Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes and killings: Surviving his wife and son to recover money for his housekeeper’s sons
Murdaugh’s lawyers have previously acknowledged he struggles with an opioid addiction and prosecutors presented evidence Friday showing Paul confronted his father about a stash of pills a month before he and his mother were killed.
A cascading turn of events would then ensue, including Murdaugh’s resignation from his law firm, his disbarment, revelations his shooting was a scheme to provide life insurance money to his surviving son, and his eventual arrest in connection with the alleged financial crimes and killings.
The disgraced attorney pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Margaret Murdaugh, and his son, Paul Murdaugh, on June 7, 2021 in Islandton.
Last week, prosecutors rested their case, accusing Murdaugh of killing his wife and son to distract from his alleged financial crimes.
“They’ve got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they do about evidence of guilt in a murder case. And that’s what this is all about,” defense lawyer Jim Griffin said last week.
Murdaugh offered to file a claim against his insurance company to get money for his housekeeper’s sons, Michael Satterfield testified. However, Satterfield did not see any of that money and did not know Murdaugh had collected more than $4 million in settlements, he testified.
Murdaugh has been the focus of a lot of testimony this week. The judge overseeing the case ruled on Monday that the proof needed to complete the story was necessary because it was so close to the state’s case.
Also in court Thursday, Michael “Tony” Satterfield, the son of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, testified about being defrauded by Murdaugh.
Satterfield testified that he learned of the settlement from his family, who heard about it through media reports. When he asked Murdaugh about it in June 2021, he was told that it was still making progress and to be ready to settle by the end of the year.
Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes, his murder and the wrongful death of his son, Tinsley, during the 2018 Mallory Beach boat crash
Further, the CEO of a local bank testified for the jury that Murdaugh’s account was overdrafted by about $350,000. According to the CEO of Palmetto State Bank, Murdaugh had a total debt of $4.2 million.
Murdaugh, at another point, said he believes his son was targeted because of a 2019 boat crash in which 19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed. The son was facing charges for his drinking during the crash. On the fourth anniversary of the crash, Murdaugh had his second day on the stand.
Tinsley was asked about the lawsuit by the prosecution on Thursday. He said he was looking for $10 million from Murdaugh but was told that he might only be able to come up with $1 million. Tinsley was not cross-examined Thursday and is expected to resume his testimony Friday morning.
The CFO testified that they weren’t going to try and get money from him when they were worried about his mental state and his family being killed.
Indeed, that “day of reckoning” didn’t come for another three months, when his law firm again confronted him about misappropriated funds, leading to his resignation, a bizarre murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot, a stint in rehab, dozens of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.
The state is near its conclusion in the case in which prosecutors contend that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract them from a large amount of alleged financial crimes he had committed.
The Murdaugh Dynasty is chronicled in a docuseries on Hbo. CNN will show it on February 19 at 8 pm.
Murdaugh said he had paranoid incidents as his addiction evolved. He said he distrusted the SLED as he was asked about his relationships with his wife and son while a deputy sheriff was touching his hands.
The Attorney General’s Office had been prosecuting the case and it was due to the long standing ties that the Murdaugh family had with the local solicitor.
The footage played in court Wednesday showed SLED agents confronting Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his earlier statements to law enforcement.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said the audio showed Murdaugh and his wife having a “normal discussion” with “no animosity.” Harpootlian claimed that Paul is very happy. “Nobody’s down there threatening him. Daddy is not pulling out a shotgun and killing him.”
Owen and Murdaugh agreed that Rogan has been around your family for a long time. He recognizes your voice and it has a different sound. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”
Murdaugh and Mordell-Yan were both killed by the same man whose murder victim killed his daughter, Blanca, in August 2021
Murdaugh was confronted by the agents about another piece of footage Paul filmed that night, in which he showed Murdaugh a tree on their property. The man in the picture is wearing pants and a shirt. But later, he was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt.
“There’s a video on Paul’s phone of you and him on the farm that night. You’re wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt … When I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt,” Owen said. What time in the evening did you change your clothes?
Murdaugh is the one who wantedMaggie to come to Moselle, his sister testified on Tuesday. Maggie was staying in the family’s Edisto Beach property and did not want to go to Islandton, Marian Proctor said, recalling a conversation they had the day of the murders.
