Murdaugh convicted of murder in grisly shootings of wife, son
WALTERBORO, S.C. — Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murder Thursday in the shooting deaths of his wife and son in a case that chronicled the unraveling of a powerful Southern family with tales of privilege, greed and addiction.
The jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Murdaugh guilty of two counts of murder at the end of a sixweek trial. The judge said sentencing would take place at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison without parole for each murder charge.
Through more than 75 witnesses and nearly 800 pieces of evidence, jurors heard about betrayed friends and clients, Murdaugh’s failed attempt to stage his own death in an insurance fraud scheme, a fatal boat crash in which his son was implicated, the housekeeper who died in a fall in the Murdaugh home, the grisly scene of the killings and Bubba, the chicken-snatching dog.
In the end, Murdaugh’s fate appeared sealed by cellphone video taken by his son, whom he called “Little Detective” for his knack for finding bottles of painkillers in his father’s belongings after the lawyer had sworn off the pills.
Testimony culminated in Murdaugh’s appearance on the witness stand, when he admitted stealing millions from clients and lying to investigators about being at the dog kennels where the shootings took place but steadfastly maintained his innocence in the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.
“I did not kill Maggie, and I did not kill Paul. I would never hurt Maggie, and I would never hurt Paul — ever — under any circumstances,” Murdaugh said.
Murdaugh’s 52-year-old wife was shot four or five times with a rifle and their 22-year-old son was shot twice with a shotgun at the kennels near their rural Colleton County home on June 7, 2021.
Prosecutors didn’t have the weapons used to kill the Murdaughs or other direct evidence like confessions or blood spatter. But they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, led by a video locked on Paul Murdaugh’s cellphone for more than a year — video shot minutes before the killings that witnesses testified captured the voices of all three Murdaughs.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, had told police repeatedly after the killings that he was napping before he went to visit his ailing mother that night. Murdaugh called 911 and said he discovered the bodies when he returned home.
But in his testimony, Murdaugh admitted joining Maggie and Paul at the kennels, where he said he took a chicken away from a rowdy yellow Labrador named Bubba — whose name Murdaugh can be heard saying on the video — before heading back to the house shortly ahead of the fatal shootings.
Murdaugh comes from a family that dominated the local legal scene for decades. His father, grandfather and greatgrandfather were the area’s elected prosecutors for more than 80 years.
Before he was charged with murder, Murdaugh was in jail awaiting trial on about 100 other charges ranging from insurance fraud to tax evasion.