The trial against Alex Murdaugh, the ginger-haired scion of a powerful legal family, began Jan. 23 in Colleton County. He’s charged with double murder in the June 2021 slayings of his wife and youngest son.
The Post and Courier has three reporters covering the criminal trial from the Walterboro courthouse. Frequent updates from testimony and court proceedings will be posted here throughout the day, with the latest information appearing at the top.
Read more about the Murdaugh saga, including our in-depth profiles and past trial coverage.
3:43 p.m. update:
State prosecutor David Fernandez is questioning the next witness. Murdaugh family friend William McElveen took the stand, discussing his relationships with Paul, Maggie and Alex.
McElveen became close with Paul during summers spent at Edisto Beach, he said. Paul was a “really fun guy” and a “very loyal friend,” McElveen testified. Paul was known as a “big phone caller,” McElveen said, calling his closest friends almost every day just to catch up.
Maggie was a “super sweet lady” who treated Paul’s friends like they were her own kids, McElveen testified. Alex similarly “took everybody in, all of Paul’s friends,” the witness said.
Alex was crying inside the courtroom as McElveen spoke.
The man said he’s been to Moselle “30 or 40 times” over the years, hunting and hanging out. There are two different entrances to the property — a main driveway and a path near the dog kennels. McElveen would use the entrance and exit by the kennels most often, he testified.
McElveen drove to Moselle soon after the murders to “see family and be with everybody,” he said.
Griffin cross-examined the witness, asking about the family’s relationships. Paul and Alex were “kind of best friends in a way,” McElveen testified. Alex and Maggie’s marriage “was great too,” he said.
3:20 p.m. update:
State prosecutor Savanna Goude is questioning the next witness, SLED agent Kristin Moore. She helped execute a search warrant of Almeda on Sept. 16, 2021.
Murdaugh family members were at Almeda while SLED agents searched the home, Moore testified. Agents were told they were looking for a blue tarp-like material, Moore said.
They searched the home’s interior and found a blue tarp in the closet of a bedroom. It was inside a storage box, folded up on top of “miscellaneous dishes,” Moore said. Agents also found a blue raincoat hanging in a coat closet on the second floor, she said.
Moore helped process the raincoat a few weeks later. She photographed it in SLED’s lab, documenting several stains. She did two separate presumptive tests for the presence of blood — both came back negative, the agent testified.
Griffin is cross-examining Moore. The agent said she’s unaware whether SLED conducted any testing of the blue tarp.
Newman gave Moore permission to unbox the raincoat so she could testify as to its size. The large garment appears to be a poncho-style raincoat, Moore said, holding it up in front of jurors.
Moore doesn’t know whether SLED agents ever showed photos of the jacket to Smith or any member of the Murdaugh family to see whether they recognized it, she said.
Goude asked Moore again about the raincoat’s size. The agent testified the jacket was larger than what would be typically thought of as a raincoat. When she found it, the garment was balled up in the storage bin, Moore said.
3:02 p.m. update:
Court has resumed after the lunch break.
Meadors is continuing to question Smith. He received a copy of Smith’s October 2022 interview with investigators who were working with Alex’s defense attorneys.
According to the transcript, Alex had told Smith, “If someone asks you, I was here for 30 to 40 minutes.”
The investigators also showed Smith a blue tarp they’d just bought from Kmart, she said. Smith told them it was similar to the fabric she saw bundled in Alex’s arms a few days after the murders, she said.
Under further questioning from Griffin, Smith said the investigators also showed her a photo of a blue rain jacket and asked whether she’d ever seen it before. Smith said she hadn’t.
Griffin showed Smith a photo of a bedroom closet at Almeda. A blue object is seen in the corner. Griffin asked Smith if that object was a blue rain jacket, could she testify to having ever seen Alex carrying it?
Smith could not, she said.
1:36 p.m. update:
Griffin is cross-examining Smith. He unfolded a large blue tarp in the middle of the courtroom and asked the witness if it’s similar to what she saw Alex bring into Almeda a few days after the slayings. Smith said yes.
Griffin asked whether Smith would confuse a blue tarp with a blue rain jacket. She said no. Waters previously disclosed in his opening statement prosecutors recovered a blue rain jacket coated in gunshot reside.
Griffin also questioned Smith about the ATV, and whether she knew it had a flat tire when it was moved. Smith said yes.
The caregiver testified Alex frequently visited his parents at Almeda, more so than any of his other siblings. She described his normal behavior as “fidgety.” Smith also didn’t notice any blood on Alex’s clothing, shoes or hair the night of the murders, she testified.
Griffin pointed out what appear to be inconsistencies in Smith’s account of June 7, 2021, and the days after. Agents with the State Law Enforcement Division interviewed her at least twice that month after the slayings.
Smith told agents Murdaugh had been at Almeda between 35 and 40 minutes on June 7, Griffin said, reading off documents. Smith testified she did not mention the blue tarp until September 2021, when she spoke with an Allendale police officer after getting in a car wreck.
