On stand, Murdaugh denies killings, but admits to lying

Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh denied killing his wife and son but admitted lying about when he last saw them as he took the stand in his own defense Thursday at his double murder trial.

Murdaugh, 54, is charged with fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, who were killed near kennels on their property on June 7, 2021. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted. In his testimony, Murdaugh continued to staunchly deny any role in the killings.

“I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them,” Murdaugh said, tears running down his cheeks.

Taking the stand five weeks into his trial, Murdaugh admitted he lied to police about being at the kennels with his wife and son shortly before the killings. But he blamed his addiction to opioids for clouding his thinking and creating a distrust of state law enforcement agents.

“As my addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations, these circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking,” Murdaugh

said.

The once-prominent attorney had told police that he was visiting his ailing mother in another town and was not near his Colleton County home in the hours before the killings. But several witnesses testified that they believed they heard Murdaugh’s voice along with his son and wife on video taken at the kennels about five minutes before the shootings.

Once he started lying about being at the kennels, he said he felt he had to continue: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Once I told a lie — I told my family — I had to keep lying.”

Murdaugh testified that his wife asked him to go to the kennels the evening of the killings, so he rode down in a golf cart and wrestled a chicken away from a dog before returning to the house and deciding to go visit his ailing mother.

He said that, after returning home from visiting his mother, neither his wife nor son were in the house. After several minutes, Murdaugh said, he drove his SUV to the kennels where he said he last saw them.

Murdaugh described arriving to find the grisly scene of the killings, pausing for several seconds as he cried. “It was so bad,” he said.

JOSHUA BOUCHER / THE STATE Defense attorney Jim Griffin measures Alex Murdaugh at his trial in Walterboro, S.C., on Thursday. Murdaugh is standing trial on two counts of murder in the 2021 shootings of his wife and son.