On Thursday, a US jury found attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty of killing his wife and son on their hunting property.
Murdaugh, 54, was described as having shot his son Paul with a shotgun and his wife Maggie with the assault rifle Paul used to hunt wild pigs on the family’s expansive property. Murdaugh was the son of a prestigious South Carolina family of judges and attorneys.
Once the jury’s judgement was read aloud in a South Carolina courtroom after less than three hours of deliberation, the defence asked for a mistrial, which Judge Clifton Newman swiftly rejected.
The overwhelming evidence of guilt, according to Newman.
Murdaugh was carried out of the courthouse in handcuffs after the lengthy trial, which he endured while donning a jacket and displaying little emotion.
The jury was told about Murdaugh’s murder of his family members on June 7, 2021, when he realised his years of theft from his law company and clients to fund his covert opioid addiction were about to come to light.
The guns were never discovered, and there was no blood-stained clothes or other direct evidence that may have proven Murdaugh was the murderer, even though evidence placed him at the scene just before the killings.
Murdaugh will be sentenced on Friday morning, according to Newman, and the maximum sentence for each murder count is life in prison.
