When the prosecution initially wrapped up its case some 20 days into the trial of Alex Murdaugh for the double-murder of his wife Maggie and his son Paul, the jury was confronted with a myriad of data trying to establish the events of the night of 7 June 2021.
The jury in the case found Murdaugh guilty of the murders when they returned their verdict on 2 March.
Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, were brutally murdered at the family home in Moselle, South Carolina. Paul was shot twice with a shotgun as he stood in the feed room of the kennels, with the second bullet blowing his brain from its skull. Maggie was shot four to five times with an AR-15-style rifle a few yards from her son, as she backed into an ATV parked under a hangar.
Much of the data shown to the jury at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro related to the cell phones of the victims and defendant, as well as data extracted from Mr Murdaugh’s SUV.
He drove from the property to visit his parents’ house immediately after the murders are believed to have taken place and was gone for just under an hour.
Thankfully for the jury, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Agent Peter Rudofski took to the stand and presented a 43-page report compiling GPS points, phone calls, text messages, and orientation data, detailing the movements of Alex, Maggie and Paul on that terrible night.
The minute-by-minute timeline showed a number of inconsistencies in Mr Murdaugh’s account of that night.
This included the time he left work; how long he and Paul rode around the property; when Maggie arrived home; when they had dinner; and whether there was any time for him to have had a nap as he claimed.
Mr Murdaugh’s version of events had already been upended by the testimony of more than half a dozen close friends and family identifying his voice on the video shot by Paul at the kennels, minutes before the murders.
The defendant had claimed to have not been down to the kennels at all that night until the discovery of the bodies.
He was subsequently forced to change his entire story when he testified for the defence and admit to having lied to investigators, family, and friends from that night onwards.
Mr Murdaugh was then caught out lying about his reasons for lying from his first interview onwards, as those reasons were not yet in play when he initially told the lie to the first responding officer some two and half hours earlier.
Here’s the condensed timeline of the night of the murders as compiled by Agent Rudofski:
