He had it all. A powerful family line, a prestigious occupation, money, a luxurious life. All.
Today only the word remains. And she looks like she’s battered.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, a fourth-generation scion of a dynasty of prestigious South Carolina lawyers, challenged his lawyers. He decided to take the stand to testify in the trial against him for the murder of his wife, 52, and his son, his youngest, Paul, 22.
Put into the conjecture, with the attorney disbarred, Murdaugh taking control, his advocate, Jim Griffin, asked:
“Did you take this gun or any other like it and blew out your son’s brain?”
I have never shot my wife or my son.
However, between sobs, he confessed that he lied to the police about his movements that night of June 7, 2021 and accepted that he had been in the kennel of his mansion and hunting estate, called Moselle, at least a few minutes before they died. his wife and young son.
He attributed this behavior to his paranoia, reinforced by his addiction to opioids, that he would not be believed and that he would be the prime suspect. “I lied about it and now he’s sorry,” he said.
“What a web of lies we weave! Once I told a lie, I had to keep it, ”she stressed.
However, it is not only this falsehood, Murdaugh’s career, the missing step of the dynasty, is full of lies.
As soon as on Thursday he requested to be questioned before the Walterboro court, all breaking news alerts from the US media went off. Cable TV channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) immediately changed their programming.
Information about the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine or the political conflict over the derailment of the toxic train in East Palestine (Ohio) could wait for another occasion.
Nothing held more interest than that open window, from a small-town courtroom, onto an existence of wealthy privilege amidst the “simplicity” of the rural, 1,700-acre estate where Murdaugh and his sons hunted. deer.
In this heroless tragedy, the oral hearing made clear the double life of the accused. He earned millions of dollars for the firm under his name and maintained a comfortable existence. But according to what he said, after knee surgery a few years ago, he was prescribed oxycodone for the pain and he became addicted. This led him to appropriate money that corresponded to his partners or compensation from clients. Only in 2019 he stole 3.7 million from his colleagues in the office, who that same June 7 had requested the courts to review the accounts.
His farce, that was the great risk of declaring and more so after Judge Clifton Newman did not agree to leave out almost a hundred charges of fraud, fraud or money laundering that now weigh on him.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters had the opportunity to show a person who has deceived so much that everything he explains must be questioned. He not only lied to the police for his alibi, but to everyone around him.
Waters remarked that Murdauhg had kept his story until several witnesses (family and friends) had recognized his voice in a video that his son Paul sent to a friend moments before he died. The prosecutor continued that these testimonies were what led him to take the stand and give another version.
“This is not true,” he replied. But that was the unexpected test, which he did not count on and which impacts his waterline.
In his answers, he attributed the crimes, without evidence (hence two different weapons, a pistol and a rifle), to people seeking revenge against his son, accused of taking a boat in 2019 under the influence of alcohol and causing the death of a young woman.
For the prosecutor, Murdaugh did nothing more than fabricate a smokescreen from his prestige and legal knowledge. He set up a cover in order to create sympathy for him when it was revealed that his law firm had discovered his fraud scheme.
He alternated tears and a resolution of steel. It could also be the cry of a sociopath, who can cry depending on his interests. At times it seemed like two different beings rolled into one.
As the lawyers point out, it is a risky bet that can turn against you. A lie can lead to redemption or, at the very least, to one of the 12 jurors breaking the unanimity that a guilty verdict requires.
“I have robbed people whose eyes I have looked into,” he accepted.
So he could also have looked at the jury and lied, prosecutor Waters deduced. Or in the eyes of his wife and his son, and kill them.
“I would kill myself rather than hurt them,” he reiterated in his last sentence. True or false?
