The defence has rested its case in Alex Murdaugh’s high-profile trial for the double murder of his wife Maggie and son Paul, after hearing emotional testimony from the accused killer’s younger brother.
The disgraced attorney’s legal team wrapped up its case on Monday afternoon, after spending a week calling 14 witnesses to the stand in an effort to convince jurors of his innocence in the 7 June 2021 shootings.
Now, the prosecution will call around five more witnesses in its rebuttal case, before jurors will be taken on a tour of the crime scene.
Judge Clifton Newman agreed on Monday to the defence’s request of a jury visit to the Murdaugh family’s sprawling 1,700-acre Moselle estate so that the panel can see themselves the dog kennels and the feed room where the victims were brutally gunned down 20 months ago.
Closing arguments could get underway as soon as Wednesday, with Mr Murdaugh potentially learning his fate by the end of the week.
The final defence witness was Mr Murdaugh’s younger brother John Marvin Murdaugh who took the stand in Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, and described his brother’s “great relationship” with his wife and son, criticised key components of the investigation and insisted that he still does not know who killed his nephew and sister-in-law.
In emotional testimony, John Marvin, the youngest of the Murdaugh siblings, broke down in tears at one point as he revealed how he cleaned up “what was left of Paul” the morning after the gruesome murders.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life,” he said.
John Marvin said he had gone down to the dog kennels on the family’s sprawling Moselle estate on 8 June 2021 – the morning after the murders – and came across a horrific scene.
“I just felt like I needed to go down, I needed to see for myself what had gone on and just kind of take it in. Maybe for some type of understanding,” he said.
The uncle – who told jurors he had always had a “very special relationship” with the 22-year-old victim – wept as he described seeing Paul’s blood, brain matter and skull fragments in the feed room of the kennels.
By then – just hours on from the murders – SLED had already released the scene back to the Murdaugh family.
“It had not been cleaned up. I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull... I don’t know what I was seeing,” he said.
“For some reason I thought for Paul I needed to clean it up. I felt like it was the right thing to do. I felt like I owed him.”
Sobbing, he said he set to work cleaning up “what was left of Paul” while he cried “uncontrollably”.
“I promise you no mother, father, aunt or uncle should ever have to see and do what I did that day. I’m not blaming anybody. But I was just so overwhelmed,” he said.
John Marvin testified that – as he cleaned up what was left of Paul – he made him a promise to get him justice.
“It was difficult. It was nearly impossible,” he said.
“In my mind and out loud I told Paul I loved him and I promised him that I would find out who did this to him.”
When asked if he had found out for his nephew, he replied: “I have not.”
Besides the lack of clean-up of the crime scene, John Marvin also gave other testimony critical of the investigation including what he described as a “baffling” statement released by law enforcement, an apparent lack of urgency to locate Maggie’s cellphone and evidence law enforcement shared with him that turned out to be inaccurate.
His testimony brought to a close the defence’s week-long case, where it has sought to present Mr Murdaugh as a loving father and son who could never have killed his child and wife.
Instead, the legal team headed by Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin has picked holes in the prosecution’s case and cast doubts on the validity of the investigation, while pushing a theory that two shooters may have carried out the attack.
In a dramatic two days in court last week, Mr Murdaugh took the witness stand in his own case and confessed to lying about his alibi on the night of the murders.
For the past 20 months, the 54-year-old has denied ever being at the dog kennels with his wife and son on the night of 7 June 2021, lying to law enforcement, his family and friends about the last time he ever saw them alive.
In a bombshell moment, he admitted to lying saying he was “paranoid” in part because of a distrust of SLED and because he was encouraged by his lawyer friends not to speak without an attorney present.
“On June 7, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. And I lied about being down there. And I’m so sorry that I did,” he said, his eyes brimming up with tears.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave. Once I told the lie, and I told my family, I had to keep lying,” he testified.
This confession comes after jurors saw a damning cellphone video taken by Paul at the dog kennels just minutes before the murders – with multiple witnesses identifying Mr Murdaugh’s voice in the footage.
He also confessed to stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and to orchestrating the bizarre September 2021 botched hitman plot – but continued to deny killing his wife and son.
But, during a dramatic cross-examination, prosecutor Creighton Waters appeared to catch Mr Murdaugh in another lie.
He revealed evidence that Mr Murdaugh had lied about his alibi from the moment that the first officer arrived on the scene, appearing to pour cold water on the reason the accused killer gave for lying.
“But you still told the same lie,” Mr Waters confronted him. “And all those reasons you just gave this jury about the most important part of your testimony was a lie, too. Isn’t that true, Mr Murdaugh?”
Mr Murdaugh responded: “I disagree with that.”
In the defence’s case, jurors have also heard from Mr Murdaugh’s surviving son Buster, 26, who said that his father had been “destroyed” and “heartbroken” after the murders.
Expert witnesses have also been used to contradict the expert witnesses for the prosecution.
One crime scene expert claimed Maggie’s shooter was 5’2” tall – not 6’4” like Mr Murdaugh – while a forensic pathologist and crime scene analyst both testified that Paul was shot in the head at point blank range, a shooting that would have left the perpetrator covered in his blood.
The defence case came after jurors heard four weeks of dramatic testimony from the prosecution, covering a trove of circumstantial evidence, including cellphone and car data and numerous apparent holes in his alibi for the time for the murders.
Prosecutors claim Mr Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from his string of alleged financial crimes – at a time when his multi-million-dollar fraud scheme was on the brink of being exposed.
Mr Murdaugh is facing life in prison for the murders of Maggie and Paul and has pleaded not guilty.
Beyond the murders, the brutal double murders brought to light a series of scandals surrounding Mr Murdaugh including unexplained deaths, a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme and a botched hitman plot.
