SC - Paul Murdaugh & mom Margaret Found Shot To Death - Alex Murdaugh Accused - Islandton #23

[makayla]

AM’s legs are moving a lot plus he has his hands over his private area like a fig leaf

 

[Cindizzi]

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[Derph]

2. Rocking Back and Forth

As I have written here and elsewhere, repetitive behaviors are soothing or pacifying and help us deal with stress. From foot bouncing to finger strumming to twirling strands of hair, they help us pass the time, enjoy a moment, or deal with momentary stress or anxiety.

But the sudden onset of rocking back and forth, almost like a metronome, is reserved for extremely stressful situations—when terrible news has been received or a horrific event has been witnessed. In those cases—I have seen it in adults as well as children—a person seemingly zones out, oblivious to the world or any attempts to communicate as he or she self-soothes by rocking back and forth, sometimes for several minutes.

As renowned author and researcher David Givens points out in his Nonverbal Dictionary, the rocking action back and forth or side to side (think of a mother rocking a baby to sleep) “stimulates the vestibular senses and is therefore soothing” in a very primitive, but effective way.

5 Ways That Body Language Can Signal Trouble

During times of high stress or a calamity, these unique behaviors shout, "I need help."

www.psychologytoday.com

The rocking can also be a means of psyching one self up like a football players starts winding him self up before a big play or confrontation.

 

[makayla]

His relaying the hours he supposedly arrived home and also being with PM driving around in trucks etc. as well as the times MM was supposedly at Moselle just don’t add up

 

[Cindizzi]

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[makayla]

AM sitting in very protective mode, legs and arms crossed

 

[Cindizzi]

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[LaborDayRN]

How can he go from "lovey dovey" and a great father to a double murderer? I know he is a SOB and crook but I am struggling to believe he had nerve enough to do it. He couldn't even off himself! Anyone else thinking it was a drug dealer(s) who pulled the triggers and made him watch? I think he is too scared to admit it for fear of retaliation on him and Buster. JMO

Unfortunatley we see it here on WS quite often. Family annihilators.

Inside the Mind of Family Annihilators

New research sheds light on the motivations of people who kill their families and suggests their numbers may be on the rise.

www.newsweek.com

The "civil reputable" killer, on the other hand, is motivated by a perverse form of altruism. "His entire identity is in his family," says Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on domestic violence.
The father is almost always considering suicide as the only escape from some sort of financial crisis. Murdering his family members, then, becomes a way of rescuing them from the hardship and shame of bankruptcy and suicide. "There is no other solution but the one you find today," wrote Russell Gilman, a Scottsdale attorney who murdered his wife and two kids after the family finances fell apart, in a note he left behind.

 

[makayla]

MM not going to visit AM’s parents is strange, especially since he supposedly asked her to come to Moselle to make that visit in the evening. He had no logical explanation for why he left without her!

 

[Cindizzi]

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[Cindizzi]

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[clearskies1]

So my assumption was wrong -- seems like Maggie did stay at Moselle the night before the murders, although she apparently planned to go directly to Edisto after her doctor's appointment that day. JMO.

 

[Cindizzi]

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[Sunshynn]

MM not going to visit AM’s parents is strange, especially since he supposedly asked her to come to Moselle to make that visit in the evening. He had no logical explanation for why he left without her!

He asked her to come and visit his father since he was doing poorly according to MM's sisters testimony.
However, neither she nor AM went to visit his father.
Now, this could be because she had the doctors appointment and then stopped and got a manicure so it was too late by that time, but I don't know why she would have gotten the manicure knowing they had to visit AM's father.
MOO.

 

[Cindizzi]

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[10ofRods]

The attempted suicide on the roadside did not lead to the murders because it happened after the fact. The prosecution is trying to bring this in to facilitate his overall motive for the murders and that doesn't fly.

Some may find it hard to believe that murdering your son and wife to alleviate any reckoning with financial crimes is what happened here, but most could believe it.

His defense of suicide so his son could collect the insurance money has no bearing on the murders.

It flies. Goes to mens rea. IMO. And I am looking at it, as a juror.

