ALEX MURDAUGH MURDER TRIAL AS IT HAPPENED: Legal scion admits he lied, stole and ‘wrecked havoc’ on vulnerable people who trusted him
Follow DailyMail.com’s liveblog for all the updates from Walterboro, South Carolina on February 23, as more witnesses take the stand in the legal scion’s double murder trial, where the disgraced lawyer is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, at the family’s 1,800-acre hunting estate.
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The court concluded in the middle of Alex Murdaugh’s cross examination.
The jury has been excused, and will pick up again on Friday, at 9:30am EST.
Despite Alex Murdaugh’s push to try to move the prosecution’s questions beyond his many legal crimes, Creighton Waters is adamant about reviewing each case where he stole thousands and even millions from his clients.
Aelx has repeatedly admitted to the court that he misled his client’s and stole their money.
‘How many times did you practice that answer before your testimony today,’ Waters asked.
Alex answered: ‘I’ve never practiced that answer.’
He also said he does not remember the specific conversations he had with his clients when he lied to them while looking them in the eye and stealing their money.
Waters got a laugh from the courtroom when he commented that Alex could just hold the same sign to answer questions about the people he wronged.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters continued to highlight that Alex Murdaugh lived a ‘wealthy lifestyle’ with the millions of dollars he made off with clients money.
Murdaugh refuted the characterization, saying he doesn’t know what would exactly constitute as a wealthy lifestyle.
He did, however, concede that he spending ‘too much money’ as he won case after case in South Carolina.
Alex previously testified that he did not believe he and his family were viewed as ‘big shots’ in their local community.
As Creighton Waters grilled Alex Murdaugh on his financial crimes, the prosecutor mistakenly referred to car crash victim Hakeem Pinckney as a paraplegic.
Murdaugh, however, pointed out to the prosecutor that Pinckey was actually a quadriplegic when the disgraced legal scion made off with $4.1 million in legal fees from the victim.
‘Thank you for that,’ Waters said.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters has begun to question Alex Murdaugh on the occasions he stole money from clients.
Alex said he was embarrassed over all the times he stole from clients, including from a teenage car crash victim, Natarsha Thomas.
‘I admit candidly in all of these cases that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,’ Alex said. ‘I hate the fact that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it.’
The disgraced legal scion appeared to want to speed the line of questions along as Waters wants to go through specific cases where he wronged his clients and firm.
‘Mr. Waters, just to get through this quicker,’ Alex said, asking the questions move along to the night of the murders.
Alex Murdaugh admitted he took his badge out on the night of the boating accident where Paul was accused of driving drunk and killing Mallory Beach.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters showed the court a picture of Alex walking into the hospital on the night of the boat crash, which shows his assistant solicitor badge visible from his pocket.
Murdaugh said he doesn’t remember the reason he pulled his badge out.
‘A badge has a warming effect with other law enforcement,’ he said of a reason as to why he might have had it out.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters called out Alex Murdaugh’s use of nicknames in the testimony, calling his son Paul, ‘Paul Paul.’
Waters asked the disgraced legal scion: ‘Did you ever call your son Paul Paul even once over the course of this investigation?’
Alex answered: ‘I don’t know. I called him that all the time.’
He also defended his use of the nickname by pointing out that he also referred to Rogan Gibson as ‘Ro Ro.’
He also referred to his wife Maggie as ‘Mags,’ during his testimony today.
Social media and reporters are currently confused as to whether Paul’s nickname is ‘Paul Paul’ or ‘Paw Paw.’
Alex Murdaugh admitted that he had blue lights installed on one of his law-firm owned vehicles despite testifying that he never considered himself to be a part of law enforcement.
Alex said he had them installed by the person who does that work for the sheriff’s department, saying he had the approval to do so after asking permission.
He agreed that he got permission from his friend, Colleton County Sheriff Andy Strickland, who pleaded guilty to misconduct in office, assault and battery in 2020 when he was ousted from office.
