WALTERBORO, S.C. — Maggie Murdaugh’s cellphone was active early in the evening on the night she was killed at the family’s 1,700-acre rural estate, receiving texts, recording screen orientation changes and logging bursts of steps, a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division cellphone specialist testified Tuesday.
But then her phone went silent and still, SLED agent Britt Dove testified. He was in the middle of reciting a list of Maggie’s various cellphone data on the night of the killings — including the exact, to-the-second time Maggie’s phone was receiving texts and phone calls — when Judge Clifton Newman adjourned court shortly before 6 p.m.
Adding to the mystery is that when Maggie’s phone was locked, it was moved, he testified. Eventually, it was found about a half-mile away, according to testimony.
Dove, the fifth prosecution witness to testify Tuesday in Alex Murdaugh’s double-murder trial, will be back on the witness stand Wednesday morning when court resumes at the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro.
Over Dove’s time on the witness stand, his painfully detailed recitation of numbers and cellphone at times caused some in the audience to lose attention. Newman stopped court several times to allow people in the 234-seat crowded courtroom to stand and stretch. Officials turned down the temperature to help keep people alert.
But contained in Dove’s monotonous mix of data and numbers is a crucial timeline that will allow the jury to glimpse what happened on the night of June 7, 2021, the night prosecutors allege Murdaugh killed Maggie, his wife of more than 20 years, and his son, Paul, 22, by the family dog kennels, some 1,000 yards from the rural estate’s main house.
That timeline is just one set of data points that prosecutors intend to overlay with data from other cellphones — including those of Murdaugh and Paul — to weave a tapestry of their version of events, a version they say will clearly point to disgraced attorney Murdaugh and no one else as the killer.
Since last Thursday, when testimony began, prosecutors have called 15 witnesses and shown no signs of slowing down in their efforts to build a circumstantial case against Murdaugh, 54, scion of a prominent South Carolina family and once regarded as a pillar of the state’s legal community.
Hurdles prosecutors have to overcome include why Maggie was killed with a rifle with powerful .300 Blackout ammunition and Paul killed with a shotgun. Why have the murder weapons never been found? Did Murdaugh, who the jury has seen in recorded interviews with SLED agents profess his love for his wife and son, really become their executioner and then stage an elaborate cover-up?
Defense attorneys say the state is wrong: They say there were two killers, they took their weapons with them and no man who loved his family as much as Murdaugh could ever become their assassin.
The circle of investigation
Earlier Tuesday, in a bracing cross-examination that took most of the morning, defense attorney Jim Griffin dug into decisions investigators made while gathering evidence and conducting interviews that he argued led investigators to blindly focus on Murdaugh.
In the days after the murders, investigators talked to hundreds of people in an attempt to widen their circle of investigation, SLED agent Jeff Croft testified, which started with the only living person at the crime scene: Murdaugh.
Since their opening statements, defense attorneys have painted the state as being focused on Murdaugh.
Griffin also went to work on a bombshell assertion Croft delivered Monday afternoon.
Late Monday, Croft testified that during a SLED interview with Murdaugh on June 10, 2021, Murdaugh broke down sobbing while talking about Paul.
Murdaugh said of Paul, “I did him so bad,” Croft told the jury.
The statement had been first revealed to the jury during the playing of a video of an interview with Murdaugh.
But the recording divided onlookers about whether Murdaugh said that. Many reported hearing, “they did him so bad.” Murdaugh, sitting with his lawyers, mouthed “they.”
The defense appeared confident that Murdaugh said “they,” and on Tuesday morning Griffin replayed the audio once at normal speed and then again at one-third speed. The drawn out, distorted syllables did not clarify anything to a certainty.
“Are you 100% confident that Alex said ‘I did him so bad’ and not ‘they did him so bad?’” Griffin asked Croft during cross-examination.
“I am 100% confident in what I heard and what I testified to,” Croft replied.
Why then did he not pursue the matter with Murdaugh, or even make a note of an apparent confession, Griffin asked.
Croft stated that he “made a mental note of it,” but testified that he did not want to appear to challenge Murdaugh on any of his statements before investigators had more information.
Turning Croft’s attention to the firearm information that he had painstakingly read into the record Monday, Griffin asked Croft where in the mountain of evidence was anything that actually connected Murdaugh to the guns that killed Maggie and Paul.
