Law&Crime Sidebar - Alex Murdaugh Trial Heats Up as Prosecutors Reveal More Evidence — Day 5 Recap

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

An alleged admission, cell phone data, and guns took center stage in Alex Murdaugh's family murder trial on Tuesday. The Law&Crime Network's Jesse Weber breaks down all the key evidence prosecutors revealed on day five as the Murdaugh murders case continues to heat up.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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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. An investigator doubles down on an alleged admission, cell phone data brings new clues, and guns and ammunition take center stage. It's a recap of day five of the Alec Murdoch trial. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So you found the phone, Maggie's phone,

by family member using Find My iPhone. And I think it was John Marvin, is the one that assisted us with that. And do you think John Marvin was using Buster's phone to do that? I don't have a clue what he was using. And then when the phone was collected, You provided the password. Remember, you testified the password was provided.

We were provided the PIN to open the phone. Yes, sir. Are you aware that Alec Murdoch provided the PIN to sled so they could open Maggie's phone? Again, I don't know where we, where the pass code or PIN came from, but we were provided a PIN. Day five of the Alec Murdoch trial and the prosecution is continuing their case against the former renowned South Carolina attorney. Now, as we've been reporting here on sidebar, Mr. Murdoch is accused of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son Paul by allegedly shooting them to death on the family property back on June 7, 2021.

The theory behind this, although not fully articulated yet by the prosecution, but this is where we understand they're going, is that Alec Murdoch did this as a way to gain sympathy, as a way to create a distraction from his alleged financial misdeeds, which were about to be unearthed at that time. You see, I should tell you, as an aside, Murdoch faces over 90s. charges related to these alleged financial crimes, including stealing from clients. So this would be a way to take a focus away from him. The defense says, not only does the circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution not add up, but that Murdoch loved his family and that he would

never do this. But okay, day five, here we go. A lot to talk about. First up, we saw the cross-examination of senior special agent Jeff Croft from Sled. Now, as we previously reported here on sidebar, there was this recording that was played for the jury. It was an interview of Alec Murdoch where he allegedly says, quote, I did him so bad, seemingly referring to Paul. As we discussed, is this Murdoch confessing to killing his son Paul? Does it mean something else? Or is it possible? He said, they did him so bad and not I. Well, let's hear defense attorney Jim Griffin, who started the day by pressing Mr. Croft on this. And at various points in time, you were asked, what did he just tell

you, did you just tell you this? Do you remember that? I do, sir. And then you get to one point in the interview where you're asked, what did you just say after you said it must be tormenting? And you testified that Alex said on the video, captured by audio, that it was so bad I did him so bad that's what you testified to yesterday yes sir that is what I testified to now

are you 100% confident that Alex said I did him so bad rather than they did him so bad I am 100% confident in what I heard and I interpreted him in saying in fact

they slowed down the recording too. Your Honor, we'd like to play it again at one-third speed to slow it down. It's just the same. Thank you. Mr. Foundation late for who's manipulating it, how it's being manipulated. I think obviously we have it in real time, but there would have to be some additional

foundation. Please play at one third speed. And sitting there's talking about it's just tough. It's just so bad. Look, if you ask me, I hear it both ways. If you say, listen for the I, I hear the eye. If you say listen for the they, I hear the they. I'll tell you this.

If the prosecution is resting their case on an I or they, they got much bigger problems, all right? I think this is significant, but I don't think it's going to make or break this case, especially considering that Agent Croft didn't follow up with questions to Murdoch about this. No follow-up questions to him on this alleged confess. Now, he would testify that he took note of this. He said that he would ask him later about it. Prosecutors even tried to suggest that this wasn't an interrogation. They didn't want to throw Murdoch off.

I don't know. I'll tell you, in the end, it's going to be up to the jury to determine what they think of that recording. All right, let's move on to cell phone activity, which is absolutely crucial in this case. We learned certain things from Maggie's phone log. Give you some examples. We learned that at 7.50 on June 7.7. Maggie called a Barbara, and that would be the last call that she ever made a receive. In your review of Maggie's call logs, was this the last answer, or excuse me, the last phone call

that was either dialed or answered by someone on Maggie's phone? I would have to check the logs again, but I believe so. I'll let you have a back. Look. Yes, sir, that's correct. That's the last answered call or one that was shown in the direction of outgoing. All right. No more outgoing calls that night, correct?

No, sir, correct. And no more answer calls than I in June 7th. Is that correct? Correct. Now, we also know that Maggie read a group text at 831 16 seconds. The last red text was at 849 27. seconds. And remember, prosecutors believe that the killings happened at around 8.50 p.m. So this time frame is crucial. The device locks at 849.31 seconds. And then this is fascinating.

