Alex Murdaugh's defense team made their final effort to keep him from spending decades in jail, presenting their closing statement in the trial of the disbarred South Carolina attorney accused of killing his wife and kid.
Thursday, Murdaugh's defense counsel attempted to cast doubt on the work of the police and forensics teams, claiming they failed to preserve evidence from the murder scene adequately.
Alex Murdaugh Trial
The defense maintained that Murdaugh's falsehoods and changes to his alibi originated from his opiate addiction-induced psychosis. In response, the prosecution encouraged the jury to consider "common sense" and "facts" after hearing excessive character testimony on Murdaugh.
Authorities said that the once-prominent attorney lied to people close to him when he stole millions of dollars from his colleagues and customers and deceived his wife and son when he murdered them out of financial desperation.
Murdaugh, 54, is accused of killing his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, with a rifle and his son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, with a shotgun. They died on the evening of June 7, 2021, at the expansive Moselle hunting estate in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
Murdaugh acknowledged fabricating his alibi but said he did not murder his wife and children. Murdaugh may face life in prison if convicted of two counts of murder and additional offenses. The courthouse for Colleton County is located in Walterboro, South Carolina, according to NPR.
Judge Clifton Newman now charges the jury to reach a judgment in the case, more than a month after the court heard opening remarks on January 25. The defense of Murdaugh asserts that investigators manufactured evidence.
James Griffin, a counsel for the defense, said that law enforcement was prejudiced towards Alex Murdaugh from the beginning and that they subsequently falsified evidence against him. Griffin, tearing apart the prosecution's case, stated that state detectives "failed terribly" in their investigation of this case.
Griffin stated that Murdaugh would have been removed from the list of possible suspects long ago if the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) had gathered evidence "competently."
Griffin stated that SLED obtained DNA samples from Alex Murdaugh's clothing but never from Maggie and Paul's. When concluding that testing revealed high-velocity blood spatter on Alex Murdaugh's T-shirt, he said, detectives refused to abandon this theory and pursued it "with a fervor."
When the state was confronted with ambiguous test results and questions about Murdaugh's shirt, they embraced a "Mr. Clean theory" in which Murdaugh committed the gruesome murders, washed himself off with a hose, and then drove a golf cart "butt-naked, I guess" back to the house before leaving to visit his mother.
Per CNN, three weeks of evidence from 61 witnesses established that Murdaugh was the only person with the motivation, means, and opportunity to murder his wife and son on their property.
With little to no direct evidence, such as bloody clothes or eyewitnesses, prosecutors have based their case on video evidence that places Murdaugh at the crime site on the night in question, despite his repeated denials.
Murdaugh's stunning testimony over two days last week, in which he categorically denied killing his wife and kid, underscored the defense position. In addition, he acknowledged that, as a result of his drug addiction-induced fear, he had lied to police about his location just before the murders.
Murdaugh was a partner in a prestigious legal firm bearing his name. The deaths of his wife and son were followed by claims of misused cash, his resignation, a weird alleged suicide-for-hire and insurance fraud scheme, a trip to drug rehab, dozens of financial offenses, his disbarment, and, finally, murder charges.
He is further charged with 99 counts of suspected financial offenses, which will be assessed at a later hearing. Griffin's closing remarks aimed to undermine the prosecution and cast reasonable doubt on the case. He claimed that the government neglected to investigate the hair discovered on Murdaugh's wife's hand, collect fingerprint evidence, inspect footwear and tire imprints, or conduct DNA testing on the victims' clothing.
The prosecution contends that Murdaugh committed the murders to obstruct and prolong inquiries into his financial misconduct. Griffin ridiculed this hypothesis as absurd and mentioned that Murdaugh attempted suicide in September 2021 as a "normal" reaction to being exposed.
Griffin admitted that Murdaugh had lied about being present at the dog kennels where his wife and son were murdered on the night of the killings. He said the lies were told to conceal his drug addiction and financial difficulties, not because he murdered his family.
The prosecution's timeline revealed that Paul and Maggie were slain about 8:49 or 8:50 p.m., and Murdaugh departed the property for his mother's residence at 9:07 p.m., leaving only 17 minutes to clean up the grisly scene. Griffin stated, "He would have to be a magician to make all that proof disappear."
Alex Murdaugh's Vivid Recall of Last Convo With Wife
Murdaugh could not recall what he and his wife said during their final conversation; only minutes before, according to prosecutors, she and her son were shot to death. Although having listened to tapes of the conversation numerous times during the trial, he failed to recall precisely what he said to dispatchers during his 911 call.
During a heated cross-examination, prosecutor Creighton Waters latched onto the disparity between Murdaugh's ability to recall specific details but not others. When asked what he did with his phone after he returned home from his day out with Paul and had a shower, Murdaugh replied that he was uncertain.
Waters pounced, citing Murdaugh's "extremely vivid memory" of the phone falling beneath his vehicle seat the day before. "Mr. Waters, they are two unique, different things," Murdaugh said before explaining why he doesn't recall precisely where he left his phone at the residence.
Waters accused Murdaugh of delivering "awful specific" recalls when he has to match his tale with material previously provided to the jury, adding: "But you're awful foggy on the much more essential stuff, aren't ya?"
Those persuaded of Murdaugh's culpability will readily infer that his entire tale is rehearsed, if not well. The scion of a legal family that has ruled a patch of South Carolina for over a century, he presumably feels at home in a courtroom.
There is an abundance of clinical studies on the effect of trauma on memory. According to the National Center for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, four distinct forms of memory are affected by trauma. In layman's terms, they include a memory of general information, a memory of specific events, a memory of emotional response to an experience, and a memory of how to do basic activities automatically.
Researchers have dissected the particular ways memory may be impacted, the distinctions between forms of trauma, where the effects arise in the brain, and several other aspects of the topic. However, what cannot be determined is how or to what extent a specific experience will affect a person or their memory. Yet, the jury's interpretation of Murdaugh's erroneous account of that night may determine his fate, as per The Independent.
Related Article : Alex Murdaugh Denies Killing Wife and Son, But Admits To 1 Big Lie
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