A South Carolina jury on Thursday found disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty of the double murder of his wife and son after a nearly six-week trial.
Although the trial was expected to end in early February, prosecutors and Murdaugh’s attorneys delivered their closing arguments on Thursday after a lengthy trial that featured more than 60 witnesses for the prosecution.
As Breitbart News detailed:
The saga began in June 2021 when Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and his son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found shot and killed outside the dog kennels at the family’s hunting lodge in Islandton, South Carolina.
Alex Murdaugh, the son of a prominent and well-connected South Carolina family, maintains that he found their bodies after the fact while prosecutors allege that he killed them both to garner sympathy and distract from his alleged financial crimes, which include stealing millions of dollars from his former law firm.
During his testimony at the trial on Thursday morning, Murdaugh’s credibility came into question when he admitted that he lied to law enforcement repeatedly about visiting the dog kennel earlier that day, claiming that his long-term opioid addiction created insatiable paranoia in him. Murdaugh’s confession came as a result of a Snapchat video recorded by his son earlier that night, and witnesses testified that they could hear his voice in the background.
During Thursday’s closing arguments, Murdaugh’s attorneys criticized local law enforcement and accused them of jumping too quickly to conclusions.
“We believe that we’ve shown conclusively that (the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) failed miserably in investigating this case,” Murdaugh attorney Jim Griffin said. “And had they done a competent job, Alex would have been excluded from that circle (of suspects) a year ago or two years ago.”
However, prosecutor John Meadors took offense to Griffin’s remarks and pushed back against those arguments.
“I find it offensive that the defense… is claiming law enforcement didn’t do their job, while he is withholding and obstructing justice by not saying ‘I was down at the kennels,’” Meadors said.
Murdaugh reportedly stood still and did not speak or react as the judge read the jury’s verdict around 7:00 p.m. local time.
In addition to the double murder conviction, the jury found Murdaugh guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during a crime.
Murdaugh “faces 30 years to life in prison without parole for each murder charge,” the Associated Press reports.
Further, Murdaugh faces nearly 100 charges for various financial crimes, including fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and forgery, as CBS News reported. Murdaugh is also accused of stealing more than $8 million from his former law firm and former clients and trying to hire an assassin to kill him as part of a $10 million life insurance scam.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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