Alex Murdaugh

The South Carolina lawyer faces a minimum of 30 years in prison for each murder.

They called Judge Newman's decision to allow evidence related to Murdaugh's financial crimes to be included in the murder trial "erroneous". Murdaugh had been cast as a "despicable human being", he said. He stared ahead and did not react as his sentence was read. "I would never hurt my wife and I would never hurt my son," he said in brief remarks at the hearing. Judge Clifton Newman called the case "one of the most troubling" he had seen and noted Murdaugh's past "as a well-known member of the legal community". Disgraced ex-lawyer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife and son in a case that shocked the US.

The 54-year-old disbarred South Carolina lawyer faces a sentence of 30 years to life in prison for each murder conviction.

"This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him," Waters told the jury in his closing argument. He was facing a financial reckoning, they said, that also included his liability in a court case over a fatal 2019 boating accident in which Paul, then 19, was said to be driving. Prosecutors never produced the two murder weapons used to kill Maggie and Paul, and there were no eyewitnesses. But after witnesses identified Murdaugh's voice in a cellphone video taken by Paul at the kennel around 8:45 p.m. Newman had said he would render his sentence after any victim impact statements, but prosecutor Creighton Waters began his remarks by saying the state did not have anyone who wanted to deliver a victim statement. "It's so unfortunate, because you had such a lovely family of such friendly people — including you," the judge told Murdaugh. The sentencing closes a six-week-long trial that charted Murdaugh's fall from grace. Murdaugh said repeatedly that he didn't go with his wife and son to the dog kennels where they were shot and killed, saying that he stayed in the house, and took a nap before leaving to see his ailing mother. The court session began shortly after 9:30 a.m. Thank you." "Good morning, your honor. Newman told Murdaugh that each of the punishments apply to "the rest of your natural life," adding that the sentences are consecutive.

Sentencing came little more than 12 hours after South Carolina attorney was found guilty of murder.

Newman – who also spoke about the many times he had encountered Murdaugh as a lawyer in the After the murders, Murdaugh portrayed the killings as an act of retribution by unknown assassins. “It doesn’t matter who your family is,” Waters said. It doesn’t matter … I am sure they come and visit you,” he said. The small town of Walterboro has been turned into a media circus for the trial’s duration.

Sara Azari, a criminal trial attorney, told News Nation, the case was “cloaked in doubt,” until Murdaugh testified, which “sealed the deal” for the jury, who ...

For five weeks Murdaugh was on trial for the June 2021 murder of his wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son Paul. [Alex Murdaugh Found Guilty Of Murdering Wife And Son](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/03/02/alex-murdaugh-found-guilty-in-murder-of-wife-and-son/?sh=2f0daa902674) (Forbes) [How Alex Murdaugh Opened The Door For Convictions On Financial And Tax Crime Charges](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2023/03/01/how-alex-murdaugh-opened-the-door-for-convictions-on-financial-and-tax-crime-charges/?sh=2e7edf5172ed) (Forbes) [Juror Removed From Alex Murdaugh Murder Trial For Discussing Case Outside Courtroom](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/03/02/juror-removed-from-alex-murdaugh-murder-trial-for-discussing-case-outside-courtroom/?sh=535db4534247) (Forbes) [Alex Murdaugh Murder Trial Jurors Make Rare Visit To South Carolina Crime Scene](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/03/01/alex-murdaugh-murder-trial-jurors-make-rare-visit-to-south-carolina-crime-scene/?sh=7d1dcd391ccb) (Forbes) [Levinson](https://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/20230303030321-legal-experts-examine-alex-murdaugh-murder-verdict/#x) said. [told](https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/murdaugh-murder-trial/alex-murdaugh-verdict-watch-jury/) News Nation, the case was “cloaked in doubt,” until Murdaugh testified, which “sealed the deal” for the jury, who Azari said didn’t care about why Murdaugh committed these crimes but instead focused on the big “lie.” [told](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCOLlbBtj_E%5C) the Associated Press. When Alex Murdaugh—who was found guilty Thursday of murdering his wife and son in June 2021 and sentenced Friday to life in prison—took the stand to explain his side of the story, he backed himself into a corner, admitted to other crimes and ultimately made himself unreliable, which legal experts say lead to his guilty verdict.

South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday, a day after he was convicted of murder in the shooting deaths ...

