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If Alex Murdaugh didn’t murder his wife and younger son on June 7, 2021 at his family’s hunting compound in Colleton County, South Carolina, his attorneys had better come up with something resembling answers to a suddenly coherent and compelling case presented by prosecutors in the office of attorney general Alan Wilson.
According to a detailed summation of their case relying in part on recently obtained vehicular data, the disbarred Palmetto State attorney was in position to commit the crimes, had the motive to do so … and appears to have had access to both of the missing weapons used in the shootings.
Both of those guns have been traced back to his family, incidentally.
“Family guns,” as multiple witnesses have testified.
More ominously, Murdaugh has now been caught in multiple lies related to his whereabouts immediately before and after these savage slayings – including several new lies exposed on Friday in detailed timeline testimony provided by special agent Peter Rudofski of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
(Click to View)
Will that be enough to convict him? We will find out soon … but prosectors, led by chief grand jury prosecutor Creighton Waters, have finally put together many of the discombobulate components of their case for jurors in an easily digestible, chronological fashion.
The tool they used to do so? A detailed timeline (.pdf) presented by Rudolfski which incorporated cell phone extraction data, network location data, call data records, telemetry reports, license plate readers, cell phone application data and – most incriminatingly – updated vehicular data.
Murdaugh stands accused of killing his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and youngest son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, on his family’s hunting property in Colleton County, S.C. on June 7, 2021. He pleaded not guilty to those charges and is currently standing trial in Walterboro – part of the Lowcountry region of the Palmetto State which his famous family ruled like a fiefdom for more than a century.
Prosecutors have been under pressure to deliver the goods in their case against Murdaugh after spending weeks weaving between various facets of his maze of alleged criminality – which this news outlet has dubbed the ‘Murdaugh Murders’ crime and corruption saga.
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During Rudofski’s testimony, data provided just last week by General Motors pinpointed Murdaugh’s motions on the night of the murders – confirming multiple inconsistencies in his statements to law enforcement, family members and others in the community in the aftermath of the killings.
The new data also reinforced testimony previously provided by Mushelle “Shelley” Smith – a caretaker for Murdaugh’s mother, Libby Murdaugh – about when Murdaugh arrived and left his parents’ property on the evening of June 7, 2021. Murdaugh claimed he was at his parents’ home for forty minutes – and according to Smith, also tried to convince her of his timeline after the fact.
Smith testified Murdaugh was only at the Almeda residence for fifteen to twenty minutes – a timeline which has since been confirmed by the General Motors’ data.
(Click to View)
Of additional concern for Murdaugh and his attorneys? The data showed his vehicle circling behind his parents’ home upon its arrival and parking near several outbuildings behind the home near a line of trees.
“The Suburban goes to outbuildings by the wood line,” Rudofski testified.
Jurors were closely following this information, seemingly seizing upon the prosecution’s implication that Murdaugh used his parents’ home as a location to temporarily stash the murder weapons – while he was simultaneously creating an alibi.
The confirmation of Smith’s timeline – and the evisceration of Murdaugh’s – could also cause jurors to attribute more weight to her prior testimony.
For example, Smith told jurors she saw Murdaugh cradling a blue tarp/ rain jacket as he walked to the upstairs of his parents’ Almeda residence several days after the murders. A blue rain jacket was later found wadded up in an upstairs closet inside that home – coated in copious amounts of gunshot residue.
Another major problem for Murdaugh? Statements made on his original 9-1-1 call about having previously “been up to” the crime scene – where he claims to have checked his deceased relatives for vital signs – now seem to be totally incompatible with reality.
According to the vehicular data, Murdaugh was only at the crime scene for nineteen seconds prior to placing his now infamous 9-1-1 call.
This is a developing story … please check back for updates.
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THE TIMELINE …
(Via: S.C. State Law Enforcement Division)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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5 comments
Will Folks is TOP NOTCH – Uber Outstanding writer, reporter! So clear, easy to read/follow with logical flow, explanations, descriptions!
I don’t understand why Alec was allowed to wander around and come and go, as he pleased. Why the shotgun was not checked and A’s hands were not checked for gun powder.Also was there any life insurance on Maggie and Paul? And when did they decide to search Alec’s Mother’s house? Did they search the out buildings? I feel someone was not treating him as as ordinary citizen. If an ordinary person had done what he did they would have put them in jail that night!
Thank you, Will, for the great coverage!
I didn’t get to watch the actual trial and rely on your great coverage. Thanks!
There are a couple of things I’m not to clear on, though. Did the prosecution say if the GM OnStar tracking data for A.M.’s Suburban included 6/8/21, 6/9/21, 6/10/21 to see if Murdaugh went back to the same location on the Almeda property, behind his parent’s house — where he could have hypothetically hidden evidence — and, if so, where did he go afterwards?
Also, the OnStar location data show at ~10:00 p.m. Murdaugh’s Suburban driving north from his house and turning right just before the hanger. Wouldn’t he have seen Maggie’s body first, which was on that corner of the hanger? The dog kennel is another 20+ ft further on after one makes the turn (Its roof is not seen on the satellite photo used by OnStar because it is under the tree line, but it is south and east of the hanger). Itwould not have been in Alec’s headlights until after he made the turn. But Alec told the police that night that he checked in his son at the kennel first.
If Alec didn’t see Maggie’s corpse under the overhang as he turned his vehicle and drove past her, up to the door to the kennel feed room (to find Paul), why would he have known to look for her in the dark behind his SUV afterwards?
Maybe I’m missing something, but if a man sees his wife’s lifeless or prone body, wouldn’t he immediately stop his car? Yet if he did not see her and drove farther on to the kennel, would he not have called 9-1-1, to ask for help for Paul, before thinking, “Hmm… I’ll just look around and see if there are more bodies lying about before I call 9-1-1.” This IS, as you describe, a murder “mystery”.
I’ve tried to say it before but my comments were not allowed through even though I am always Catholic-school polite. All the Prosecution’s case is built on three OBJECTIVELY FALSE, or at least unproven, ideas: (1) a man whose father was dying and did die in three days needed to kill his wife and son to gain a delay of two weeks to a month; (2) people react ONLY with uncontrollable screaming OR paralysis at the sight of a shot loved one; and (3) the murders happened THE MINUTE Paul finished filming Cash’s tail. In opposition to the second idea, I cite (a) Frame 371 of the Zapruder film: Jackie neither screamed nor was paralyzed the second JFK’s head exploded IN Jackie’s ARMS but climbed to the back of the President’s limo to help Secret Service Agent Clint Hill climb to the moving limo; and (b) the Virginia school teacher who, though herself shot by six-year old student, ushered the rest of the class out of the room and into safety. Please rethink your comments and questions on a clean slate uncolored by the Prosecution’s false ideas sold as gospel. God bless.