Murdaugh Murders Special
February 26, 2023
Hello Good Friends!
Let's talk Murdaugh. Those who watch the YouTube channel know I've been watching the trial. I've had many questions about the case, so I thought I'd take a stab at what I would focus on if I were doing the closing argument.
The biggest problem for the defense is the kennel video and Alex's lies about it. Alex claimed he lied about being at the kennel that night because he was using opioids and was paranoid. He distrusted SLED (the South Carolina Law Enforcement Department) and thought one of the officers was someone he had seen years ago at a trial and didn't like. He claimed his lawyers and the local sheriff advised him not to talk to law enforcement without a lawyer, which was another reason to lie. Lead Prosecutor Creighton Waters has created a tight timeline. In closing, he will take the jury through that timeline of events moment by moment.
Brandi Churchwell creates an excellent timeline at https://brandichurchwell.com/. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BrandiNChurch for updates. She lays out the timeline in such detail that it's easy to see how the events unfolded.
Creighton Waters asked Murdaugh if he was a "family annihilator," which, of course, Murdaugh denied. It will be interesting to see whether one of Creighton's rebuttal witnesses is an expert on family annihilation. The ideas are well explained in the Spring 2020 scholarly article, Family Annihilators: the Psychological Profiles of Murderous Fathers, University of Albany, State University of New York, by Taylor Oathout. The author categorizes several types of offenders.
Anomie – this is the situation where the offender believes his family no longer represents what he thinks it should, so he murders the family as a means of resolving the dissonance. Indeed this was the situation for Murdaugh. His family was prominent and powerful, relying on generational wealth and influence. His son, Paul, who had always skirted on the edge of trouble, brought negative attention to the family when he drunkenly crashed the family boat into a bridge piling, killing Mallory Beach. As a result, the Beach family sued Murdaugh individually in a wrongful death lawsuit, and Paul was criminally charged in the boating accident. Both legal actions were widely reported in the press.
Strain. In an expansion of the anomie theory, experts talk about strain. No question that this was the most important contributing factor. The strain came from a variety of sources.
Disappointment with the family. Murdaugh was troubled by the poor light the family was placed in by Paul's actions. But, unlike the other times Paul had gotten in trouble, the family money and influence could not sweep the boat crash under the rug.
Social status and paternal expectations. The importance of this factor can't be overstated. It was Murdaugh's great-grandfather who established the law firm where Murdaugh worked. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father had all been Solicitors of the 14th Circuit. His family had been the law in that county for a hundred years. The family was known for its influence, power, and prestige. Murdaugh sullied the family's reputation with drug use and lack of ambition, which also translated into the permissive parenting that led to the drunken boat crash.
Economic distress. Obviously, Murdaugh was never good with money. He came from wealth and privilege and never had to worry about it. As a result, he was a poor money manager. He became involved in a series of land deals just before the recession of 2008 and was left holding the bag when his partners could not make the payments on the property. It may have been the beginning of his thefts and money manipulation. Over the years, Murdaugh stole in excess of 8 million dollars from clients and his law partners in an ever more complicated shell game of shifting money from here to there.
Occupational Challenges. There was a point that Murdaugh hoped to follow in his father and grandfather's footsteps and become the Solicitor of the 14th Circuit. The Solicitor is the chief prosecutor for the district. Murdaugh testified that he didn't pursue election to that job because he feared his drug addiction would be revealed. Murdaugh operated as a volunteer assistant solicitor under his father and later under Randolph's hand-picked successor, Duffy Stone. In that capacity, Murdaugh was issued a law enforcement badge and had blue lights installed on at least one of his vehicles.
Drug addiction. His expensive opioid addiction undoubtedly exacerbated the money problems, but the assertion that he spent $50,000 weekly on drugs is ludicrous. Murdaugh has admitted to a nearly lifelong addiction to opiates that began after a sports-related knee injury in college. While his wife and children knew the problem, his parents, siblings, close friends, and law partners were not.
