Disgraced South Carolina Attorney Alex Murdau has denied murdering his wife and son but was last seen alive when he took the stand for his own defense on Thursday. He admitted to lying to investigators about when.
Murdoh, 54, has been charged with the murder of his wife, Maggie, 52, and his 22-year-old son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, near the kennel of his home. He steadfastly denied any role in the killing.
“I would never intentionally hurt either of them,” Murdoh said, tears running down his cheeks.
Prosecutors spent four weeks testifying that Murdoh was a liar who decided to steal money from customers and kill his wife and son. They described in detail what they called lie after lie, and Murdau said that the truths were unfounded, such as trying to arrange his own death after the law firm fired him three months after the murder. He said he would react violently if it was about to come to light.
Murdoh lied about being in a kennel with his wife and son just before he was murdered for 20 months before standing up on Thursday, the 23rd day of his trial. He blamed his opioid addiction for the first lie told to law enforcement.
“As the addiction progressed over time, I found myself in these situations that became paranoid thinking,” Murdoh said.
A once-prominent attorney once told police that hours before the murder, he was visiting his ailing mother in another town, not near her Colton County home. In a cell phone video taken at the kennel about five minutes before, he testified that he believed he heard Murdo’s voice with his son and wife.
When he started lying about being in the kennel, he said he felt he had to continue.
For prosecutors, lying is evidence when investigators fail to produce the weapon, confession, surveillance video, or blood-stained clothing used to kill the victim.Murdow could face 30 years in prison if convicted
Murdoh testified that his wife had asked him to go to the kennel the night of the murder, so he climbed into the golf cart and drove home before deciding to visit his ailing mother. I separated the chicken from the dog.
He said neither his wife nor his son were home after coming home from visiting his mother. A few minutes later, Murdow said, he drove the SUV to the kennel, where he was last seen.
Explaining that he had arrived to find the gruesome scene of the murder, Murdoh paused his testimony for a few seconds while weeping. “It was so bad,” he said.
Murdow said she rolled over briefly to check on her son, who was lying on his stomach, but decided there was nothing he could do.
“I could see his brain lying on the pavement. I didn’t know what to do,” Murdoh said.
He also testified that he checked on his wife before calling 911. Witnesses who saw Murdo minutes and hours after the shooting said no blood was seen on him, despite the gruesome crime scene. Said there wasn’t.
After a dramatic opening question about whether Murdo murdered his son and wife, defense attorney Jim Griffin guided his client through some key points in the case.
Murdow said he never saw the blue rain jacket that prosecutors found with bullet residue on the lining at his mother’s house. He said it was wrong when his mother’s caretaker suddenly came in at 6:30 a.m. and acted strangely.
On several occasions, he told Griffin, he urged investigators to get GPS data from his SUV and his wife’s cell phone. Previous defense testimony suggested that state agents took too long to retrieve that information from Maggie Murdoh’s device, so it was overwritten the night of the murder.
“There was no question of what was going on,” Murdow said of investigators’ determination that there were no other suspects.
During his testimony, Murdoh referred to his son as “Paul Paul” and his wife as “Magus”, but in three interviews with police three days and months later on the night of the murder, he used these nicknames. did not use.
Defense attorneys told the judge that Murdoh might not have testified at all had prosecutors not been cleared to provide evidence of financial crimes.
Murdoh has been charged with nearly 100 other crimes, ranging from stealing from customers to tax evasion. He is being held without bail on those charges, so even if he were found not guilty of the murder, he would not come out of court and become a free man. If convicted of most or all of the crimes, Murdow will likely spend decades in prison.
