Dozens of witnesses have taken the stand including first responders and close family friends – but many questions remain in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial with the defense yet to bring their case.
His lawyers are facing evidence of calls deleted from the alleged killer’s phone, a video which places him at the crime scene and another that shows he changed his clothes on the night that Maggie and Paul were shot dead.
Prosecutors say he killed the pair at the family’s sprawling hunting estate in Moselle in South Carolina’s Lowcountry on June 7, 2021, because the walls were closing in on his financial crimes.
The disgraced attorney, 54, had racked up debts in the millions and was due in court in days over a fatal boat crash in which Paul was driving under the influence.
But the defense say the claim is ‘ludicrous’ and instead theorize Paul and Maggie were killed in revenge for the boat accident which left 19-year-old Mallory Beach dead in February, 2019.
Here DailyMail.com presents six questions from the double murder trial:
WHERE ARE HIS CLOTHES? Murdaugh wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts after cops arrived (left). He called 911 at 10.07pm on June 7, 2021. Earlier, in a Snapchat video taken by Paul at 7.56pm, Murdaugh wears a blue dress shirt and beige pants
Prosecutor Creighton Waters asks witness Jeff Croft, a SLED senior special agent, about a .300 Blackout rifle recovered from the property. Paul was killed with a shotgun and Maggie with a rifle – but no murder weapon has ever been found
Alex Murdaugh with his son Paul and wife Maggie. The pair were 22 and 52-years-old when the prosecution say the disgraced attorney shot them dead at the Moselle estate on June 7, 2021
WHY DID HE CHANGE AND WHERE ARE HIS CLOTHES?
Murdaugh changed his clothes on the night of the killings.
He was wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts when police arrived and appeared ‘clean from head to toe.’
But a Snapchat video taken at 7.56pm by Paul shows that Murdaugh was wearing a dress shirt and long pants an hour before the killings.
It is not clear whether those clothes were ever located. A search of the house was carried out by detective Katie McAllister the day after the killings on June 8.
She had a search warrant but opted for a ‘consent search’ out of consideration for the family – there were some 25 to 30 grieving people at the house and she did not want to turf them out.
McAllister searched every room while accompanied by Murdaugh’s brother, John Marvin and a lawyer from his firm, Lee Cope.
She said she found no bloody clothes and no evidence that blood had been washed away in any of the bathrooms. However, no forensic examination was conducted.
The white t-shirt and shorts Murdaugh was wearing when cops arrived were forensically examined.
SLED investigator Melinda Worley told jurors that after testing his shirt and shorts, they came back with a presumptive positive result.
However, the court also heard that false positives can be triggered by the presence of bleach or rust.
12.56am: Murdaugh in police car wearing a white t-shirt and shorts
Murdaugh’s lawyers made legal filings before trial that law enforcement had ‘destroyed’ his t-shirt and relied on the expert opinion of a retired policeman without scientific credentials.
Prosecutors hired Tom Bevel ‘to opine that the white cotton T-shirt Mr. Murdaugh wore the night Maggie and Paul were murdered is stained with high-velocity blood spatter, most likely resulting from shooting Paul,’ the filing in November stated.
But Bevel’s first report ’emphatically said the shirt contained no stains consistent with back spatter resulting from a gunshot’, said the filing by defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin.
‘Yet for some reason, without any additional evidence he changed his opinion entirely after an in-person visit from lead [South Carolina Law Enforcement Division] SLED investigator David Owen,’ they wrote.
Photos of the t-shirt showed it stained blue with sections cut out.
Murdaugh’s attorneys said this would ‘prevent anyone else from conducting subsequent tests.’
In another January motion, Murdaugh’s defense lawyers stated the t-shirt was tested for blood 12 times with negative results.
The defense argued that any blood present is only on the bottom third of the shirt and was only transferred after Murdaugh ‘frantically checked [his wife and son] for signs of life.’
WHY WERE HIS HANDS CLEAN AFTER HE SAID HE TOUCHED THE BLOOD-SOAKED BODIES?
Murdaugh told 911 he had checked his wife and son’s pulses – but when cops arrived they saw no blood on him.
Blood was everywhere at the scene. There were pools of blood under Maggie and Paul and spatters across the ceiling and walls of the kennel.
Murdaugh’s attorney, Dick Harpootlian, told jurors Paul’s head ‘literally exploded … like a watermelon.’
