The Murdaugh Dynasty: A High-Dimensional Analysis of a South Carolina Attorney Killed in the Footsteps
Editor’s Note: The HBO docuseries “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” chronicles the family’s influence in South Carolina. It airs on CNN Sunday, February 19, at 8 p.m. ET.
Murdaugh has acknowledged that he struggles with an addiction to narcotics and prosecutors presented evidence that shows Paul confronted his father about a drug habit a month before he and his mother were killed.
The green gel pill p30, which matches the description of a nonprescription cold and flu medication, was searched for by Maggie on May 26.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said the audio showed Murdaugh and his wife having a “normal discussion” with “no animosity.” Paul is “very happy,” Harpootlian claimed. Nobody is threatening him. Daddy is not going to kill him with a shotgun.
During his testimony last week, Murdaugh said he had a decades-long addiction to opiate painkillers, and that it contributed to “paranoid thinking” that led him to lie to investigators. He said he took more than two tons of the drug a day before his death.
The night of his son and wife’s murder, Murdaugh left his house after dinner and went back to his home, where he lay down on a couch.
The defense has portrayed the defendant as a loving father and husband who called 911 after finding his wife and son, and who is being prosecuted after a poorly handled investigation while the real killers remain at large.
The defense claimed that Murdaugh was buying drugs for $50,000 a week from the man who owed a lot of money to the gang.
The first two witnesses to be called by the defense are Richard Harvey, the Coroner of Colleton County, and an astronomer who conducted a survey of the planets. When questioned by the defense whether Maggie or Paul could have been shot at 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. or any time in between, Harvey said yes.
The murder trial of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh has produced moments of high drama and surprise — but Murdaugh’s turn on the stand in his own defense surpassed all that came before.
The court also earlier on Friday heard from an investigator who offered a timeline of the night Maggie and Paul were killed, combining data from cell phones and vehicle systems which showed Alex Murdaugh drove by the spot where his wife’s phone was later found and that he called police seconds after his car arrived in the area the bodies were found.
Rudofski, an investigator with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said he was able to plot the movements of Murdaugh on the night of the killings.
After spending time with his dog at the kennels, Murdaugh decided to visit his mother in a nearby town, laying on a couch inside his home. Murdaugh testified he’d spoken to one of her caregivers earlier that day who asked for him to stop by. He went to visit his mother that evening, then went back home and found the bodies, he testified.
Rudofski testified that Murdaugh drove by the spot on the side of the road where a cell phone was later recovered.
Data showed that Murdaugh stayed at his parents’ home for about 20 minutes that night before leaving to head back to the Moselle property, the investigator testified.
A Murdaugh family lawyer tells the tale of his father and his son, Buster, in a reappearance of their relationship
According to previous testimony, he told investigators on the night of the killings that when he arrived at the crime scene and discovered the bodies, he tried to turn Paul over, then attempted to check Paul’s cell phone, and then attempted to tried both of their pulses, before calling 911.
Murdaugh was shot in the head but survived. That same month, he turned himself in after admitting he asked a former client to kill him during a fake car breakdown so Murdaugh’s oldest son, Buster, could get an insurance payout, police said.
The case has been prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office because of the long-standing relationships between the local solicitor and the Murdaugh family.
The footage played in court Wednesday showed SLED agents confronting Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his earlier statements to law enforcement.
As his dad’s voice could be heard in the distance, Paul recorded a video of his friend’s dog. The video, much discussed in this month-old trial, prompted the elder Murdaugh to change his narrative about where he was that night.
“And Rogan’s been around your family for pretty much all his life,” Owen said, something Murdaugh agreed with. “And he recognizes your voice, and you have a distinct voice. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”
Murdaugh and Blanca Simpson confronted a man in Almeda who was killed in the roadside on the day of the 2021 shootings
The footage played Wednesday also showed the agents confront Murdaugh about another piece of footage filmed by Paul the night of the killings: A Snapchat video showing Murdaugh looking at a sapling on the family’s property. Murdaugh was wearing pants and a shirt. He was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt.
