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WALTERBORO, S.C. — Prosecutors making an attempt to convict Alex Murdaugh of homicide within the killing of his spouse and son revealed on Friday that the 2 victims had found baggage of capsules in Mr. Murdaugh’s laptop bag a month earlier than the killings, disclosing the shocking new proof of a attainable motive simply moments earlier than resting their case towards the outstanding lawyer.
“While you get right here we have now to speak,” Mr. Murdaugh’s son, Paul Murdaugh, mentioned in a Might 2021 textual content to his father. “Mother discovered a number of baggage of capsules in your laptop bag.”
The message bolsters the prosecution’s argument that on the time of the murders, a “excellent storm” was approaching Mr. Murdaugh, 54, that threatened to show his embezzlement of tens of millions of {dollars} from his regulation agency and purchasers, in addition to his lavish spending on his habit to painkillers.
Prosecutors had been anticipated to relaxation their case on Friday after questioning greater than 60 witnesses in a trial that has charted the yearslong downfall of Mr. Murdaugh, whose household of prosecutors and personal apply legal professionals held highly effective sway within the rural Lowcountry area of South Carolina for greater than a century.
Over the previous three weeks, prosecutors with the South Carolina legal professional basic’s workplace have outlined their concept of the grisly crime, during which Mr. Murdaugh’s spouse, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and their youthful son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, had been shot to loss of life close to the canine kennels on the household’s huge looking property.
They’ve elicited testimony that Mr. Murdaugh’s monetary thefts had been on the verge of being uncovered across the time of the killings in June 2021. On Friday, additionally they confirmed a textual content that Mr. Murdaugh despatched to an in depth good friend 4 days earlier than the murders, during which he mentioned he wanted to take out a further $600,000 line of credit score.
Perceive the ‘Murdaugh Murders’
On Might 6, the day that Mr. Murdaugh’s son informed him concerning the discovery of the capsules, Mr. Murdaugh’s spouse additionally searched the web for tablet markings in an obvious try to determine them, prosecutors mentioned, trying up an outline for capsules that matched some oxycodone capsules. The subsequent morning, Mr. Murdaugh texted his spouse, saying: “I’m very sorry that I do that to all of you. I like you.”
On Might 26, Ms. Murdaugh searched one other tablet description.
The prosecution has additionally highlighted a collection of inconsistencies in Mr. Murdaugh’s statements to the police and pointed to telephone and automobile location information that it says contradicts his account of his actions on the evening of the murders. Maybe most crucially, prosecutors performed a video taken by his slain son that captured Mr. Murdaugh’s voice on the crime scene within the minutes earlier than the murders, regardless of his repeated claims that he had not been there.
What the prosecution has not proven is any direct proof conclusively tying Mr. Murdaugh to the crime: There is no such thing as a homicide weapon, no blood on Mr. Murdaugh’s shirt from that evening and no witness.
In cross-examining the prosecution witnesses, Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals have additionally received a string of essential concessions, portray the police as sloppy investigators who had been in a rush to pin the murders on Mr. Murdaugh. The legal professionals have gotten witnesses to confess {that a} bloody footprint on the scene of the crime was an officer’s; that the police waited months to go looking a house that Mr. Murdaugh visited on the evening of the crimes; that Mr. Murdaugh had loving relationships along with his spouse and son; and that Mr. Murdaugh was indicted primarily based partly on false testimony from the particular agent who led the investigation.
This week, the protection legal professionals tried to shift consideration to different attainable suspects, noting that an unknown man’s DNA was discovered beneath Ms. Murdaugh’s fingernails. In addition they urged that the police ought to have appeared into the drug sellers that Mr. Murdaugh was shopping for capsules from, which he mentioned he did by writing giant checks — typically for as a lot as $60,000 in per week — to a distant cousin who was buying the medicine for him.
Nonetheless hanging over the trial is the query of whether or not Mr. Murdaugh himself will testify.
With so many witnesses and a lot technical information, jurors could have a considerable amount of proof to sift by means of as soon as deliberations start. The jurors would not have notepads within the courtroom, so that they should depend on their reminiscences and the numerous displays that had been entered into proof, together with a wealth of experiences, maps and different gadgets.
“How this case seems could be decided by the standard of the closing arguments,” mentioned Jessica Roth, a professor of felony regulation and proof at Cardozo College of Legislation in New York and a former federal prosecutor. “How streamlined they’re, how clear they’re and the way properly they summarize the proof and don’t get slowed down within the particulars.”
Prosecutors say the proof means that Mr. Murdaugh hit his son with two shotgun blasts, the second of which instantly killed him, after which fatally shot his spouse a number of occasions with a rifle. They are saying he left each victims lifeless on the bottom, roughly two hours after a household meal across the dinner desk.
Then, prosecutors have urged to the jury, Mr. Murdaugh set about creating an alibi, calling his lifeless spouse’s telephone and texting her, saying that he was going to go to his mom, who lived a brief drive away. On the way in which there and again, he made a collection of telephone calls to pals and relations, returning to the household’s looking property about an hour later, simply after 10 p.m. At that time, he put in a distraught name to 911, reporting that he had found the our bodies.
All of this got here hours after two key occasions earlier that day: Mr. Murdaugh had been confronted by his regulation agency’s monetary chief over a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in lacking authorized charges that had been in Mr. Murdaugh’s custody. He had additionally realized — when he acquired a telephone name throughout that very same confrontation — that his unwell father had taken a flip for the more severe and was close to loss of life. The murders, prosecutors argue, had been an try to achieve sympathy and maintain the purported embezzlement from coming to gentle.
Because the murders, Mr. Murdaugh has been criminally charged with stealing about $8.8 million from a spread of victims and has been disbarred.
A number of prosecution witnesses testified about Mr. Murdaugh’s conduct after the murders. His mom’s caregiver, Shelley Smith, testified that he visited his mom for about 20 minutes on the evening of the killings however that Mr. Murdaugh had informed her a couple of days later that he had been there for 30 or 40 minutes. And Maggie Murdaugh’s sister, Marian Proctor, mentioned that as Mr. Murdaugh grieved, he by no means spoke together with her about looking for the killer and didn’t appear afraid — as different relations had been — that somebody could possibly be out to kill the whole household.
A key to the case is Mr. Murdaugh’s declare — which he repeated with confidence in interviews with the police after the murders — that he had by no means been on the kennels along with his spouse and son that night. He informed the police that he had frolicked driving across the property along with his son that afternoon, and that after dinner, Maggie and Paul had walked out to the kennels, which had been about 500 yards from the home.
“I stayed on the sofa and I dozed off,” he informed the state police in an interview two months after the murders that was performed publicly for the primary time at trial this week. He mentioned he then received up and drove on to his mom’s home shortly after 9 p.m.
The police later obtained a video from Paul Murdaugh’s telephone during which Alex Murdaugh’s voice could possibly be heard within the background at 8:45 p.m., calling for a canine. Prosecutors have urged that this was simply minutes earlier than the shootings, noting that Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s telephones had been final unlocked at 8:49 p.m. The protection has but to considerably tackle the contradiction, one thing authorized analysts mentioned that Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals must confront after they start to put out their case.
“The principle level of the prosecution’s case has been to determine, resoundingly, a timeline, and to underline, spotlight and pound away on each inconsistency with the prosecution timeline,” mentioned Joe McCulloch, a lawyer and former prosecutor in Columbia, S.C., who can be pals with Dick Harpootlian, one among Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals.
“We already get the sense from every little thing that he’s able to mendacity,” Mr. McCulloch mentioned of Mr. Murdaugh. “The query is, is he forgetting? Is he mendacity? Why is he mendacity?”
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