Disgraced South Carolina lawyer, Alex Murdaugh, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and their son, Paul Murdaugh.
The presiding judge, Clifton Newman, pronounced the two consecutive life sentences on Friday after three hours of deliberation by the jury.
For a year and a half, Alex Murdaugh denied he was anywhere near where his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, were brutally killed.
But it was one of his victims — his son — who would provide key proof after his death that legal experts say exposed his father’s web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction in the double homicide.
“It is ironic, in the end, that it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Florida’s Palm Beach County, told CNN Thursday night.
Murdaugh, an influential lawyer from a prominent family of lawyers in South Carolina, was arrested in October 2021 following the murder of his wife and 22-year-old son in June 2021.
Murdaugh was also accused of stealing clients’ money to support his opium addiction and extravagant lifestyle.
He is facing charges of fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering.
The key proof came from a video, which Paul recorded moments before he was gunned down and killed. It appeared to show one of the family’s dogs near the kennels on their property. It also captured Alex Murdaugh’s voice in the background — and placed him at the scene of the crime.
The video, which Murdaugh didn’t know existed before the trial, marked the crumbling of his alibi and left him no choice but to take the stand and explain why he lied multiple times to authorities about his whereabouts, legal experts told CNN.
Murdaugh, while denying he killed his wife and son, testified he lied about where he was because of paranoid thoughts stemming from his yearslong drug addiction to opioid painkillers, as well as his distrust of investigators. While on the stand, he also confessed to more lies, admitting in court he had stolen millions from his law firm and clients over roughly two decades.
He told the jury that despite his repeated past deceptions, he was honest about one thing: he did not kill his family.
But jurors did not believe him.
His lawyers believe that they have “very solid grounds” for appeal, citing the judge’s admittance of evidence of financial crimes.
“…they won this case the day the judge bought into letting them put every piece of stealing from kids who lost their mother, from somebody with pancreatic cancer, somebody that’s a paraplegic, all of that.
“Two and a half weeks. By the time they got done with it, it didn’t matter about final argument, it didn’t matter about what we put up. They would never, ever, ever acquit him after that.”
The prosecutors, however, argued that the motive behind the murder was sympathy, claiming that Mr Murdaugh killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and stop investigations into his financial crimes.
Craig Moyer, one of the jurors who helped convict Murdaugh, told ABC News in his first public interview that it took less than an hour for the group to reach a unanimous decision.
Moyer said he was surprised Murdaugh admitted he lied about the video, but, he added, he still did not believe the defendant was being truthful about what happened on the night of 7 June, 2021.
Murdaugh was “a good liar,” Moyer said, “but not good enough.”
Prosecutors also stated that they will not drop charges of financial crimes despite the fact that Murdaugh has been convicted for murder.
Before Alex Murdaugh was disbarred by the South Carolina Supreme Court in July 2022, he was a personal injury attorney.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office alleges Alex Murdaugh stole nearly $8.5 million from his clients at his law firm over 11 years, accounting for 99 charges across more than a dozen indictments. He acknowledged fraud in during his testimony.
Alex Murdaugh’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather all held positions as top prosecutors in the southern part of the state, giving the family large power over several counties in South Carolina for almost a century.
The disbarred lawyer’s oldest son, Buster Murdaugh, sat silently behind him for weeks as dozens of witnesses gave their testimonies, and put his head in his hands when the jury’s verdict was read on 2 March.