But they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, including the video putting Murdaugh at the scene of the killings five minutes before his wife and son stopped using their cellphones forever. Before he was charged with murder, Murdaugh was in jail awaiting trial on about 100 other charges ranging from insurance fraud to tax evasion. As Murdaugh stood before the judge to learn his fate, he was in the same courtroom on the circuit where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather tried cases as the elected prosecutor for more than 80 years. The voices of all three Murdaughs can be heard on the video, though Alex Murdaugh had insisted for 20 months that he hadn’t been at the kennels that night. The lack of remorse and the effortless way in which he is, including here, sitting right over there in this witness stand — your honor, a man like that, a man like this man, should never be allowed to be among free, law abiding citizens,” Waters said. It didn’t take long to convince the other three.

Alex Murdaugh, center, is led out of Colleton County Courthouse by sheriff's deputies after being convicted Thursday, in Walterboro, S.C. Murdaugh was found ...

"This defendant has fooled everyone — everyone who thought they were close to him," Waters told the jury in his closing argument. He was facing a financial reckoning, they said, that also included his liability in a court case over a fatal 2019 boating accident in which Paul, then 19, was said to be driving. Prosecutors never produced the two murder weapons used to kill Maggie and Paul, and there were no eyewitnesses. But after witnesses identified Murdaugh's voice in a cellphone video taken by Paul at the kennel around 8:45 p.m. Newman had said he would render his sentence after any victim impact statements, but prosecutor Creighton Waters began his remarks by saying the state did not have anyone who wanted to deliver a victim statement. The sentencing closes a six-week-long trial that charted Murdaugh's fall from grace. Murdaugh said repeatedly that he didn't go with his wife and son to the dog kennels where they were shot and killed, saying that he stayed in the house, and took a nap before leaving to see his ailing mother. The court session began shortly after 9:30 a.m. Thank you." After a trial that spanned 28 days, it took a Colleton County jury only a few hours to agree unanimously that Murdaugh is guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of using a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. "Good morning, your honor. Newman told Murdaugh that each of the punishments apply to "the rest of your natural life," adding that the sentences are consecutive.

A judge has sentenced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh to life in prison a day after he was convicted of murder in the shooting deaths of his wife and ...

But they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence, including the video putting Murdaugh at the scene of the killings five minutes before his wife and son stopped using their cellphones forever. As Murdaugh stood before the judge to learn his fate, he was in the same courtroom on the circuit where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather tried cases as the elected prosecutor for more than 80 years. The voices of all three Murdaughs can be heard on the video, though Alex Murdaugh had insisted for 20 months that he hadn’t been at the kennels that night. Before he was charged with murder, Murdaugh was in jail awaiting trial on about 100 other charges ranging from insurance fraud to tax evasion. The lack of remorse and the effortless way in which he is, including here, sitting right over there in this witness stand — your honor, a man like that, a man like this man, should never be allowed to be among free, law-abiding citizens,” Waters said. All he did was blow snot,” Moyer said. It didn’t take long to convince the other three. But juror Moyer said he saw through yet another lie. “He never cried. [READ MORE: Suspect in Orlando shooting faces more murder charges](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/suspect-in-orlando-shooting-faces-more-murder-charges) Any sentence would have no chance of parole. “As I tell you again, I respect this court.

In a remarkable courtroom moment, the judge in Alex Murdaugh's murder trial spoke in stark and personal terms ahead of the disgraced lawyer's sentencing ...

That is the sentence of the court and you are remanded to the state Department of Corrections. For the murder of Paul Murdaugh, whom you probably loved so much, I sentence you to prison for murdering him for the rest of your natural life. I sentence you for the term of the rest of your natural life. Murdaugh, I sentence you to the state Department of Corrections on each of the murder indictments. And then that necessitated more lies and continued to lie, and I say when will it end, it has already ended for many who have heard you and concluded that it will never end. “It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills, and maybe you become another person. I have not been able to get anyone, any defendant, even those who have confessed to being guilty to go back and explain to me what happened at that moment in time when they opted to pull the trigger, when they opted to commit the most heinous crime known to man.” I don’t question at all the decision of the state not to pursue the death penalty. And reflect on the last time they looked you in the eyes, as you looked the jury in the eyes.” “This has been perhaps one of the most troubling cases not just for me as a judge, for the state, for the defense team, but for all of the citizens in this community, all the citizens in this state, as we have seen based on the media coverage throughout the nation,” Newman said. A lawyer, a person from the respected family who has controlled justice in this community for over a century, a person whose grandfather’s portrait hang at the back of the courthouse that I had to have ordered removed in order to ensure that a fair trial was had by both the state and the defense. In fact, as I have presided over murder cases over the past 22 years, I have yet to find a defendant who could go there, who could go back to that moment in time when they decided to pull the trigger or to otherwise murder someone.

