On Monday morning of the Alex Murdaugh trial, Judge Clifton Newman granted the state’s request to introduce Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes as evidence as motive in the double murder trial.
The ruling is a big win for the prosecution, which filed documents indicating lawyers plan to paint Murdaugh as a man out of options, desperate to distract from his financial crimes.
Murdaugh is the subject of a number of state investigations and has been indicted on nearly 100 different charges including fraud and drug trafficking. The admission of evidence related to these alleged crimes is expected to prolong what was already anticipated to be a three-week trial.
Newman declared the request “logically relevant”.
“The state argues that the logical nexus between the murders and other crimes is that the looming exposure of financial crimes provided motive for the murders and is evidence of malice, an essential element of the crime of murder,” Newman said in his statement at 11:40 a.m. Monday.
Newman said he would file a more formal order on granting the state’s motion later Monday.
Check back for updates.
What are Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes?
Along with facing murder charges in the death of his wife and son, Murdaugh faces a slew of other charges when it comes to finances.
As the news of Paul and Maggie’s deaths began to be known on June 8, 2021, no one knew it would lead to multiple indictments of Alex Murdaugh and more than 100 charges ranging from tax evasion, breach of trust, obtaining signature or property by false pretenses, money laundering, computer crimes and more. Not to mention a tale that had media and true crime buffs across the nation wondering, what’s next?
2019 boat crash also allowed
Judge Clifton Newman ruled Feb. 7, that the testimony, while not directly related to the deaths of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh in June 2021 for which Alex Murdaugh is being tried, would be allowed. He explained the decision arose from the Wednesday afternoon cross examination of two of Paul’s friends, Rogan Gibson and Will Loving, which Newman said “opened the door” to discussion of the crash.
The 2019 boating incident left Mallory Beach dead, several injured, Paul Murdaugh facing charges – which were dismissed two months after his death – and the Murdugh family entangled in a wrongful death suit.
Looking back at Friday in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial
Murder victim Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh may have purchased, picked up, and delivered the very gun that took her life on the night of June 7, 2021 – a gun purchased for her son, Paul, who was also shot and killed in a case where the family patriarch, Alex Murdaugh, is charged.
SLED Firearms Examiner Paul Greer testified Friday afternoon that fired S & B 300 Blackout cartridges found near Maggie’s bloody body showed “matching mechanism marks” when compared to spent S & B 300 Blackout cartridges found near the door of the Murdaugh’s “gun room” at their Moselle residence, and at their shooting range.
Paul Murdaugh boat crash: What we know and why it’s being discussed in Alex Murdaugh trial
“It is my conclusion that these items had been loaded into and ejected from the same firearm at some point in time,” testified Greer. These matching marks included firing pin marks, ejector marks, extractor marks, and chamber marks, he added.
Bedingfield testified that Maggie herself picked up and paid for that black, stripped down AR rifle on April 14, 2018 – at a cost of $875 – and delivered the weapon to her son – a firearm that may have pumped multiple rounds into her fleeing body.
Prosecutors had said early on they believe Maggie had been killed with a “family weapon,” and when the pieces of the evidentiary puzzle are put together, it becomes clear which weapon that might be, and when it was last seen and shot before the night of the murders.
S.C. Department of Natural Resources officer and custom gunmaker John Bedingfield testified earlier this week that Murdaugh had purchased three AR-style sporting rifles for his sons, Paul and Buster, as Christmas presents in December of 2016.
However, Murdaugh later told police, Paul misplaced that weapon, so he asked Bedingfield to built another.
Murdaugh also told state police during initial interviews following the killings that Paul was reckless, irresponsible, and always leaving guns lying around at random places – he repeated this several times in interviews– and that this replacement gun had been stolen from Paul’s truck during a party. He did not know when, he told SLED.
However, other testimony puts a timeline on that gun and a location where it was fired. Paul’s friend and college roommate, Will Loving, testified earlier this week that, because the “stripped down” replacement gun had no optics or scope, he and Paul went to ACE Hardware in Hampton in March or April of 2021 to purchase a “red dot sight” for that gun.
The state entered into evidence a receipt from ACE dated March 6 – just three months before the killings.
Loving also testified that the same weekend the sight was purchased, he and Paul sighted the weapon in right from the steps of the house – at the gun room side entrance – using the porch railing to steady the weapon.
Based on the facts that this gun is unaccounted for, and the ballistics of rifle casings found at the gun room steps match the casings near Maggie’s body, it may be an easy leap for the jury to believe that Paul second gun – one she purchased and hand delivered to him – was in the family’s possession as late as March 2021 and may been her murder weapon.
Greer also testified that 12 gauge 3-inch magnum shells found in the house and workshop at the Moselle property match the same brand, model and size as the two fired shotshells found near Paul Murdaugh’s body.