As she spoke with the officer, it came out Smith was working for the Murdaughs the night of the murders, she testified. Griffin, again reading from papers, said the officer had written in his report that Smith told the officer she’d seen Alex holding what appeared to be a rifle wrapped in the tarp.
Smith pushed back at this on the stand, saying the officer’s report must’ve been wrong: “No, I just said it looked like (Alex) was holding something.”
SLED agents interviewed Smith later that month and she told them about the tarp, Smith testified.
Meadors established Smith had called her brother after her conversation with Murdaugh in the days after the murders because he is the assistant police chief in Varnville.
“I was nervous,” Smith testified.
Jurors are on a lunch break until 2:30 p.m.
1:09 p.m. update:
Smith also testified she saw Alex around 6:30 a.m. three days after Randolph’s funeral. He knocked on a wall by a first-floor bedroom window and said, “I’m outside.”
Alex didn’t call that morning to tell Smith he was coming. He’d never been over to the house that early, Smith testified.
Alex arrived in a white truck, she said. When Smith let him in, Alex was carrying a “blue something in his hand,” like a tarp you’d put over your car to cover up something, she said. Then he went upstairs.
Smith doesn’t know what Alex did, she said. He told her he was leaving, but Smith noticed him come back up the driveway in a white truck. She saw a bruise or cut at the center of his forehead, Smith testified.
Smith also noticed an all-terrain vehicle parked at the property’s smokehouse had been moved near the main house at some point during Alex’s visit that morning, she testified.
When Alex left Almeda for the second time that day, he was driving a black truck, Smith said.
Meadors also asked Smith about a video camera system in Libby’s bedroom. The caregiver testified she doesn’t know who controls it or when it would turn on and off.
12:49 p.m. update:
Alex was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and “cloth” shoes, like Sperry’s, Smith testified. He was acting “fidgety,” Smith said.
Alex told her he was coming to see his mother. He sat on her bed and asked Libby how she was doing, holding her hand, but Libby was asleep, Smith said. Alex stayed for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, she testified.
At some point that night, Randy Murdaugh called Smith and told her Maggie and Paul were dead.
Meadors also asked Smith about a conversation she had with Alex a few days after the murders, following the June 10, 2021, death of his father Randolph.
Smith put in extra time with the Murdaughs that week “to help them through,” she testified. During Randolph’s visitation, Smith was sitting with Libby in her bedroom when Alex walked in.
Smith began to cry when Meadors pressed her about their interaction: Alex told her “I was here for 30 to 40 minutes” the night of the murders, Smith testified. Alex hadn’t been at Almeda that long, she said.
The Murdaughs are a “good family,” she said between tears, “and I love working there, and I’m sorry all this happened.”
But the conversation had upset Smith, and she called her brother to tell him about it, Smith said.
Alex had also asked Smith about her upcoming nuptials, which she hadn’t told him about, Smith said. Alex mentioned the wedding was “going to be expensive” and offered to help because “that’s the type of person” he is, Smith testified.
12:31 p.m. update:
Jurors are back inside the courtroom. State prosecutor John Meadors is questioning the next witness, Mushelle “Shelley” Smith.
Smith has worked in food service for a local school district for more than two decades, she said. She also took up work in private home care.
Smith began working for Libby and Randolph Murdaugh — Alex’s parents — in October 2019 at their home in Almeda. Her primary role was caring for Libby, who had late-stage Alzheimer’s and “couldn’t remember anything at times,” Smith testified.
Smith worked an overnight shift from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. When she arrived at the home June 7, 2021, Libby was in her bed sleeping off and on. Smith went to the bedroom and sat in a recliner. They watched a game show on the TV, she testified.
Alex called the house phone sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., telling Smith he was outside and to let him in. It was unusual to see Alex come to Almeda that late in the evening, Smith testified.
11:58 a.m. update:
The judge has granted prosecutors’ motion to admit evidence concerning Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes. Newman decided the evidence is relevant to the double murder trial, he said.
Newman reviewed all the submitted exhibits and considered each of the eight witnesses’ testimony in making his decision, he said.
Jurors are entitled to consider whether Murdaugh’s “apparent desperation” over his “dire financial situation” and “threat of being exposed” resulted in him murdering his wife and son, Newman said.
Admitting this evidence may be prejudicial, but “it’s more probative than prejudicial,” the judge ruled. The alleged financial crimes are “intimately connected” with the crimes charged, Newman found.
“Proof of it is essential to complete the story,” he said.
Newman doesn’t believe this evidence will “lure the jury” into finding Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and son, he said.
Defense attorneys presented Newman with a list of “limiting instructions” after the judge issued his ruling. The defense and prosecution teams will agree on a set of instructions before the first financial witness is presented to jurors.
Griffin formally objected to Newman’s ruling for the purposes of the record, protecting his client’s right to appeal.
