Alex Murdaugh’s longtime friend has been barred from testifying about his botched hitman plot – a bizarre incident that dramatically unravelled and culminated in the disgraced attorney entering rehab and being hit with another string of charges.
Judge Clifton Newman ruled on Thursday that Chris Wilson cannot testify about the September 2021 incident, which has been dubbed “the side of the road”, in Mr Murdaugh’s trial for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Mr Wilson, an attorney who has known Mr Murdaugh for 40 years, gave emotional testimony in Colleton County Courthouse where he described learning that his “best friend” had stolen millions of dollars from clients at his law firm PMPED – and $192,000 from Mr Wilson himself.
Separate from the murder trial, Mr Murdaugh is now facing around 100 charges from multiple indictments for stealing almost $8.5m from clients dating back to 2011. The attorney, who has since been disbarred, represented the clients in wrongful death lawsuits before allegedly pocketing the settlement money for himself.
On 3 September 2021 – three months on from the double murders on 7 June – he was confronted by PMPED partners about the stolen money and forced to resign.
That day, Mr Wilson testified that the PMPED partners had contacted him and told him what Mr Murdaugh had done.
The next day – on 4 September – Mr Wilson said he confronted his “best friend” about the accusations, who then broke down in tears and confessed to stealing money and revealed he was addicted to opioids.
When asked how Mr Murdaugh confessed to him, he said: “I’ve s*** you up. I’m sorry. I s*** you up. I s*** a lot of people up.”
Hours after their conversation, Mr Murdaugh was shot in a botched hitman plot.
Mr Murdaugh’s attorney Jim Griffin raised an objection to Mr Wilson testifying about the Labor Day shooting.
In the absence of the jury, the court heard brief testimony about the incident before Judge Newman sustained the objection, ruling that it would be hearsay because Mr Wilson learned about it from a third party.
The “side of the road” incident marked one of the most bizarre twists in the sprawling scandal which has enveloped the disgraced heir to a prominent South Carolina legal dynasty over the past 20 months.
It unfolded on 4 September 2021 – almost exactly three months on from the murders – when Mr Murdaugh was suddenly shot on the side of a road in Hampton County.
He survived and called 911, claiming he was ambushed in a drive-by shooting while he was changing a tire on his vehicle.
He was taken to hospital where he was treated for what police called a “superficial gunshot wound to the head”.
But, Mr Murdaugh’s story about the incident quickly unravelled.
One day after the shooting, Mr Murdaugh entered rehab for a 20-year opioid addiction and announced he had resigned from his law firm PMPED.
One week later on 13 September, he then confessed to law enforcement that he had orchestrated the whole saga, paying an alleged hitman to shoot and kill him in an assisted suicide plot so that his surviving son Buster could get a $10m life insurance windfall.
He told investigators that he had paid Curtis “Eddie” Smith – a former law firm client, distant cousin and allegedly his drug dealer – to carry out the shooting.
Both he and Mr Smith were arrested and charged over the incident.
Mr Smith was later also charged in connection to Mr Murdaugh’s financial fraud and is accused of helping him with a drug and $2.4m money laundering ring.
He is now awaiting trial on charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery of a highly aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.
Mr Smith is expected to be called as a witness for the prosecution in the murder case.
Prior to the trial, Mr Murdaugh’s attorneys have sought to raise questions as to whether Mr Smith may have some involvement in Maggie and Paul’s murders.
In October, the defence claimed that Mr Smith failed a lie detector test when asked about their murders.
While Mr Wilson was barred from telling jurors about the hitman plot he gave detailed testimony about Mr Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes as well as his demeanour in the aftermath of the murders.
The longtime friend of the accused killer had testified in the absence of the jury last week before the judge ruled the financial fraud evidence could be heard.
Mr Wilson told the court that he and Mr Murdaugh first met in high school and went on to live together when they attended the same law school, describing him as his “best friend” who he had known for four decades.
The two families were also extremely close and celebrated Memorial Day weekend together, with jurors shown footage of the group together singing Happy Birthday to Mr Murdaugh.
Professionally, the two men also had a close workign relationship, with Mr Wilson telling the court about one particular personal injury case they worked on together in January 2021.
