Court is back in session.
Waters resumes his cross-examination by seeing if he and AM can agree on some things. Waters: The money you were stealing was not just to pay for drugs, right? AM: Sure W: And your stealing increased over the years as we moved toward June 2021? AM: Yes sir.
W: And it increased in particular after the 2019 boat wreck? AM: No, sir. And we’re back. W: "I'm just trying to get through this so we don't get bogged down again like yesterday.”
It’s deja vu all over again. AM: “I don’t dispute, and I have never disputed since I was confronted on Labor Day weekend that I took money from my clients.” Waters: “We’ve gone through that.” AM: “But you keep asking me about it.”
Waters established that AM borrowed massive sums from Palmetto State Bank, one of his law partners and his father. Waters also establishes that AM paid them back with money he stole from his clients. AM repeatedly says: “I don’t dispute that.”
If the jury doesn’t yet understand that AM lied to his clients and stole from them, they aren’t gonna get it.
AM explains why he stole from his good friend, Barrett Boulware. He says they had been partners in land deals that went bad in the Recession, and AM had to cover all the losses. That equated to millions of dollars. That’s why Boulware wound up essentially giving AM Moselle.
AM on that explanation: “To be able to look in the mirror, you lie to yourself.” AM: “Barrett had owed me so much money that when I took his money, I just didn’t tell him. It was a lie by omission.”
AM explains that he would get a case that was supposed to be worth $100K, and he would win $300K for his client. And that’s why he felt entitled to steal the overage. He says now he was wrong.
AM testifies he would take more than 2,000 mg of oxycodone a day most of the time. That’s nearly 70 pills (at 30 mg) a day.
AM: “Opiates gave me energy. Whatever I was doing, it made it more interesting. It made me want to do it longer. … In the beginning, it made it better.”
He said he would wake up and take pills immediately. He would feel agitation from not taking pills as he slept. “First thing I would do was take pills. … Agitation is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to opioid withdrawals.”
Waters: And you said when you were having withdrawals, you would do anything to make them stop. AM: “Almost anything.” Oh boy.
AM: He said he tried to self-detox dozens, maybe hundreds of times. It didn’t stick.
AM said he kept his pills on his person because he was afraid someone would find them. AM: “I had a pocket full of pills on June 8th when I was sitting in David Owen’s patrol car.”
AM said he would pop painkillers any time he had paranoid thoughts. If he saw a patrol car behind him, he might pull over and take some. AM is asked who saw him have these severe withdrawals before he admitted his addiction publicly: Mags, PawPaw, Bus, my dad.
AM testifies about Maggie discovering a bag of pills in his computer bag on 5/6/21 - a month before the murders. He said she looked through his bag while he was inside an eye doctor’s office during COVID-19, when she couldn’t come in with him.
AM downplays that discovery, which was May 6, 2021 - a month before the slayings - as nothing unusual. “They had been watching me like a hawk for years before May. May was just one occurrence where I let them down.”
Testy exchange in the courtroom. AM: You keep claiming you’re hearing all these things for the first time. But when I got to jail, we would reach out to you and offer to tell you all these things. But you would never respond to Jim Griffin’s offers to meet with you.
Waters: Did you ever reach out to anyone in law enforcement and the prosecution and tell that story that you told the jury about the kennels before yesterday? AM: No, sir. Griffin objects. Judge Newman overrules. Griffin keeps objecting. Newman: “Sit down, Mr. Griffin.”
AM: At least since January, I’ve been reaching out to sit down and talk to y’all, and I never got a response to multiple requests.
Waters stresses that yesterday was the first time anyone heard AM’s new story about his whereabouts and movements on the evening of June 7, 2021. AM: “Yesterday is the first time that I have said that openly.”
Waters: You, like you have done so many times in your life, had to back up and make a new story to fit with the facts of your life. AM: “No, sir.” W: “The second you’re confronted with facts you can’t deny, you immediately come up with a new lie. Isn’t that correct?”
Waters: Your own lawyer was repeating your story on national TV as late as November 2022 that you were home napping, not down at the kennels, on 6/7/21.
Griffin objects, says this violates attorney-client privilege.
Newman overrules. He says there is no attorney-client privilege to statements made on national TV. AM clarifies that Griffin gave that interview to HBO much earlier than November 2022. But the HBO series aired in November 2022.
Waters keeps stressing AM’s practice of lying and making up new stories when confronted with facts he can’t deny.
AM denies PMPED CFO Jeanne Seckinger “confronted” him on 6/7/21 about missing fees. He said it was a short conversation. Seckinger was not angry. She seemed almost apologetic to be asking about it, AM said. He said he wasn’t concerned about it.
AM: “I had the impression that there was concern that maybe … I was hiding fees because of the civil boat case. That conversation was so quick. You keep using the term confrontation. I didn’t take it as a confrontation.”
Waters asks AM about confronting Mark Tinsley at the trial lawyers’ conference about his lawsuit against him in the 2019 boat crash case. AM: “Absolutely, unequivocally never happened.”
