The trial of Alex Murdaugh for the killing of his wife and son captivated the US as a deep south gothic story of violence, corruption, money and power.
It was an intricate story that played out over weeks of a televised courtroom drama that saw hundreds of journalists flock to a poor slice of rural South Carolina, turning the tiny town of Walterboro into a media circus.
Here are some of the key moments:
Murdaugh’s decision to testify against his defense team’s advice
On the stand, Murdaugh admitted that he had been at the crime scene – a dog kennel on the family estate – on the night of the murders but maintained he had left before the killings took place to nap and to visit his mother.
That countered his longstanding claims, made in taped interviews soon after the bodies of wife Maggie and son Paul were discovered, that he had not seen the pair for 90 minutes. He told that story on the night of the murders and again three days later.
On the witness stand, he said that paranoid thinking brought on by an addiction to painkillers had caused him to lie to investigators. “I wasn’t thinking clearly,” he said. “I don’t think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I’m so sorry that I did.”
His own legal team had been against Murdaugh testifying but he insisted.
Defense mistake that allowed prosecutors to bring in financial motive
Another key point came when an apparent mistake by Murdaugh’s defense team allowed prosecutors to introduce evidence of the disbarred lawyer’s financial crimes that the state claimed motivated the murders by creating a distraction that would gain sympathy and time.
The circuit court judge Clifton Newman said that the defense had “opened the door” to allowing Murdaugh’s financial situation brought into evidence after defense lawyers questioned witnesses on the stand about his character and if Murdaugh had any reason to kill his wife and son.
Newman then said the jury was “entitled to consider whether the apparent desperation of Mr Murdaugh because of his dire financial situation and threat of being exposed … While motive is not a necessary element, the state must prove malice, and evidence of motive may be used to prove it.”
Murdaugh later admitted to stealing from his law firm and clients. “I hate the fact that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed for my son,” he said under cross-examination. “I’m embarrassed for my family, and I don’t dispute that I did it.”
The Snapchat video
Another shocking moment came earlier when prosecutors introduced cellphone video Paul Murdaugh sent to a friend minutes before he was killed. It showed a chocolate Labrador retriever and three voices could be heard in the background.
During his testimony, Murdaugh admitted one of the voices was his. “Mr Murdaugh, is that you on the kennel video at 8.44pm on June 7,” defense attorney Jim Griffin asked, “the night Maggie and Paul were murdered?”
“It is,” Murdaugh said.
The defendant misspeaks?
It did not help Murdaugh’s defense case that when he was shown crime scene photos he told police investigators: “It was so bad, I did him so bad.”
But at his trial, Murdaugh’s lawyers said he’d actually said: “They did him so bad.” The taped was played to the court at 1/3 speed but the exact phrase was indiscernible.
“I still hear him say ‘I’,” Jeff Croft, an agent with the South Carolina law enforcement division, testified.
No one else in the frame
Perhaps most crucially for some observers, there were no other suspects in the case. The defense’s two-shooter theory that rested on a gunman being less than 5ft 4in – according to their interpretation of the gunshot trajectories – was never fleshed out.
