Thread by @AveryGWilks

🚨🚨🚨Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 12 (Feb. 7) Megathread begins now 🚨🚨🚨

The state will continue presenting its case today. As ever, I’ll provide updates here throughout the day.

#AlexMurdaughTrial #AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughTrial #MurdaughFamily #Murdaugh

Our story recapping yesterday:

The state was handed a major boost when Judge Newman agreed to open the floodgates on Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes.

Plus, confusion about a blue raincoat postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

There will be some debate today on Murdaugh’s mother’s caregiver, Shelley Smith, and the confusing, sometimes contradictory testimony she gave yesterday. I listened to it a second time last night.

She was clearly upset and seems to love the Murdaughs, including Alex.

Shelley is seemingly the state’s only witness connecting Murdaugh to a GSR-coated blue raincoat investigators found in a closet in Murdaugh’s parents’ house.

But her testimony doesn’t make clear she actually saw Murdaugh carrying that raincoat into the home.

She initially said she saw a “blue something.” Then she said she saw a blue tarp. On cross examination, she was insistent she would not have mistaken a raincoat for a tarp. She said she saw the tarp laid out over a chair the next day.

The state is making the case she actually saw a blue raincoat, the one they found bundled up in a closet and tested for GSR. But she doesn’t seem to directly say that. And while the state tested the raincoat for blood, GSR, they did not test the blue tarp they found in the home.

Smith did say some fascinating things about Murdaugh’s conversations with her in the days after the slayings. Namely, that Murdaugh told her that if anyone asked, he was at his mom’s house for 35-40 minutes on the night of the slayings. Smith testified he was only there for 20.

Smith said that conversation made her nervous. She called her brother, who is in law enforcement, to tell him about it.

Smith said Murdaugh also approached her about a wedding she was planning and offered to help with it, noting weddings can be expensive. Smith said they had

… never discussed her upcoming wedding before, but she took the conversation as showing how great a person Alex Murdaugh is.

Smith said Murdaugh also mentioned knowing people at the school where Smith worked. This wasn’t expanded on.

Okay, gotta drive to the courthouse and film a TikTok. Stand by.

TikTok recorded. Court starts at 9:30 a.m.

Court is back in session. Newman asks about any further argument regarding Shelley Smith's testimony.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin rises. He says in Smith's re-cross, she had never seen that blue rainjacket before.

Griffin is reading from a rough transcript of Smith's testimony.

Waters reading from the same transcript. He's stressing that the "blue vinyl item" was bundled up as Alex Murdaugh carried it into the house.

Waters says it should be up to the jury to decide.

Judge Newman weighs in: Smith said it was a “blue something.” It looks like a tarp. “Clearly she did not know what it was. It wasn’t opened up, and she could not clearly identify the item either as a tarp, as shown by Mr. Griffin, or as a raincoat."

Newman: "She testified that the item appeared consistent in appearance with what Mr. Murdaugh brought into the home that night and what was shown in the photograph that was taken.”

Newman: “Certainly, Mr. Griffin did an effective job in cross-examination and raising questions as to the credibility of the witness.”

He says it will be up to the jury to decide. Sounds like Newman won't be ruling the blue rainjacket inadmissible.

Newman: “I find that it is relevant and that it creates, through inference, facts that are in dispute in this case. I deny the motion to strike her testimony, if that’s what the motion is. I deny the motion to declare her testimony as being irrelevant.”

Judge Newman denies that the GSR evidence - as it relates to the blue raincoat - is prejudicial. He delivers another win to prosecutors after ruling in their favor of the admissibility of the alleged financial crimes yesterday.

Judge Newman: "The witness was so all over the place with her testimony and continued to be confused."

He said she was "unable to articulate her thoughts" through her emotions and the pressure of this setting.

Newman notes that everything has been protected for the record. Seems to be indicating that if Murdaugh's defense team wants to appeal this later on, they've done everything necessary now to do so.

Newman says the juror who was unsure if he could continue has worked things out with his job and will be able to continue serving.

However, an alternate had to go to the ER this morning for reasons we don't yet know. The trial won't wait for them. So they will be excused.

The jury returns to the courtroom. Judge Newman goes back and forth on whether this is Day 11 or Day 12. Been there before.