AM has now disputed the testimony of at least four state witnesses, by my count: Shelley Smith, Blanca Simpson, Jeanne Seckinger and now Mark Tinsley. But prosecutors have done a good job of reminding jurors that AM is a liar.
Waters enters into evidence 6/6/21 texts between Maggie and Alex Murdaugh, which show Alex stayed at the hotel - instead of initially going to the baseball game - because he was suffering from withdrawals. And now we’re moving on to 6/7/21, at last.
AM insists he and Paul did not have a Blackout rifle as they rode around the Moselle property that afternoon. He says they were not hog hunting. Hogs don't come out in daytime. “We were not hog hunting. We were not looking for hogs. We did not have the .300 Blackout with us.”
AM says he returned to the main house at Moselle a little after 8 p.m., shortly after Maggie arrived. He said he showered then, possibly leaving his clothes on the floor where housekeeper Blanca Simpson found his khaki pants the next day.
Waters: How do Maggie and Paul end up at the kennels? AM: I’m still not sure. But in looking at timeframes and GPS data, “I’m all but certain that Maggie and Paul went to the kennels together.”
AM: Maggie asked me to go to the kennels with her, and I wasn’t going to go. Waters: How long after she left did you go down there? AM: “It was very quickly.” It was hot. I’d already showered. I didn’t want to go to the kennel.
Waters: “Why did you change your mind?” AM: “Because Maggie wanted me to.” AM says he took a golf cart down there. Thinks it took a couple of minutes to get there from the main house.
W: How long had you been down there before Paul recorded the 8:44 p.m. kennel video? AM: “Not long.” AM: “In the video, Paw-Paw was standing in the kennel. When I got there, Paw-Paw wasn’t standing in the kennel.” He was in the driveway, near the kennel.
W: Did you tell Maggie at the time that you were going to Almeda? AM: No. W: Did y’all discuss it at all? AM: I don’t think so. W: Did you have any conversation with Maggie? AM: Yes.
AM: I stayed on the golf cart. I got off to take the chicken from Bubba. W: How long were you there before you took the chicken from Bubba? AM: “A couple minutes.” He said he was “talking to Mags” during that time. He can’t remember what about.
W: “You remember a lot of detail about these new facts, but you don’t remember what you talked about?” AM: “I don’t remember the exact details of what we talked about.” Believes they spoke about Paul. W: Were you withdrawing at this time? AM: No.
Waters: Were the dogs barking and carrying on and going into the woods and acting like there was somebody around that they didn’t know? AM: “No. There was nobody around that the dogs didn’t know.”
AM: I would have had the chicken out of Bubba’s mouth within 10, 15 seconds of Maggie saying “He’s got a chicken.” AM: Then I put the chicken up. Had to walk a few feet to do that. That took “seconds.” Waters: “We’re at 8:46 now.” Then what? AM: I left.
Waters: You said yesterday, you “got out of there.” “Why did you get out of there so quick, Mr. Murdaugh?” AM: “Because it was chaotic. It was hot. I was getting ready to do exactly what I didn’t want to do. I was getting ready to sweat. I was getting ready to work.”
W: Did you say goodbye? AM: I would have said, I’m leaving. He can’t recall his final words to his wife and son. “I can’t tell you what those were, but it would have been something to the effect of: I’m leaving.”
Waters: What you’re telling this jury, you’re fuzzy on these kinds of details: “You jetted down to the kennels, you dealt with the chicken, and you jetted back.”
AM says he left the kennels about a minute after Paul filmed his video at the dog kennels. Waters: Are these also convenient facts for your new story? “Does that sound like real life to you?”
AM: It could have been as late as 8:47 p.m. before “I left out of there.” But he thinks he left the kennels sooner. Waters: And then it took 2 minutes to get back to the house. AM: “Approximately.” Waters: So, you'd have gotten back to the house at 8:49? AM: 8:49.
AM: “I did go inside, and the TV was on.” W: “And you laid down?” AM: “I did.” W: “And maybe dozed for a second, according to your new story?” AM: “Maybe.” AM: “If I dozed, it would have been for a short time.” W: And then you’re up at 9:02, according to your phone data.
Waters: Did you have the Blackout and the shotgun on the golf cart when you went down there? AM: No. W: Did you see them when you went down there? AM: No.
Waters: Did you hear anything at all during that time period? AM: No, I did not. W: Didn’t you tell law enforcement you thought they had pulled up? AM: I did think they had pulled up. That’s what I told law enforcement.
Waters keeps referring to this as Murdaugh’s “new story” and alleges he’s made it up for this trial. AM doesn’t correct him. He just acknowledges he has never told the story publicly.
We're taking a 15-minute break.
Waters is squeezing the squeezing the timeline, in part simply by forcing AM to go on the record about the specific times he did things that evening and how long it took him to do them. It's very tight now.
A reminder that Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys did not want him to take the stand, and this is part of the reason why.