A video is on the phone of you and Paul, which you can find on the farm. You’re wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt … When I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt,” Owen said. Did you change clothes at that point in the evening?
Blanca Simpson, a family housekeeper, similarly testified last week that Maggie told her the day of the murders that Alex had asked both Maggie and Paul to come to Moselle that night.
You weren’t concerned about those clothes, the reason why you didn’t. The investigation had been focused on the T-shirt and shorts that he was wearing when he called for help.
Owen testified that he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.
It came up negative on the Hematrace test when you tried it to confirm whether or not there is blood. Wasn’t that overlooked?” asked Griffin.
Owen asked if the two victims from the blasts would have biological material on them.
The property of Murdaugh’s mother in Almeda wasn’t searched for months after the killings. No weapons were found on that property, Owen testified.
At one point Wednesday, Judge Clifton Newman ruled against allowing testimony about a roadside shooting that injured Murdaugh in September 2021. Authorities say Murdaugh arranged for another man to shoot his son’s friend in order to get life insurance for him.
Griffin said Smith owed a lot of money to a drug gang, and Owen testified that he was told the gang was not worried about the money because it knew it was going to get paid.
“Prior to that day, had Alex Murdaugh ever mentioned to you Curtis Edward Smith or anyone else that might have been involved in his son’s or his wife’s murder?” prosecutor John Meadors asked.
Owen was asked if a cell phone analysis was done to see if the drug gang members were in the vicinity on the night of the killings. Owen said state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and only first responders were coming to the scene.
The defense attorney also asked Owen if any DNA analysis had been done to match a small amount of unknown male DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.
The lines were a preview of what has become clear through three weeks of the trial: There is no direct evidence – no witnesses, no smoking guns, no blood-soaked clothes – tying the disgraced former South Carolina attorney to the murders of his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh.
The defense claimed that Murdaugh was wrongly accused because of a poorly handled investigation. The first day of testimony has some key moments.
“They’ve got a whole lot more evidence about financial misconduct than they have about a murder and evidence of guilt in a murder case,” defense lawyer Jim Griffin said in court.
Legal experts who have followed the trial told CNN that the lack of direct evidence makes it harder to convict.
“It does make the case more difficult,” said trial attorney Misty Marris. At some point, if the prosecutors have sufficient evidence that they can put together that story and show opportunity, it can rise to level needed to get a conviction.
“Jurors want science, jurors want DNA, jurors want something that’s persuasive,” Azari said. “Because they lack it, their focus is now on the tenuous motives and the lies after the fact, but neither of those things substitute the evidence that they need.”
The day of reckoning: Alex Murdaugh resigned from his law firm after the murders of his family and his wife, Mallory Beach,
A Snapchat video, just short of a minute long, was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just minutes before Paul and Maggie were shot dead, according to Lt. David Dove is a supervisor in the computer crimes center.
The video focuses on one of their dogs and it is at the family home in Islandton. Friends of the Murdaugh family said that three different voices were heard in the background, and that they were Paul, Margaret and Alex.
In the aftermath of the murders, as seen on police body-cam footage, Murdaugh told investigators that he was asleep at his home and went to visit his mother in Alameda at the time of the killings.
The prosecution has used that Snapchat video to try to disprove his assertion that he was asleep, and other testimony has also cut into his claims about how long he had been with his mother.
The check that was supposed to be addressed to the firm but was instead made out was discovered by an employee at Mr. Murdaugh’s law firm three months after he and his family were killed. That finding led the firm to investigate further and, when they discovered evidence of financial wrongdoing, to ask for his resignation, which he gave.
“We weren’t going to go in there and harass him about money when we were worried about his mental state and the fact that his family had been killed,” the CFO, Jeanne Seckinger, testified.
Second, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, crashed. A hearing in that civil case was scheduled for June 10, 2021, and had the potential to reveal his financial problems, prosecutors argued.
