DISGRACED legal heir Alex Murdaugh has been found guilty of the June 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul.
After five weeks of shocking testimony from more than 70 witnesses, including the defendant himself, who admitted on the stand to his financial malfeasances, the jury returned with a unanimous guilty verdict on Thursday.
Reports indicate that the jurors deliberated for just under three hours and a verdict was reached at 6.41pm.
The jurors in the case reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all counts following their deliberations.
Murdaugh appeared stoic in the courtroom as the jurors were individually asked to confirm their verdicts.
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Addressing the court, Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman said: "The jury has now considered the evidence for a significant period of time and the evidence is overwhelming."
Speaking to the media after the verdict was delivered, Lead Prosecutor Creighton Waters said: "Justice was served today."
"It doesn't matter how much money you have, or people think you have … if you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina."
Murdaugh was taken back into custody as sentencing was deferred to Friday at 9.30am.
For each murder charge, the minimum sentence is 30 years and the maximum is life in prison.
In addition to the murders, Murdaugh was also found guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
Murdaugh family spokesperson Amanda Loveday told The U.S. Sun that Murdaugh's legal team will not be commenting before on the verdict before Friday's sentencing.
A press conference is expected to be held after the sentencing, during which time the legal team will address the media.
The verdict comes just hours after a juror was removed from the case and replaced.
The juror, a woman identified as Juror No. 785, had improper discussions about the case with someone not affiliated with the trial, according to Judge Newman.
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OPEN CONFESSION
In a trial riddled with controversy, Murdaugh openly confessed that he lied to authorities about his whereabouts on the night of the murders on June 7, 2021.
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters argued that Murdaugh committed the heinous crimes to distract from his financial and criminal wrongdoings that pushed him to become a "family annihilator."
Waters argued that Murdaugh's legal empire began to unravel after his son Paul was involved in a fatal boat crash in 2019 that left 19-year-old Mallory Beach dead.
"That legacy was in danger, and it was threatening to expose who he truly was, which would destroy that part of the legacy," Waters told the jury.
He also argued the family was "watching him [Murdaugh] like a hawk" due to the disgraced attorney's opioid addiction, which he openly admitted to in court.
Waters vividly described to the jury how Murdaugh used a shotgun to blow off his son Paul's head and then picked up a rifle to execute his wife, Maggie.
"All of these pressures were mounting, the defendant killed Maggie and Paul," Waters said in court.
"The forensic timeline puts him there, the use of his family weapons corroborates that and his lies and guilty actions afterwards confirms it."
Defense attorney Jim Griffin slammed the state's motive, saying it made little sense.
“Their theory is he slaughtered his wife and son to distract from an impending financial investigation—but he puts himself in the middle of a murder investigation, and he puts himself in the spotlight of a media firestorm. That’s their motive,” Griffin said.
'I DIDN'T SHOOT MY WIFE OR SON'
During his testimony, a sobbing Murdaugh denied ever hurting his family, saying: "I didn't shoot my wife or my son anytime, ever.
"I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them, ever," declared the since-disbarred attorney.
Murdaugh previously told authorities he had fallen asleep inside the main house but revealed in court that he was at the dog kennels of the family’s hunting estate before the murders.
He blamed withholding information on his years-long addiction to opioids, which he said made him "paranoid."
"On June 7, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. And I lied about being down there. And I’m so sorry that I did," Murdaugh explained.
"My addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations or circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking over anything.
"That night, after finding Mags and Paul, all my partners were repeatedly telling me that I had a sheriff taking gunshot tests from my hands."
Murdaugh continued: "All those things, coupled together with my distrust for SLED, caused me to have paranoid thoughts."
The 54-year-old confessed that he took as many as 60 oxycodone pills daily, sometimes more, between January and June 2021.
"Opiates gave me energy. Whatever I was doing, it made it more interesting. It made me want to do it longer. In the beginning, it made it better."
TWO-SHOOTER SCENARIO
Murdaugh tossed around the scenario that a pair of unknown shooters killed his son and wife over Paul's high-profile boat crash.
He claimed that his family began receiving "vile" threats from social media spectators for his son's actions.
"The social media response that came from that was vile,” Murdaugh said, "so over the top. I believe today, the wrong person saw and read that.
“The person or people who [killed him], they hated Paul Murdaugh, and they had anger in their heart.”
State prosecutors argued that the defendant fabricated the two-shooter scenario to cover his tracks.
Waters said Murdaugh was not worried about his surviving son, Buster, after the murders because he was "the only threat."
"Why is there no threat to Buster? Because he was the threat to Maggie and Paul," Waters said.
"He knows there is no vigilante out there, that's why he was never concerned about it. He knows the only threat is him," he added as he pointed to Murdaugh.
Griffin shot down the prosecution's claims that his client was not concerned about Buster, who was in Columbia at the time of the murders.
The defense played audio from Colleton County Deputy Daniel Greene's body cam footage, where Murdaugh can be heard asking whether a police officer can be sent to protect Buster.
Griffin also pushed toward the two-shooter argument, saying, "there is no direct evidence of Alex doing anything."
According to Griffin, Murdaugh did not have enough time to commit the murders and hide the evidence before driving to his mother's house, based on his cell phone data.
"How could he have butchered Maggie and Paul without leaving a trace of evidence in a matter of minutes?" he asked.
"He would have to be a magician to make all that evidence disappear.
"The most comment sense thing here is there were two shooters because there were two guns," the defense added.
FINAL PLEAS
During their closing arguments, state prosecutors expressed that Murdaugh was the only person who had the motive, means and opportunity to kill his wife and son that June evening.
"People lie because they know they did something wrong," Waters said, adding: "That's why he lied, ladies and gentlemen.
"This defendant has fooled everyone, everyone, everyone who thought they were close to him.
"Everyone who thought they knew who he was, he's fooled them all.
"He fooled Maggie and Paul too, and they paid for it with their lives. Don't let him fool you, too."
Griffin got emotional as he offered one final plea to the jury, "The law doesn't require you to look at Alex Murdaugh as a monster. The law requires you to view him as innocent.
"There are two words that justice demands in this case and those two words are 'not guilty.'
“On behalf of Alex, on behalf of Buster, on behalf of Maggie, and on behalf of my friend Paul, I respectfully request you don’t compound a family tragedy with another," he added.
JURY TOURS MURDAUGH ESTATE
Hours before the closing arguments, Judge Clifton Newman ruled in favor of the defense to allow the jurors to visit the family's sprawling South Carolina property, known as Moselle.
Featured in the massive 1,700-plus acre estate, which has been at the center of the trial, is the dog kennels where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were fatally shot in June 2021.
The jury spent about an hour on the property, walking between the dog kennels and a nearby shed as they examined the residence's exterior.
Jury visits to crime scenes have been allowed on rare occasions, most famously the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles in 1995.
