(WALTERBORO, S.C.) — Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.
The bodies of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was found guilty Thursday on all charges — two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the commitment of a violent crime.
South Carolina Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said the court would reconvene at 9:30 a.m. ET for sentencing. Alex Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison for the murder charge.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 03, 6:00 AM EST
ABC News exclusive: Juror says cellphone video sealed Murdaugh’s fate
A juror who convicted Alex Murdaugh on Thursday told ABC News in an exclusive interview that the piece of evidence which convinced him the disgraced lawyer was guilty, was the cellphone video placing him at the scene minutes before the murders of his wife and youngest son.
“I was certain it was [Murdaugh’s] voice,” Craig Moyer, a carpenter, said as he recalled the background voice he heard during his first watch of the video captured by Murdaugh’s son. The video was taken at the family’s dog kennels by Paul Murdaugh, 22, who later that night was brutally murdered along with his mother Margaret, 52.
“Everybody else could hear [Murdaugh’s voice] too,” Moyer said, referring to the other jurors.
Moyer’s comments to ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim came just hours after he voted to convict Murdaugh, concluding the small-town South Carolina saga which documented the downfall of a powerful attorney from a family which for generations exuded power over the state’s Lowcountry region.
After nearly three hours of deliberations, a jury reached a guilty verdict Thursday in the double murder trial Alex Murdaugh, a disgraced South Carolina attorney who was charged with the murders of his wife and their younger son at their rural hunting estate in June 2021.
The bodies of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said. Alex Murdaugh, 54, who called 911 to report the discovery, was charged with their murders 13 months later.
Jurors — and the packed gallery — heard testimony from dozens of witnesses since the trial started on Jan. 23 in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
A string of bloody killings and mysteries involving a prominent South Carolina family has been filled with a wild chase full of twists and turns — culminating in a murder conviction against the family’s patriarch.
At the center of it is Alex Murdaugh, 54, a former lawyer who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in South Carolina, where three generations of the family had been state prosecutors in the Hampton County area for more than a century.
The saga began when his youngest son, Paul, was involved in a fatal boat crash in 2019. A year and a half later, Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul, 22, were found fatally shot on the family’s rural hunting estate.
Since then, there have been curveballs in the investigation — including Alex Murdaugh’s alleged money misuse that led to his disbarment, an admitted opioid addiction, an assisted-suicide attempt involving an alleged $10 million insurance fraud scheme and a high-profile murder trial.
Here’s a timeline of the key events in the Murdaugh murders and scandals.
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