Indeed, that “day of reckoning” didn’t come for another three months, when his law firm again confronted him about misappropriated funds, leading to his resignation, a bizarre murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot, a stint in rehab for a drug addiction, dozens of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.
Alex Murdaugh was back on the stand Friday for more questioning by the prosecution in his trial for the deaths of his wife and son.
Buster Murdaugh was called as the defense’s first witness of the day. He is expected to be followed by an accident reconstructionist who will likely focus on investigators’ findings at the killing scene, including how the it was treated and what conclusions were drawn as a result, a source familiar with the case previously told CNN.
Upon returning home to the family’s sprawling estate, he told investigators, he found the bodies of his wife and son on the ground by their dog kennels and called 911.
The video was captured on Paul’s phone before the sun came up and shows one of the family dogs. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified.
The officers of the sheriff’s office discovered shell shells and called a tow truck company to take them to the scene. Police reports don’t indicate whether they found any cameras or if they found anything at all.
A Three-Dimensional Criminal Lawyer Revealed by the State Department of Corrections to the Murdaugh Charges on Sept. 4
On Sept. 4, Mr. Murdaugh claimed that he had been shot in the head by someone who was following him while he was changing a tire. He was taken to a hospital, but his story soon began to fall apart. He claimed that he had been alone on the side of the road, but it turns out that he was with a distant cousin.
During his testimony, Murdaugh offered multiple explanations for his decision to lie to investigators: He was paranoid due to his drug use, he said. Questions about his family relationships and a test for gun residue made him feel like a suspect, he said. He didn’t trust the law enforcement agency leading the investigation due to previous encounters, he explained, too.
The disgraced former attorney pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the killings of his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh, on June 7, 2021, at the family’s home in Islandton.
In that four-minute span, Murdaugh also called Maggie twice, records show. Asked if he deleted any calls from his phone’s records, Murdaugh said, “Not intentionally.”
“I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Murdaugh said in response to prosecutor Creighton Waters during the prosecution’s cross-examination.
Murdaugh was crying as he said he didn’t know why he tried to turn him over. “I mean, my boy’s laying face down. He has done the same thing he has done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do.”
Paul Murdaugh, the Killing Victim, told a disgraced lawyer about lying and drug use during the 2019 June 7 shootings
Referring to cell phone data and other evidence from the night of the slayings, Waters sought to poke holes in Murdaugh’s account of his whereabouts at the time.
Murdaugh was able to keep his legal practice because he was certain his partners hadn’t heard of his pill addiction.
The court was adjourned for the weekend and will reopen Monday morning, a day after a prosecutor grilling a disgraced attorney over lies, drug use and details in a gruesome case.
You are fuzzy on some other things that complicate that, and I think you have a photographic memory of the details that have to fit now that you know. You disagree with that?”
Waters asked Murdaugh if his dogs were bothering his son and wife when he was there with them.
“I know what I wasn’t doing, Mr Waters,” Murdaugh said. I was not washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat, as you had implied, but I was doing other things.
“I never manufactured any alibi in any way shape or form because I did not, and would not, hurt my wife and my child,” he said. I know for a fact that I have never created an alibi.
“I can tell you for a fact that the person or people who did what I saw on June 7, they hated Paul Murdaugh,” he testified. They had a lot of anger in their hearts.
Murdaugh testified he did not believe anyone involved in the 2019 wreck had anything to do with the murders. But he said he suspected the killer was someone who had heard about what happened.
Repeatedly, Waters asked Murdaugh to identify the moment where he decided to lie to investigators, as he replayed video excerpts of Murdaugh’s previous interviews with police.
Over the course of six hours of cross-examination on Thursday and Friday, prosecutor Creighton Waters pressed Murdaugh about his financial crimes, his opioid addiction and his whereabouts on the night of the killings.
They are real people. They’re good people. They’re all people that I care about … And a lot of them people that I love and I did wrong by them,” Murdaugh said.
I don’t know if it came from me looking them in the eye or not. But I will agree with you that every single client I looked them in the eye and I believe that the people that I stole money from for all those years trusted me.”