The state is recalling Jeanne Seckinger, the CFO of Alex Murdaugh's old law firm, to the witness stand. She will be the 33rd witness of this trial.

Seckinger testified last week, Feb. 2. She was the first of the non-jury financial witnesses.

Here is our story on what she said. Imagine she will provide essentially the same testimony today. It's not good for Alex Murdaugh.

postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

For my sanity and yours, I'm probably not going to detail every single thing Seckinger says today, since I've already done that in previous Megathreads and in previous stories from this trial.

But if the state asks her any new questions or elicits new testimony, I'm your guy.

So far, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters is going beat-for-beat through his previous questioning.

Here is the Feb. 2 Megathread that covered Seckinger's testimony. Might be fun to follow it in real-time here and see how closely this questioning tracks. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1621125…

And here I will acknowledge that my version of "fun" might differ from the average person's.

Here's some new stuff from Seckinger today about Alex Murdaugh's behavior: He kept different hours from other partners.

“Always loud. Always busy. Always in a rush. He had the gift of gab. But he always seemed last-minute, in a hurry, frenetic.” He was constantly on the phone.

Waters asks Seckinger about Murdaugh as a lawyer.

“He was successful not from his work ethic, but his ability to establish relationships and to manipulate people into settlements and clients into liking him.”

“The art of bullshit, basically," Seckinger says.

Seckinger testifies Murdaugh’s legal prowess was personality driven.

She said he seemed really forgetful and all over the place, but looking back, he had to have an incredible memory in order to keep his schemes going and undetected.

Seckinger testifies about the time Alex Murdaugh accepted a check from the law firm mistakenly written to him that was meant for his brother Randy.

Alex said it was an honest mistake and paid it back. His law partners believed him, she says.

Seckinger on the culture at PMPED, Murdaugh's law firm.

“These attorneys work as a brotherhood. … They trusted him and accepted the explanation.”

Seckinger is now explaining the difference between the real "Forge Consulting" financial firm in Atlanta and Alex Murdaugh's "fake Forge" Bank of America account, which he allegedly used to steal huge legal settlements he won for his clients.

Better Murdaugh trial week three quote?

Jeanne Seckinger describing Murdaugh's style vs. Mark Tinsley on defense attorney Phillip Barber

Seckinger testifies again about approaching Murdaugh in May 2021 about his effort to try to structure his legal fees from a civil case. She told him he was doing it wrong. She said Murdaugh admitted he was trying to put money in his wife's name so it wouldn't be recoverable ...

... from him in the fatal 2019 boat crash wrongful death lawsuit (filed by the Beaches)

“That is hiding assets. We are not going to be part of any hiding of assets or any wrongdoing. We were very concerned that he was trying to do that, and we didn’t want to be a part of it.”

Seckinger re-testifies about the process of discovering that $792K in legal fees owed to PMPED had gone missing from a case against Mack Trucks that Murdaugh worked with Bamberg attorney Chris Wilson.

“My concern was that he had stolen fees and they were paid to him personally.”

Seckinger re-testifies about confronting Alex Murdaugh outside his office on the morning of 6/7/21.

“He looked at me with a pretty dirty look, one I had not seen before, and said ‘What do you need now?’”

Seckinger testifies she told him, “I have reason to believe you received the (Mack Trucks) money directly to you, and you need to prove to me you did not.”

Murdaugh said it was still in Chris Wilson’s account and he needed more time to figure out what to do with it.

Seckinger testifies again the conversation was cut short when Murdaugh got a phone call that his father was in the hospital with a poor prognosis. Randolph Murdaugh III died a few days later.

Seckinger now testifying about the 6/7/21 slayings.

Waters: “Did everyone rally to his aid?”

Seckinger: “We did. … Nothing happened all week.”

Everyone was rushing to Murdaugh's aid. Everyone was grieving. The inquiry into the missing fees stopped.

Waters: Was anyone concerned about getting proof of those missing fees?

Seckinger: “We weren’t. We were concerned about Alex.”

Seckinger continues: Murdaugh was erratic. We knew he was taking pills. We were concerned about his sanity.