The disgraced former attorney spoke briefly before the sentence was handed down and denied that he had ever hurt his wife or son.

"I'm sure they come and visit you." "I mean, he was getting a double life sentence. I'm sorry, I'm an old guy — crippled people who had just done horrible, despicable things, and he had to try to push back on that," Harpootlian said during a press conference. "It's ended already for the jury because they've concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony." Attorney Jim Griffin said the defense team will appeal all the way to the U.S. But his testimony also included admissions that he had lied to investigators, and evidence presented by the prosecution placed him at the scene on the night of the murders. Prosecutors argued Murdaugh carried out the killings to gain sympathy before the allegations came out. "I respect this court, but I'm innocent," Murdaugh told the judge. The convicted former attorney and the judge exchanged words a few times during Friday's brief hearing. "And it might not have been you," Newman responded. [Alex Murdaugh](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alex-murdaugh-trial-verdict-reached-murder-case/) was sentenced to life in prison Friday morning in South Carolina, and his attorneys said they plan to appeal his conviction in the high-profile double murder trial. Murdaugh, 54, wasn't sentenced for the other charges because of the life sentence.

Law enforcement officials built their double-murder case against Alex Murdaugh using a wealth of data to track his movements around the time of the ...

9:10: Alex Murdaugh calls Buster Murdaugh, his older son, and they speak for one minute. The car does not slow down. Buster Murdaugh testified that his father called to say that he was driving to check on his ailing mother, and that he sounded normal on the phone. 9:06: Alex Murdaugh calls Maggie Murdaugh again. As they built their case against Alex Murdaugh, law enforcement officials used a wealth of data to detail the key moments on the night his younger son, Paul Murdaugh, and his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, were murdered. Law enforcement officials built their double-murder case against Alex Murdaugh using a wealth of data to track his movements around the time of the killings.

Where is Buster Murdaugh, son of Alex Murdaugh, now? · Buster Murdaugh listens during Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in ...

21 his father was barely able to speak the first time he saw him after the killings. Murdaugh turned himself in to authorities on Sept. [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bail-set-55-000-alleged-hit-man-accused-attempting-stage-n1279342). Before getting into the boat, Paul Murdaugh used his older's ID to purchase alcohol for the night, as shown in footage played during the first episode of "Murdaugh Murders." Investigators reopened the case into Smith's death after the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, S.C. [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-carolina-man-charged-assisted-suicide-shooting-alex-murdaugh-n1279208). "Murdaugh Murders" also mentions the mysterious 2015 death of Buster Murdaugh's friend from high school, Stephen Smith, which remains unsolved. [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-carolina-lawyer-alex-murdaugh-suffered-superficial-injuries-shooting-authorities-n1278550). [The South Carolina Attorney General's Office](https://www.scag.gov/about-the-office/news/attorney-general-alan-wilson-announces-state-grand-jury-issues-a-new-round-of-indictments-against-richard-alexander-murdaugh-for-breach-of-trust-money-laundering-computer-crimes-and-forgery/) alleges Alex Murdaugh stole nearly $8.5 million from his clients at his law firm over 11 years, accounting for 99 charges across more than a dozen indictments. "He has put his desire to go to law school on hold for now," Griffin said. [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-carolina-lawyer-alex-murdaugh-shot-three-months-after-wife-n1278523). You’ve got to treat it like a job.

People have been sentenced to death for less than this double murder, the judge told the convicted killer.

"I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you are attempting to go to sleep," he said. In this case, death penalty would have been a "reach", he said. And he revealed nothing about his own family tragedy - the death of his 40-year-old son, Brian - that occurred just weeks before he assumed control of the Murdaugh case. "Your case qualifies under our death penalty statute," he said on Friday. and reflect on the fact that over the past century your family, including you, have been prosecuting people in this courtroom and many have received the death penalty, probably for lesser conduct." At one point, midway through proceedings, he gently chastised defence attorney Jim Griffin for re-tweeting an article that was critical of the prosecution.

1. Murdaugh likely to appeal conviction · 2. Facing 90+ financial crimes charges · 3. Murder-for-hire leads to insurance fraud claims · 4. The Stephen Smith ...