Creighton Waters questioned Alex Murdaugh’s use of his prosecutor’s badge in his car, with the defendant agreeing that he did so to win favor with law enforcement.
Alex served as a volunteer assistant solicitor for his father, and carried the badge on him and placed it on his car’s dashboard. He did so despite only working on five cases over the span of 20 years.
Water’s asked, ‘You used it to get better treatment if you got pulled over?’
Alex answered: ‘I’d say that’s true.’
Moving into Alex Murdaugh’s legal history, Creighton Waters asked Alex if he was a successful lawyer before his empire crumbled amid allegations he stole clients and firms’ family.
Alex was hesitant to answer and said that now he does not view himself as successful, and denied that others viewed him as a big shot.
But he did agree that winning many cases and making millions of dollars like he did would be a criteria to be considered successful.
‘By those criteria, I was successful, certainly,’ he said. ‘But we’ve talked about a lot of my flaws here today, too. Do I feel like I was successful? No, sir.’
Alex continued to deny the characterization that he was a success.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters has begun the cross examination of Alex Murdaugh at his double homicide trial.
Murdaugh agreed with Waters that an important part of his testimony was admitting today that he did lie to investigators about never being at the dog kennels on the night of Paul and Maggie’s murder.
They began discussing Murdaugh’s family legacy and his families’ standing at the center of the local legal community.
Now speaking about his son, Paul, nicknamed ‘PawPaw,’ Alex Murdaugh said he was a tough but sensitive young man.
‘He was 100 percent country boy. He was tough,’ he told the court. ‘He could hunt anything. He could catch any fish. He could run any piece of equipment.’
He said Paul was ‘fiercely loyal,’ but also sensitive, saying he liked to watched the sunset with his friends.
Alex ultimately claimed that Paul was ‘misrepresented’ by media coverage of the fatal boat crash he allegedly caused that killed Mallory Beach in 2019.
Speaking about his relationship with his wife, Maggie, Alex Murdaugh began to cry as he stands accused of killing her and their younger son Paul.
‘She was just as beautiful inside as she was outside,’ Murdaugh said, describing her as the center of their family.
He said she was a devoted mother and wife, and that she always wanted to have a big family but couldn’t do so because of her difficult pregnancies with Buster and Paul.
‘I think about how hard it was for her made her love those boys so much more,’ Murdaugh said about his wife’s relationship with her sons.
He added that he would never hurt Maggie.
Alex Murdaugh testifies about the moment he asked Curtis Eddie Smith to shoot him dead in the alleged botched suicide insurance scam.
He said that at the time he felt that everything was coming undone and that he was afraid of the shame that would befall his family.
Alex Murdaugh testified that he had gone to a detox facility three times to deal with his opioid addiction.
The first visit was in December 2017, saying he sought help after failing to detox by himself and with Maggie’s help.
He said his withdrawal made him throw up, gave him diarrhea and made him sweat a lot.
While he described his addiction as ‘bad,’ he said he was still able to perform his duties as a lawyer, and that his partners were likely unaware of his problem.
Alex Murdaugh admitted to the court that he did steal money from clients and his own law firm to fund his opioid addiction.
Murdaugh said he wasn’t sure how things got so bad, but that he was spending more and more on pain medication.
‘I’m not quite sure how I let myself get where I got,’ he said. ‘I battled that addiction for so many years. I was spending so much money on pills.’
He said he first started getting hooked on pills since the early 2000s to deal with pain from a knee injury when playing football at the University of South Carolina.
Defense attorney Jim Griffin has begun asking Alex Murdaugh about his financial crimes and his mindset on the day of Paul and Maggie’s murder.
On June 7, 2021, Alex got a call from Jeanne Seckinger about missing $729,000 in legal fees from the Mack Truck case he worked on with his colleague Chris Wilson.
He admitted that he received the missing funds directly when he shouldn’t have.
He also denied that he was worried about the allegations facing him on the day of the murders.
Griffin asked: ‘On June 7, did you believe that your financial house of cards was about to crumble?’
Alex answered: ‘On June 7? Absolutely not.’