Last week, Blanca Simpson testified that she was told on the day of the murders that Alex had asked for both Paul and Maggie to come to Moselle.
“And the reason you didn’t, (was because) you weren’t concerned about those clothes. The investigation was centered on the T-shirt, shorts and shoes that he was wearing when he called for help.
Owen testified that he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.
“Y’all completely overlooked the fact that when you did a HemaTrace test to confirm whether there’s blood, it came up negative. Wasn’t that overlooked?” asked Griffin.
Owen asked if the person who killed the two victims had biological material on them.
Griffin established that Murdaugh’s mother’s property in Almeda was not searched until months after the killings, in September 2021. Owen testified that there were no weapons found on that property.
At one point Wednesday, Judge Clifton Newman ruled against allowing testimony about a roadside shooting that injured Murdaugh in September 2021. According to authorities, Murdaugh arranged for another man to kill his son so he would be eligible for millions of dollars in life insurance.
The killings could be tied to a financial dispute with a drug gang, which the defense suggested last week was why Murdaugh was buying drugs from the man in debt to the gang.
The murders of the Murdaugh’s were the focus of the first questions from Jim and he repeatedly asked whether his wife and son had been shot with a gun.
Asked if a cell phone analysis had been performed to see if any of the drug gang members were in the area the night of the killings, Owen said drug gang members typically use burner phones, and he didn’t have their phone numbers. But state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and had identified only first responders as coming to the scene, Owen said.
Owen was asked if there was a chance that the small amount of unknown male DNA found under Murdaugh’s finger was related to Owen. Owen said no.
Disgraced former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, who is on trial for murder in the deaths of his wife and son, was back on the stand Friday for more cross-examination from the prosecution.
Buster Murdaugh was called as the defense’s first witness of the day. A source close to the case said that the accident reconstructionist will focus on the findings of the investigators at the scene of the killing and what conclusions were drawn from it.
After going to the kennels, Murdaugh testified, he went inside his home and briefly laid on a couch before deciding to visit his ailing mother in a nearby town. Murdaugh testified he’d spoken to one of her caregivers earlier that day who asked for him to stop by. So he briefly visited his mother that night and then drove back home, where he eventually found the bodies at the kennels, he testified.
Richard Harvey was the first witness for the defense on Friday and said he estimated the death times of Paul and Maggie to be 9 pm on June 7, 2021.
A video which was filmed on Paul’s phone beginning at 8:44pm appears to show one of the family dogs being taken. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified.
When Alex Murdaugh saw the bloody crime scene with his wife, Paul, two fatally shot, he called and drove to the kennels
“Watch your step” — Alex Murdaugh heard those words from a courthouse employee as he entered the witness stand on Thursday, taking the extraordinary move of testifying on his own behalf in a double murder trial.
But several witnesses have identified Alex Murdaugh’s voice in a video taken by Paul at the kennel, minutes before investigators say the execution-style shooting began.
“On June 7, I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Murdaugh said. “I don’t think I was capable of reason … and I lied about being down there. And I’m sorry that I did.”
His driving speed has also attracted notice — the vehicle reach speeds up to 80 mph on the rural roads, far above the posted speed limits. Murdaugh said “I was driving however I drive.” Normal way that I drive.”
The Suburban was driven to the kennels by him. Asked what he saw there, he wept and replied that he “saw what y’all seen pictures of” — a bloody crime scene, with his wife and son fatally wounded by rifle shots and shotgun blasts. He said that it was terrible.
Murdaugh called and went between them on the phone, trying to tend to Paul andMaggie. Murdaugh remembered attempting to check his son Paul’s body for a pulse, and trying to turn him over, because of his injuries.
A statement in that call — “I should’ve known” — has drawn much speculation. Asked about that in court, Murdaugh said Paul had gotten “the most vile threats” on social media and elsewhere. The family ignored the threats, he said.
He testified that after dinner he went back into his house and laid down on a couch to rest after going to the dog park to look at the dogs.
The woman who looked after Murdaugh’s mom testified that she saw Murdaugh carry a blue tarp into his mother’s house the day after the killings.
On the stand, Murdaugh said he couldn’t recall bringing a tarp there — and he then sought to dismiss Smith’s version of events, stating, “Shelley’s got something in her mind about that.”
Murdaugh also said he had nothing to do with a blue rain jacket that was found in a closet at his mother’s house, and which tested positive for gunpowder residue, leading to speculation that it had been wrapped around a recently fired weapon.