UHHHH what? PMPED put out a statement in September claiming they had no idea about Alex Murdaugh's purported opioid addiction.

Here's our story on that statement. postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters is in total command when questioning these financial witnesses. He elicits testimony in a chronological narrative. The jury can follow this. It makes sense. Waters knows the answer each of these witnesses will give before he asks each question.

Now contrast that to what's happening with some of the non-financial witnesses, like Shelley Smith yesterday or Rogan Gibson last week.

Here is our live updates feed for today's proceedings. A good bookmark that includes a livestream. postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Our daily TikTok tiktok.com/t/ZTRGx572K/

Eastern Kingsnake escape attempt No. 483 is a failure, I can report.

The rock that was weighing down that top latch has been moved. I'm not telling anyone. Gonna let this run its course however it goes.

Court is back after a short break.

Photos from yesterday, via the pool.

1. Prosecutor John Meadors questions Murdaugh cargiver Shelley Smith
2. The blue rain jacket
3. Alex Murdaugh's sneakers from the night of the slayings.

More photos:

1. Defense attorney Phillip Barber cross-examines Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley in a testy exchange
2. Photo of the Murdaugh credit card statement that includes a $1,021.10 transaction at Gucci that someone encircled.

Investigators found that statement in the trash near the crime scene. The state mentioned this statement and the Gucci transaction earlier in the trial, didn't explain its relevance and hasn't mentioned it since.

Waters is now running through legal settlement/judgment disbursement sheets for the jury. We did this last week, but now the jury is seeing just how many cases in which Alex Murdaugh stole from his clients.

In each of these cases, Waters is asking Seckinger what happened to the client's money.

“Alex had stolen the money,” Seckinger said once.

“We paid every cent of it back … because Alex stole it,” Seckinger testified another time.

Waters on another case: “Did any recovery of this case actually go to the client?”

Seckinger: “In that one, none of it went to the client.”

Waters finishes his questioning of Parker Law Group CFO Jeanne Seckinger with the same question he tried with Paul’s friend Rogan Gibson. “Did you really know Alex Murdaugh?”

This time it lands.

Seckinger: “I don’t think I ever really knew him. I don’t think anybody knows him.”

Griffin is up to cross-examine Seckinger now. He asks Newman to remind the jurors that the sole purpose of all this financial stuff is to help the state prove motive - not Murdaugh's propensity for criminality or evidence of his character.

Reminder of our ongoing daily live feed, which includes a stream of the proceedings: postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Griffin establishes with Seckinger that partners at Murdaugh's old firm had to pay out more than $5 million to his victims to reimburse them for what Murdaugh stole.

After a number of questions, Griffin establishes with Seckinger that she didn’t confront Murdaugh on the morning of 6/7/21 with allegations he stole money - just that he might have been trying to shield it from disclosure in the Beach boat crash case.

Griffin: “That was the concern and alarm within the firm, is that we’re not going to participate in any way to shield, hide income from civil disclosure in a court proceeding.”
Seckinger: “That’s correct.”

Seckinger later: “I had my suspicions about whether it was really in there, but we were not pursuing it as stolen money.”

Griffin is establishing that Seckinger backed off her inquiry on the morning of 6/7/21 when she learned Murdaugh’s father was in the hospital with a terminal prognosis. Seckinger confirms. She said she had told Murdaugh what info she needed from him regarding the fees.

Griffin establishes with Seckinger that when she learned of the slayings, she didn’t think that Murdaugh had killed his wife and son because of the confrontation over the fees.

Griffin asks Seckinger how long PMPED backed off its inquiry about the missing $792K in legal fees.
S: “It stopped for a period of time.”
G: “How long?”
S: “A couple weeks.”
G: “A couple of weeks.”
S: “Maybe a month.”

Griffin is trying to show the death of Alex’s father, Randolph III, had already turned Alex into a victim of tragedy and bought him up to a month to come up with the missing fees and cover up his crimes. The inference is that Alex didn’t need to then kill Maggie/Paul to do that.

Griffin asks about how evidence of Murdaugh's thefts were in PMPED's records for years.

Seckinger: I had no reason to suspect something was going on. We had no clients complaining about missing money. We had no reason to look.