The court has paused for lunch on Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial.
The judge has ordered the proceedings to resume at 2:40pm EST.
Discussing the issue of his clothes in the trial, Alex Murdaugh angrily slammed the state for its past suggestion that he had blood splatter on his clothes from the crime scene.
Murdaugh said there was no issue with his clothes until the state brought up the theory, calling it ‘a lie.’
He added that his lawyers had debunked that theory, and denied that he ever had blood splatter from Paul and Maggie on him.
Alex Murdaugh’s attorney, Jim Griffin, is having his client go over all the inconsistencies he told investigators in an interview following the murders.
Murdaugh admitted he gave them incorrect estimates about when he was with Paul and Maggie on the day of the murders.
He also denied asking his mother’s caregiver to change her story about how long he was at his parent’s home on the night of the murders to match his alibi.
Echoing Buster’s testimony earlier this week, Alex Murdaugh said he was attached to his son ‘at the hip’ following the murders pf Paul and Maggie.
Buster said he specifically stayed by his father’s side as they traveled to his grandparents home in Almeda and later to his uncle’s hunting lodge known as ‘Greenville.’
Alex now says that they went to the hunting lodge because his niece had just given birth, with the family then going to Lake Keowee.
The testimony of sticking to his family contradicts the prosecutions argument that Alex returned to Almeda days after the murder to dispose of the guns and evidence.
Alex also refutted testimony from his mother’s caregiver that he visited one morning after the murders and stashed a blue tarp.
‘Don’t know anything about it,’ he said.
The disgraced lawyer said he was aware that he was a suspect in the murders of his son and wife because he was the one who found them dead.
Alex Murdaugh said he repeatedly asked South Carolina officers to reference his phone’s locations with that of Maggie’s, because he knew they ‘never crossed paths.’
He noted that Maggie loved to use the Find My Friends app to track the locations and activities of her loved ones.
‘I just knew there would be GPS data on Maggie’s phone,’ Alex recalled telling officers.
Alex Murdaugh admitted he got blood from Maggie and Paul’s bodies on his fingers after finding them dead on June 7, 2021.
Murdaugh was notably met with police at the scene with a clean white T-shirt and dark shorts.
He said that if Maggie’s blood was found in the steering wheel of his Suburban and on the gun he had, then it was because of him.
He denied that he had any ‘high velocity blood splatter on him,’ contradicting reports that said he had.
‘I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot,’ he said.
As the defense went over Alex Murdaugh’s phone records on the night of the murder, Alex denied he was reading texts or Google searching while Paul and Maggie lay dead.
According to the phone records, Murdaugh had looked up a local restaurant, Whaley’s, while waiting for police to arrive, and even called a wedding photographer.
Murdaugh said those actions were unintentional and that he must have done it by accident when looking up family to call about the murders.
He also denied reading a group text he got from Michael Gunn.
‘I can promise you I wasn’t reading any text messages,’ he said.
Alex Murdaugh told the court he wasn’t sure why he thought he needed to go to his house to get a gun as he called 911 dispatchers.
He said he needed it, ‘just in case,’ the killers who shot Paul and Maggie were still around.
He also admitted that in no other circumstances would he load a 12 gauge shotgun with 16 gauge shells like he did on that night.
He added that he was wrong in his estimation to dispatchers that he was 100 yards from the house when the dog kennels where the bodies were found were located nearly 400 yards away.
As the defense played the 911 call Alex Murduagh made on the night of the murders, Alex said there was no way Paul and Maggie shot themselves.
‘I knew, knew there was no way. I knew they didn’t shoot themselves,’ Alex said after hearing the call again.
In the call, Murdaugh could be heard saying ‘I should have known.’
He explains that he was referring to the threats Paul received after facing allegations that he was responsible for the death of Mallory Beach, 19, in a boat crash in 2019.
‘Paul Paul got so many threats I didn’t take serious, didn’t think twice about,’ he said.
Speaking to the court this morning, Alex Murdaugh broke down crying about the moment he found Paul dead, with his ‘brains out on the ground.’
