UNITED STATES: After a six-week trial involving the prominent South Carolina legal family, the jury reached a conclusion on the State of South Carolina v. Richard Alexander Murdaugh. Alex Murdaugh, 54, has been on trial for the double homicide of his wife Maggie, 52, and his son Paul, 22, that took place on June 07, 2021, on their family’s hunting property.
According to NY Breaking News, Paul was barbarically shot in the head and in the chest with a shotgun. Maggie was shot five times with a 300 blackout rifle. The guns used in the shooting were never recovered, but shells discovered at the crime scene could be traced to two different types of guns owned by the Murdaugh family.
Despite initial testimony of Alex claiming that he was not present when his wife and son were brutally shot to death, video evidence on Paul Murdaugh’s phone recorded his father’s voice, placing Alex Murdaugh directly at the scene of the crime. Alex’s original alibi was that he was visiting his mother with dementia that night. When confronted with this lie, he blamed paranoia from an addiction to opioids as his reason for lying to the police.
Alex’s extensive list of financial crimes was used to establish a possible motive for the shooting. Alex was already being investigated for fraud, not to mention the added pressures of the lawsuit pertaining to a boating incident in which Paul is responsible for crashing a boat that resulted in the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach in 2019. According to PEOPLE, Maggie Murdaugh had also met with a divorce attorney six weeks prior to the murder, though it’s unclear if Alex Murdaugh was aware of this or whether it played a role in the murder.
He will serve two consecutive life sentences for the murders. While this case has resulted in a guilty conviction for the disgraced former attorney, it is in no way the end of his legal battles. Alex Murdaugh has yet to go to trial for around 100 financial crime charges, including the embezzlement of millions from his law firm and former clients, and the misappropriation of $4.3 million in insurance settlement from an incident in which his housekeeper suspiciously tripped and fell at their property in Islandton, SC.
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