Disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murder on Thursday in the shooting deaths of his wife and son in a case that chronicled the unravelling of a powerful southern family with tales of privilege, greed and addiction. The jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Murdaugh guilty of two counts of murder at the end of a six-week trial.
Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison without parole when he is sentenced, which in South Carolina is typically right after the verdict but can be delayed if a judge chooses. Investigators said his 22-year-old son, Paul, was shot twice with a shotgun and his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, was shot four or five times with a rifle outside dog kennels on their rural Colleton County property on June 7 2021.
Investigators think Murdaugh had no more than about 17 minutes from the time his wife and son stopped using their mobile phones to when he left the property to visit his ailing mother. Experts from both sides agreed there had to be a massive amount of blood, tissue and other material from the killings, but the prosecution did not present any evidence of blood spatter on clothes. The weapons in the case also have never been found.
Prosecutors think Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son because he feared his years of stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and clients would be exposed and his lofty standing in the community toppled. They said he hoped their deaths would make him a sympathetic figure and draw attention away from the missing money.
Motive is not a necessary element to prove the crime. But Rachel Fiset, a Los Angeles-based trial attorney, said prosecutors painstakingly laid out motive to address the question she figures must have weighed on juror’s minds.
“I don’t think there could possibly be any conviction without answering that lingering question of why Alex Murdaugh would kill his family,” Ms Fiset said.
A key piece of evidence for prosecutors is a video that includes the voices of Murdaugh, his wife and son at the kennels just minutes before investigators said they were killed. The video was not discovered for a year because agents could not initially hack into his son’s iPhone.
For 20 months, Alex Murdaugh told everyone that he was not at the kennels but while testifying in his own defence, he finally admitted he was there.
