There are murder trials.
And then there was the Alex Murdaugh murder trial, a southern drama starring an opioid addict accused of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, also known in a low country South Carolina accent as “Pau Pau” who was always in a pack of trouble.
If you haven’t heard about it, you most probably live in a swamp.
This darkly delicious whodunit simmering with all the damp heat of the tulgey south ending with a guilty verdict at 6:05 pm Thursday, also starred “Buster” and “Miss Maggie” and their late housekeeper and lotsa dogs and disappearing guns and people with double first names and booze and boats and people getting lied to and slapped around amid the legacy of a 200-year-old southern family now in the dumpster.
The power and perfidy of the Murdaugh clan, chronicled in a series on Netflix, led up to a trial based primarily on circumstantial evidence, a speed-of-light guilty verdict, and a lifetime prison sentence for two murders most foul.
Anyway, the Murdaugh trial reminded me of covering my very first murder trial and how unpredictable evidence can be!
Back in 1971, two Chicago mob guys, Anthony “Tony’ Spilotro and Mario DeStefano went on trial at the Civic Center (now the Daley Center), for the 1963 grisly murder of loan shark Leo Foreman.
(The Civic Center also housed a press room for the city’s four thriving Chicago news agencies: the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Daily News and the City News Bureau of Chicago.)
Please note: Trial coverage back then did NOT include cellphones messages and their videos and DNA.
Spilotro, who was beaten to death years later and buried in a farmer’s field immortalized in the film “Casino,” arrived at the Leo Foreman murder trial impeccably dressed and accompanied by a seemingly supportive, well-groomed family.
DeStefano showed up rumpled and somewhat haggard; his brother, Sam, who had also been charged in the Foreman case, was murdered before the case went to trial.
If I recall correctly, the evidence revolved around a single paint chip found in the clothing on Leo Foreman’s dead body, which matched the paint in a new bomb shelter in Mario DeStefano’s house, where Foreman was killed.
- The kicker: Both men provided an alibi. An eyewitness claimed they did it.
- The shocker: The well-dressed Spilotro was found innocent. The rumpled DeStefano was found guilty.
- The kicker: DeStefano’s sentence was reversed in 1975 by the Illinois Appellate Court because he did not receive a fair trial; there was no proof his bomb shelter had even been painted in 1963; the eye witness testimony in exchange for immunity was not examined properly; and DeStefano died before his retrial.
Fast forward: Trial pundits claim Paul Murdaugh, who was decimated by a powerful gunshot at close range, may have solved his own murder when his father’s voice and garb unexpectedly showed up on his cellphone video minutes before he was slaughtered.
Ah, technology … and the unexplained magic of circumstantial evidence.
Questions, questions…
- Is a big block of unions about to head into the Paul Vallas mayoral camp?
- Is teachers union stalwart Brandon Johnson’s campaign planning on a major push to get voting age high school and college students registered before the runoff election?
- Is Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who now wishes she had focused on mayoral runoff contender Johnson rather than Vallas, going to stay out of endorsing a successor?
- Is former mayoral contender Chuy Garcia, a political progressive, planning on throwing his support to politically progressive Brandon Johnson?
- Isn’t the Greek community now tossing Vallas fundraisers like giant plates of saganaki?
Is Sneed smoking posies? Stay tuned.
Oopah!
The ladies clutch that frequently has lunch at the delicious Demetri’s restaurant in Deerfield were munching on more than dolmades Wednesday.
Trying to interpret their lively Greek chat was Greek to me. Were they discussing mayoral runoff contender Paul Vallas?
So I ambled over to their table and asked: “Excited about the Vallas win?”
“Listen,” erupted one. “Lori Lightfoot had to go! Go! Out of office! Out!
“Yes, yes,” said another. “Go. Go.”
Then a woman who appeared to be a group elder erupted in apparent disdain over Lightfoot’s treatment of former GOP President Donald Trump! Trump?
Yikes! The person the ladies did not seem focused on: Paul Vallas.
A Royal slap…
It’s looking more and more like Prince Harry and his American wife, Meghan, will not be invited or attending the London investiture of his father, King Charles, this spring.
The Royal whap! They’ve been kicked out of their old Brit residence, Frogmore Cottage, because naughty uncle Prince Andrew — once a pal of pervert Jeffrey Epstein — will be moving in.
Sneedlings…
A history note: Chicago’s crime nightmare isn’t the only major issue that felled a mayoral tenure. A heavy Chicago snow and the inept way it was handled tubed the campaign of the city’s 49th, Mayor Michael Bilandic, who was elected acting mayor in 1976 by the City Council shortly after Mayor Richard J. Daley died.
Saturday birthdays: NBA player Draymond Green, 33; actress Tamzin Merchant, 36 and author Dav Pilkey, 56. Sunday birthdays: rapper Papoose, 45; actress Eva Mendes, 49, and televangelist Joel Osteen, 60.