Griffin later questioned Murdaugh closely about his movements after the killings, with Murdaugh saying that he stayed at several places, so he had clothes spread out among them.
The defense has painted Murdaugh as a loving father and husband being wrongfully accused after what it says has been a poorly handled investigation. His first day of testimony contained some key moments.
Murdaugh said he and Paul had been driving around the property, checking on plantings for fields they used to hunt doves. He said he was sweaty from work, and that taking Opioids made him sweat more.
Upon returning to the house in Islandton after visiting his mother, Murdaugh said, Margaret and Paul weren’t there – and he assumed they still were at the kennels, so he went back there.
Murdaugh was sitting in a golf cart at the kennels. He briefly left the golf cart to take a chicken from his dog Bubba’s mouth, he said.
There is a connection to the boat crash. Waters questioned Murdaugh about the idea a “random vigilante” could be involved in the murder of his wife and son. Murdaugh believed that a fatal boat wreck that he was involved in was the reason for the killings. He said that he did not think anyone involved in the boat wreck had anything to do with what happened, but thought someone had heard about it.
As they considered letting their client testify, Murdaugh’s defense team has asked Newman about possible limits on what questions the prosecution could pose to him — hoping to restrict the topic to the financial allegations. But the judge has refused to set such limits on cross-examination.
Still, Murdaugh was emphatic in his denial that he shot and killed his wife and son, insisting in response to Griffin’s questions, “I didn’t shoot my wife or my son, anytime, ever.”
Murdaugh testified that he tried to call his wife, but she didn’t answer while he was on the phone. He said he also left her a text. He said it was not strange that she did not reply because she was with Paul.
Murdaugh admitted Thursday to stealing from his law firm and his clients, which ultimately led to his resignation from the firm, then known as PMPED and since renamed Parker Law Group.
“I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Murdaugh said in response to prosecutor Creighton Waters during the prosecution’s cross-examination.
Murdaugh said he didn’t know why he tried to turn him over. My boy is laying face down. He did the way he was done. His head was the way his head was. His brain was laying on the sidewalk. I had no idea what to do.
The earlier testimony that he searched for a restaurant in Edisto Beach after finding the bodies was not true, Murdaugh said.
Murdaugh, Waters and the State of the Art: Why he lied about taking 100 milligrams a day?
According to Murdaugh, he would take “maybe 1,000 milligrams or 1,200 milligrams on a day I didn’t take as much or didn’t have as much, up to, I mean — there were days, many days, a lot of days, most days were more than that, and many days would be … more than 2,000 milligrams a day.” It is virtually unheard of for a doctor to prescribe a patient more than 100 milligrams of oxycodone a day for even the most severe acute or chronic pain.
Murdaugh said he changed his plan because of withdrawal symptoms, when asked if the drug transaction actually happened.
After about six hours of testimony on Friday, which included a prosecutor grilling the former disgraced South Carolina attorney, the court adjourned and is scheduled to resume Monday morning.
“And you disagree to my characterization that you’ve got a photographic memory about the details that have to fit now that you know … these facts but you’re fuzzy on the other stuff that complicates that? You do not agree with that?
The heated cross examination continued after a lunch break. Waters pointed out inconsistencies in Murdaugh’s videotaped statements to police after the killings – including his claim that he had not been at the dog kennels. Parts of the taped interviews were played for the jury.
“I know what I wasn’t doing, Mr. Waters, and what I wasn’t doing is doing anything, as I believe you’ve implied, that I was cleaning off or … washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat. And I can promise you that I wasn’t doing any of that,” Murdaugh said.
He said that he did not manufacture an alibi because he did not hurt his wife or child. I know for a fact that I never, ever, ever created an alibi.
He testified that there were people who hated Murdaugh because of what he saw on June 7. They had anger in their heart.
After he admitted that he lied about his alibi, he hounded Murdaugh about his many lies over the years and tried to erode his credibility with the jury.
Shortly before 4 p.m., Waters concluded his cross examination and Murdaugh’s defense attorney, Jim Griffin, began questioning him again after a brief break. Griffin ended questioning shortly after and the court adjourned for the day.
A Theoretical Analysis of Murdaugh’s Message to the Estate’s Dogs and Dogs about the Fall of Maggie and Paul
They are real people, that’s right. They are good people. They are all people that I care about, and I did not care for a lot of them.
