VERDICT WATCH SC - Paul Murdaugh & mom Margaret Found Shot To Death - Alex Murdaugh Accused - Islandton #37

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la_cavalière said:
I have a theory pulled straight out of “Ozark.”

So, I have been flip-flopping on guilty vs not guilty. There is strong evidence that he was at the scene briefly before the murders, and lying about that shows consciousness of guilt. Yet other pieces of the puzzle don’t quite fit. But how could he have been at the kennels but also not be the shooter? And if it happened that way, why wouldn’t he finally tell the truth?

I keep going back to all the missing money. I know he had an expensive opioid addiction, but that can’t explain all the missing millions of dollars. Where did it all go???

Was Alex, like Marty in “Ozark,” increasingly tangled up with some kind of mob or drug cartel? Was he no longer able to pay them off or launder more money for them, and they killed his wife and son right before his eyes with his own guns as a lesson? They could have told him Buster and other family members would be next if he ever dared say anything. There is a history of organized crime and murder in SC.

Just throwing this out there to the wind. Have I been watching too many “Ozark” episodes?
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Just had a similar discussion about thus very theory last night with my husband.
 
Aquarian said:
Comes across as defeated and not believing in his own words. I’m surprised DH would be pleased with this, but who knows.
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Exactly. I think AM is totally out of funds and the defense is feeling as if it's working for free (they have likely promised to set aside part of the retainer for appeals). I hope once this is over and the paperwork for appeals is filed, that they abandon any attempt to prioritize a convicted, non-paying client who still needs a massive defense for his future trials.

I do wonder how AM will pay for that set of defense lawyers. They will need real experience with financial crimes. It's going to be a years-long debacle of case after case in which the victims of AM's crimes seek justice. I suppose he'll be very much at home in the jail throughout that time - adapted to gambling for beef sticks and soup; taking calls; becoming King of the Jail through personality and longevity.

But seriously, who is going to pay for his 120 or so other charges to be defended? Looks like 19-20 different indictments? Could that mean 19-20 more trials or...if he's convicted in the next couple of days, and he's already admitted the financial crimes, will he just plead out?

JG is doing his best, but I agree he does not seem convinced by his own words. He is taking pains to say that AM is not a horrible monster, that's my only take away. DH probably feels strongly that he could have done better.

He's winding up! He likes that Grand Jury point - which is well taken.

Oof. Now we're going to have to wait on pins and needles.
 
Cindizzi said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1631339500696739841
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I'd say all what evidence.. he had clothing in his car, he had guns down there.. I don't think he had much blood on him and I think the washing off could have been done in a minute.. doesn't take long to get naked and hose off. He put the clothing and guns in something and rode off.. I'd say he could have done all he needed to do in 10 minutes or less. He takes the guns to Almeda where it was not searched for a long long time. He returns to find them and he knows the police aren't coming for a while, they live in the middle of nowhere.. he decides to roll the hose up and anything he might need to do. His phone shows steps like crazy during that 911 call and after. Plenty of time.
 
10ofRods said:
Exactly. I think AM is totally out of funds and the defense is feeling as if it's working for free (they have likely promised to set aside part of the retainer for appeals). I hope once this is over and the paperwork for appeals is filed, that they abandon any attempt to prioritize a convicted, non-paying client who still needs a massive defense for his future trials.

I do wonder how AM will pay for that set of defense lawyers. They will need real experience with financial crimes. It's going to be a years-long debacle of case after case in which the victims of AM's crimes seek justice. I suppose he'll be very much at home in the jail throughout that time - adapted to gambling for beef sticks and soup; taking calls; becoming King of the Jail through personality and longevity.

But seriously, who is going to pay for his 120 or so other charges to be defended? Looks like 19-20 different indictments? Could that mean 19-20 more trials or...if he's convicted in the next couple of days, and he's already admitted the financial crimes, will he just plead out?

JG is doing his best, but I agree he does not seem convinced by his own words. He is taking pains to say that AM is not a horrible monster, that's my only take away. DH probably feels strongly that he could have done better.

He's winding up! He likes that Grand Jury point - which is well taken.

Oof. Now we're going to have to wait on pins and needles.
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He should plead out on the financial charges since already confessed under oath, lol
 

Griffin, back from a break, disputes that the evidence definitively proves Maggie and Paul were killed with family guns. Especially the shotgun.

Griffin: AM didn’t accuse anybody of lying on the witness stand, as prosecutor Creighton Waters said yesterday. “I’ve been around long enough to know that witnesses can misremember things.”

Griffin on the state's science experiment/phone chucking exercise: "He spent all weekend throwing his phone around." Griffin chucks his own phone, which makes a thump in the courtroom mics as it lands. In hindsight, this was inevitable.

Griffin: “Now we’ve got a guy tossing a phone in an office, doesn’t even work for SLED. … That’s not his area of expertise.” Yet again we see the consequences of the AG’s failure to call phone-chucking expert Mr. PeePaw Bubbers III to the witness stand.

I'm taking this just as seriously as they are.

The state objects to stop Griffin from replaying videos of witness testimony. Judge Newman agrees. Griffin then plays an audio version of that testimony.

Griffin is now speeding through the forensic/digital timeline of 6/7/21.

Griffin's closing argument started punchily. He reminded the jury of the flaws/shortcomings they have heard about the state's murder investigation and accused investigators of manufacturing evidence to implicate AM when their incompetence prevented them from solving the crime.

