‘I had to keep lying’
Murder accused in dock
Accused family killer Alex Murdaugh has taken the stand to deny blasting his wife and youngest son to death in a double murder case that has gripped America for its similarities to TV shows Ozark and Fargo.
“I am going to testify – I want to testify,” the disgraced lawyer who is part of a multigenerational legal family in America’s South told Judge Clifton Newman, after putting his hand on a Bible and vowing to tell the truth in Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
Mr Murdaugh, 54, announced his decision after the judge warned him that he risked “exposing himself to cross-examination” about the brutal murders of his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son Paul, 22, at their South Carolina hunting estate in June 2021.
Without delay, the lawyer asked Mr Murdaugh: “Did you take this gun or any gun like it” and “blow your son’s brains out” on the night of June 7, 2021? Mr Murdaugh responded: “No I did not.”
The lawyer asked the accused if he took a gun and fired it into his wife Maggie’s “leg, torso, or any part of her body”.
“No I did not,” answered Mr Murdaugh, who appeared to be dry-mouthed and nervous.
He admitted to having paranoid thoughts due to a mistrust of people and an addiction to painkillers. He also admitted that on June 7 “he wasn’t thinking clearly and wasn’t capable of reason” and he lied about being at the scene of the crime where he said he found his wife and son fatally shot dead. He apologised to his family.
“Most of all I’m sorry to Mags and Pau-pau. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them. Ever, ever.”
Mr Murdaugh sniffed back tears as he spoke.
“Once I lied I continued to lie,” he told the lawyer, referring to his previous testimony where he denied ever being in the kennels of his property on the night of the murders.
He said the day of the murders had been “a fairly normal day” during which he toured his country property with Paul looking at crops.
He said he talked to his wife Maggie when she got home. He recounted having a shower because of sweating from work and also as a side effect of taking prescription pills.
He described having dinner with his wife and son in front of the TV. He said his son and wife went outside to do things but he didn’t join them. He described how his wife and son likely rode together to the kennels and let the dogs out. He then said he went back to the house and decided to visit his mother who was suffering from dementia.
Mr Murdaugh said he then drove back to the property and went to the kennels, where he saw “what you all seen pictures of” – referring to the dead bodies of his wife and son. Prosecutors are accusing Mr Murdaugh of killing them to distract from a litany of financial misconduct allegations.