A lawyer from a wealthy family in the southern United States, Alex Murdaugh, was found guilty of murdering his wife and son on Thursday, a case that kept the country on edge for weeks.
“The evidence of guilt is overwhelming,” Judge Clifton Newman said after the jury reached its unanimous verdict.
As he stood in the courtroom, Murdaugh, descended from three generations of local prosecutors and judges, remained unmoved, though he blinked endlessly.
It took the jurors less than three hours of deliberation to find him guilty of shooting to death his wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and their son Paul Murdaugh, 22, on June 7, 2021 near the kennel. Moselle.
He faces life imprisonment. The sentence will be announced Friday morning.
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He was accused of stealing large amounts of money from his law firm, friends, and even his housekeeper’s son, and executing their relatives to avoid detection.
The case has fascinated the United States, where the documentary “The Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” is one of the most watched on Netflix, with 40 million views last week.
“He fooled the whole world,” but “don’t be fooled” by this “master con artist,” prosecutor Creighton Waters told jurors Wednesday.
“Why would he have killed the two people he loves most in the world?” His lawyer Jim Griffin responded Thursday, denouncing an “absurd theory” and asking for his acquittal, citing a lack of material evidence.
The judges visited the farm on Thursday to better understand the layout of the place. It was the first time in a month and a half that television cameras could not film.
“Delusion”
During the trial, news networks broadcast live the parade of defrauded colleagues and friends, who recounted how Alex Murdaugh, 54, stole millions of dollars from them.
Murdaugh acknowledged this fraud, which he attributes to bad investments and an addiction to opiates, and for which he will later be tried for the double murder.
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The shadows over Alex began after a young woman was killed in a boating accident driven by her son under the influence of alcohol in 2019.
“The whole illusion of his life would collapse, he couldn’t bear it,” said the prosecutor.
According to him, Murdaugh killed his relatives to buy time before attempting suicide. In early September, he asked an accomplice to kill him so that his son would receive $10 million in life insurance. But the bullet barely grazed him.
premeditated crimes
According to the prosecution, Alex Murdaugh used his professional experience to tamper with the crime scene, change clothes and erase conversation history, the prosecution said. He also “fabricated an alibi” by visiting his senile mother and calling right after the crime, Waters said.
“But there’s one thing he couldn’t control,” the prosecutor said. A video recorded by his son minutes before he died, in which his father’s voice can be heard, despite the fact that he has always denied being near the kennel that day.
Last week, the defendant admitted to lying, but said it was due to a paranoia caused by his dependence on drugs. Still, he denied the double murder.
Faced with the truth, “go back, change and make up a new story,” the prosecution responded.
Source: Eluniverso
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