Jurors get first look at Murdaugh, alibi
WALTERBORO, S.C. — During opening arguments in the Alex Murdaugh double-murder trial Wednesday, I was grateful not to be a member of the jury. The 12 citizens seated for what’s expected to be a three-week grind are the only ones in the courtroom who will see photos of the gruesome murder scene. It’s hard to unsee that sort of thing.
In his opening statement, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters took jurors to the scene at the family’s 1,700-acre hunting compound, Moselle, where Murdaugh’s son Paul, 22, and wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, were killed near the dog kennels. The first blast from a 12gauge shotgun entered Paul’s chest and exited under his arm, suggesting that his arms had been raised. The next one entered his skull cavity and “exploded his head.”
“All that was left was the front of his face,” Waters said.
Paul’s mother was running when she was shot with a .300 Blackout weapon. “Pow, pow . ... And he took her down,” said Waters. The shooter then administered the kill shots to the back of her head.
Who could do such a thing? Surely not a loving husband and father, as defense attorney Dick Harpootlian described Murdaugh, the scion of a century-old South Carolina legal dynasty. Harpootlian asked the defendant to stand and face the jury. On his feet — imposing, proud and unflinching — Murdaugh seemed like a man with nothing to hide. His family, who filled the row behind him, looked composed. From time to time, Murdaugh would turn and check on his remaining son, Buster.
Opening statements are often soliloquies full of fury and bluster. But they also set the stage for what each side hopes to deliver. Waters promised cellphone evidence that will reveal down to the minutes and seconds exactly what transpired on the night of June 7, 2021, when mother and son were slain.
He offered a sampling: Their phones locked at 8:49:01 p.m. and 8:49:33, respectively, meaning they were shot 32 seconds apart. Paul was killed first.
At 9:02 p.m., Murdaugh, who was allegedly at the house napping while the others were down at the dog kennels, called Maggie’s phone. No answer. He called again at 9:06. No answer. Within the same 60 seconds, he texted her that he was driving to Almeda to see his mother, who has advanced Alzheimer’s. His father had been taken to the hospital that day. At 10:01 p.m., Murdaugh returned to Moselle, went to the house and, finding no one home, drove to the kennels. Five minutes later, finding his wife and son lying dead in pools of blood and brain matter, he called 911.
“Please hurry,” he pleads with the forlorn cadence of a stray cat meowing for milk.
We know that people respond to trauma in various ways. Some go numb, as Harpootlian suggested. Others become hysterical. Nothing about a son’s exploded head or a murdered spouse would tell me to wait and see.
Yet, according to Murdaugh, he drove back to the house to get a gun, a shotgun that he misloaded with two different types of buckshot. Harpootlian would have the jury see this as evidence that Murdaugh was traumatized.
For all Murdaugh knew, the killer or killers were still on the property waiting to finish him off. That is, unless he knew there were no other killers.
It would be hard to weave a web more tangled than the one Murdaugh has been working on for years. He’s an admitted opioid addict and is charged with being heavily involved in drug trafficking. In has also been indicted on nearly 90 charges of fraud, theft and financial crimes. He tried to orchestrate his own murder by hiring a shooter with a lousy aim. He allegedly stole from clients and also tried to snatch $4.3 million intended for the survivors of his housekeeper, who died in a fall at the Moselle house. And then, there was the boating crash involving an intoxicated Paul as driver and the death of Mallory Beach, 19, who was thrown from the boat when it collided with a bridge.
Among the evidence promised by Waters is a Snapchat video Paul made shortly before he was killed that shows Murdaugh at the kennels before the murders despite his claim to the contrary. Neither murder weapon has been recovered. In another twist, Maggie’s cellphone was found on the roadside about a half-mile from Moselle. Why would an unknown killer grab her phone or toss it?
Harpootlian attempted to plant doubt that it would be possible for someone to do what Murdaugh is alleged to have done within the 10 minutes Waters’ timeline allowed — kill his family, go to the house, change clothes and leave the compound. But by my count the time was 17 minutes, which seems adequate, especially since it took only one minute to kill the two victims.
But circumstantial evidence might trouble the conscience of the single juror needed to allow a possibly guilty man to walk.