From 853 to 85559, there are steps that are recorded on Maggie's phone. And during that time, the orientation changes to landscape mode. In fact, it seems that the camera was turned on for one second at 854. 9 and 10 p.m. more steps are recorded. So this suggests that someone may have been trying to use her phone and may have been walking with it. And we also know that Maggie's phone was found on the side of the road. So this phone tells us a lot. But now let's get into what Alec Burdock did. What's the next call you see on this log? Moving up the call log, the next call I see is from 1-803-942-1-2-27 on line 5 it has the name of Alex the time received on that call is at 945-32 p.m. UTC minus 4. All right, and that's lines 5 and 6, correct?

Yes, sir. For the same call, correct? Yes, sir. All right. And finally, let's talk about lines 3 and 4. What information do you see there? On lines 3 and 4, they're the same call. From 1-803-942-1-227 on line 4, it shows it as PA, direction as an incoming call,

and it was received at 10.03-58 p.m. UTC minus 4 as a missed call. All right. And to clarify, these last five calls from Alex's, Alex, were any of them answered? No, sir. And previously, we looked at When you took pictures of Maggie's phone, you took a picture of her call on, correct? Yes, sir, I did. All right, and I was showing you again, I'm going to put it up on the screen. It's been admitted at Exhibit 278.

And we saw that numeral five next to Alex's name, correct? Yes, sir, that's correct. And that represents five missed calls. Yes, sir, that's correct. And I don't know if you're doing math while we went through that, and we can look at it again if you'd like, Lieutenant Duff, but did you count the calls from Alex that were missed in a row as we went through that call? Yes, sir, I came up with five.

Okay. also texts his wife Maggie as well. That entry is at 9.47.23 p.m. And what is that? It is a text message that was received on that from Alex. It says, call me, babe. And was that text ever read? I know that's referencing the previous report.

No, so that text was not read. So this is all important for different reasons. One, prosecutors are establishing a timeline. line. They're showing why they believe the killings happened at 8.50. And they're showing that Alec was purposely making it look like he wasn't there with his wife. Remember, Alec Murdoch says that he never went with Maggie and Paul down to the kennels where their bodies were ultimately found that the last time he saw them was at dinner, that he took a nap, he went to see his ailing mother. He had texted and called Maggie during these times. And then when he finally got

back to the property, he found their bodies and then called 911 at 10.06 p.m. All right. Now let's get into guns and ammunition, another big focus on this case. The prosecution called John Beddingfield, Murdoch's second cousin, who is a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Officer and a custom gunmaker, and who did he make guns for? How many blackouts, AR-style rifles, did you make for Alec Murdoch? Three. And when was that last one made?

2018. April? April, 2018. Now, we can't forget that the murder weapons haven't been recovered in this case. The prosecution believes, though, that there are a 300 blackout rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun. Their claim is that when looking at the property where there are tons of guns and appunitions sprawled all across the place, they could say, well, the guns and the bullets that were used to kill Maggie and Paul, they match in different ways to the guns and the bullets that

were found around the property. That's how we know that the family weapons were the murder weapons. I need to collect them. That's all one over here. There's two right there. Okay, yes, yeah, she's spent crazy. I'm going to get a dynamic. All right, go ahead and pick that one up.

There's two right there. They've been there a little while. Okay, 300. Yeah, 300. Yeah, 300. And one to your right. It was, I think it was five total I saw. So while the idea could be that way.

idea could be that, well, these are not typical guns and ammunition, and of course, the family weapons or the murder weapons, listen to this cross-examination of Benningfield by the defense. And have you recommended a number of, to a number of customers to 300 blackout to root out the nuisance? Yes. I have. Do you have any estimate of how many 300 blackouts you've sold over the last four or five years? No, sir. I would. I've a little over 600. Firearm transfers, I wouldn't know. Do you think it's more than 100? I don't know.

It's a lot, but I don't know how many. All right. Hmm. I will say this, even assuming it wasn't someone else's guns, even assuming it's Murdoch's family gun, the Murdoch family guns, how does this tie back to Alec? Yes, it's his property.

He knows where the guns are. He knows about the guns. guns. The killings happened on the property. But is it possible that someone else or maybe even two people as the defense theorized? Two shooters took Murdoch's guns and shot Maggie and Paul. Maybe an obstacle for the prosecution. But this is, I want to be clear, this is just a building block in their case. They are presenting a totality of the circumstantial evidence case. And this is just a piece of the overall puzzle. And that's all we have for you, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on Sidebar.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, 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, add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Bye.