I do think Alex believed killing Paul would make that lawsuit go away. His criminal case would for sure and then his family name isn't tarnished with a conviction on (I think manslaughter or something similar related to DUI and someone dying). I think we can see where his thinking was by his words. Even though he's a lying liar that lies, he does sprinkle in some things that I think show where his head was. Immediately he's talking about the boat case.. He even on the stand says he thinks the murder is some person or people from the internet that read all the bad things about Paul and decided to kill him. So very odd.. not the kids in the boat or their families (can't blame those victims it would look really bad, but a total stranger from the internet was mad enough about what Paul did to just come out to kill him (and research enough to figure out where he would be when he wasn't even supposed to be there that night, know that guns would be laying around everywhere, the layout of the property, that they'd be at the kennel and Alex would be gone.. don't would be put up etc). Then he made a seperate statement about the only reason Paul is dead is because of the boat case and someone was really angry and hated Paul. Well I do think Alex was angry he had to deal with this boat case. Not only was Paul being sued, but he was.. his finanaces were at risk AND that would expose his financial crimes. Without the boat case looming he could have kept robbing one to pay another without having to disclose what he was doing.I appreciate what you are saying... All the stuff in the periphery. The boat, the poor kid in the street....I get it. I'm trying to be fair here. The unfortunate facts the lurk in the background here are:
1. Nothing was going to stop the legal problems he had, except his death. Even then they could likley sue the estate. Killing his family wasn't going to stop that.
2. The boat accident. As sad as it is kids do stupid stupid stuff everyday. Every city & town in the world has lost young folks because of bad decisions. Between liability insurance on the boat and his legal expertise, AM probably didn't have too much exposure. That aside, trying to keep PM out of jail, by killing him doesn't really square up.
The poor kid they found dead in the street...There is nothing tangible there, at least at this point. No one knows what happened.
In the end, the law firm wasn't going away. The dwi wasn't going away. If there were evidence with the Smith boy, that wasn't going away.
From watching the trial, it's abundantly clear AM is highly intelligent. I would say cunning. He knows that killing his family wasn't going to solve his problems. He knows how investigations work. He knows how phones work. He knows how on-star works.
If he pulled the trigger himself in some for of rage - his best play would have been to wait until the morning. Say he fell asleep & didn't hear anything. Really anything other than what he did would have been better.
I guess what I'm saying is...
The data puts him there. The video puts him there. Everything points to him being there. But none of it makes any sense. None of it squares with premeditated murder, at least when the murderer doesn't want to get caught (meaning, some people kill, and don't care about getting caught, others want to get away with it).
If there was another person there. Presumably took control of the situation and took their phones (which is what they are using to help determine time of death) And AM left, and went to his mother's. It must have been to get something. That doesn't really make sense to me either. But its the only thing I can think of.
God only knows what these people were into that we don't know about. Drugs, smuggling, human trafficking. Nothing would surprise me.
Then again, maybe he was going to kill them and himself, but chickened out.
Just a bizarre situation.
I think he did believe that if he could convince others that Paul was shot because of the boat case, then the lawsuit would go away or they would settle for MUCH less than the 30 million number being talked about. It didn't happen that way but he believed he could manipulate that and talk his way out of the financial things he did. I 100% believe he thought he could get out of all the mess if they were dead. The firm backed off for 3 months so it clearly worked somewhat.