He wanted to make it look like he was attacked too, because he realized he might be in the situation he's in right now. That people might not buy that he wasn't the killer, especially as he knew that a husband is always a suspect in the murder of a wife, and that evidence (like the shirt) might be found. He also knew that the financial situation would implicate him, as men who are facing bankruptcy/jail time for financial crimes are known to kill their families.

He knew he would be looked at closely. He wanted a post-facto alibi. People's behaviors after a crime are quite relevant, IMO and in the opinion of many people.

IMO.

 

[Cindizzi]

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[Weki]

MM not going to visit AM’s parents is strange, especially since he supposedly asked her to come to Moselle to make that visit in the evening. He had no logical explanation for why he left without her!

Yeah this is the state’s strongest evidence. He’s lying about the sequence of events and his whereabouts around the murder time, and he changed clothes. It’s suspicious for sure. But if we’re on a ladder and “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the top rung, this part of the evidence is the bottom 2-3 rungs of the ladder.

 

[Seattle1]

Oxycodone

Smith was arrested in late June after he and Murdaugh were jointly indicted by the State Grand Jury on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. The two are accused of conspiracy to illegally purchase and distribute oxycodone from 2013 to 2021, which saw Murdaugh reportedly pay Smith in excess of $3.4 million over that eight-year period.

Who is Spencer Roberts? PPP loan fraud suspect tied to Alex Murdaugh & Eddie Smith

WLOS News 13 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Asheville, NC and nearby towns and communities in Western North Carolina and the Upstate of South Carolina, including the...

wlos.com

WOW! I definitely missed these dates.

AM was already in custody for insurance fraud (suicide/murder for hire) and the 2021 double murder when one year later, in June 2022, the grand jury indicted both cousin Eddie (Smith) and AM on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.

Seems to me AM's defense was huge in keeping this indictment quiet-- especially since it goes squarely against the defense narrative that the Eddie/AM connection was supplier-buyer, and ignores that AM paid Eddie more than $3.4M over 8 year period 2013-21.

From the quoted link:

If Murdaugh's only connection to Smith had been buying drugs for personal consumption as his lawyers claimed, then the math of Murdaugh's alleged pain pill abuse would've been truly astonishing. Murdaugh would have been taking dozens of pills per day, every day, for about eight years for the dollar-to-pill breakdown to make sense.

An opioid addiction so severe isn't totally unheard of given that opioid users can build up significant tolerance to the drugs. But Waters and state prosecutors have made it clear narcotics aren't the only thing Murdaugh's stolen money went toward. He's also accused of cleaning money through Smith.

Smith even in his original bond hearing told a judge all the money Murdaugh had given him had gone back to Murdaugh. That can't be true given the state's allegations of drug trafficking between Smith and Murdaugh. And it begs the question of how and where Spencer Roberts might fit into the equation.

 

[Edvis]

2. Rocking Back and Forth

As I have written here and elsewhere, repetitive behaviors are soothing or pacifying and help us deal with stress. From foot bouncing to finger strumming to twirling strands of hair, they help us pass the time, enjoy a moment, or deal with momentary stress or anxiety.

But the sudden onset of rocking back and forth, almost like a metronome, is reserved for extremely stressful situations—when terrible news has been received or a horrific event has been witnessed. In those cases—I have seen it in adults as well as children—a person seemingly zones out, oblivious to the world or any attempts to communicate as he or she self-soothes by rocking back and forth, sometimes for several minutes.

As renowned author and researcher David Givens points out in his Nonverbal Dictionary, the rocking action back and forth or side to side (think of a mother rocking a baby to sleep) “stimulates the vestibular senses and is therefore soothing” in a very primitive, but effective way.

5 Ways That Body Language Can Signal Trouble

During times of high stress or a calamity, these unique behaviors shout, "I need help."

www.psychologytoday.com

Agree the body becomes an instrument we use to sooth, comfort and deal with when outside forces overwhelm us. It's a double edged sword which also throws up red flags. Sometimes all the body soothing just doesn't work and take a sip of coffee, light up a cancer stick and scream at the computer cause my enternet is too slow.