South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was found guilty Thursday of killing his wife and son in 2021.
Murdaugh, 54, appeared impassive as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the commitment of a violent crime. The jury spent three hours deliberating after Thursday’s closing argument from Murdaugh’s defense.
Murdaugh was sentenced Friday before Judge Clifton Newman. According to CNN, he was sentenced to two life sentences with no hope of parole.
BREAKING: Jury finds Alex Murdaugh guilty of double murder. https://t.co/LZCGGhjDFL pic.twitter.com/J6tFqLJOzz
— ABC News (@ABC) March 3, 2023
The verdict proved “no one in society is above the law,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said, according to ABC.
“It doesn’t matter how prominent you are — if you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters told reporters.
Wilson said two things helped convict Murdaugh — and the attorney himself was one of them.
“I think Alex Murdaugh was our biggest piece of evidence when he took the stand. I think that was fatal for him, ultimately,” Wilson said Friday during an appearance on “Today.”
“When he took the stand, that was basically in my opinion, that Alex had made a very successful career of giving closing arguments to juries and winning major cases and making a lot of money. This was his closing argument to the jury,” Wilson said.
“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 it’s what sealed it for him,” he said.
He said video from the cell phone of Murdaugh’s slain son, Paul, was also key.
“It was basically Paul speaking from beyond the grave that yes, Alex Murdaugh was there, just moments before Maggie and Paul were brutally murdered and that that was a major piece of the state’s case,” Wilson said.
Wilson said Murdaugh “had created a web of lies for over a decade that led to this culminating point in this trial. Obviously, he had lied. He had been lying his way out of things for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to tell the truth.”
Juror Craig Moyer also said the video was a crucial piece of evidence, according to ABC.
“I was certain it was [Murdaugh’s] voice,” he said.
Moyer also said Murdaugh appeared to be a “big liar” during his testimony.
“He knew what he wanted to say. I mean he is a lawyer. I didn’t see any true remorse or any compassion or anything,” he said.
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