After a 27-day trial, disgraced and now-discredited South Carolina attorney Alex Murdoff was found guilty of the 2021 murders of his wife and son.
After deliberating nearly three hours, a jury returned a verdict of two charges of first-degree murder. It came after arguments and testimony from 70 witnesses over three weeks.
The high-profile double murder was covered in Netflix’s 2023 documentary “Murdoff Murders: A Southern Scandal” and HBO Max’s 2022 documentary “Low Country: The Murdoff Dynasty”.
Murdoff was also convicted of two weapons charges in the June 2021 fatal shooting of his son, Paul, and wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdoff, at a family property in Islandton, South Carolina.
When the verdict was read and later the judge listed sentencing guidelines, which included sentences ranging from 30 years to life imprisonment for each murder charge, Murdaugh stood emotionless and with a stern face. Sentencing will begin Friday, with sentencing at the hands of South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman.
“The defendant has been remanded to the custody of the Colton County Sheriff’s Department,” Newman said. “And that can be taken away.”
The judge then thanked the jurors for “evaluating the evidence and coming to the appropriate conclusions”.
“The decision you have reached is supported by the evidence”, Newman said before dismissing him, although he said he was welcome – but not required – to return to the sentencing phase.
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters argued that Murdaugh fits the profile of a “family destroyerAnd it was he who shot and killed his 52-year-old wife Maggie and 22-year-old youngest son Paul on June 7, 2021, at the family’s property in Colleton County, South Carolina.
Defense attorney Griffin alleged that law enforcement was too quick to determine Murdo as the killer, adding that his client self-confessed. opium addiction making him “an easy target for SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) … They began to fabricate evidence against Alex.”
Griffin also played a cellphone video Taken by Paul in which he was talking to his mother and father about dogs around 8:44 p.m., minutes before prosecutors say the shooting began. Griffin argued, “Four minutes later, the state would have you believe that Alex Murdoff blew his son’s mind.”
In a victory for the prosecution, Newman reigned first that the jury could hear evidence of Murdaugh’s financial difficulties and the “apparent desperation” that may have driven the defendant to murder his wife and son.
Prosecutor Waters cited cellphone data to place Murdaugh at the crime scene and said the former attorney first shot his son, Paul. “She heard that shot and she was running for her baby when the only person who crushed her was the conclusive evidence we had at that scene,” Waters told the jury on Wednesday.
Murdaugh admitted he had been lying to his family “for years” and did not dispute Waters’ statement that he stole $3.7 million in 2019.
Before defense attorney Jim Griffin began his closing argument, Judge Newman removed one of the jurors to talk about the case outside the courtroom. The juror, who was replaced with an alternate, was the fifth juror to be replaced during the six-week trial, which was held at the Colton County Courthouse in Walterboro.
