Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Key Factors Shaking Up Alex Murdaugh’s Family Murder Trial as Week Two Kicks Off

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Guns, an alleged confession, and a theory of two shooters are shaking up the family murder case of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh as his trial enters week two. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber recaps five key factors that surfaced in court Monday.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. She did absolutely everything. I'm sorry. No, no. You know that's what I could do that. shooters and an alleged admission, it's a recap of day four of the Alec Murdoch trial. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Long Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. When Paul's phone came out, did you just pick it up and put it on, you know, place it back down on him or, you know, yeah, I did not try to open it or anything, you know, I just

I don't know how I had in my mind that I needed to not mess anything up. I had that, I had that, you know, somehow I had that presence of mind that I needed to not mess anything up. Another day in the Alec Murdoch trial, and boy, oh boy, a lot to talk about. So Murdoch is the disgrace South Carolina lawyer accused of shooting to death his wife Maggie and son Paul. on the family's property back on June 7th, 2021. Now, the idea that was put forward by the prosecution is that he did this as a way to gain sympathy and cause a distraction from his alleged financial crimes, which were about to come to light. In fact, in separate cases, I believe he's going to be fighting over 90 charges related

to these alleged financial crimes. Now, the defense says, not only does that not make sense, that he would never want to kill his family, that he loved his family, but also the forensic evidence, the circumstantial evidence doesn't really add up. So that brings us to day four. When I say day four, I say day four of the actual beginning of the case, not jury selection. So let's get into the five key moments from day four. First up, Sled Senior Special Agent Jeff Croft. He was called to the stand by the prosecution, since it's still their case. And he was talking about ammunition, weapons, and later on a very important interview with

Alec Murdoch. Now, remember, there were two weapons that were used in this attack, a 300 blackout rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun. The murder weapons, though, haven't been recovered. But the prosecution says that these were the Murdoch family weapons, that this family had a lot of guns, that they fired guns in the past on this property, and that the ammunition that was found on the crime scene matches ammunition found around the property from earlier instances. So that is how they are tying him back. That is how they are saying these were the

family weapons and who would use it but Alec Murdoch. Well, here is Alec Murdoch in that interview explained to Agent Croft a little bit more about the weapons. I mean, Paul has guns scattered all over the place. So, you know, some of our guns aren't there. But so you want to know all of them you want to know what i think is in my house or what was in my house on monday yeah what was in your house let's start with what was in your house on monday okay whatever was in my house on monday is exactly what was there minus one shotgun that i got that y'all got okay no guns have been moved for you know there hadn't been any guns moved in and out of there other than when Paul was home.

You know, when Paul came home, he would ride around and shoot hogs a lot. You know, I mean, primarily he would shoot them with Buster's gun. Because Paul had a 300 blackout. And it got, you know, he says it got stolen. You know, it's been gone for some time. Now here is Agent Croft highlighting a bit more the prosecution's theory. What else are you looking for right now as you look through the other firearms on that particular gun rack?

Any additional rifles capable of shooting a 300 blockout and also the any 12-gauge shotguns, which are capable of shooting 3-inch magnum. Let me ask you this, did you find any other weapons that could shoot 300 blackout? No, sir, we did not? Did you ever find any other weapons on Alec Murdoch's property that could shoot 300 blackouts other than that one that was in the gun rack? No, sir, we did not. We're going to talk more about this a minute, but did you find some 12 gauges?

Yes, sir, we did. So this helps establish that the family weapons were used, and who else would have used these but Alec Murdoch. The only problem is, I'm not sure about it, because isn't it possible someone could have snuck onto the property and used those guns? If we accept that those are the murder weapons, isn't that another possibility? If they have all these weapons around, someone else could have used it. It seems to me that for the prosecution, you have to put those weapons directly into the

hands of Alec Murdoch to really make this work. Now, in the totality of the case, if they can have more evidence showing it's him, and they can show that the family murder weapons were used, I'm sure it's going to be helpful, but in it of itself, might be a little bit of a stretch. I should also tell you that Kroft testified about some other important things like Maggie's phone being found on the side of the road. Paul, having a communication with a Rogan Gibson. So you see, apparently, Paul had called him at 840. The call lasted four minutes. Paul calls again at 844. Gibson sends Paul a text at 845, but Paul doesn't respond and never answers Gibson's preceding calls.

This is why investigators believe the killings happened at around 8.50 p.m. Now, we also heard from Sled Agent Melinda Worley, a forensic investigator who worked on evidence collection. And there was a fascinating moment when she was cross-examined by defense attorney Dick Harputlian where he suggested an alternative theory of the killings. But did you know the degrees? No, that one didn't know. Until July 12th. But on July 12th, did anyone go back out and walk this line to see that maybe there's no caseings way up here?