“This defendant … has fooled everyone, everyone, everyone who thought they were close to him,” Waters told the jury. “Everyone who thought they knew who he was, he’s fooled them all. He fooled them too and paid for his actions with their lives. Don’t let him fool you, too.”
A cascading turn of events would then ensue, including Murdaugh’s resignation from his law firm, his disbarment, revelations his shooting was a scheme to provide life insurance money to his surviving son, and his eventual arrest in connection with the alleged financial crimes and killings.
He said he made a decision to lie to police because of many factors, including his distrust of SLED, questions about his relationship with his wife and son and the fact that he has a pocket full of money. The clips of the police interview were played by the prosecution.
Murdaugh said there were days when he took more than 60 pills a day. He bought various types of 30-milligram pills of the drug.
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.
The Final Moment of Murdaugh’s 911 Call-by-Emergency Interrogation Revisited: Waters Accused of Uncertainty
Then, in a final dramatic moment Friday, prosecutors played body camera footage recorded by an officer who responded to the scene immediately after Murdaugh had called 911.
“It was earlier tonight,” Murdaugh can be heard responding. “I don’t know the exact time, but I left. I was gone for about an hour and a half and saw my mom and sister around 45 minutes before that.
Choosing to lie to investigators so soon after the deaths beggared belief about his other explanations, Waters argued. The prosecutor said that it was a lie to tell that the most important part of your testimony was a lie.
Murdaugh claimed that he wouldn’t have killed himself had he been with his family. “I can promise you I would hurt myself before I would hurt one of them, without a doubt,” he said.
“You told this jury how cooperative you’ve been and how much information you wanted to provide, but you left out the most important parts, didn’t you?” Waters asked.
EXCHANGES between Waters and Murdaugh were always testy. As the two went back and forth about Murdaugh’s last minutes with his wife and son, Waters faulted Murdaugh for being “fuzzy” on details.
Waters began his interrogation with David Owen, the lead investigator from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Why didn’t he stay at the kennels to protect his wife and son? Murdaugh’s two day testimony at the golf cart kennel
In his closing argument Waters told the jury that he was missing something from the two day testimony by Murdaugh. 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?
In the evening, Murdaugh sat in the golf cart at the kennels. He took a bird from his dog’s mouth as he left the golf cart.
Waters said that cell phone location data showed that Murdaugh did not bring his phone down. He admitted that he didn’t have a phone, but added that it was not unusual for him to leave his phone in the house.
Around 8:49 p.m., Paul and Maggie’s phones, which location data showed to be at the kennels, were locked for the last time. Data shows that from 8:53:15 to 8:55:32, Maggie’s phone moved 59 steps. The phone’s orientation went from portrait to landscape and back several times.
Alex Murdaugh’s phone was immobile at the main house during that time. But starting at 9:02 p.m., data from Murdaugh’s phone showed that it moved 283 steps in four minutes.
Waters wondered why Murdaugh didn’t come by to speak with her after he had left and failed to get her on the phone. There’s a driveway right there, she’s so close.
When Murdaugh was questioned by prosecutors, he was able to control the narrative using his decades of experience as an attorney. Legal experts say that prosecutors want to elicit “Yes” and “No” responses from a prosecution witness in an effort to get them to argue their case. But Murdaugh continuously gave long explanations when responding. He might have been able to look more sympathetic to the jury in that way.
Waters also questioned Murdaugh about a solicitor’s badge he carried for years — a credential he received from his father when he volunteered at the circuit solicitor’s office that elder generations of the Murdaugh family led for some 86 years.
Waters displayed a photo of Murdaugh wearing the badge as he spoke to people on the night of his son Paul’s boating accident in 2019, which left one woman dead. That event thrust the family into an unwanted spotlight, and Murdaugh believes it’s linked to the execution-style killings.
Why did he lie about being on the stand when he was a criminal defendant? A lawyer’s advice for a man in Murdaugh’s case
Legal experts say it was a risky move to hear from the man who took the stand, but they believe it would have helped Alex Murdaugh’s case.
