Lawyer Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison for murder of his wife and son

First modification: 03/03/2023 – 18:21

One of the most publicized court cases in recent years in the United States concludes.

This Thursday, March 3, a South Carolina jury sentenced lawyer Richard ‘Alex’ Murdaugh to life imprisonment, after being found guilty of two counts of murder, for the death of his wife Maggie, 52, and the minor of their children, Paul, 22 years old. A crime that occurred in his home on June 7, 2021 and that shocked the country.

The case has attracted great attention due to the political power of the family from which the defendant comes. For decades until 2006, the Murdaughs served as the lead prosecutors in the area and the defendant was a leading personal injury lawyer in the southern state. In addition, the recent premiere of a documentary series on Netflix increased interest in the case.

“It doesn’t matter who your family is, it doesn’t matter how much money you have (…) If you do something bad, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina,” said Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor, after learning of the case. verdict.

The man faced a minimum of 30 years in prison for each of the two murder charges. However, prosecutors insisted on the sentence of life in prison without parole.

The details of the case

According to the prosecution’s exposure throughout the trial, Murdaugh shot his wife and son to distract attention from a series of financial crimes he allegedly committed, including stealing millions of dollars from his legal partners and clients. The money would have been used to fuel his addiction to opioids and maintain an expensive lifestyle.

However, during his closing argument, Jim Griffin, one of the defense attorneys, claimed that this motive was “absurd” because, on the contrary, committing those murders would only have drawn more scrutiny into his client’s financial irregularities. .

But one of the main circumstances against him was the fact that the man convicted today admitted to lying about his whereabouts on the night the murders occurred. He did so after evidence emerged locating him at the scene, which undermined his credibility with the jury.

The defense tried to portray their client as a loving family man who, although he was struggling financially and suffered from a drug addiction that led him to lie and steal, would never harm his family.

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty, testifying that he believed someone angered by a fatal accident involving his son Paul in 2019 could have committed the crime as a form of revenge.

Griffin also accused investigators of “falsifying evidence” and emphasized the high legal requirement to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, pointing out that prosecutors concluded the criminal case largely on circumstantial evidence rather than direct evidence. .

But in the end, the jurors did not believe the defendant’s account. The prosecution insisted on Murdaugh’s lack of credibility by lying about something as critical as where he was when his wife and child were killed.

“Circumstantial evidence, direct evidence, all the evidence pointed to one conclusion and that is the conclusion you all came to,” Judge Clifton Newman stressed, adding that the evidence against Murdaugh was “overwhelming” and that the jury took the right decision.

The two victims lost their lives after being shot by a rifle and a shotgun. However, the weapons of the crime have not been found; nor blood stains or other types of physical evidence.

But the authorities did find a video recorded by Paul Murdaugh shortly before he died, in which the voices of both parents are heard, which sank the initial alibi of the defendant, who claimed not to have been in the house at the time of the crime.

With Reuters and EFE