Jim Griffin wants to mention something. Newman sits him down and says there will be an opportunity to do that later.
Jury is back. W: Was there any blood on the chicken? I don’t believe so. W: Did you wash your hands at all? I don’t believe I did. W: Was Maggie messing with the hose? No. W: Did she mess with it the entire time you were there, “according to your new facts today?” No.
W: Did you take your phone with you down to the kennels? AM: “I must not have, if this is accurate.”
W: Is that normal for you? AM: “Sure it is. If I know I’m going to the kennels and coming right back, that’s not unusual at all. You’ve heard the testimony about the service out there. The service was terrible.”
Waters: You’ve looked at these records a lot, haven’t you? (Hinting that AM is reconstructing his narrative to fit the new facts) AM: Sure, I’ve looked at them - other than the OnStar records y’all just got.
Waters: 8:09 p.m. marks the last steps “recorded on your phone before 9:02, when you become a very busy bee.”
Waters: When you got back to the house (shortly after 8 p.m.), did you put your phone down? AM: Yes. W: Did you put it in the Suburban? AM: Long pause. Blinks. Repeats Waters’ question. AM: No. “I’m not sure where I put it.”
Waters: You don’t remember where you put your phone? AM: “I don’t have a routine spot where I put it in, right at this spot or right in there.” Waters again accuses AM of having a very specific memory at certain times and a fuzzy recollection of key facts at others.
Waters: At 8:17 p.m., Maggie’s phone disconnects from her Mercedes and begins logging steps. (But AM claimed to have come back to the house and seen her and showered before that.) AM: “I don’t believe that’s when she arrived. It was very normal for Maggie, when she’s …"
"... driving, to jump out of the car, run inside, go to the bathroom, go do things” and send one of us back to her car to unplug her phone.
Waters: You’d agree that from 9:02 to 9:06, your phone finally comes to life and starts showing a lot of steps. What were you doing? AM: I was getting ready to go to my mom’s house. W: Getting ready? I thought you’d already showered. What did you have to do to get ready?
AM: Not doing anything specific. Maybe went to the bathroom. “I can’t tell you exactly what I was doing.” W: Were you doing jumping jacks? Hitting the treadmill? Jogging in place? AM: No.
W: You’ve been so clear about your new story and everything. What were you doing for these four minutes? AM: "I was getting up. I was leaving. I was going to check on my mom. But specifically what I was doing? I don’t know.”
AM: "I know what I wasn’t doing. And what I wasn’t doing was doing anything I believe you’ve implied:" Cleaning off. Washing off. Washing off guns. Washing off a raincoat.
Waters moves on to asking AM about his phone calls, including the calls that appeared to be deleted from his cellphone. W: “Did you delete them, Mr. Murdaugh? AM: “Not intentionally.”
AM says he has been in enough civil cases to know that when you delete a phone call, it does not disappear. W: “Boy, you’re a busy bee on that phone right out of the gate at 9:02, right?” AM: I called my dad at 9:05 p.m., and I agree I made other phone calls.
Waters: “The real reason, Mr. Murdaugh is that you as a lawyer and prosecutor are up at 9:02, finally have the phone in your hand, moving around and making all these phone calls to manufacture an alibi, is that not true.” AM: “That’s absolutely incorrect.”
W: How do you remember everything else, but you don’t remember what you were doing in this 4-minute stretch to make all these steps? AM: I remember clearly “that I never manufactured any alibi in any way, shape or form because I would not and did not hurt my wife and my child.”
Waters: Why don’t you remember what you were doing in this 4-minute critical period? Other than that “I was getting ready to go.” AM: “That’s what I was doing.”
Waters: You were texting/calling Maggie. Why didn’t you go by the kennels on your way to Almeda? AM: “There was no reason to. … It wasn’t important to do that. Me making those phone calls, … that’s simply me letting them know that I’m leaving for a minute, and I’ll be back.”
AM: It was not unusual that they didn’t answer. “It is odd, it is unusual, that they never called me back.” But Maggie was with Paul. She should have been as safe as she could be. Waters: “Yes, she should.”
Waters: “Did you and Maggie ever specifically discuss her going along with you to Almeda?” AM: “I don’t believe that we did. … It’s highly unusual for Maggie to go and visit just my mom. That whole situation made Maggie sad, and she didn’t like to go.”
AM disputes that he called Maggie that day and asked her to come home. “I always wanted Maggie to come home. I would have talked to Maggie about coming home before she ever left to go to Charleston and to Edisto.”
AM said the evidence makes clear Maggie was already undecided about staying at Edisto that night. She left Bubba and Grady, the dogs, in their kennels when she left Moselle that morning. If she were going to stay in Edisto, she would have taken Bubba and probably Grady with her.
Murdaugh describes his mother’s caregiver Shelley Smith as a “good person” but disputes her account of his conversation with her in the days after the shootings. Smith testified that Murdaugh told her if anyone asked, he was visiting his mother for 35-40 minutes on 6/7/21.
AM: I knew the data was going to come out in the investigation and verify my trip to Almeda that night. “For me to tell her to say something when OnStar is going to show different just doesn’t make any sense.”
Waters: What about talking to Blanca Simpson in August? AM: I wasn’t pressing her to lie or to align our stories. I was asking her what I was wearing because “a very short time before that David Owen is asking me questions and telling me I’m a suspect” in the murders.
Waters: You only care about yourself. Not giving accurate information to law enforcement. Why don’t you want to give accurate information to law enforcement? AM: I do. But I had told a lie (about being at the kennels), and I was wedded to it.
Waters: You got to the scene. You got out of the car. And you checked the bodies before calling 911? AM: That’s not correct. I don’t know what I said to law enforcement. “I pulled up, and I saw Mags and PawPaw. I jumped out of my car. I know I went back to my car …"
AM: "... and called 911 as quickly as I could.” And “then I went to them and did the things that I did.”
AM insists he did not check Maggie and Paul’s bodies before he called 911. He doesn’t think he told law enforcement that either. AM: “I know I checked them, but I don’t believe I checked them before I called 911.”
Waters and AM disagree about whether AM lied to law enforcement about when/whether he checked Maggie and Paul’s bodies. Now Waters is pulling up video of AM’s first interview with investigators, taken at 12:57 a.m. after the slayings.
I don't think this video proves what Waters believes it proves. At least from what we've heard so far, AM doesn't tell investigators he checked their bodies *before* calling 911.
AM said he didn’t mean to lie about his alibi at the outset of his interview with investigators. But he became paranoid during that interview. He says SLED agent David Owen freaked him out by asking about his relationships with Maggie and Paul.
We are on a lunch break until 2:15 p.m.
