The same outspoken harshness that guided attorney Alex Murdaugh’s guilty verdict in the murder of his wife and youngest of his children was demonstrated by the judge this Friday when he sentenced him to the maximum possible sentence: two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.
“I imagine the picture of the two of them visits him every night before he goes to sleep,” said Judge Clifton Newman, chief of the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, taking his time with a lengthy monologue before delivering his verdict . Murdaugh, lost-eyed in the khaki jumpsuit worn by South Carolina prisoners, replied, “Every day, sir, every night,” only to add later, “I want to plead my innocence. I have never, under any circumstances, hurt Maggie. And I have never, under any circumstances, hurt Paul.”
On Thursday, the jury had three hours to decide. After hearing 76 witnesses, including the defendant, and examining a mountain of circumstantial evidence, 12 members considered it established that Murdaugh, 54, his wife Maggie, 52, and their young son, Paul, 22, died on the evening of June 24, 2021 in the kennels on the family estate, a vast estate called Mosel, which is ideal for hunting and fishing and is located in the Lowcountry region on the southern tip of South Carolina.
The assassin, a fourth-generation member of a family of prominent lawyers who ruled life in the area for a century, used a hunting rifle to kill her and an assault rifle to stab him. Later, always according to the jury, he fabricated an alibi that he did not see his wife and son at home on the day in question, waking up from a nap to visit his ailing mother. When he returned, he discovered the massacre and called the police. The recording of that call, in which he can be heard in somewhat forced language, was key in putting together the prosecution’s case, which managed to portray him as an irrefutable liar.
Another piece of evidence that brought his story down was a one-minute video in which his voice can be heard at the crime scene just before the time of the two deaths. His son recorded it for the Snapchat social network. It also didn’t help the defense that the defendant was wearing a spotless white shirt when police arrived. During the 911 call, he told the operator that he had touched the bodies to take their pulses.
Shortly before the verdict was read, District Attorney Creighton Waters spoke to call Murdaugh a “cunning manipulator.” A man who for years led a double life of being an opiate addict, became involved in a serial fraud scheme against the associates of the law firm his great-grandfather founded and many of his clients. Seeing himself on the brink of discovery prompted him to commit patricide, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors believe Murdaugh was confident the tragedy would buy him time and the sympathy of his neighbors.
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The fall of the Murdaughs, the documentaries
The defense argument is that the police were so obsessed with their client’s guilt that they “fabricated” evidence and concocted a theory about his motivations. After the murders, it was a year before Murdaugh was charged. “Nobody knew this man. Nobody who thought they knew who they were really didn’t have a clue,” Walters continued adamantly. According to prosecutors, his “depravity, callousness and unrepentance” recommended the maximum sentence: “two life sentences in a row”.
The trial has trespassed the confines of a piece of land in South Carolina to garner national attention. HBO Max and Netflix’s decision to use the dark tale of the Murdaugh house’s sinking as material for documentaries helped spur interest.
Having been convicted of some of the most serious crimes he has faced, Murdaugh’s judicial ordeal is far from over. He still faces 99 charges of alleged financial crime. The alleged fraud account amounts to 8.8 million dollars (around 8.3 million euros). It was the discovery of these embezzlements that caused Alex Murdaugh’s alibis to begin to unravel three months after the murders of his wife and son, when a company employee noticed funds being diverted to an account in his name. The discovery of this crime led to others that ended with his departure from the company.
The day after leaving work, Murdaugh called 911 to say someone had shot him in the head while changing the tire on his car. It soon emerged that the incident was actually part of a conspiracy he hatched with a cousin of his, whom he convinced to fake his murder so his other son, Buster, Paul’s older brother, would collect the insurance . When he was caught in this lie, he confessed to his years of addiction to painkillers.
The case, the verdict of which was announced this Thursday, focused on two other unsolved Lowcountry deaths: Gloria Satterfield, the family’s maid and nanny for more than 20 years, and that of a young man named Stephen Smith. Satterfield died in 2018 after tripping over the dogs and falling down a flight of stairs, according to the Murdaughs. An autopsy was never performed, but the victim’s family authorized his exhumation to reopen the case. Her children are among the customers whom the defendant cheated. Smith’s body was found on a road near the farm. Police received several leads implicating Buster in the death, but chose not to follow up on those leads.
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