son were dead but did not appear to have any physical tears in his eyes.
“Did you ever see any physical tears?” the prosecutor asked.
“I did not,” the officer said.
In the video from Sgt Greene’s bodyworn camera, Mr Murdaugh sounds emotional as he speaks to the officer, telling him Maggie and Paul’s details and volunteering his alibi that he was visiting his mother at the time.
He is heard asking “they’re not dead, are they?” to which the officer says he believes they are.
As the footage was played in court, Mr Murdaugh was seen sobbing and wiping his eyes.
The 54-year-old heir to a prominent legal dynasty is accused of gunning down wife Maggie and their son Paul on the grounds of the sprawling family estate in Islandton on 7 June 2021.
Two different weapons were used to kill the victims, with Maggie shot five times with an automatic rifle and Paul shot twice – once in the head and once in the chest – with a shotgun.
Mr Murdaugh was arrested in July 2022 and charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintains that the person or persons responsible for killing his wife and son is still at large.
Sgt Greene testified that he arrived to find Mr Murdaugh on the scene with a shotgun, which he told the officer he had collected from the house after finding his wife and son’s bodies.
He seized the firearm from Mr Murdaugh and found the bodies of the two victims. He found no signs of life from the victims and noticed “brain matter,” he said.
Pools of blood also surrounded each victim, he said.
As soon as he arrived on the scene, the officer said that Mr Murdaugh “immediately” proceeded to tell him about a 2019 fatal boat crash involving his son Paul.
“This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck,” Mr Murdaugh is heard saying in the bodycam footage.
At the time of Paul’s death, he was awaiting trial over the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach who died in a 2019 boat crash where Paul was allegedly drunk behind the wheel.
He was charged with boating under the influence and faced up to 25 years in prison but was killed before his trial.
Mr Murdaugh instantly suggests the shootings are connected to that, saying: “I know that’s what this is.”
The second witness – Corporal Chad McDowell of Colleton County Sheriff’s Department – also testified about Mr Murdaugh’s behaviour when he arrived on the scene of the murders.
Corp McDowell’s bodycam footage revealed that when he arrived, Mr Murdaugh cordially greeted him: “How you doing?”
However, under cross-examination, the officer said that Mr Murdaugh did appear to be distraught and confirmed that he saw no blood on the clothes he was wearing.
Much of the cross-examination of both witnesses saw attorney Dick Harpootlian try to pick holes in the way evidence was preserved at the crime scene.
He questioned Sgt Greene about whether he preserved and took photos of tyre tracks and footprints spotted behind a trailer.
The officer confirmed he had not taken photos and that he and other responders did not cover their feet while standing in the crime scene. However he testified that they were all operating in accordance with standard procedure.
Corp McDowell, meanwhile, testified that the crime scene was taped off, he marked shell casings on the ground and that – to the best of his knowledge – he did not disturb anything at the scene. He told the court that intentionally leaped, rather than stepped, out of the feed room to avoid disturbing any evidence.
Prior to the trial, Mr Murdaugh’s dramatic 911 call was released where he cried and sobbed on the phone.
He said he’d returned home from visiting his elderly mother to find his wife and son dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
In the audio, Mr Murdaugh is heard sobbing as he tells the dispatcher “it’s bad” and “my wife and child have been shot badly”.
For 13 months, no arrests were made in their murders, no suspects were named and no charges were brought over their killings until Mr Murdaugh was finally charged in July 2022.
Prosecutors say that Mr Murdaugh killed his wife and son in an attempt to distract from the other crimes and scandals swirling around him.
Opening arguments kicked off the trial on 25 January, with both the prosecution and the defence going into graphic detail about the horrific injuries suffered by the two victims.
Mr Murdaugh was seen breaking down in tears at one point as his attorney Dick Harpootlian described the fatal shot which killed his son Paul, saying it “exploded his brain, like a watermelon”.
Mr Murdaugh then arrived home and found his son’s brains by his feet, he said.
Mr Harpootlian insisted Mr Murdaugh is an innocent man, saying that jurors will see a Snapchat of him and Paul happily spending father-and-son time together less than two hours before the murders.
He also argued that cellphone records from that night are “incomplete” and that Maggie’s phone was thrown on the side of a road halfa mile from the family estate at the same time that Mr Murdaugh was at the property.
The suspect would “have to be Houdini to be in both places”, he said.
However, the prosecution told jurors that cellphone records and a Snapchat video taken by Paul minutes before he died are “critical” in proving Mr Murdaugh’s guilt.
Attorney Creighton Waters gave a timeline for the murders, saying that Paul was shot at the dog kennels first at 8.50pm and Maggie minutes later.
Cellphone records allegedly place Mr Murdaugh at the dog kennels minutes earlier – when the suspect had “told everyone he was never there”.
Mr Waters also described a video Paul made at the kennels minutes before his murder as he was filming a dog to send to a friend. According to the prosecution, three voices – Paul, Maggie and Mr Murdaugh – can be heard.
Other evidence the prosecution promised to show jurors included gunshot residue found in both Mr Murdaugh’s car, on him and on a raincoat that he allegedly left at his parents’ home a week after the murders.
More bombshell details are expected to emerge throughout the trial, which is slated to last at least three weeks.
Besides the murder case, Mr Murdaugh is facing at least 100 other criminal charges over a string of allegations.
Three months on from the murders – on 4 September 2021 – Mr Murdaugh allegedly conspired to pay a hitman to shoot him dead so that Buster would inherit a $10m life insurance windfall.
The now-disbarred attorney initially claimed he was ambushed in a drive-by shooting while changing a tyre on his vehicle, but his story quickly unravelled and he confessed to orchestrating the plot.
Mr Murdaugh and his alleged co-conspirator Curtis Smith were arrested and charged over the incident.
One day before the shooting, Mr Murdaugh had been confronted by his law firm PMPED for allegedly stealing millions of dollars from clients.
He is now charged with more than 100 counts from multiple indictments alleging he stole nearly $8.5m from clients at his law firm in fraud schemes going back a decade.
The attorney, who has since been disbarred, allegedly represented the clients in wrongful death settlements before pocketing the money for himself.
Alleged victims include family members of Gloria Satterfield family, the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper who died in a mysterious trip and fall accident at the family home in 2018.
At the time, her death was regarded as an accidental fall – though the investigation was reopened after Maggie and Paul’s murders.
The housekeeper is one of a series of other mystery deaths surrounding the Murdaughs.
Stephen Smith, 19, was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County, South Carolina. The openly gay teenager had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But the victim’s family have long doubted this version of events, with the Murdaugh name cropping up in several police tips and community rumours.
An investigation has also been reopened into his death.
At the time of Paul’s death, he was also awaiting trial over the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach who died in a 2019 boat crash where Paul was allegedly drink driving behind the wheel. He was charged with boating under the influence and faced up to 25 years in prison but was killed before his trial.
The Murdaugh family reached a wrongful death settlement with the Beach family earlier in January.
Mr Murdaugh is also facing several other civil suits.
