The court appearance of the 54-year-old, which began on January 23, 2023, and is scheduled to last for at least three weeks, will reveal additional clues regarding what occurred to Murdaugh’s family.
The trial of Alex Murdaugh for the double murder of his wife Maggie and son Paul in June of 2021 commenced on Friday in Walterboro, South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh, a former lawyer and scion of a powerful legal dynasty, is accused of shooting and killing both of his family members.
Here is everything that we have learned about the trial up until this point.
Who Is Alex Murdaugh?
Murdaugh, who is 54 years old, comes from a family that has a reputation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina for being prominent legal practitioners for almost a century.
Members of the family worked as solicitors, also known as local prosecutors, in a five-county district known as “Murdaugh Country” from 1920 until 2006.
During that time period, they were responsible for prosecuting all criminal matters in the district. After that, the family established a successful law practise that focused on representing clients in cases involving personal injuries.
However, as noted by the Daily Beast, that “image of power and influence” surrounding the Murdaugh clan “began to crack about four years ago”
when Alex Murdaugh’s 22-year-old son, Paul, drunkenly crashed a boat, resulting in the death of his 19-year-old friend, Mallory Beach. Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat while under the influence of alcohol.
The wrongful death lawsuit that the Beach family brought is said by the prosecutors to have been a contributing factor in the decision to kill Paul and Maggie in the end.
Maggie Murdaugh, who was 52 years old, and their son Paul, who was 22 years old, were discovered dead in their home on June 7, 2021. Alex Murdaugh was the husband of both Maggie and Paul.
When Murdaugh called 911 at 10:07 p.m. to report that his wife and son had been killed by gunfire, everything changed. Prior to that call, Murdaugh had been the eighth prosecutor in a long line of prosecutors dating back to the first elected official more than a century ago. But after that call, everything changed.
The authorities discovered round casings at the scene and stated that Maggie and Paul had been shot multiple times, despite the fact that they had not immediately discovered a weapon at the scene.
A timeline of events indicates that Murdaugh called the police dispatcher and reported that he had arrived at his home to find the lifeless bodies of both his son and his wife.
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The Murders, Botched Suicide And Possible Motive
Authorities claim that Alex Murdaugh attempted to cover up his financial fraud by having his 52-year-old wife Maggie and her husband Paul murdered.
The Murdaughs’ 1,770-acre hunting lodge in Islandton, South Carolina, was the scene of the murders on June 7, 2021. Just after 10 o’clock that night, Alex Murdaugh contacted 911 to tell that he and his son’s mother had been shot.
He was shot in the head while changing a tyre on September 4, 2021, three months into the murder inquiry. Curtis Edward Smith, the suspected shooter, was apprehended after a week had passed.
Murdaugh acknowledged to hiring Smith to murder him so that his son could collect the $10 million life insurance policy. Attorneys for Murdaugh said that their client was addicted to opioids and that Smith supplied him with some of those drugs.
Murdaugh turned himself in to authorities when they questioned him about the failed murder-for-hire attempt. After he was taken into custody, he was accused of killing his wife and son.
Prosecutors claimed Murdaugh was motivated to commit the heinous killings by the fear of “personal, legal, and financial devastation” in a court brief made in advance of the trial.
Attorney for the Beach family had been trying to get a court order compelling Murdaugh to turn over his bank records, which would have threatened to expose “years” of his alleged stealing, when the murders occurred. A trial on this matter was scheduled for three days following the murders, on June 10, 2021.
Prosecutors claimed in a December filing that Murdaugh committed the killings “to divert attention away from himself and to buy himself some additional time to try to prevent the discovery of his financial crimes,” which, if revealed, would result in “personal, legal, and financial ruin” for Murdaugh.
About the same time, Murdaugh’s law business grew suspicious, the Post and Courier claimed.
Murdaugh and Bamberg, South Carolina attorney Chris Wilson worked on a lucrative case in May 2021, but the firm never paid Murdaugh’s half of the legal fees, according to the article.
“grew apprehensive Murdaugh was trying to hide his income from potential recovery by the Beach family in the pending boat crash litigation,” said a partner at the firm.
As the paper noted, “also that spring, the state grand jury examining potential obstruction of justice of the boat crash inquiry was circling in,” issuing subpoenas for testimony and records to witnesses and institutions in the Lowcountry.
Murdaugh, already on the verge, was driven over the edge by these circumstances.
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Drama In And Out Of Court
The trial is already in its third week, and there has been no shortage of excitement thus far.
Alex’s sister, Lynn Murdaugh Goettee, gave him a book through a member of his legal team on Wednesday. Judge Clifton Newman reprimanded Goettee and took away his copy of “The Judge’s Rules” by John Grisham.
Newman also reprimanded Mallory Beach’s family attorney, Mark Tinsley, and Alex Murdaugh’s surviving son, Buster, for making an obscene gesture towards Tinsley.
It was made clear to both Goettee and Buster Murdaugh that any additional disruptions would result in their exclusion from the courtroom.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a bomb threat was reported to the Colleton County Court clerk’s office, prompting the evacuation of the courthouse. Some hours later, after no device was discovered, the trial continued.