“Whether that came from me looking them in the eye or not, I can’t answer that. I agree with you that every client I looked at and the people that I stole money from trusted me.
“I did lie to them,” he said of his comments to investigators that he had not been that day to the estate’s dog kennels, where the bodies of Maggie and Paul were found, until he found them dead. He said he lied because of “paranoid thinking” stemming from his addiction to opiate painkillers.
Murdaugh reported on September 4, 2021, that he had been shot near a road and that he had gotten a superficial gunshot wound to the head.
He said various factors contributed to his “paranoid thinking” which led to his decision to lie to police, including his “distrust of SLED,” (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division), questions about his relationship with his wife and son, and “the fact that I have a pocket full of pills in my pocket,” he said. The clips of the police interview was played by the prosecution.
He is being tried on murder and weapons charges at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison if he is convicted.
Murdaugh’s Last Minutes with Owen, Waters, and the Case for a “Fuzzy” Interrogation
According to his testimony, Murdaugh admitted to lying to investigators because he was paranoid due to his drug use. He said questions about his family relationships made him feel like a suspect, and a test for gun residues made him feel like a suspect as well. He didn’t trust the law enforcement agency leading the investigation due to previous encounters, he explained, too.
The body camera footage of the police officer who arrived to the scene immediately after Murdaugh called was played by the prosecutors.
“It was earlier tonight,” Murdaugh can be heard responding. I am not sure of the exact time, but I left. I was probably gone for an hour and a half for my Mom and I saw them 45 minutes before that.
Waters argued that he chose to lie to investigators so quickly after the deaths. Your testimony was also a lie, the prosecutor said, because you lied about the most important parts of the testimony.
You told the jury how cooperative you’ve been and what you wanted to tell them, but you didn’t include the important parts? Waters wanted to know if it was true.
The exchanges between Murdaugh and Waters were always testy. Waters complained that Murdaugh was “fuzzy” with details about his last minutes with his wife and son.
Waters began with the first interrogation by lead South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigator David Owen, held in a car hours after the killings.
“I knew she had gone to the kennel,” Murdaugh said in the recording, which was played for the jury. In the video, he glanced at Owen in the driver’s seat and added, “I was at the house.”
In an interview with Owen and others, Murdaugh was asked if the last time he saw them was when they were eating supper.
On Friday afternoon, testimony turned to the subject of cell phone records for the three Murdaughs — Alex, Maggie and Paul — on the night of the killings.
Waters said that data from his phone shows that Murdaugh did not bring his phone to the kennels. Murdaugh acknowledged that he “must not have” had his phone, adding that it was not unusual for him to leave his phone in the house.
Around 8:49 p.m., Paul and Maggie’s phones, which location data showed to be at the kennels, were locked for the last time. From 8:53:15 to 8:55:32 the data showed that the phone moved 59 steps. The phone’s orientation also changed, going from portrait to landscape and back several times, prosecutors said.
Alex Murdaugh’s phone couldn’t be used at the main house. But starting at 9:02 p.m., data from Murdaugh’s phone showed that it moved 283 steps in four minutes.
Asked about those movements, Murdaugh testified he was getting ready to go to his mother’s house but provided no details about that process in spite of continuous prodding by Waters.
Waters asked why Murdaugh didn’t just swing by the kennels to talk to her as he had left her at the nearby nearby kennels and failed to get her on the phone. “She’s so close, and there’s a driveway right there,” Waters said.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159228883/alex-murdaugh-cross-examination-murder-trial
Murdaugh’s prosecution of the murders of a mentally ill father and his son Paul: a case for execution-style killings
In the months before the slayings, Murdaugh said, there were days when he took more than 60 pills a day. He bought various types of pills of the pain killer.
Murdaugh refused to dispute the prosecutor’s accounts of the misdeeds but said he couldn’t remember details.
Waters also questioned Murdaugh about a solicitor’s badge he carried for years — a credential he received from his father when he volunteered at the circuit solicitor’s office that elder generations of the Murdaugh family led for some 86 years.
Waters exhibited a photo of Murdaugh wearing the Badge as he spoke to people on the night of his son Paul’s accident which left one woman dead. The event thrust the family into an unwanted spotlight and according to Murdaugh there is a chance it’s linked to the execution-style killings.