The alleged killer said he had even tried rolling Paul’s body over but detective Laura Rutland, one of the first on the scene, said he was ‘clean from head to toe’.
Rutland testified that she saw no visible footprints or knee prints near the bodies.
Murdaugh’s lawyer places a hand on his shoulder to comfort him as he sobs. The 30-minute interview took place around 1am – about four hours after the killings – inside a state agent’s vehicle.
SLED investigator Worley testified that swabs of Murdaugh’s Chevrolet Suburban came back with likely positive results for blood around the driver and front passenger sides.
Murdaugh fired up his car at 9.06pm – the prosecution say soon after the killings – and drove to his mother’s residence in Almeda, around 15 minutes away.
His mother’s caregiver Michelle ‘Shelley’ Smith had a conversation with Murdaugh while he was there – she is listed as a witness but has not yet given evidence.
WHY DOES HE DELETE FIVE CALLS TO MAGGIE FROM HIS CELL PHONE?
Murdaugh made five calls to Maggie between 9.04pm and 9.06pm – shortly before he left to visit his mother in Almeda – and then twice more at 9.45pm and 10.03pm – apparently on his way back to Moselle.
The calls were deleted from Murdaugh’s call log – but they did appear in Maggie’s.
At 9.47pm, Murdaugh texted Maggie, saying: ‘Call me babe.’
Prosecutors say that at 8.49pm Maggie and Paul’s phones locked forever and they were killed shortly after.
However, Maggie’s phone continued to record movement, steps and orientation changes.
Murdaugh’s phone showed regular movement throughout the evening – but between 8.09pm and 9.02pm there are no steps recorded.
MURDAUGH’S LAST TEXT AND CALLS TO HIS WIFE: At 9.47pm Alex Murdaugh texted Maggie, saying: ‘Call me babe.’ The prosecution say she had been dead almost an hour by this point. The phone also shows Maggie’s missed calls, including five from Alex on the night of the murders
Maggie’s phone was discovered on a roadside a quarter mile from the crime scene the following afternoon, while Paul’s was found resting on his back after Murdaugh told cops it fell out of his dead son’s pocket when he checked on him.
The prosecution suggest that Murdaugh was handling his wife’s phone at the murder scene and made a series of calls and texts to the device in order to ‘manufacture an alibi.’
The defense have rebutted this suggestion, highlighting how steps recorded on Alex’s phone do not align with his wife’s, so it is not possible he was holding both phones at the same time in the aftermath of the shootings.
HOW CAN HE DENY HE WAS AT THE MURDER SCENE AFTER WITNESSES SAID THEY HEARD HIS VOICE IN VIDEO TAKEN MINUTES BEFORE THE KILLINGS?
Murdaugh claims that last time he saw Maggie and Paul alive was when they were having supper at the house on the estate in Islandton, South Carolina.
He told cops he only saw them at the kennels when he arrived back from his mother’s home to find them dead.
However a video taken at 8.44pm by Paul – just minutes before prosecutors say he and his mother were killed – allegedly places Murdaugh at the scene.
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Rogan Gibson, who described the Murdaughs as his ‘second family’, testified that he was ‘100 per cent’ certain he could hear Alex’s voice along with those of Paul and Maggie.
He had been talking to Paul throughout the evening and also told jurors that in a phone call with Paul at 8.40pm he could also hear Alex.
Another friend of Paul’s, Will Loving, also testified that in the video from the kennels he was positive he could hear Alex’s voice.
WHY KILL PAUL AND MAGGIE IF HE WERE SUCH A ‘LOVING’ FATHER AND HUSBAND?
The prosecution say the disgraced attorney’s life was spiraling out of control and that on the day of the murders he had been confronted over stealing $792,000 from his legal firm.
The state argues Murdaugh shot his wife and son to divert attention away from a decade of malfeasance that was gathering ‘like a perfect storm.’
Murdaugh – a chronic opioid addict – would go on to arrange for a hitman to shoot him in the head three months later in a botched life insurance scam.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said: ‘He was burning through cash like crazy. He was out of options. The $792,000 was gone in no time at all. He had been living in a velocity of money that is really quite stunning.
‘And he constantly needed to achieve more money to avoid the reckoning that was coming.
‘The evidence will show on that particular date, June 7, 2021, when he’s being asked about these fees, the financial condition is not there. He’s extremely leveraged in the debt that he has.
‘And he’s forced to do these things to stay ahead.’
