Two close friends of a murdered wife want to keep her memory alive and honour her for the woman she was instead of the terrible crime she was a victim of.
The downfall of this once all-powerful legal scion captivated the country with reporters and true-crime fanatics packing out the courtroom to hear the latest turns in the case.
In a case highlighted in the Netflix documentary Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, the jury took less than three hours to conclude prominent lawyer Murdaugh was responsible for the deaths of son Paul, 22, and wife Maggie, 52.
The disgraced lawyer has been sentenced to life in prison after he shot dead his wife and their younger son.
Caroline Price and Shellie West said they want to make sure they remember their long-time friend for the good times — "the way she was, and not what happened," West said.
They noted that their friend doted on her sons and was a dutiful wife to her husband, whom Price said was "larger than life" while Maggie Murdaugh "wasn't flashy at all".
"She was a person, she was a mother, she was a sister, she was a friend, she was a daughter," said West.
"You know, she's not 'the wife that was murdered.' I mean, we don't want her to be remembered that way", she added.
The three women, Price, West, and Murdaugh had been friends since they were at the University of South Carolina together.
Price was Murdaugh's "big sister" in the Kappa Delta sorority; Murdaugh and West lived together after graduation. Both women were at the Murdaughs' wedding.
They want people to know "that she was fun. She had a personality, that she was witty," said West. "She loved things. She loved her family."
They want to keep her memory alive, and, when asked, "do you feel that Maggie has been lost in all of this?" Price replied, "Absolutely".
Murdaugh called 911 on the evening of June 7, 2021, saying he found his son and wife dead when he returned home from a one-hour visit with his mother, who has dementia.
Authorities said Paul Murdaugh, 22, was shot twice with a shotgun, each round loaded with different sized shot, while Maggie Murdaugh, 52, was struck with four or five bullets from a rifle.
A crime scene report suggested that both victims were shot in the head after initially being wounded near dog kennels on the Murdaughs’ sprawling rural property.
Prosecutors took more than a year to charge the disgraced lawyer with murder but decided not to pursue the death penalty.
Murdaugh, who is also charged with about 100 counts of financial and other crimes, adamantly denied any involvement in the killings.
He could have received as little as 30 years behind bars, but the judge gave him the maximum: two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
After the trial, some jurors said that the key piece of evidence in finding the lawyer guilty was a video on his son Paul's cellphone that was shot minutes before the killings at the kennels near where the bodies were found.
Murdaugh’s testimony only cemented what they were already thinking — that he easily lied, and could turn on and off his tears at will, jurors said.
The trial in rural South Carolina lasted six weeks and included more than 75 witnesses, but culminated in a jury taking less than three hours to find the 54-year-old Murdaugh guilty last week.
Attorney Dick Harpootlian filed Murdaugh's appeal to the South Carolina Court of Appeals.