Family Breakdown. There are suggestions that Murdaugh's drug addiction and the financial pressure may have caused fractures in his relationships with his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. Additionally, Murdaugh's father, Randolph, was gravely ill, and his mother, Libby, was in the late stages of dementia. Father Randolph was the patriarch of the family, the one everyone called when there was trouble.
Mental Illness. Although this issue has not been addressed directly in the trial, it's hard to imagine Murdaugh wasn't depressed with all the factors we've outlined. Additionally, he testified to bouts of extreme paranoia that bordered on panic.
Remorse. Interestingly, the fathers in these cases insist they loved their family members deeply both before and after their murders. They separate themselves from their actions by viewing their emotions or anger as the culprit. In most cases, the father's anger was primarily directed at the spouse, and the children were seen as supporters of their mother. These fathers can separate their actions from their love for the victim and tend to immortalize the loved ones. Does this sound familiar? This is why I hope Creighton calls a rebuttal expert to explain this; I think it could resolve a question the jury may have. There is no question that Murdaugh was horrified by his actions and the condition of his family afterward. It made it easy for him to make the tearful call to 911 and fall into near hysterics seen on the police body cameras and in his initial law enforcement interview. However, he was able to turn his reactions on and off in a way many found odd.
Murder-Suicide. According to the article, the perpetrator commits suicide following the murder of their spouse and children in sixty-eight percent of the cases. I think it is possible that Murdaugh intended to commit suicide following the murders but could not bring himself to do it. I also believe this is the reason he arranged the roadside shooting later.
The focus on lying and financial crimes. Many talking heads on the news networks commented that the prosecution's focus on the financial crimes was excessive. I disagree. This is a circumstantial case. Murdaugh's lifelong habit of deception, lying, and changing his story to fit the facts is essential to understanding the chain of events that makes up the circumstantial case. The state's theory that the fear of discovery of his financial deception was part of the motive for the murders is important because it supports the theory that Murdaugh was a family annihilator. Additionally, delving into the financial crimes has the added benefit of cementing Murdaugh's confessions under oath. I expect he will plead guilty to the financial crimes if convicted in the murder case.
My theory. The experts have opined that Paul was killed first. Studying the evidence, though, I think the opposite makes sense. Alex said he drove a golf cart down to the kennels. I think he had the guns with him. He used two guns because he wanted it to look like two shooters. He used the 300 blackout because he thought he could convince law enforcement that the weapon used was the one that had been stolen years before. Maggie was standing outside next to a doghouse. The reason the defense was able to make so much of the angle of the shots is that Alex fired at Maggie while he was still seated in the golf cart. He stepped off the golf cart to administer the coup de grace shot to the back of Maggie's head, then went to find Paul. When Paul heard the noise of his mother being murdered, he retreated into the feed room, where Alex found him and shot him in the chest. Paul then moved toward his father, probably reaching for him, and that is when Alex fired the second shot. Even Alex was horrified when the blast caused Paul's brain to explode from his head and land on the ground beside him.
Jury reaction. Another thing the network talking heads have reported is that at least two jurors could be seen crying during Murdaugh's testimony. Gigi McKelvey of Pretty Lies and Alibis https://www.youtube.com/@PrettyLiesAndAlibis has been in the courtroom covering the case for Law and Crime Networkhttps://www.youtube.com/@LawAndCrime and reports that she has never seen any member of the jury crying. This is just another case of news sources repeating what they've heard without confirming the truth of the report. It just points out once again the need for each of us to think critically and be careful consumers of internet and news content.
Closing argument. Much depends on the prosecution's closing argument. Closing is the time when each side gets to argue their theory of what the evidence shows. While closing arguments are not evidence, for the prosecution, it is a way to synthesize all the evidence they have presented into a cogent and compelling story. For the defense, it's a time to point out the weakness in the prosecution's case.
The defense may rest on Monday. The prosecution reports they have two or three rebuttal witnesses, and we could get closing arguments by Wednesday. Join me for True Crime Wednesday at 6 pm Pacific to review the trial progress at https://www.youtube.com/@childrenofdarknessandlight/
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