WALTERBORO, S.C. — Over and over again last week, lead state prosecutor Creighton Waters asked Alex Murdaugh about a long list of people disgraced South Carolina lawyer and accused double-murderer fooled, tricked and swindled for years.
“I lied to a lot of people, Mr. Waters,” a subdued Murdaugh, 54, said on the witness stand, agreeing repeatedly as Waters called out a list of those people while a jury of 12 men and women and two alternates looked on. Murdaugh also readily admitted to embezzling millions of dollars over the years from his former law partners, clients, his best friend — lawyer Chris Wilson — and even his older brother, Randy.
Murdaugh’s astonishing and unexpected admission, when he decided to put himself on the witness stand first Thursday, that he is a world-class liar underscores a major irony in South Carolina’s “trial of the century.”
