By JEFFREY COLLINS (Associated Press)
Alex Murdaugh’s theft of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} was about to be revealed so he killed his spouse and son to purchase time to determine a approach out, a prosecutor mentioned Wednesday throughout closing arguments within the disgraced South Carolina legal professional’s homicide trial.
Fearing his years of stealing from his regulation agency and shoppers can be uncovered and hoping to keep up his lofty standing in the neighborhood, Murdaugh killed his spouse and youthful son within the hopes it will make him a sympathetic determine and draw consideration away from the lacking cash, prosecutor Creighton Waters informed jurors. Aided by his data of how legal circumstances are constructed, he hatched a intelligent plan to verify they have been on the household’s Colleton County property on the evening they have been killed, June 7, 2021, he mentioned.
“The pressures on this man were unbearable. And they were all reaching a crescendo the day his wife and son were murdered by him,” Waters mentioned. The protection will get to sum up its case on Thursday.
Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in jail if he’s convicted of both homicide depend. Investigators mentioned his 22-year-old son, Paul, was shot twice with a shotgun and his 52-year-old spouse, Maggie, was shot 4 or 5 instances with a rifle outdoors of the kennels on their property.
Jurors started the day with a go to to the crime scene, the place a pool reporter mentioned no less than one among them fastidiously inspected the door body of a storage closet the place Paul Murdaugh was standing when he was killed.
The key piece of proof connecting Alex Murdaugh to the killings is a video Paul Murdaugh shot from the kennels about 5 minutes earlier than he final used his cellphone. It took greater than a yr for federal brokers to hack into the younger man’s locked iPhone and discover it.
Alex Murdaugh repeatedly informed everybody, beginning with the primary investigator to answer the killings, that he hadn’t been on the kennels that evening. But whereas testifying in his personal protection, he admitted that he lied and that he had been there.
“Why in the world would an innocent, reasonable father and husband lie about that? And lie about it so early?” Waters mentioned.
Although the weapons used to kill the victims haven’t been discovered, an professional testified that the markings on the bullet casings discovered close to Maggie Murdaugh’s physique matched these discovered on casings at a capturing vary on the household’s property.
But there was no blood spatter linking the killings to Alex Murdaugh or anybody else, and prosecutors didn’t spend a lot time laying out how they suppose Murdaugh might have killed his household, cleaned himself up, disposed of the garments and weapons, and composed himself within the 15-minute window earlier than GPS knowledge reveals he left the property to go to his ailing mom.
The prosecution’s star crime scene professional mentioned there wasn’t sufficient proof collected on the scene to positively say whether or not there have been one or two shooters on the kennels.
Still, Waters mentioned there’s sufficient proof to hyperlink the killings to the monetary crimes and to Alex Murdaugh being the one individual with the motive, means and alternative to kill his spouse and son.
“As all of these pressures were mounting, the defendant killed Maggie and Paul,’ Waters said, pulling out his cellphone and waving it. ”The forensic timeline places him there. The use of the household weapons collaborates it. And his lies and his responsible actions afterward affirm that.”
Waters mentioned Alex Murdaugh has been mendacity for years to cowl up his opioid habit and the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} he stole, so it will be straightforward to lie about being on the kennels and killing his household, and to lie whereas testifying in his personal protection final week.
“Always having to stay one step ahead of the game. Always have to literally beg, borrow and steal for over a decade to have the truth from being exposed,” Waters mentioned.
The prosecutor mentioned he thought Murdaugh rehearsed his testimony and was scared to deviate, so he couldn’t give specifics when Waters requested for particulars that would appear memorable equivalent to his final dialog along with his spouse on the kennels earlier than she died.
“This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters mentioned. “He fooled Maggie and Paul, too, and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t let him fool you, too.”
The protection has mentioned state brokers carried out a poor investigation that centered too rapidly on Alex Murdaugh and missed proof equivalent to fingerprints and shoe prints that would have led to the actual killers.
They requested for jurors to be allowed to go to the property to be able to assist them perceive how small the storage room is the place Paul Murdaugh was killed and the gap between the 2 our bodies.
Prosecutors opposed the go to, saying the scene seems completely different than it did in June 2021, as bushes and vegetation have grown and nobody has lived on the property because the killings.
Judge Clifton Newman allowed the go to however cautioned jurors concerning the variations in how the property seems now. They have been additionally cautioned to observe for snakes.
Once closing arguments are completed, the jurors will get their directions and start deliberating what they discovered throughout a trial that has included greater than 75 witnesses and lasted greater than six weeks. They will be capable of assessment about 800 paperwork, images, movies of police interviews of Alex Murdaugh and different reveals whereas deciding on a verdict.
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Find extra AP protection of the case: https://apnews.com/hub/alex-murdaugh
Source: www.bostonherald.com”
