{"id":24851,"date":"2023-03-02T20:40:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T01:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=24851"},"modified":"2023-03-02T20:45:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T01:45:47","slug":"alex-murdaugh-trial-us-lawyer-convicted-of-murdering-wife-and-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/03\/02\/alex-murdaugh-trial-us-lawyer-convicted-of-murdering-wife-and-son\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Murdaugh trial: US lawyer convicted of murdering wife and son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Murdaugh has been convicted of murdering his wife and son after a six-week trial that revealed the prominent lawyer’s spectacular fall from grace.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old shot his wife Margaret, 52, four or five times with a rifle outside dog kennels on their rural Colleton County property in South Carolina on 7 June 2021.<\/p>\n

On the same day, he shot his 22-year-old son Paul twice with a shotgun.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors had said the lawyer, from a well-known and wealthy family, carried out the killings in an effort to distract from the fact he had been stealing from the family firm to feed his drug habit.<\/p>\n

The jury deliberated for less than three hours after hearing from more than 75 witnesses and considering nearly 800 pieces of evidence.<\/p>\n

They were told about friends and clients who Murdaugh had betrayed, his failed attempt to stage his own death in a multi-million dollar insurance fraud scheme, a fatal boat crash in which his son was implicated, the housekeeper who fell to her death in the family’s home, the scene of the killings and Bubba, the chicken-snatching Labrador<\/p>\n

But it was a mobile phone video shot by his son Paul that appeared to seal his fate – Paul filmed the video minutes before his death and witnesses testified that it captured the voices of all three family members.<\/p>\n

This was important because, for a long time, Murdaugh had told police he was asleep when his wife and son were attacked.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Alex<\/div>
Alex Murdaugh (right) with son Paul and wife Maggie. (Image: Facebook)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘I had to keep lying’<\/strong><\/p>\n

In court he admitted joining them at the kennels, however, saying he had taken a chicken from Bubba before returning to the house shortly before the shootings.<\/p>\n

When asked why he had insisted for so long that he had been asleep, he said his addiction to opioids had made him paranoid and distrusting of police.<\/p>\n

Once he had lied the first time, he felt trapped, he said, adding: “Oh what a tangled web we weave – once I told a lie, I told my family, I had to keep lying.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Alex<\/div>
Alex Murdaugh. (Image: Orange County Dept of Corrections)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘A century of corruption, power and cover-ups’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Murdaugh admitted stealing millions of dollars from clients but insisted he had not killed his wife and son.<\/p>\n

“I would never hurt Maggie, and I would never hurt Paul – ever – under any circumstances,” he said.<\/p>\n

Experts from both sides agreed there must have been a lot of blood at the scene but the prosecution did not present any evidence of blood on clothing.<\/p>\n

The murder weapons have also never been found.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"The<\/div>
Buster Murdaugh, brother of Paul, pictured at the funeral service for his mother and brother in June 2021. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read more:
\nTrial of prominent lawyer accused of murdering wife and son prompts reopening of investigations into other deaths<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Murdaugh’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were elected prosecutors in the area for more than eight decades, and the family law firm built its reputation on suing big businesses.<\/p>\n

He will be sentenced later and faces 30 years to life in prison without parole.<\/p>\n

The story features in a Netflix documentary series – Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, which is billed as showing “how two murders reveal a century of corruption, power, and cover-ups in South Carolina”.<\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0\"Sky<\/a> news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Murdaugh has been convicted of murdering his wife and son after a six-week trial that revealed the prominent lawyer’s spectacular fall from grace. The 54-year-old shot his wife Margaret, 52, four or five times […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[8056,9268,1537],"class_list":{"0":"post-24851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-alex-murdaugh","11":"tag-colleton-county","12":"tag-south-carolina","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24851"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24855,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851\/revisions\/24855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}