He said: ‘Paul was so bad. At some point, I know I tried to check him for a pulse. I know I tried to turn him over.
‘I mean my boy’s laying face down, and he’s done the way he’s done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his… I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do.’
He said he couldn’t explain why he tried to turn over his son’s body by the belt, and that he quickly put back Paul’s phone when his phone fell out.
He also admitted to checking on his wife’s body as well.
In his testimony, Alex Murdaugh denied tossing out the murder weapons used to kill his son, Paul, and wife, Maggie, as well as bloody clothes.
When asked about what he found at the dog kennels that night, Alex kept his head down and began sobbing, saying he saw ‘What you’ve all seen pictures of.’
‘It was so bad.’
When explaining why Maggie didn’t go with him to visit his ill mother on the day of the murders like she always had, Alex Murdaugh claimed his wife didn’t like his mom.
He said he tried to call her twice about going out to see his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, but she didn’t pick up.
He said he wasn’t worried that Maggie didn’t pick up because she was with Paul, and that there was often spotty coverage in Moselle.
Alex said Maggie didn’t like going with him to his mother’s house in Almeda, because his mom was now a ‘shell’ of who she used to be.
Testifying in his own murder trial, Alex Murdaugh said he left Maggie and Paul at the dog kennels when he rode back to the house alone.
He said he lied on the coach to watch TV briefly before heading off to his parent’s home to check on his mother, who has Alzheimer’s.
He said that she could predict when she needed help because of her condition, so he hurried along to Almeda.
Alex Murdaugh said he took a shower after riding out in the fields with Paul, changing into the white T-shirt and dark shorts seen in the trial.
He also testified that the clothes he wore in Paul’s Snapchat video that day were the work clothes he changed out of, contradicting what housekeeper Blanca Simpson had testified earlier in the trial.
On the evening of the murders, Alex said Paul wasn’t with him and Maggie for dinner, with ‘Mags’ asking him to go out to the dog kennels.
Alex said he initially didn’t want to do the work, but eventually went out to the kennels in a golf cart, finding the dogs out.
Alex Murdaugh is now describing the day Paul and Maggie were shot and killed, saying he was working with his son on the field that day.
Alex said he met Paul that afternoon and rode out to the dove field in Buster’s pickup truck looking at the sunflowers that were sprayed and killed.
He cried as he said, ‘You couldn’t be around Paul Paul without having a good time.’
He said he had a close bond with Paul and his surviving son Buster.
‘You couldn’t be any closer than Paul and I,’ he told the court.
Testifying in his own double homicide trial, Alex Murdaugh admitted he lied to South Carolina officers about his location and the last time he saw his wife and son on the night of the murder.
Murdaugh suggested he did so because of his opioid addiction and distrust of SLED officers, making him paranoid as officers questioned him and got his finger prints.
And once he started lying, he said there was no going back.
‘I wasn’t thinking clearly,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t capable of thinking reasonably.’
As he began sobbing, he also apologized to his family for lying, saying he would never do anything to hurt them.
Alex Murdaugh has taken the stand as he’s accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and son Paul, on June 7, 2021.
With a shaky voice, he denied that he killed his son and wife with a shotgun and a .300 Blackout rifle.
‘I didn’t shoot my wife or my son anytime, or ever,’ he said.
Alex Murdaugh is preparing to testify in his double homicide trial following a short 10-minute bathroom break.
Murdaugh’s attorney said he doesn’t need any time to talk with his counsel.
‘He says he doesn’t need to talk to me,’ attorney Dick Harpootlian said. ‘It hurts my feelings.’
Nolen Tuten said that Paul Murdaugh sent him a Snapchat of damaged spraying equipment at Moselle at 7 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just hours before his murder.
Tuten said he had plans to plow dead sunflowers with Paul, but he was unable to meet up with him that day because he was busy working in the Columbia, South Carolina, area.
Later that night, he received the message from Paul about a bad leak on the High Boy sprayer they used on the sunflowers, with Paul warning him that they had their work cut out from them.