But since the court-ordered break, Griffin seems to have lost a lot of steam as he meanders through the weeds.

Griffin pulls up the analysis of AM’s step count. He looks at the point in which AM is moving the quickest. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a slow walk. 1.05 steps per second.”

Griffin paces slowly in front of the jury, counting “One thousand one, one thousand two…” as he goes. “This is Alex scurrying around, according to the state’s case,” Griffin says.

Griffin picking up some steam here. He points out that the state’s evidence doesn’t have AM’s phone and Maggie’s phone moving together at the same time in the quarter-hour after investigators say Maggie/Paul were killed.

Griffin: The state told you Murdaugh “sped up” after driving by the spot where Maggie’s phone was later found. He did speed up, from 42 mph to 44, to 46. Read: He’s not punching the gas after ditching evidence.

Griffin says the state has raised suspicion about AM’s drive speed on the way to his mom’s house that evening. He traveled the same speed there and the same speed back. You’d think he’d want to drive slowly if he’s establishing an alibi.

Griffin: If he is manufacturing a timeline that absolves him of the slayings, the easiest way to do it is use both phones. He would have been texting from Maggie’s phone to try to establish that she was still alive.

Griffin: “We know from Maggie’s phone data that her phone was never unlocked, and he has the keys.” Why didn’t AM unlock her phone if he was the one ditching it?

Griffin: “These circumstances raise more questions, ladies and gentlemen, that we wouldn’t have to be dealing with if they had simply secured Maggie’s phone … on June the 8th. We wouldn’t be here.”

Griffin: Were Maggie and Paul killed before AM left Moselle that evening? I don’t know the answer to that. But if they were shot while he was in the house, we’ve proven with an audio expert that he would not have heard.

Griffin with a zinger: “He leaves the property at 9:07. If it happens at 8:50, he’s got 17 minutes. 17 minutes. He’d have to be a magician to make all that evidence disappear.”

Griffin: He would have been covered in blood, biological material, after killing Paul. The shooter is covered in blood. The shooter’s gun is covered in blood. It’s not a sufficient amount of time to clean all that, make all that disappear,

Griffin on AM post-9 p.m.: He calls Buster, John Marvin, Chris Wilson. He goes and sits with Shelley. “He’s got no blood on him. He’s acting normal as every day. He is the same old Alex. Yet their theory is he just blew the people he loved the most in the world, blew them away.”

Griffin: Prosecutors made fun of our rendering of the little grey people who killed Maggie. “We didn’t take the measurements. SLED took the measurements.” Sure, the shooter could have crouched or knelt. But it also looks like the shooter was moving.

Griffin: “The most common sense thing here is there were two shooters. There were two guns. One gun was high capacity. … If you’re going down there to execute somebody, one gun is enough.”

Griffin points to the “I/they” controversy as evidence SLED cannot be trusted in this case. He’s thankful other witnesses have said they heard “they” and also heard AM saying “they did him so bad” other times after the slayings.

Griffin: “That issue points to a bigger question. What would they be saying in this trial if that conversation wasn’t videotaped?”

Griffin plays audio I don’t think I’ve ever heard before: Part of the CCSO deputy Daniel Greene body cam footage in which Alex is asking about whether law enforcement can get a police officer up to protect his older son, Buster, in Columbia.

Griffin: Prosecutors have made a big deal about AM telling different versions of whose body he checked first when he discovered Maggie/Paul dead on 6/7/21.

Griffin: You heard yesterday Maggie was running to her baby. “Alex was running to his baby. And can you imagine what he saw?” Can he really be blamed for not remembering the exact sequence of events? “Is that evidence of guilt or is that evidence of trauma?”

Griffin: “We are back to the lie. Because that’s all they have in this case, is that Alex lied to them. And he shouldn’t have.” And he kept lying to continue the lie, and he shouldn’t have.

Griffin on AM’s lie: It wasn’t rational, but he was in the throes of addiction, and he had just discovered his wife and son dead. And they swiped his hands for GSR. And he thought he was being questioned by the same SLED agent who investigated his friend, Greg Alexander.

Griffin: The state showed you a bunch of guns during this case, and not a single one of them was used to kill Maggie or Paul. “They want you to think that because you own guns, that you should be viewed differently? I don’t know what else to make of that.”

Griffin: “You’ve heard weeks of testimony about Alex’s financial crimes, drug addiction and lies. But after all that, the state has failed to provide a satisfactory answer to this question: Why?” And that’s because the state can’t answer that. Because he would not do it.

Griffin: The law doesn’t require you to look at AM as a monster. The law requires you to view him as innocent.

Griffin chokes up as he closes: “On behalf of Alex, on behalf of Buster, on behalf of Maggie and on behalf of my friend Paul, I ask that you do not compound one tragedy with another. Thank you.” Jury is excused for a break.

Prosecutor John Meadors will offer the state’s final argument. He asks if he can go to the bathroom first, prompting laughter. 5 minute recess.
 
Great rationale: AM called Maggie's phone. Why did he do that if he had the phone? Hmm, if the phone had been secured, we wouldn't be here? Is this "Low Country Logic"? Oh, the train keeps going out of control on the track.

Geez, AM might have had an outside chance, for mistrial if Griffin hadn't just nailed every single thing down. Back to Bubba and Chicken...

Yeah, he left at 9:07. With all the evidence to stash at his parents house.
 
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