It is unclear if the family was able to get the money. Instead, he later confessed to pocketing millions from his homeowner's insurance that was intended for her sons. It is unclear if they have yet received the settlement. Gloria Satterfield was the Murdaugh family housekeeper who died in February 2018. When he took the stand in his own defence, Murdaugh made the radical decision to repeatedly confess to those financial crimes. Although the case is not seemingly directly connected to Alex, it could bring his family's name into the spotlight once again. No charges have been laid in her death. His lawyers said they planned to appeal because there was not significant evidence linking his financial crimes to the motive for murder. He was charged with insurance fraud and filing a false police report. Her death was the "result of injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident", according to a wrongful death settlement filed after her death. But that story quickly unravelled. The day after Murdaugh was forced to resign from his law firm, he called police to say that he had been shot in the head on a rural road in South Carolina.

The founder of the Murdaugh legal dynasty, Randolph Murdaugh Sr., was killed in a suspicious train crash, from which his son benefited, in 1940.

(His son, Randolph Murdaugh III, succeeded him as solicitor from 1987 to 2005.) In October, a few months after the crash, he sued the railroad company, claiming that poor maintenance of the railroad grading had contributed to his father’s death. For the Murdaugh law firm, later called PMPED, it was a sign of things to come. DeWitt Jr., who has been covering the family for years and was featured in the [Netflix documentary “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/03/01/murdaugh-murders-netflix-southern-scandal/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5) DeWitt made the discovery by combing through the archives of the Hampton County Guardian newspaper, of which he is editor. The train’s engineer testified that as the train approached, Murdaugh Sr.’s car was stopped near the tracks, and Murdaugh Sr. The son of a wealthy businessman and the grandson of Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s first cousin, he attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis and the University of South Carolina law school before returning home to start his own small practice in 1910. Moments before the train crossed, the engineer said, the car sped up and then stopped directly on the tracks. Moments later, a freight train slammed into the car, killing him instantly, the sheriff [said](https://www.newspapers.com/image/668819156/?terms=randolph%20murdaugh&match=1). on July 19, his car somehow came to a stop at a railroad crossing. But on the evening of July 18, 1940, he felt well enough to visit a friend a few towns over, perhaps to play poker. There’s also a suicide-for-hire plot Murdaugh is alleged to have arranged, so that a hefty life insurance payout would go to his surviving son, nicknamed Buster. Incredibly, the suspicious 1940 death of Murdaugh’s great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr. Murdaugh faces dozens of charges related to financial crimes, and documentaries have highlighted a number of additional deaths that are or could be connected to the family, including of a housekeeper and two classmates of Murdaugh’s children.

Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced attorney whose dynastic family had significant legal reach in parts of South Carolina's Lowcountry for decades, ...

“If he went in there and they believed him, then he would have likely been found not guilty. When he heard a verdict had been reached less than three hours after deliberations started, he suspected Murdaugh would be convicted, he said. But the verdict shows jurors did not believe Murdaugh was credible, the experts said. [argued ](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/02/us/alex-murdaugh-trial-defense-closings-thursday/index.html)authorities did not properly examine other suspects. [video](https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/us/alex-murdaugh-trial-wednesday/index.html), recorded by Paul near the family’s dog kennels shortly before the time prosecutors say they were killed, captured Alex Murdaugh’s voice in the background, nearly a dozen friends and family members testified. I think they couldn’t get past the lie (about the kennel video).” But that prominence belied underlying issues, and the killings of his wife and son were Murdaugh’s lies are likely what led to the speedy decision, they said. It was an opportunity for jurors to empathize with him while he appeared to put it all on the line, confessing to his drug addiction and repeated lies during financial schemes and the murder investigation, the experts said. “In the end … Prosecutors have indicated they will seek life in prison without the possibility of parole, sparing Murdaugh the death penalty. in South Carolina’s Colleton County.

Murdaugh's sentencing Friday came less than 24 hours after a South Carolina jury convicted him for the murders of his wife and son.

But he has a lot of pull - had a lot of pull with police because, basically, his family was the legal system in this rural community. And the defense, which has yet to speak about this verdict, about the sentence, is expected to come out before the courthouse in the next 10 minutes. And he admitted in court - and has yet to be tried, but he admitted to walking away with nearly $5 million. And the judge even mentioned that Murdaugh's grandfather's portrait had hung at the back of the courthouse and was removed to ensure a fair trial. But he's basically accused of embezzling colleagues, friends, the law firm of nearly $10 million, including the family of his late housekeeper whose sons he had promised to get - oh, I think he said he could get them $100,000. His family has been prominent in this community for nearly a century, founding the family law firm that was so well known that made so much money in this community. If you - he called him a person from a respected family who had control of the justice system in this community. This was briefly brought up as the prosecution tried to prove motive, which was basically that there was this perfect storm coming, that Murdaugh was facing these financial - this financial storm, that he needed to create a distraction with these murders to get sympathy. First of all, to walk in the courtroom this morning at 9:30 and see him dressed in that tan jumpsuit with the orange sandals and the white socks, you know, compared to the suits and the nice shirts that he's been wearing as of late, was just - that was a shock. And when this story first began to break, there was a lot of fear in this community. And there was just a silence in the courtroom. You know, he was given two life sentences for the murders of Paul and Maggie to be served consecutively.