The defense theory is that somebody killed Paul and Maggie in revenge for the boating accident in February 2019 that left 19-year-old Mallory Beach (pictured) dead.
The defense theory is that somebody else killed Murdaugh’s wife and son in revenge for a boat crash (the Murdaugh boat Sea Hunt is pictured) during which Paul had been driving under the influence, killing a 19-year-old woman, in February 2019
The defense are adamant that there is ‘no logical connection’ between the evidence and the deaths of Maggie and Paul.
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian argued that given the brutality of the execution-style killings, it is simply ‘not believable’ that Murdaugh – a ‘loving’ husband and father – could have carried them out.
They point to the Snapchat video taken by Paul at 7.56pm as evidence of a ‘bonding’ experience between father and son.
Harpootlian told jurors: ‘All that was left was the front of [Paul’s] face. Everything else was gone. His brain exploded out of his head, hit the ceiling in the shed and dropped to his feet. Horrendous, horrible. Butchering.
‘So to find Alex Murdaugh guilty of murdering his son, you’re going to have to accept that within an hour of having a extraordinarily bonding, you can see it in the Snapchat, that he executes him in a brutal fashion. Not believable. Not believable.’
WHY WERE TWO GUNS USED IF THERE WAS ONLY ONE SHOOTER?
Two different guns were used to kill Paul and Maggie, but no murder weapon has ever been found.
Prosecutors say Murdaugh first used a shotgun to kill Paul before turning a .300 Blackout assault rifle on Maggie.
The prosecution claim that he caught the pair unaware and that there were no defensive wounds. However, the defense dispute this, arguing that wounds to Paul’s arm indicated he was attempting to shield himself from the lead shot.
They say that Maggie was hit in the back of the head, indicating that she was running away from the shooter.
The defense also argues that the distance between the shots fired indicates that there could have been two shooters.
The camo shotgun that was taken from Murdaugh by the first officer who arrived at the scene. He was holding a camo shotgun when police arrived, he said, because he feared whoever killed his wife and son were still ‘out there’
Murdaugh’s lawyers theorize that Paul and Maggie were killed in revenge for a fatal boating accident in February, 2019. At the time of the killings, Paul and Alex were both defendants in a civil case over the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach. She was killed while Paul crashed his father’s boat under the influence of alcohol.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters told jurors: ‘The evidence is going to show that neither Paul nor Maggie had any defensive wounds.
‘Neither one of them had any defensive wounds, as if they didn’t see a threat coming from their attacker. And the evidence is also going to show that both Maggie and Paul were shot at extremely close range.’
But defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said: ‘Paul Murdaugh was shot twice with buck shot, 12 gauge buck shot, once in the chest. By the way, that shot would indicate it was in the chest and came out under his arm by somebody that might have been holding up their hands.
‘So when [the prosecutor] says no defensive wounds he perhaps hasn’t held a shotgun. I could make the same speculation that the attorney general can because that’s all he’s doing is speculating.’
WHERE MAGGIE DIED: A pool of blood is seen outside the kennels near the doghouse where Maggie Murdaugh was shot dead with two AR bullets to the head
WHERE PAUL DIED: Blood spatters on the floor inside the storage room at the kennels where Paul Murdaugh was shot dead. He was killed with a shot to the chest and a second to the head. Two shotgun shells were recovered by cops – two 12-gauge shells, two different brands – one Federal, the other Winchester
MURDER SCENE: Paul’s body lies outside the storage room, while Maggie lies just outside the kennels by the doghouse
He added: ‘Now, Maggie is shot running. No defensive wounds because she’s shot running and after she falls to the ground and has one bullet that has hit her and probably traveled up and hit her brain, she’s on the ground and whoever the perpetrator was walked up, took that AR and put one in the back of her head. Executed. Executed.’
Maggie was found face down after being shot five times, according to a report by forensics expert Kenneth Kinsey.
He suggested three of the shots hit her while she was standing.
Two of the shots would have been instantly fatal, piercing her brain. One of those shots passed through her left breast, the other was fired into the back of her head.
One of those bullets hit her while she was ‘holding herself up on her knees and … her right hand with her shoulders and head down.’
Paul was also found face down. He was first hit in the chest from ‘several feet away’, leaving him standing and heading for a door, before a second shot in the neck and shoulder blew out his brain.
‘Brain was severed and exited through the anatomical right side of (his) head. … Brain was completely detached from (his) head,’ Kinsey said.
