Alex Murdaugh taking the stand was a “fatal” move for him in his double murder trial — and the Snapchat video that placed him near the scene of his wife and younger son’s deaths was the final “nail” that sealed the case, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said Friday ahead of the sentencing.
Appearing on NBC’s “TODAY” show Friday morning, Wilson spoke on the moments in the high-profile trial that sealed Murdaugh’s fate.
On Thursday, after three hours of deliberations, a jury of seven men and five women convicted the 54-year-old disgraced Lowcountry lawyer of murdering his wife, Margaret, 52, and son Paul, 22, at their hunting estate in rural Colleton County in June 2021.
“That kennel video that no one knew existed until months after the murders occurred, it was basically Paul speaking from beyond the grave. That, yes, Alex Murdaugh was there just moments before Maggie and Paul were brutally murdered. That was a major piece of the state’s case,” Wilson said.
In the case, the state presented the Snapchat video evidence taken from Paul’s cellphone that placed Murdaugh at the estate’s kennels at 8:44 p.m. the night of the murders, countering his denial to investigators that he had last seen his family at dinner time. Paul and Margaret were killed some time from 8:50 p.m. to 9:06 p.m., according to investigators.
The attorney general said Murdaugh himself was the “biggest piece of evidence.”
“When he took the stand, I think that was fatal for him ultimately,” Wilson said. “Alex had made very successful career of giving closing arguments to juries and winning major cases and making a lot of money.” Taking the stand “was his closing argument to the jury. I believe in my mind that he believed that he could talk his way out of this. And at the end of the day, I think that’s what sealed it for him,” he said.
He explained that the state made a case for motive in the trial — arguing Murdaugh was attempting to gain pity and distract attention from…
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