Missing guns, lies and the dog Bubba: what the jury evaluates in the trial of Alex Murdo

After 28 days and more than 70 witnesses in a double homicide trial in Walterboro, South Carolina, Alex Murdo’s fate came before a jury late Thursday night.

The jury must reach a verdict, despite the fact that the prosecution did not produce a single smoking gun in a two-gun case.

They can confer until 10 pm tonight.

Murdo’s son Paul, whom he repeatedly referred to as “Paul Paul” while on the stands, was hit in the head by a shotgun on June 7, 2021.

Defense attorney Dick Harputlian said in his opening speeches that Murdo found his 22-year-old son “lying in his own blood with his brain at his feet”.

Murdo’s 52-year-old wife Maggie was shot five times with a powerful rifle.

“She ran to her child, heard that shot and ran to her child when she was mowed down,” prosecutor Creighton Waters said during the trial.

Maggie, called “Mags” by her husband during the trial, was eventually shot in the back of the head, execution-style, while lying face down in the family’s hunting lodge in Islandon, South Carolina.

The weapon has not been seized.

Murdo’s attorney, Jim Griffin, told jurors in his closing argument Thursday that investigators “failed miserably” in accusing them of “fabricating evidence” against the defendant.

“We believe that SLED [South Carolina Law Enforcement Division] they failed miserably in the investigation of this case, and if they had done a competent job, Alex would have been excluded from this circle a year ago, two years ago, ”he said.

Griffin claimed that the SLED immediately focused on Murdo, now 54, without considering other suspects.

In a fiery rebuttal by Attorney John Meadors, who ended the trial, Medors lashed out at Murdo’s defense team for their allegations that SLED messed things up, pointing out that Murdo himself obstructed the investigation by repeatedly lying about his involvement and whereabouts on the night of the murders. .

Murdo initially said that he was not in the dog kennel where his wife and son were brutally murdered.

But during the trial, prosecutors testified that they had a Snapchat video taken by Paul at the family nursery minutes before he and his mother were murdered, in which Murdo’s voice was clearly audible.

The defendant later admitted that he had lied about not being at the kennel.

“I am offended that a family with a father, grandfather, great-grandfather [in the legal system]… that the defense, the defendant, who is also a part-time lawyer, says that law enforcement has not done their job while he is withholding justice and obstructing justice without saying, “I was in the kennel, I was downstairs.” in kennels, I’ve been in kennels,” Meadors said.

Lawyers and locals disagree about the case and what they think the jury will do.

“SLED has a very circumstantial case and it’s based on one big lie – that Alex told them he wasn’t near the kennels when he was there” – Columbia, SC Attorney Joseph M. McCulloch Jr., longtime friend of Murdo , told The Post.

“His explanation was that he already knew he was probably a suspect and felt it would make him more guilty.”

One Hampton resident whose family has known Murdo for generations said he thought it would be difficult for the jury to reach a verdict.

“They will have to deal with the fact that in an hour these things will be decided on television, and they will understand that this is not Hollywood,” he said.

“I think the jury will be overwhelmed and confused. Hell, a lot of us are here and we know the family and we’ve been following this since day one.”

One longtime family watcher who oversaw the trial echoed some of Meadors’ closing remarks when she told the Post, “Bubba solved the case. Laboratories are very loyal. They love their owners and Maggie was Bubba’s owner.”

Bubba was one of the family dogs who was said to be Maggie’s favorite and often with her.

On the Snapchat video at the nursery, Alex Murdo could be heard yelling at Bubba for catching the chicken.

Does Bubba have a sixth sense? Meadors asked, suggesting that the dog had somehow made Murdo talk on the video, showing that he was lying about his whereabouts.

“Thank God for Bubba.”

Meadors added of Murdo: “I think he loved Maggie. I think he loved Paul. But you know who he loved more than that? … He loved Alex.”

Notably absent from the dozens of witnesses at the trial was Curtis “Cousin Eddie” Smith, perhaps the most colorful character in the Murdo saga.

Although he was on the list of potential witnesses, he was never called to testify.

Smith, 63, a retired lumberjack living on disability, appeared on the scene on Labor Day 2021 when he was arrested for allegedly trying to shoot Murdo on a rural road in a convoluted insurance fraud/suicide-for-hire scam.

Murdo’s lawyer later stated that his client had been addicted to opioids for 20 years and that Smith, Murdo’s cousin, was his drug dealer.

Waters also said in court last August that the money “misappropriated” by Murdo passed through Smith, who is in jail after he and Murdo were charged with drug trafficking and conspiracy in late June.

From Smith, the money “continued downstream” to two members of the Walterboro Cowboys gang, AG said.

In September, a member of the Cowboy gang told The Post that Murdo was “handling half the drugs in this county.”

“Cousin Eddie has gone into folklore while he remains in jail,” McCulloch said. “I think both sides decided he was too hot to throw him with this juror.”

“Bringing Cousin Eddie was too risky,” said Columbia, South Carolina attorney Eric Bland, who represented the sons of Murdo’s longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died mysteriously at the family’s home in 2018.

“Look at all the accusations he made against him,” Bland said of Smith. “He got checks from Alex for $2.2 million and then there was a roadside shooting. He would be subjected to withering questions. But beyond that, Alex is a 90-10 guy – a loving dad, friend, lawyer, hunter who everyone loved. But ten percent of the time, there was a dark side that no one knew about except Eddie. The defense wouldn’t want Eddie in there with all of Alex and Paul’s neat and dignified friends.”

The double-murder trial of Murdo – a scion of one of South Carolina’s once most powerful legal dynasty – began Jan. 23 at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.

For nearly 90 years, the once-untouchable Murdo family ran the prosecutor’s office in the five counties that make up South Carolina’s Low Country, as well as running the powerful Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick (PMPED) litigation firm with tentacles into the upper echelons of the red state – despite that they are Democrats.

The family survived and prospered for many years, despite a succession of intergenerational alcohol abuse and violence, as well as a reputation for occasional corruption.

After recovering from embarrassing revelations that Murdo allegedly stole between $4 million and $9 million from clients, PMPED renamed it the Parker Law Group in December.

One of the Murdo brothers, Randy, remains at a firm that dominates tiny Hampton, South Carolina.

Bland also dismissed the revenge killing theory that had been surfacing and debunking for months, and which Murdo himself mentioned on the stand, claiming that a social media vigilante could have killed his family due to Paul’s involvement in the fatal boat accident that killed him. A 19-year-old local Mallory Beach resident is dead.

“Let’s be realistic,” Bland said. “If people are going to hire assassins, then these assassins come with their own weapons, maybe a burner without a serial number.

“They torture you by killing your family in front of you, and then they kill you. They wouldn’t let Alex go free.

The juror was fired from court on Thursday – and she bizarrely told the judge she needed to collect a dozen eggs she had left in the jury room.

The unnamed juror was apparently caught debating the case outside the courtroom, which is prohibited during a trial.

Now there is only one spare juror instead of four.

Murdo also faces 99 charges related to alleged financial crimes, which will be dealt with in a later trial.