Griffin seizes on that last part. He repeats that clients weren’t calling the firm up to demand their money until after all this came out. That wasn’t going on 6/7/21, so Alex wasn’t under any pressure about that on the date of the slayings, he says.

Seckinger testifies that she ran a report in the PMPED firm’s ledger on 9/2/21 and discovered years’ of Murdaugh’s thefts via the “fake Forge” account. She presented her findings to the top partners on 9/3/21, the same day they confronted Alex Murdaugh and made him resign.

Griffin finishes his cross-examination. Waters is back up on redirect now.

Griffin on recross establishes with Seckinger that it wasn’t until September that PMPED discovered the check that led to the “fake Forge” inquiry and revelations and then Murdaugh’s ouster.

Griffin says the $792K in missing legal fees - which Murdaugh was confronted about 6/7/21 - was a “one-off” compared to everything else the firm found after the slayings.

Seckinger steps down. We are breaking for lunch. Back at 2:40 p.m.

The @postandcourier Sunday and Tuesday front pages

Court is back in session after lunch.

Harpootlian indicates that he paid $450 to a private company for the "rough draft" of Shelley Smith's transcript. Also indicates it wasn't a South Carolina court reporter who created that transcript.

The state calls its 34th witness, Parker Law Group attorney Ronnie Crosby, one of Murdaugh's former law partners.

Crosby testified earlier without the jury present. He's back again with the jury in the room.

Crosby on Alex Murdaugh as a lawyer: “Alex was a very good lawyer. He was good with people. Very good at reading people. Very good at understanding people. Very good at making people believe he cared about them and building a rapport and trust with them."

Crosby: "He was very good at strategizing against insurance companies and opposing lawyers.” He often got results that the lawyers in the firm would be amazed at.

He wasn't a real student of the law and didn't specialize in any type of law, Crosby said.

Crosby on how the Recession affected Murdaugh's finances: Murduagh and one of his non-lawyer business partners, Barrett Boulware, did a bunch of real estate transactions. They had purchased some property and hoped to sell it as developmental property. We know what happened.

Crosby: The market went bad. Barrett and some of the other partners didn’t have the ability to pay those loans they had financed. Alex had to carry a lot of that financial strain.

Crosby testifies that he spoke with Alex Murdaugh about Gloria Satterfield's death. He says Murdaugh told him "the dogs knocked her down and that the kids were going to sue him for Gloria’s death.”

Crosby understood it to be a friendly legal claim hoping insurance would pay out

Crosby on what he said when he was told in May 2021 Alex Murdaugh might have been trying to shield legal fees/income from recovery in the boat crash case.

“Oh f--- no he did not.”

Crosby said that would be illegal and unethical.

At that point, Crosby said, which was late May 2021, he didn't suspect Murdaugh was stealing money. Just trying to hide it.

Crosby gets emotional when asked about Paul Murdaugh. “I knew Paul since he was born. Both he and Buster had always referred to me as Uncle Ronnie. We lived just across the way from each other, so I got to know him.” Their sons were friends, would go hunting/fishing together.

Crosby on his reaction to learning Maggie and Paul had been shot: “Shock. Alarm. I immediately told my wife I had to go, and I got in my vehicle and started heading to Moselle.”

Crosby says he stayed at Moselle until 3:30 a.m. the next morning. He says he spoke with Alex Murdaugh several times about his activities on 6/7/21 before the slayings. They had multiple conversations about it.

Crosby: Murdaugh told him and others the same story he gave investigators in the hours/days after the slayings. That he rode around with Paul that evening, ate dinner with Maggie and Paul and fell asleep on the couch around 8 p.m. before leaving at 9 p.m. to visit his mother.

Waters: “Did he say whether or not he went down to the kennels before leaving for Almeda?”

Crosby: “That came up in one of the conversations, and he specifically said that he did not.”

Waters plays the dog kennel video in court again.

Crosby: The three voices in that video are Paul, Maggie and Alex.

Waters: "How sure are you?"

Crosby: "I'm 100 percent sure."

Waters: “In the wake of this tragedy, did the law firm family rally to the defendant’s aid?”

Crosby: “We did. We were there every day for the rest of the week.”