No one looked up there, correct? Not what I learned. Okay. And no one did a topographical study to indicate, if you follow these lines back, wherever a shooter could have been, were higher or lower than the dog house or the small animal cave, right? Right. But doesn't this indicate to you there were two shooters? A shooter up here and a shooter down here?

Is there a possible? Let me say this. Is it a possibility that there are two shooters based on the data you collected? It just indicated there was movement to me. Movement from here all the way up to here? I don't know that it went all the way there. But I'm not telling you one explanation would be movement, correct? One explanation would be two shooters.

I'm sorry? Yes? No, no, no. But one explanation of its data would be two shooters. One explanation, not the, but one. Not the only one. Yeah, not the only one. But it is a reasonable explanation,

just like one shooter running up that way, correct? Sure. One of the reasonable explanations is there are two people there. There are two guns there. One's a shotgun. One's an AR. and we now see that that AR is being shot

from way up here, correct? I can't see. Somewhere along that line. And that line goes a dozen, two dozen, three dozen yards from the feed room if you follow it straight up. I don't know where they weren't

within that line. Could someone have been a look out there? They went there to kill Paul and that's the look at. Maggie surprised him. They thought she was gone. I have no order. Reason. below, right? Right? I know you weren't there, but none of us were there. We're trying to figure out what's

happened that night. And clearly, one explanation is two shooters. One explanation. One explanation. Right. And a number of them. And that's interesting. That's interesting because it makes you wonder what really happened. Does it make sense that Alec Murdoch used two separate guns to shoot two people separately? Maybe. Could it have happened that way? Sure. But there's another theory here as well, and something that I'm sure the jury is going to consider. By the way, Dick Harputlian spent a considerable amount of time grilling Agent Worley on issues with crime scene preservation, basically arguing sloppy police work. For instance, days after blood was found on Murdoch's car and clothing, it seems that law enforcement might have walked through the bloody crime scene. And her putleon was like, is that preservation of the scene that your standards require?

and she was like, uh, not exactly no, I will tell you that the more that you can show problems in an investigation, problems in chain of custody, problems with preserving evidence, the more you can rip apart a prosecutor's case. All right, back to that interview of Alec Murdoch. So another significant moment came when he provided an alibi. So, so they left and went down to the kennels. Well, Maggie went to go to the kennels. And Paul left.

And I'm assuming, you know, I'm assuming. Paul left because of, you know, what happened. I mean, I'm assuming Paul went to the kennels. Okay. And what did you do once Maggie and Paul left? I stayed in the house. What did he told him he did after Maggie and Paul went to the kennels? He stayed in the house.

So Murdoch says that the last time he saw Maggie and Paul was at dinner, that he never went down to the kennels with him, and then he says that he traveled to visit his mom, who has late stage all. has late stage Alzheimer's, and when he came back from visiting her and he came back to the property, that's when he found Maggie and Paul dead. Here is why this is important. This is important because the prosecution says Murdoch is lying. They say that they are going to present evidence that Paul took a Snapchat video at 847 p.m. from down by the kennels where you can hear Alec Murdoch on it. Prosecutors assert that the murders happened at 8.50 p.m. based on

Maggie and Paul's phones locking around that time like I mentioned. So if they can show that with this video, it could be a game changer. So it would show two things. One, it would show he wasn't telling the truth and more importantly that he was at the crime scene at the purported time of the killings. All right. But now we have to talk about the big thing that happened in court. This is what everyone is talking about. In this recorded interview, listen very carefully to what Alex says about Paul. And you definitely saw a traumatic picture, and I know it's not hard, or not easy.

I know it's hard. And sitting here talking today is tough. It's just so bad. They did it so bad. When you ask the defendant about, traumatic picture that he saw of Paul and Maggie, what did he say? It's just so bad. I did him so bad.

I did him so bad. Yes, sir. What did you hear? Did you hear, I did him so bad or they did him so bad? There has been a lot of chatter on both sides of this. So if you think that it was they did him so bad, then it seems that he's referencing the killers. But if it's I did him so bad, uh-oh. Oh. Was that a slip up? Was that a confession? Did he admit to killing Paul? Well, interestingly,

investigators didn't really press him on that. There were no follow-up questions on that statement. Another way to look at it is even, even if you think, he said, I did him so bad. What does that mean? Could it mean that he failed him as a father, that he failed to protect him? Remember, Alec Murdoch initially speculated that his son was murdered over a boating crash, that his son was involved in two years earlier that resulted in the death of a teenager. So what did he mean by that? Maybe he failed to protect him in that circumstance. It seems to me it's not entirely clear what was said or what the meaning of it was,

but it is something that the jury will definitely debate over. And that's all we have for you, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.