South Carolina lawyer found guilty of murdering wife and son [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

• South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh found guilty of killing his wife and son to distract from financial crimes.
• He was convicted of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.
• Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison without parole.

On Thursday, February 3rd, 2023, Alex Murdaugh, a former South Carolina lawyer, was found guilty of murdering his wife and son to distract from financial crimes that could ruin his reputation. After a three-hour deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women convicted Murdaugh, 54, of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

The fatal shootings of Margaret, 52, and their youngest son, Paul, 22, took place in June 2021, and neither weapon used in the killings has been found. Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison without parole.

During the trial, the prosecution built a case based on circumstantial evidence, using electronic data and video extracted from the victims’ cellphones to suggest that only Murdaugh had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill his wife and son.

The defense, however, portrayed Murdaugh as a family man with a loving relationship with his wife and children and stressed that the state had no direct evidence that he pulled the trigger before calling 911 on the evening of June 7, 2021, to say he had found his wife and son’s bodies near kennels at their hunting estate in rural Colleton County.

Murdaugh had been swindling clients for years, and he used the money, in part, to feed an addiction to pain pills. He had also been under strain from a lawsuit involving Paul, who at the time of his death was facing trial on three felony counts of boating under the influence in connection with a 2019 boat crash that killed a teenage passenger.

The prosecution argued that Murdaugh had much to lose if his financial malfeasance was exposed but that the deaths of his wife and son promptly stopped the law firm’s investigation and stymied the boat crash case to his advantage.

After the verdict, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said that Murdaugh had tried to pull “one last con,” but justice had been served for Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. The trial attracted intense coverage for a case first classified as an unsolved double homicide, but it soon unraveled into wider allegations of financial fraud, a hired hitman plot, and drug addiction, and it revived inquiries into other curious deaths linked to the Murdaugh family. Murdaugh’s defense team did not immediately comment about the verdict.

Source: nbcnews.com