Tuten was then awoken by a phone call late that night to learn that his best friend was dead.
Nolen Tuten said Paul’s .300 Blackout AR15 rifle was likely stolen at a 2017 Halloween party.
Prosecutor David Fernandez asked Tuten in the cross examination about the guns Paul owned, with Tuten adding that after Paul lost his rifle, he began using Buster’s.
A .300 Blackout rifle was one of the weapons used in the fatal shooting of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh on June 7, 2021.
Tuten, like others who have testified, said guns were usually left at the kennels and shed area in the Moselle hunting lodge, but not stored there.
He said Paul would sometimes leave guns at the area after cleaning out his truck.
Taking the stand before Alex Murdaugh this morning was Nolen Tuten, a friend of Paul, who described him as a ‘little brother.’
He said he had plans to meet with Paul on June 7, 2021, and later learned that his friend and Maggie were dead.
He described Alex as ‘distraught’ when he met him that day
He added that he was close to the family, and that Maggie treated him as ‘one of her own.’
Alex Murdaugh said he will testify today in his double homicide trial.
Murdaugh told the court this morning, ‘ I am going to testify. I want to testify,’ saying he no longer wishes to discuss the matter with his lawyers.
Judge Clifton Newman also dismissed the defense’s motion that prosecutors be banned from grilling Alex Murdaugh about his financial crimes.
Newman said that the details about the crimes have been relevant an admissible in the trial so far, so prosecutors are free to ask away.
‘The court will not change course and provide special exceptions,’ Newman said, as he later read Murdaugh his rights.
Buster Murdaugh, 26, has arrived at the Colleton County courthouse, accompanied once again by his girlfriend, Brooklynn White.
The grieving son and brother appeared tense and maintained a stern face as he walked in and ignored reporters’ request for comment.
Buster testified earlier this week, describing his father’s devastation when he found Paul and Maggie dead at the South Carolina hunting lodge.
Following his testimony, Alex appeared to give his son a pat on his backside.
Different feel at the courthouse this morning. Will Alex Murdaugh take the stand? Son Buster arrived just minutes ago. @WCBD pic.twitter.com/zvOPGwbWgK
Disgraced legal scion Alex Murdaugh appeared this morning exiting a police vehicle as he entered the courthouse.
Murdaugh, accused of killing his wife and son, was escorted inside by police, with a jacket placed over his hands hiding his handcuffs.
He remained silent as a reporter asked: ‘Alex, what are you going to say on the stand?’
Murdaugh is expected to testify today, barring any last minute changes, as his defense hopes to drum up support from the jury, while the prosecution will likely grill him on the night of Paul and Maggie’s murder.
Alex Murdaugh arrives for what could be the day he takes the stand in his own defense. #MurdaughTrial @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/bY7PVUZkAx
A long line of people continues to stretch across the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, as many hope to watch Alex Murdaugh testify at his trial today.
The line of spectators began forming outside the courthouse as early as 3am, with the trial set to resume at 9:30am EST.
As Murdaugh’s defense weighs their options, they demanded on Wednesday that prosecutors be banned from grilling him about his financial crimes.
The disgraced lawyer is accused of stealing more than $10million from his law firm before the deaths of Paul and Maggie on June 7, 2021.
And following their deaths, Murdaugh was also accused of orchestrated a hitman suicide plot to secure a $10million insurance payout for his only surviving son, Buster.
The judge previously ruled that the jury will not hear the details regarding the alleged botched insurance scam.
South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial is set to resume in Walterboro today at 9:30am EST.
Sources familiar with the trial have speculated that Murdaugh – who is accused of killing his son, Paul, and wife, Maggie, at his hunting lodge in June 2021 – could take the stand today.
Lines are already forming outside the courthouse after it was reported that Murdaugh’s legal team held talks last night about whether or not to have him testify in a bid to swing the jury in his favor.
The report comes after the alleged killer’s defense confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that Murdaugh wants to take the stand.
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