The legal team for Alex Murdaugh, center, will present their closing argument in his double murder trial on Thursday. He’s seen here listening to prosecutor Creighton Waters make his closing arguments at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C.
Joshua Boucher/The State via AP, Pool
Joshua Boucher/The State via AP, Pool
Alex Murdaugh’s defense team is making its final bid to prevent him from spending decades in prison, delivering their closing argument in the trial of the disbarred South Carolina attorney charged in the murders of his wife and son.
The trial resumed shortly after 9:30 a.m. Thursday — the day the case is expected to go to the jury, more than a month after the court heard opening statements on Jan. 25.
After the defense presents its closing argument, the prosecution will offer a response. Judge Clifton Newman is then expected to give final instructions to the jury, and charge them with coming to a verdict.
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Murdaugh, 54, is charged with using a rifle to kill his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and a shotgun to kill his son Paul, 22. They died on the night of June 7, 2021, at the family’s sprawling Moselle hunting estate in South Carolina’s Lowcountry region.
Murdaugh faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s found guilty of two counts of murder and other charges. He’s being tried at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C.
His defense team has sought to sow doubt about the work by police and forensics teams, saying they fell far short of preserving evidence from the crime scene and the hunting estate’s main house.
A juror is removed, shortly before deliberations are to begin
As Thursday’s court session began, Judge Clifton Newman announced that a juror is being replaced on the panel. The court received a complaint from a member of the public saying the juror, a woman identified only as juror No. 785, had “improper conversations” with people not involved with the case.
Newman thanked the woman for her attentive and positive attitude throughout the case, and the investment of her time. But, he said, she would be replaced so that the integrity of the trial would remain intact.
A light moment then erupted shortly before the juror left, as she said she needed her purse from the other room — along with a dozen eggs that another juror had brought in for everyone on the panel.
“A dozen eggs?” Newman asked.
“You want to leave the eggs or take the eggs?” the judge asked. The juror affirmed that she wanted to take the eggs.
Newman also instructed her to not talk about the case until the trial is over.
The witnesses were murdered, prosecutor said
Prosecutors have built a case against Murdaugh using circumstantial evidence, lacking eyewitnesses, video records or a murder weapon.
“We couldn’t bring you any eyewitnesses, because they were murdered,” prosecutor Creighton Waters told the jury on Wednesday.
The trial is winding down one week after Murdaugh took the stand himself, to admit he had lied repeatedly to investigators when he said he wasn’t with his wife and son at the dog kennels at Moselle shortly before they died.
In his new version of events, Murdaugh admitted being there, but he said he went back to the house minutes before 9 p.m. — the time prosecutors say the murders took place.
Prosecutor told jurors: Don’t let Murdaugh fool you
In his closing argument, Waters stressed to jurors that he thinks one thing was missing from the two days Murdaugh spent testifying. If the new alibi is true, Waters asked, why hadn’t Murdaugh voiced any regret that he didn’t remain at the kennel, to potentially protect his wife and child?
Jurors have gotten a massive amount of information about Murdaugh’s character, from his former law colleagues and clients who said he stole millions of dollars, to the multiple stories about his alibi.
“This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters said. “He fooled Maggie and Paul, too, and they paid for it with their lives. Don’t let him fool you, too.”