Alex Murdaugh, whose trial has captivated America, was finally sentenced on Friday morning after just three hours of deliberation.
His trial has captivated the United States and made the headlines of the most prestigious media: a lawyer from a large South Carolina family, Alex Murdaugh, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for the murder in 2021 of his wife and her son. Lies, addiction to opiates and suspicious deaths, the extent of the decline of this tall red-haired man with an often emotionless face was revealed throughout the six weeks of hearings but also in numerous podcasts and documentaries, including a on Netflix.
Before pronouncing the sentence, Judge Clifton Newman spoke at length to Alex Murdaugh in a calm tone that was all the more bitter, saying his incomprehension in the face of the “duplicityfrom a lawyer who had pleaded before him before crossing over and becoming a defendant himself. He recalled that Alex Murdaugh belonged to a dynasty of law, “a respected family that has controlled justice in this region for over a century“.
So much so that a portrait of his grandfather sat enthroned in the courtroom, forcing the magistrate to “order it to be removed“. Alex Murdaugh, handcuffed and dressed in an inmate uniform, again claimed his innocence. His son Buster was in the room. “I respect this court, but I’m innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie and (…) my son Paw Paw“, a nickname of Paul Murdaugh, he assured.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was accused of stealing huge sums from his law firm, friends and even his housekeeper’s son, and suspected of shooting his relatives to avoid exposure . He was found guilty of the murders on Thursday evening. The magistrate sentenced him to two life sentences which will apply one after the other. “I know you must see Paul and Maggie at night when you’re trying to fall asleepsaid the judge. “I’m sure they come to visit you“.
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“Sly Manipulator”
On Thursday, jurors in court in Walterboro, South Carolina, needed just under three hours to reach their verdict. “The evidence of guilt is overwhelming“, had commented the judge at the reading of the verdict. Prosecutor Creighton Waters referred to a “cunning manipulator», «a man who violated the trust of so many people, including his friends, his family, his partners, his profession. And more than anything, from Maggie and Paul“. “Nobody (…) knew who this man really was. And, Judge, it’s scary“, he launched. If he admitted the thefts, intended according to him to feed a costly addiction to opiates and to compensate for bad investments, the lawyer never admitted the double murder.
Alex Murdaugh shot and killed his wife Maggie, 52, and their youngest son Paul, 22, with two separate guns on June 7, 2021, in Colleton County, South Carolina, near the kennel of their sprawling property, according to the prosecution. , called Moselle, where men liked to hunt wild pigs. The jurors went there on Wednesday to better understand the layout of the premises.
The case fascinated in the United States, where the media, including the most serious, dissected the life of this opulent family, proud of its three generations of local prosecutors and judges, as well as the vertiginous fall of the father. Several podcasts have already been devoted to the case and a documentary, The Blood of the Murdaughs: Scandal in South Carolinais also one of the most watched programs on Netflix, with 40 million hours watched in the country last week.
Throughout the trial, news channels broadcast live the parade of defrauded colleagues and friends, who recounted how Alex Murdaugh stole millions of dollars from them for years without their realizing it.
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