At trial, Murdaugh denies killings but admits lying
Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh denied killing his wife and son but admitted lying to investigators about when he last saw them alive as he took the stand in his own defense Thursday.
Murdaugh, 54, is charged with murder in the fatal shootings of his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, who were killed near kennels on their property on June 7, 2021. 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.
Prosecutors spent four weeks of the trial painting Murdaugh as a liar who stole money from clients and decided to kill his wife and son because he wanted sympathy to buy time to cover up his financial crimes that were about to be discovered. They have detailed what they called lie after lie, saying Murdaugh reacts violently when the truth is about to emerge, like trying to arrange his own death after his law firm fired him three months after the killings.
Murdaugh lied about being at the kennels with his wife and son shortly before their killings for 20 months before taking the stand Thursday, Day 23 of the trial. Murdaugh blamed the lie – first told to a state law enforcement agent hours after the killings – on his addiction to opioids, which he said clouded his thinking and created a distrust of police.
The once-prominent attorney had told police that he was napping and did not go to the kennels before leaving the house to visit his ailing mother in another town. But several witnesses testified that they believed they heard Murdaugh’s voice along with his son and wife on cellphone video taken at the kennels about five minutes before the shootings. It took investigators more than a year to hack into Paul Murdaugh’s iPhone and find the video.
Once Alex Murdaugh 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.”
For prosecutors, that lie underpins a case where investigators haven’t presented the weapons used to kill the victims, a confession, surveillance video or clothes covered in blood.
Murdaugh described arriving to find the grisly scene of the killings, pausing his testimony for several seconds as he cried. “It was so bad,” he said.
Murdaugh said he briefly tried to roll over his son, who was lying face down, to check on him but decided he couldn’t do anything to help.
After his dramatic opening questions about whether Murdaugh killed his son and wife, defense attorney Jim Griffin led his client though several key points of the case.
Defense attorneys told the judge that Murdaugh might not have testified at all if prosecutors hadn’t been allowed to introduce evidence of financial crimes.
Murdaugh is charged with about 100 other crimes, ranging from stealing from clients to tax evasion. He is being held without bail on those charges, so even if he is found not guilty of the killings, he will not walk out of court a free man.