In what could be one last courtroom performance for Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced former attorney, he dueled with a prosecutor from the stand Friday on the second day of cross-examination in his murder trial.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters tried to cast doubt on Murdog’s testimony the day before when he admitted he had lied to his wife and son before he was killed.
“You disagree it’s a new story? You disagree it’s a new characterization?” Waters asked.
Murdaf said, ‘Yes, this is the first time it is being talked about openly.
“And you disagree with my characterization that you’ve got a photographic memory about the details that now have to fit … those facts but you’re fuzzy on the other stuff that makes it complicated? You disagree with that?” “
“I disagree with that,” Murdaugh said. “I think I have a good memory of a lot of things on it.”
Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two charges in the fatal shootings of his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh, whose bodies were discovered on their family property on June 7, 2021.
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At one point on Friday, Waters asked Murdoch if the dogs at the kennel on his property – where the murders took place – were barking when he was there with his wife and son.
“No one knew the dogs were around,” Murdaugh said. “There was no one else around to understand them.”
Waters also focused on the financial crimes the state alleges motivated Murdo to commit the murders, asking the former attorney during cross-examination if the clients he stole from were “real people”.
“They’re real people. They’re good people. They’re all people I care about … and a lot of them are people I love and I’ve done wrong to them,” Murdo said.
“Everyone, you looked them in the eye at least once? Is that fair?” Waters asked at one point.
Murdaugh said, “Every client that I had, I looked him in the eye, and I believe that I had the trust of my clients.”
“Whether it came from me to look them in the eye or not, I cannot answer. But I agree with you that I looked every single client in the eyes and I believe that the people from whom I stole money trusted me all these years.
Murdaugh took the stand Thursday to deny killing his wife and son, and also admitted to his duplicity in interviews with South Carolina state officials that evening regarding his whereabouts.
“I lied to them,” he said of his comments to investigators that he had not gone to the estate’s dog kennel on the day the bodies of Maggie and Paul were found, until after they were found dead. He said he lied because of “paranoid thinking” that stemmed from his addiction to painkillers.
Paul recorded the video on his phone, apparently in the doghouse at 8:44 p.m. on the night of the murders. Witnesses testified that Alex Murdaugh’s voice could be heard in the background of the video, and in Thursday’s testimony, Murdaugh confirmed it was him.
After going to the kennels, Murdaugh testified, he went inside his home and lay on a couch for some time before deciding to visit his sick mother in a nearby town. Murdaugh testified that he had spoken to one of her caregivers earlier that day who told her to stay. So he briefly visited his mother that night and then went back home, where he eventually found the bodies in the kennels, he testified.
A South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement investigator testified that Murdaugh called 911 from his residence at 10:06 p.m.
Prosecutors have stated that Murdog was facing severe financial straits at the time of the murders and that Murdog has admitted to stealing funds from his law firm and clients. Prosecutors argued that the alleged misconduct was about to be revealed, and accused Murdaugh of murdering his wife and son in order to prevent those revelations.
Authorities said that on September 4, 2021, nearly three months after the murders, Murdaugh reported that he had been shot on the side of a road and was treated for a “superficial gunshot wound to the head”.
What followed would be a sweeping turn of events, including Murdaugh’s resignation from his law firm, his ouster, revelations of his plan to provide life insurance money to his surviving son, and his eventual arrest in connection with alleged financial crimes and murders.
Defense attorneys point to what they describe as a flawed police investigation, adding Murdaugh is a troubled but loving father and husband whose other misdeeds still don’t make him a murderer. Let’s add
“I never, ever, ever shot my wife or my son,” Murdaugh said on the stand Thursday.