“If you’re going to have somebody testify, having a lawyer who’s smart, who’s been in the courtroom, who’s lied for 20 years … that’s the guy you want on the stand,” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark Eiglarsh said. “And all it takes is one juror to connect with him emotionally.”
While defendants can often find themselves at a disadvantage when taking the stand, in this case, several attorneys told CNN Murdaugh practically had no choice but to testify.
Why did you lie that you weren’t at the kennels, a question that people wanted to know? He had to explain it, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Bernarda Villalona said. “That’s what I think is the main reason why the criminal defense attorney in this case made a calculated decision to put him on the stand.”
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.
He was sympathetic for trying to wrestle with his addiction and that may have caused him to lie about not being there to the police.
If he had a drug problem, he might have acted irrationally at the time, and the jury might think he killed his family. “So, it’s a double-edged sword.”
“What they’re doing, the prosecutors, is saying he’s a liar, he’s a cheat, he can’t be trusted and you should not at all take whatever he says at face value,” criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson said.
“I think it actually went very well for the defendant and rather poorly for the prosecutor,” Wu said. “Murdaugh (was) a tough witness, I mean he’s a skilled lawyer himself. The person doing the cross should have been controlling him, but he was able to control the pace.
A law professor at Cardozo School of Law said that one of the main sticking points in the trial was whether or not he would actually do it. “Despite all the other crimes he’s admitted to, would he actually kill his wife and son?
Among the witnesses called by Murdaugh’s attorneys were his former legal partner who testified the scene was not properly secured, and a forensics expert who said his analysis suggests two shooters carried out the killings.
In the case of Alex Murdaugh, a former professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven was hired to review and analyze the crime scene.
Waters said that Paul had a favorite gun and he was killed by shots from it. The prosecutor said that the class characteristics of the shells that killed Paul were similar to a 12-gauge shotgun.
Paul Murdaugh’s remains were not cleaned up the night after he left for his wife and son: A lawyer’s attorney’s perspective
According to the prosecution, they plan to get testimony from at least four or five rebuttal witnesses on Tuesday. After rebuttal witnesses, jurors will be allowed to go to the family’s estate prior to the conclusion of the trial.
The 14th and final defense witness was the defendant’s brother John Marvin Murdaugh, who testified in emotional terms that law enforcement released the crime scene back to the family without cleaning up Paul Murdaugh’s remains.
It had not been cleaned up. I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull,” he testified through tears. It was something that I had to do for Paul to clean it up. It seemed like it was the right thing to do. I felt like I owed him, and I started cleaning. I can promise that no one should ever have to see or do what I did that day.
The defense focused on showing that investigators did not do a good job securing the crime scene. Mark Ball, one of Murdaugh’s law firm colleagues, testified there were no barricades or police tape blocking the entrance to the property and said Paul’s remains were still there after investigators left.
In particular, they have tried to prove he was at the crime scene that night, worked to show he lied to investigators and painted a picture of a fraudster who killed his wife and son in a desperate bid to distract the investigations into his actions.
That shooting was followed by a stint in rehab for drug addiction, dozens of allegations of financial crimes, his disbarment and, ultimately, the murder charges.
The jury is still waiting for the discovery of Murdaugh’s body in Islandton, South Carolina – a request from the defense
The state plans to call four or five witnesses to testify on issues raised by the defense, and hopes to finish with all of them by the end of the Tuesday, prosecutor Creighton Waters said.
Judge Clifton Newman approved a request from the defense on Monday to allow the jury to view Murdaugh’s property in Islandton, particularly its dog kennels where the bodies of Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh were found. After rebuttal witnesses testify, a visit will happen, Newman said without specifying a day.
The defense rested its case Monday after calling 14 witnesses, including Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the June 7, 2021, killings.
To show the killings could have taken place after Murdaugh left the kennels, the defense has tried to establish that Maggie and Paul’s time of death could have fallen in a much longer time window than prosecutors have presented.