“Have you ever found the murder weapons?” Griffin asked.
“Not that I’m aware of, sir” Croft replied.
While this has been previously reported, it was apparently the first open admission by SLED that investigators do not possess the murder weapons.
Despite the mountain of firearms evidence that Croft was responsible for collecting, Griffin drilled Croft on whether he had pulled projectiles from a dirt backstop at the Murdaughs' shooting range. Had he tested rounds against a .300 Blackout projectile plucked from a dog bed? Had he collected any steel pellet waterfowl shot, the same as one of the rounds that killed Paul?
To many of these questions and others Croft answered no, said he did not know, or stated that it was not his responsibility on the days that investigators searched the property.
During redirect, it at first appeared that prosecutor Creighton Waters had landed his own gotcha moment. In their display of the evidence taken from Moselle, prosecutors intended to show that Murdaugh had copious supplies of the ammunition that killed Paul and Maggie.
Among them were stockpiles of a specific weight of .300 Blackout ammo, which Croft testified was hard to come by at the time due to COVID shortages. But even before the pandemic, Croft said that the ammo was so uncommon that he had never seen .300 Blackout rounds used in a murder in his more than 20 years in law enforcement, including the last 11 as a SLED agent in the Lowcountry region of the state.
In response to Griffin’s allegations that Murdaugh did not possess the type of steel pellet waterfowl shot that struck Paul in the head, Waters strode back and forth in front of the jury, bringing individual evidence bags containing shotgun rounds recovered from around Moselle. Investigators found the ammunition in the gun room’s bookcase, on a workbench and in Paul’s bedside table.
In a clear voice, Croft told the jury about four black rounds stamped Winchester 12-gauge Drylok shells. He also described four red shotgun shells marked Federal Premium double-aught Buckshot, which investigators have said was the type of ammunition used in the first shot that struck Paul in the chest.
But when Griffin had a chance to recross, he asked Croft to read the date that the ammunition was seized.
“It looks like Sept. 13, 2021,” Croft said.
“June, July, August, September — four months after the murders?” Griffin said.
“That is correct sir,” Croft replied.
Other witnesses Tuesday delivered crucial testimony:
—Jonathan VanHouten, a former Columbia police officer and now a U.S. Secret Service employee, testified about how he was able to use a “brute force” method to get into Paul’s cellphone. Paul had also used a password based on his date of birth, and that proved helpful in gaining access, he testified.
“People are creatures of habit,” VanHouten said.
Prosecutors have said there is crucial video on Paul’s cellphone — video that will place Murdaugh at the dog kennels shortly before Maggie and Paul were killed. That video will puncture Murdaugh’s alibi, prosecutors have said, since Alex claims he was not at the kennels that night.
—John Bedingfield, a second cousin of Murdaugh’s, told the jury how he had configured for Murdaugh two assault-type rifles to fire the powerful .300 Blackout rounds. Bedingfield, a state Department of Natural Resources officer, repairs, makes and sells guns in his spare time.
“He (Alex) was looking for a couple of guns for the boys to hunt pigs with” around Christmas 2016, Bedingfield testified under questioning by Waters.
The “boys” Bedingfield referred to were Buster, Murdaugh’s oldest son, and Paul. Murdaugh wanted the rifles configured to accept and fire the powerful .300 Blackout rounds, which are perfect for hunting wild hogs in the country, animals so numerous they constitute a menace to people and crops in rural communities, Bedingfield testified.
Those two guns, with mounted expensive thermal scopes so the boys could hunt at night, and sirocco paint jobs cost $9,188 for the pair, Bedingfield testified. He painted Buster’s gun black; Paul’s tan.
Bedingfield testified that Murdaugh came to him in 2018 to buy a third .300 Blackout configured rifle that only cost $875 because it lacked a thermal scope. Murdaugh said he had to buy a third gun because Paul had lost his, Bedingfield testified.
Throughout the trial, defense attorneys have inquired about law enforcement’s use of “Faraday bags,” metal mesh-lined bags that prevent phones from receiving an outside signal. Law enforcement officials who handled the family’s phones have testified that they did not use these bags, meaning that a signal to wipe data could reach the phone.
The Secret Service agent also testified that the phone arrived to him in airplane mode, meaning it was unable to receive or send data. This would render it safe from being wiped remotely, Van Houten said.
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