The sentence was the maximum that the judge could hand down for the murders of Alex Murdaugh's wife and son, given that prosecutors had not sought the death ...

“I’m somebody that’s prosecuted and defended a bunch of death penalty cases, and you never do it in a circumstantial case, because 99 times out of 100, a jury’s not going to sentence someone to death without an ‘I saw him do it,’ ‘He confessed,’ or great, great forensic evidence, at the minimum,” Mr. Prosecutors said a range of factors led them to decide, a month before trial, not to pursue the death penalty in Mr. At a news conference in front of the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, Mr. Mr. Murdaugh was built largely on circumstantial evidence and the crime had gone unsolved for more than a year, a sign that it was far from an open-and-shut prosecution. [newly created firing squad](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/south-carolina-firing-squad-moore.html) — [were unconstitutional](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/us/south-carolina-unconstitutional-executions.html), and an appeal of that decision is currently before the State Supreme Court. Some lawyers said the decision had been a wise legal move and could have been motivated by an issue that prosecutors may have been hesitant to say out loud: The case against Mr. Murdaugh as a man who viewed himself as above the law, driving around with blue lights installed in his car and leaving a badge from the prosecutor’s office — where he volunteered on a handful of cases over two decades — on the dashboard. Murdaugh had been able to exercise the privilege of his station. Murdaugh, 54, maintained his innocence as he stood in handcuffs and a tan jail jumpsuit in place of the blazers and dress shirts he had worn during the six-week trial. [The Post and Courier reported](https://www.postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updates/murdaugh-prosecutors-wont-seek-death-penalty-in-january-double-murder-trial/article_da7a21de-7fb9-11ed-b689-0f6e2ac0d595.html) that the three Murdaugh patriarchs who served as top prosecutors had sought the death penalty against more than 30 people during their reign, which stretched from 1920 to 2006. “I would never hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never hurt my son, Paul-Paul,” he said, using a nickname for his slain son.

Murdaugh's sentencing Friday came less than 24 hours after a South Carolina jury convicted him for the murders of his wife and son.

But he has a lot of pull - had a lot of pull with police because, basically, his family was the legal system in this rural community. And the defense, which has yet to speak about this verdict, about the sentence, is expected to come out before the courthouse in the next 10 minutes. And he admitted in court - and has yet to be tried, but he admitted to walking away with nearly $5 million. And the judge even mentioned that Murdaugh's grandfather's portrait had hung at the back of the courthouse and was removed to ensure a fair trial. But he's basically accused of embezzling colleagues, friends, the law firm of nearly $10 million, including the family of his late housekeeper whose sons he had promised to get - oh, I think he said he could get them $100,000. His family has been prominent in this community for nearly a century, founding the family law firm that was so well known that made so much money in this community. If you - he called him a person from a respected family who had control of the justice system in this community. This was briefly brought up as the prosecution tried to prove motive, which was basically that there was this perfect storm coming, that Murdaugh was facing these financial - this financial storm, that he needed to create a distraction with these murders to get sympathy. First of all, to walk in the courtroom this morning at 9:30 and see him dressed in that tan jumpsuit with the orange sandals and the white socks, you know, compared to the suits and the nice shirts that he's been wearing as of late, was just - that was a shock. And when this story first began to break, there was a lot of fear in this community. And there was just a silence in the courtroom. You know, he was given two life sentences for the murders of Paul and Maggie to be served consecutively.

A judge calls the double murder case "one of the most troubling" as he hands down two life sentences.

Murdaugh had been cast as a "despicable human being", he said. They called Judge Newman's decision to allow evidence related to Murdaugh's financial crimes to be included in the murder trial "erroneous". He stared ahead and did not react as his sentence was read. "You continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony." "I would never hurt my wife and I would never hurt my son," he said in brief remarks at the hearing. "It was especially heart-breaking for me to see you go in the media from being a grieving father who lost a wife and a son to being the person indicted and convicted of killing them," Judge Newman said.