Harvey, who said he arrived on scene at 11:04 p.m., also testified that rigor mortis – the stiffening of a body’s joints and muscles following death – had not yet set in, and that it typically starts developing one to three hours following death.
According to Jonathan Eisenstat, the temperature checks are not a valid method to try and make a determination of time of death.
Instead, he said, someone arriving on scene should first check the ambient temperature of the area where the body is found and then take a rectal temperature to get as close to a core body temperature as possible.
Harvey said he did not take rectal temperatures that night. During cross examination, prosecutors asked if the coroner had an idea of when the killings occurred since he did not take exact temperatures.
The Strange Case of Alex Murdaugh: Why Did he Shoot? The Case of Moselle, a South Carolina dynastic family
The strange-than-fiction case that brought national attention to Alex Murdaugh, a former personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in South Carolina, brought attention to his family history.
“The evidence that you’ve heard shows that the defendant became so addicted and so dependent on the velocity of money that the millions of dollars in legal fees that he was receiving was not enough and so he started to steal,” Waters said.
Waters used phone forensics to reconstruct the prosecution’s version of what happened before and after the murders at Moselle.
Everything has changed because of that. Why did it change everything? Opportunity. Being at the scene of the crime when the murders occurred,” Waters said. The most important thing that the defendants could have told law enforcement was not exposed. When did I last see my wife and child? It’s understandable why a father and husband wouldn’t tell the truth about that. He wasn’t aware that video was there.
He added that Alex Murdaugh had this shotgun with him on the night of the killings and that “Maggie’s DNA and blood” were found on the receiver of the gun.
“A family Blackout killed Maggie. It was present just a couple months prior to the murders and it’s gone now. The defendants couldn’t account for the murder ofMaggie.
Legal experts who have participated in high-profile cases joined CNN Wednesday night to examine key questions that have arisen over the Murdaugh trial, including whether the admission of lying to investigators could help or hurt the case.
It comes down to two things for every prosecutor. I’m talking motive and opportunity,” said CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates, who anchored the televised panel discussion. The legal experts discussed the case.
Hatchett said that he thinks the credibility of the family of Philando is in question because he waited until there was testimony from multiple people and then admitted that he was paranoid.
Hatchett, who presided over juvenile courts in Georgia, said that credibility gaps can taint your other testimony if you are notcredible.
“The prosecution, to get their conviction, has got to do away with – to exclude – every reasonable hypothesis of innocence,” said criminal defense lawyer Mark O’Mara, who represented the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.
“I think this kennel video is the most important piece of evidence in this case for the prosecution because it explodes the big lie,” said Loni Coombs, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor. He initially claimed he was not at the crime scene, but later changed his story to say he was there.
Over time, Murdaugh said he would get paranoid thinking in situations where his addiction evolved. On June the 7th, I was not thinking clearly. I don’t believe I was capable of reasoning. I lied about being down there.
The trial of the killing of an opiate user in Los Alamos, California, is set to commence at a magistrate’s trial on $20$Cas
Patients typically start at 10 to 20 milligrams a few times a day, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday night. He said it’s possible to take 2,000 milligrams a day.
People can build up tolerance to drugs. This is not unheard of,” Gupta said. “Over time, people can increasingly escalate the dose.” It is “tough to know” what the impact of opioid addiction would have on a specific person’s behavior, Gupta added.
To be able to develop tolerance, people are no longer taking the medication in order to get high, but rather to feel normal and not have withdrawal, Gupta said.
The jury will hear the case on Thursday, the day after the court heard opening statements.
The prosecution will provide a response after the defense presents its closing argument. Judge Clifton Newman is then expected to give final instructions to the jury, and charge them with coming to a verdict.
The defense team believes that police and the forensics teams did not preserve evidence from the crime scene or the hunting estate’s main house.
Judicial Report on the First Trial of Murdaugh’s Felonium Instability in the Newman Appellate Trial
A juror is being removed from the panel, as Judge Newman announced at the beginning of the court session. 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 positive attitude and investment in 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.
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.