A US jury has found disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and son on their sprawling country estate.
The jury took less than three hours to reach a unanimous verdict after an almost six-week trial.
The case attracted huge interest in the US and overseas, with revelations Murdaugh embezzled millions of dollars from clients and was fuelling an extreme addiction to opioids.
The family is also associated with several other deaths in recent years.
Murdaugh admitted lying to police and clients, but denied killing his wife Maggie and son Paul.
About 30 members of the public seated in the courtroom were largely quiet as the verdict was read, and no audible gasps were heard. A court officer had earlier warned them to be quiet.
Murdaugh's surviving son sat about four rows behind his father and defence team, frequently resting his face in the palm of his left hand before and while the verdict was read.
Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison without parole. His sentencing hearing is set for Friday, local time.
Fate was sealed by son's mobile phone video
Jurors heard from more than 75 witnesses and sifted through nearly 800 pieces of evidence.
The court heard about betrayed friends and clients, Murdaugh's failed attempt to stage his own death in an insurance fraud scheme, a fatal boat crash in which his son was implicated, the housekeeper who died in a fall in the Murdaugh home, the grisly scene of the killings and Bubba, the chicken-snatching dog.
In the end, Murdaugh's fate appeared sealed by mobile-phone video taken by his son, who he called "Little Detective" for his knack for finding bottles of painkillers in his father's belongings after the lawyer had sworn off the pills.
Testimony culminated in Murdaugh's appearance on the witness stand, when he admitted stealing from clients and lying to investigators about being at the dog kennels where the shootings took place, but steadfastly maintained his innocence on the murder charges.
"I did not kill Maggie, and I did not kill Paul. I would never hurt Maggie, and I would never hurt Paul — ever — under any circumstances," Murdaugh said.
His 52-year-old wife was shot four or five times with a rifle and their 22-year-old son was shot twice with a shotgun at the kennels near at their rural Colleton County home on June 7, 2021.
Prosecutors did not find the weapons used to kill the Murdaughs, or other direct evidence like confessions or blood spatter.
But they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, led by the video locked on Paul Murdaugh's mobile phone for more than a year — video shot minutes before the killings that witnesses testified captured the voices of all three Murdaughs.
Lies about kennels
Murdaugh had told police repeatedly after the killings that he was not at the kennels and was instead napping before he went to visit his ailing mother that night.
He called 911, saying he had discovered the bodies when he returned home.
But in his testimony Murdaugh admitted joining Maggie and Paul at the kennels, where he said he took a chicken away from a rowdy yellow labrador named Bubba — whose name Murdaugh can be heard saying on the video — before heading back to the house shortly ahead of the fatal shootings.
Murdaugh lied about being at the kennels for 20 months before taking the stand on the 23rd day of his trial.
He blamed his decades-long addiction to opioids for making him paranoid, creating a distrust of police.
He said that once he went down that path, he felt trapped in the lie.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Once I told a lie — I told my family — I had to keep lying," he testified.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters grilled Murdaugh about what he repeatedly called the lawyer's "new story" of what happened at the kennels, walking him moment by moment through the timeline and assailing his "fuzzy" memory of certain details, like his last words to his wife and son.
A state agent also testified that markings on spent cartridges found around Maggie Murdaugh's body matched markings on fired cartridges at a shooting range elsewhere on the property, though the defence called that kind of matching an inexact science.
Murdaugh family dominated local legal scene
Murdaugh's father, grandfather and great-grandfather were the area's elected prosecutors for more than 80 years and his family law firm grew to dozens of lawyers by suing railroads, corporations and other big businesses.
Before the now-disbarred attorney was charged with murder, he was in jail awaiting trial on about 100 other charges ranging from insurance fraud to tax evasion.
Prosecutors told jurors that Murdaugh was afraid all of his misdeeds were about to be discovered, so he killed his wife and son to gain sympathy to buy time to cover his tracks.
His lawyers will almost certainly appeal the conviction based on the judge allowing evidence of the financial crimes, which they contend were unrelated to the killings and were used by prosecutors to smear Murdaugh's reputation.
AP/ABC