In total, the clients won $5.5m from two verdicts in the case, with Mr Murdaugh’s firm making a $792,000 cut.
Mr Wilson testified how his friend asked him to make the $792,000 check payable directly to him instead of PMPED so that he could structure them through an annuity.
Mr Murdaugh told him that his law firm had already agreed to this happening, he said.
Because he trusted his friend, Mr Wilson testified that it didn’t raise any suspicions and so he did as he asked.
“I had known him for 30-plus years and didn’t have any reason not to trust him,” he said.
However, in July 2021 – one month on from the murders – Mr Wilson said that his friend got in touch saying he had been unable to structure the fees as planned and needed to pay the money back and have it paid directly to PMPED.
At that time, PMPED had discovered that the $792,000 was missing and had asked Mr Murdaugh about it.
Mr Murdaugh only had $600,000 to pay it back, with Mr Wilson saying that he covered the additional $192,000, on the basis that Mr Murdaugh would pay him back.
One month later, he said he still hadn’t received the money but did not want to push the issue because he worried that Mr Murdaugh “was going to kill himself”.
He had Mr Murdaugh sign a handwritten note pledging to pay him the money back so that he would be able to make a claim against his estate if he died.
When he finally learned his friend had been scamming him and many others in September, he said he was “floored” and felt “betrayed”.
Mr Wilson told the court that he had spoken with Mr Murdaugh on the night of Maggie and Paul’s murders and was among the friends and family members who had rushed to the Murdaugh home when he had heard the news.
Choking up with emotion, he testified that Mr Murdaugh called him at 9.11pm on the night of 7 June. He said he asked Mr Murdaugh if he could call him back in a bit as he was busy.
Mr Murdaugh seemed normal at the time, he said.
Call records show Mr Wilson called him back at 9.20pm and Mr Murdaugh said he was just getting to his mother’s house.
At 9.52pm, Mr Murdaugh sent him a text saying: “Call me if you up”.
Mr Wilson said he called him right away. The first time there was no answer so he called a second time and Mr Murdaugh answered and they had a brief chat about Mr Murdaugh’s mother.
Mr Wilson then broke down in tears as he revealed how he found out about Maggie and Paul’s murders a short time later.
He said it was around 11pm and he was asleep but noticed his phone buzzing.
He wasn’t paying attention to his phone when his wife came in the room “hysterical” saying “you’ve got to wake up, you’ve got to wake up”.
They tried to call their daughter – who were very close to both Paul and Buster.
“I jumped in a car – grabbed some clothes and went straight to Moselle,” he said.
He described Mr Murdaugh that night and in the aftermath of the murders as “destroyed” by what had happened.
During his testimony, Mr Murdaugh wept.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Murdaugh shot dead Maggie and Paul at the dog kennels on the family’s sprawling 1,700-acre estate at around 8.50pm.
Mr Murdaugh claims he was asleep at the house and woke up and went to visit his mother. When he returned, he said he found his wife and son’s bodies.
The brutal double murders brought to light a series of scandals surrounding Mr Murdaugh including unexplained deaths, the multi-million-dollar fraud scheme and the botched hitman plot.
At the time of the murders, Paul was awaiting trial over the death of Mallory Beach – a 19-year-old woman who died in a 2019 crash in the Murdaugh family boat.
Paul was allegedly drunk driving the boat at the time and crashed it, throwing Beach overboard. Her body washed ashore a week later. Paul was charged with multiple felonies over the boat wreck and was facing 25 years in prison at the time of his murder.
The Beach family sued Mr Murdaugh and a lawsuit hearing was scheduled for the week of the murders. It was postponed following Maggie and Paul’s murders.
Days on from the shootings, an investigtion was then reopened into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, who was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County.
The openly gay teenager, 19, 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 was also reopened into another mystery death connected to the Murdaugh family – that of the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield.
She died in 2018 in a mystery trip and fall accident at the family home. Mr Murdaugh then allegedly stole around $4m in a wrongful death settlement from her sons.
Mr Murdaugh, 54, is facing life in prison for the murders of his wife and son. He has pleaded not guilty.
