the american lawyer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison this Friday for killing his wife and son, ending a trial that has lasted six weeks and has caused a great media outcry in the United States.

The popular lawyer, 54, was found guilty on Thursday of shoot, in 2021, his wife, Maggie, 52, and their youngest son, Paul, 22, at his home, located in a rural part of the state of South Carolina, where the Murdaugh family enjoyed great influence. The prosecution argued that Murdaugh committed the murder in order to prevent his numerous cases of embezzlement and money laundering.

Murdaugh himself admitted during the trial to having lied to the police about his whereabouts on the night of the crimebut he assured that it was due to the paranoia caused by drug use, and tearfully denied having shot his family.

Shot with a rifle and a shotgun

The minimum sentence for murder in South Carolina, where the trial has taken place, It is 30 years in jail and the maximum of life in prison. Both the lawyer’s wife and son were shot multiple times with a rifle and a shotgunalthough the weapons of the crime have not been found, nor have blood stains or other types of physical evidence.

What was found was a video shot by little Paul Murdaugh before dying where the voices of both parents are heard, destroying the initial alibi of the lawyer, who claimed not to be in the house at the time of the crime. When he was charged with the murder of two of his relatives, Murdaugh was already in prison, awaiting trial on a hundred charges related to his business as a lawyer.