Murdaugh's double murder trial jury is FINALLY sent out to find a verdict after ... trends now

Murdaugh's double murder trial jury is FINALLY sent out to find a verdict after ... trends now
Murdaugh's double murder trial jury is FINALLY sent out to find a verdict after ... trends now

Murdaugh's double murder trial jury is FINALLY sent out to find a verdict after ... trends now

Jurors in Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial have finally been sent out to find a verdict after six weeks of testimony, more than 75 witnesses and 800 items of evidence - including an outing to the crime scene.

The disgraced legal scion, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, at the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021. 

The State says he faced a 'gathering storm' wrought by his financial crimes and a ruinous lawsuit over his son's fatal boat wreck which drove him to kill the pair.

His defense argue the claim is 'ludicrous' and that he was a loving husband and father who was incapable of the brutal executions of his wife and son.

Murdaugh is facing 30 years to life if convicted. 

Murdaugh, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, at the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021

Murdaugh, 54, is accused of shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, at the kennels of their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on the night of June 7, 2021

Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh attend a dinner at the South Carolina Yacht Club. Buster was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the murders

Paul, Maggie, Alex and Buster Murdaugh attend a dinner at the South Carolina Yacht Club. Buster was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the murders

Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex's sister Lynn arrive at the court Thursday

Buster Murdaugh, his girlfriend Brooklynn White and Alex's sister Lynn arrive at the court Thursday

The jurors were sent out by the judge this afternoon following two days of high courtroom drama which included a rare jury outing to the scene of the crime.

Murdaugh's defense attorneys requested the trip to help the 12 men and women gain a better spatial understanding where Paul was blasted twice with shotgun in the feed room of the kennels and where Maggie was killed with a rifle just yards away.

After the visit to Moselle, jurors returned to the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro to hear impassioned closing arguments from the opposing legal sides.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters said: 'Nobody knew who this man was. He avoided accountability his whole life, he had relied on his family name, he had a powerful family, he carried a badge and used that in authority, he lived a wealthy life - but now finally he was was facing complete ruin.

'His father who he idolized - who I worked with on occasion - was dying, his son was facing charges for the boat case, he was facing a civil action that could not only potentially ruin him but expose the reality of what he had been doing for years, he had an opiate addiction, his life was about to be altered, he couldn't live for that - he's the kind of person for whom shame is an extraordinary provocation.

'His ego couldn't stand that and he became a family annihilator.'

In his three-hour monologue, Waters outlined how Murdaugh had been confronted on the day of the murders over $792,000 that had gone 'missing' from his law firm. 

In the months after the murders it would be revealed that he had stolen more than $10m from clients and partners over the last decade.

Three days after the killings he was due in court for a hearing in the lawsuit over his son's drunken boat crash that killed a teen girl two years earlier.

The family patriarch, Randolph III, would die of cancer three days after the murders. Murdaugh had continually turned to him for massive loans and the pair were close. 

Compounding this, Waters said Murdaugh's 20-year opioid habit was spiraling, his pill purchases 'escalated' in March, and reminded jurors that on the defendant's own admission, 'withdrawals would make him do anything, anything to get rid of them.'

Waters ended his argument, by urging jurors not to be conned by 'the master liar.'

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