Lead investigators in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial have revealed the moment they knew the legal scion had killed his wife and son.
Investigators Brett Dove and David Owen broke their silence for the first time since the prominent South Carolina attorney’s trial in March and spoke to Dateline NBC in an episode airing tonight at 9 p.m. about the discovery of video evidence that shows he lied about his presence at the scene of the crime.
The evidence in question was a final cell phone video taken by Murdaugh’s son Paul on the night of the murder, in which a voice believed to be the patriarch could be heard claiming he was not at the crime scene .
“I listened to it three to four times to make sure I understood it because I couldn’t believe it,” Dove said, as Owen described the moment as “really exciting.”
“I can prove that Alex lied to me,” he added, agreeing that it was the crucial piece of evidence that “blowd the case wide open.”
Murdaugh was convicted on March 2 of the June 2021 murders of Paul and his wife Maggie from the kennels at their South Carolina hunting lodge. He is now serving a life sentence without parole and is appealing his sentence.
Alex Murdaugh was convicted March 2 of the June 2021 murders of his son Paul and his wife Maggie at their South Carolina hunting lodge. He is now serving a life sentence without parole and is appealing his sentence
Lead investigators in the Murdaugh case, Brett Dove (left) and David Owen (right), revealed when they were able to place the killer at the crime scene
Alex Murdaugh (right) was found guilty of executing Maggie (left) and Paul (center) near the dog kennel of their hunting lodge and then lying about his whereabouts at the time
Murdaugh initially claimed in a frantic 911 call that he discovered the bodies of Maggie and Paul after returning home from visiting his mother, who was suffering from dementia.
Its placement at the crime scene became a central aspect of the case for prosecutors because, according to the state, both Maggie and Paul were shot shortly after 8:49 p.m., when their phones were “forever locked” within seconds.
Murdaugh had denied ever going into the kennels after he and his family had dinner together, and did not find their bodies until shortly after 10 p.m. when he returned from his mother’s house.
But Paul’s video later brought him to the crime scene, as his best friend Rogan Gibson – for whom the video was shot because it was about his dog – testified in court that he was “100 percent sure” it was Murdaugh’s voice the infamous clip was about.
In never-before-seen footage, police have released their first interview with Gibson early in the investigation, in which he gave the first indication that Murdaugh lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder.
In the interview, recorded informally in a van, Gibson said he was in the process of kenneling his chocolate lab dog when he received a call from Paul just two hours before the murders.
“Paul called me at 8:44 p.m.,” he said, noting that, just like Paul’s last cell phone video, he heard other people in the background, believed to be Alex and Maggie Murdaugh.
“I heard Ms. Maggie and thought it was Mr. Alex in the background,” he said. “I can’t swear that was Mr. Alex, but I believe it was Mr. Alex.”
The kennels where the murders took place: Maggie’s body was found a few meters to the right of a doghouse, while Paul’s body lay at the entrance at the end of the kennel
When asked how well he knew Murdaugh and could recognize his voice, Gibson said he was like “a third son to him.”
“I’m 99 percent sure that Mr. Alex was talking to me or talking to you while I was on the phone (with Paul),” he said at the time, later testifying that he was “100 percent sure.”
In his recent interview with NBC Dateline, Owen said the early interview immediately raised alarm bells about Murdaugh.
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, it was after dinner when Alex told me he stayed in the house while Maggie went to the kennels,'” the investigator said.
Asked why he would believe Gibson’s report more than Murdaugh’s, Owen added: “The information he gave us was unsolicited. “Nobody asked him to say that.”
Murdaugh’s trial has been called the “trial of the century” in South Carolina. This included shocking interview footage of Murdaugh apparently “confessing” to the murders and a disastrous appearance on the witness stand in which he testified in his own defense.
The killer is now appealing his conviction and last month filed a request for a new trial over alleged jury tampering.
His lawyers requested an evidentiary hearing on allegations against Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill, who was accused of improperly advising jurors to disregard his testimony and pressuring them to reach a quick verdict.
“If these facts are proven, the court must grant a new trial,” the motion states.
Murdaugh scored a victory in the South Carolina Supreme Court on Oct. 17 after it granted a request to stay his appeal of the conviction while he seeks a retrial on jury tampering allegations.
Alex Murdaugh broke down in tears as the prosecutor ended his explosive argument with evidence that the suspected double murderer lied to police about his alibi
Buster, Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh are pictured in a photo presented to jurors during the trial in Colleton County Court on Tuesday, February 14th
However, Murdaugh’s quest for freedom is set to be decided by a different judge than the one who convicted him, as Judge Clifton Newman recused himself from all post-trial hearings this week.
His lawyers called for Newman’s resignation after giving a controversial television interview, having previously tried to block the judge from hearing Murdaugh’s request for a new trial.
The lawyers also wanted the Supreme Court to exclude Newman from an upcoming case in which Murdaugh is being charged with a series of alleged financial crimes that prosecutors say he committed as his life spiraled out of control before the murders.
In an interview with NBC News a month after the trial, Newman said he felt “sorry for Murdaugh” and believed “if he had the opportunity to do it again, he would never do it.”
He also said he wasn’t surprised to find himself in the spotlight during the blockbuster trial.
“You know, a high-profile lawyer. Death of a wife. Death of a child. Accusations of stealing millions of dollars from customers. “Allegations of a drug-addicted lawyer,” Newman said. “It had all the ingredients of something of great public interest.”