11:22 a.m. update:
Newman is now hearing testimony in regard to an issue prosecutors raised late Feb. 3: whether they can question witnesses about a conversation Murdaugh apparently had about the killings three days after they occurred.
Waters, said he wasn’t sure what Murdaugh said that day, but he avoided finding out about it during the state’s investigation because the conversation might have been bound by attorney-client privilege. Murdaugh defense attorney Jim Griffin was apparently present.
Newman granted Waters permission to question Ronnie Crosby, Murdaugh’s former law partner, about the meeting.
Crosby said he, Griffin, Murdaugh and a number of others had gathered in John Marvin Murdaugh’s home on June 10. They were there as friends, Crosby said, and had been with Alex every day starting the night of the murders to offer their support.
Alex went over the events of June 7 starting from the time he got home from work, Crosby said. Alex and Griffin, who was at this point serving as Alex’s personal lawyer, did have a few private conversations that Crosby said he didn’t hear.
Newman is taking a 5-minute break before announcing his final decision on whether or not he’ll allow jurors to hear testimony about Alex Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes.
11:05 a.m. update:
Murdaugh’s alleged financial schemes were “subject to unraveling at any moment,” Tinsley testified.
Barber asked Tinsley whether it was fair to say the June 10, 2021, hearing “wouldn’t have been a judgment day where everything unraveled.”
It’s fair to say there wouldn’t have been an “explosion” that day, Tinsley replied. But a fuse would be lit as soon as Murdaugh’s financial information became available in the case, and Murdaugh would’ve known that, Tinsley said.
Continuing to speak in hypotheticals, Waters asked what the “effect” would’ve been had the June 10 hearing taken place.
“The discovery of everything (Murdaugh’s) done,” Tinsley said.
10:40 a.m. update:
A judge in the civil case had scheduled a motions hearing for May 2021, but it ultimately got rescheduled for June 10, 2021, Tinsley said. The hearing would’ve included Tinsley’s request for a list of Murdaugh’s bank accounts, he said.
After the June 7, 2021, murders of Maggie and Paul, the hearing was rescheduled again. There was the “shock and horror” of what had happened, Tinsley said, and no one thought about anything else in that first week.
But then Tinsley thought about how the recent tragedy might affect the boat crash case.
“Pretty quickly, I recognized that the case against Alex, if he were in fact the victim of some vigilante, would be over,” Tinsley testified.
A jury likely wouldn’t have ordered Murdaugh to pay up, and Tinsley would’ve ended the case against him, he said.
Defense attorney Phillip Barber asked Tinsley several questions challenging the idea that the civil case was going to trial in summer 2021.
“Maybe you’ve never tried a civil case,” Tinsley said at one point, insisting he was ready to go to trial despite the pending motions.
10:12 a.m. update:
Alex Murdaugh had some — but not much — insurance coverage available to pay out the boat crash victims, Tinsley testified. The lawyer said he’d demanded a substantial amount to be paid personally to the Beach family by Murdaugh himself.
Tinsley saw Murdaugh later that year at a trial lawyers’ conference, he said. Murdaugh approached Tinsley and “tried to intimidate me … and bully me into backing off” the lawsuit, Tinsley said.
But it didn’t work, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person court proceedings for several months, slowing down the case’s progress. Murdaugh claimed at some point that year he was “broke” and didn’t have the money to pay the Beach family — something Tinsley testified he did not believe.
He knew Murdaugh was working tons of cases at his personal injury law firm and was actively making money. The Beach family had also known the Murdaughs for years and believed they had “generational wealth,” Tinsley testified.
When Tinsley asked to see Murdaugh’s finances, he was “stone walled,” Tinsley said. He ultimately filed in October 2020 a motion to compel, which if signed off by a judge, would force Murdaugh to disclose how much money he was making.
Tinsley hoped putting this pressure on Murdaugh would encourage him to settle the case, he said. But if Murdaugh refused, and Tinsley was successful in getting a list of the defendant’s bank accounts, he planned to start tracing each account to see where Murdaugh was hiding money, he testified.
“I wanted the accounts because I knew the only way he could be broke is if money had been hidden,” Tinsley said.
9:50 a.m. update:
Court is in session without the presence of jurors. Judge Clifton Newman is continuing a special hearing on Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes, and whether prosecutors can admit this evidence in his double murder trial.
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters is questioning Allendale attorney Mark Tinsley. He filed a lawsuit in March 2019 against Alex Murdaugh and several other people and businesses in connection with a fatal boat crash earlier that year.
Paul Murdaugh was ultimately charged with driving under the influence in the crash, which killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach and injured five others. He was accused of piloting a Murdaugh family boat when it collided with the Archer’s Creek Bridge in Beaufort County.
Tinsley testified he sued Alex Murdaugh because he owned the boat, and because he was negligent in allowing his elder son Buster to give Paul his license so Paul could purchase alcohol.
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