SC - Paul Murdaugh & mom Margaret Found Shot To Death - Alex Murdaugh Accused - Islandton #16

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Court has resumed after a short break.

The courtroom is kind of packed today. Much more so than before.

The state calls its 11th witness, a guy from Verizon. I am intrigued.

Unfortunately they did not have him spell his last name, which is a weird one. Trying to track down that spelling before naming him.

This witness is Verizon senior analyst Anthony K

Very good last name for this guy. A lot like my local weatherman growing up, Larry Sprinkle

It appears we're about to hear call logs from June 7, 2021. Investigators got records on a bunch of Verizon subscribers, including the Murdaughs, the Moselle groundskeeper CB Rowe, Paul's friend Rogan Gibson, etc.
First we had to explain how Excel spreadsheets work, including that each column contains a specific type of information.

Now Verizon guy is explaining various bits of telecommunications technology, including network extenders

Now the prosecutor is pulling up calls on (I think) Maggie's line and asking him when the calls were made. Unfortunately this requires Verizon Guy to convert UTC to EST off the top of his head, and he's struggling to do so. Audience laughs. Very relatable moment.

This is all very standard blocking-and-tackling stuff for the prosecution, but I do feel for the jury.

Calls are labeled on the spreadsheet in different time zones depending on how they were placed and whether they were answered. Some are in military time. Some that were sent to voicemail are in Greenwich Mean Time.

We are going through Maggie's calls and whether they were answered or not, but the prosecutor is not providing any context about who was calling or what it signifies. Hard to say conclusively what he is saying.

Prosecutor seems to be establishing that Alex Murdaugh was calling Maggie that evening, but boy he sure didn't put a great effort into making that clear. Then he ends his questioning. We move on to cross-examination.

We are referring to calls as being associated with the final four digits of their numbers, like "1227," rather than the people associated with those lines. Brutal.

Harpootlian is asking for help reading the spreadsheet.

As we hear about different codes and numbers on a printed-out Excel spreadsheet we cannot see, lunch weighs ever so heavily on the mind.
Something is getting lost in translation as Verizon Guy and Harpootlian try to establish what the spreadsheet codes mean re: incoming calls versus outgoing calls. Harpootlian: “Are you losing me, or am I losing you?” We are all lost.

Send help. No, don't send help. Save yourselves.

The calls are important to help the state pinpoint Maggie/Paul's times of death. Perhaps someone could say that to the jury at some point. Perhaps!

Verizon Guy steps down. I don't know what we accomplished there. The state is calling its 12th witness, Paul McManigal - a digital forensic examiner with the Charleston County Sheriff's Office who also works with the U.S. Secret Service.

McManigal testifies he was assigned to go through the data downloaded from Alex Murdaugh's cellphone and redact potential attorney-client privilege data.

McManigal testifies about trying - and failing - to unlock Paul Murdaugh's iPhone 11 on 6/9/21, two days after the slayings.
Defense attorney Phillip Barber makes his first appearance in the case, briefly cross-examining McManigal. He asks if Paul's phone was dead when McManigal received it. McManigal says he can't recall. But it was powered down and he charged it. McManigal steps down.
State calls its 13th witness, John VanHouten, a U.S. Secret Service agent and former Columbia Police Department investigator. He's a digital forensic examiner.

VanHouten testifies he successfully broke into Paul Murdaugh's cell phone in March 2022. He had a software program that SLED didn't have at the time.

VanHouten testifies a program called Cellebrite allowed him to try to break into Paul's phone a maximum of 145-ish times a day. With a 4-digit phone code, that could take 10,000 attempts and some 68 days. With a 6-digit code, it could take 1 million tries and 19 years.

VanHouten testifies he returned Paul's phone to SLED on 3/24/2022. Just a few days after receiving it initially.

VanHouten testifies investigators tend to put cellphones in airplane mode, power them down, place them in protective bags or remove their sim cards in order to prevent someone from wiping them remotely (which you can do via iCloud if you have the login data).

Paul's phone had not been wiped when investigators broke into it, VanHouten testifies. We have broken for lunch until 2:15 p.m.
 
sunshineray said:
Wow it took that long to get into PM's phone!? Then what was the talk about getting PM's passcode yesterday? Guess I misunderstood what was said about that.
Click to expand...

Basically PM had a passcode and the guy sais first and put in Numbers associated with the owners phone and he got it open pretty quick, PM used his Birthdayday. ‍♀️
 
Secret Service digital analyst Van Houten defined his own dictionary to use first with the Celebrite Premium "brute force" software as he attempted to break into PM's phone, based on the belief that phone users will often use dates or other numbers that are easy to remember (dates of birth, special anniversaries, etc). PM used his own birthday, so Van Houten was able to break the code fairly quickly (the first day).

It surprises me that no one (incl. AM immediately after the murders) had attempted PM's birthday as his likely passcode. Perhaps they supposed PM would have used something more complicated.
 
Elley Mae said:
Basically PM had a passcode and the guy sais first and put in Numbers associated with the owners phone and he got it open pretty quick, PM used his Birthdayday. ‍♀️
Click to expand...
But the tech guy said it took until March 2022, that's 9 months, to open PM's phone. Wouldn't the person's birthdate be the first code you'd try?
 
[…]
The defense used their cross-examination of Croft to try to poke holes in how the investigation unfolded. Croft was asked if he knew why state agents didn’t search Murdaugh’s home in the hours after the killings for dirty clothes, possible blood in drains or other evidence. Croft said he didn’t know what other agents did.

Griffin also asked Croft why agents didn’t search Murdaugh’s mother’s home until September — three months after the killings — even though that was the only place Murdaugh said he went before finding the bodies.

“I know I did not go and I’m not sure what any of the other agents in the investigative circle had done,” Croft said.
[…]

apnews.com

Agent insists Alex Murdaugh suggested he killed his son

A state agent is insisting he heard a possible confession from Alex Murdaugh even after defense attorneys for the disgraced South Carolina lawyer slowed the audio down at his double murder trial.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
Diddian said:
Secret Service digital analyst Van Houten defined his own dictionary to use first with the Celebrite Premium "brute force" software as he attempted to break into PM's phone, based on the belief that phone users will often use dates or other numbers that are easy to remember (dates of birth, special anniversaries, etc). PM used his own birthday, so Van Houten was able to break the code fairly quickly (the first day).

It surprises me that no one (incl. AM immediately after the murders) had attempted PM's birthday as his likely passcode. Perhaps they supposed PM would have used something more complicated.
Click to expand...
He testified PM's passcode was associated with his dob, not his exact dob.
 
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