Crosby testifies the law firm stopped asking questions about the missing $792,000 after Maggie and Paul’s deaths. Nobody wanted to talk about money. “I said, let’s just leave it be.”

Crosby describes the evening he was called to law partner Danny Henderson's house to review records uncovering Alex Murdaugh's thefts. He realized it was bad. Henderson offered him a drink.

Waters: Did you have a drink?
Crosby: “Yeah, ultimately more than one.”

Crosby said he knew immediately that Murdaugh would have to be fired. He didn’t attend the meeting the next morning. He didn't need to see any more. But he heard that Murdaugh confessed when confronted.

“He said he knew he was going to get caught at some point in time.”

Waters: If you had found out at any point that Murdaugh was stealing clients’ money, what would you have done?
Crosby: “If I had become aware of it, he would have been asked to resign or I would have forced a vote and he would have been terminated under our contract.”

Waters: What else?
Crosby: I would have turned it over to law enforcement and reported it to the South Carolina Bar. That's ultimately what we did.

Waters ends his questioning. Jim Griffin rises to cross-examine Crosby.

Crosby testifies about going to a local mechanic's shop where Paul had dropped off his truck a few days before. He said Paul's long guns - a 12-gauge shotgun and a .300 Blackout rifle - weren't in the truck. And Paul hadn't removed them when he dropped the truck off, video showed

Crosby pulled that video from the shop's surveillance camera.

Crosby is now testifying about how gory the crime scene was. He seems shaken up, taking long pauses before answering yes or no questions.

Griffin is again trying to establish possible flaws with the beginning of the investigation of the slayings.

Crosby testifies that law enforcement apparently had not searched the Moselle home before a bunch of PMPED lawyers, relatives and friends showed up there the next day.

Murdaughs had some quirks, Crosby says.

He would take phone calls and walk out in the middle of depositions, conversations and partner meetings, Crosby said.

Crosby testifies the law partners knew Murdaugh was having trouble sleeping after the slayings. He was taking sleeping medicine and anxiety meds.

That's what Seckinger was referring to with the "pills" comment earlier today, Crosby says.

After the slayings, Murdaugh would come into the PMPED office and fall asleep in his chair, Crosby testifies. He also lost a lot of weight. He wasn’t sleeping well.

Crosby testifies about Murdaugh bringing a gun when they all went boating on the Fourth of July a month after the killings.

Griffin: "Had you ever seen Alex carry a gun around before for protection? Before the murders?"

Crosby: “No.”

On redirect of Crosby, prosecutor Waters once again tries his signature final question.

Waters: “You’ve known Alex Murdaugh how long?”
Crosby: “I guess a total of 25 years or so.”

Waters: “Did you really know Alex Murdaugh?”
Griffin objects. Newman sustains the objection.

For those keeping score at home, Waters is now 1/3 on nailing his dramatic last question.

The next witness is expected to speak to gunshot residue.

State’s 35th witness is SLED forensic scientist Megan Fletcher.

Fletcher explains how she uses powerful microscopes magnify samples up to 50,000 times to view GSR particles on a molecular level. GSR particles contain three specific elements and are always rounded. Some look like spheres. Others, like footballs, she says.

Fletcher: There are a variety of ways GSR could get on someone. Picking up a gun. Or being in the vicinity when a gun is discharged.

With GSR on hands, analysts can tell if the GSR came from a specific recent shooting.

With GSR on clothes, analysts can't tell where it's from.

Fletcher is expected to be the last witness of the day, by the way.

Fletcher testifies she found GSR particles on Murdaugh’s white T-shirt from the night of the slayings. They could have come from being in the vicinity of a gunshot, or it could have been transferred from an object with GSR on it. She can’t say which.

Fletcher also found GSR particles on the shorts Murdaugh was wearing.

Shirt: Two particles to the right of the chest. One particle on the left sleeve.

Shorts: Two on the right side of the shorts, one on the left groin area.

Fletcher again says she can't say where the GSR particles came from, or when they got on the clothes.

Murdaugh's lawyers will say the amounts are very small, consistent with picking up a gun that already had GSR on it.

Fletcher found one GSR particle in the sample collected from Murdaugh's hands. She can't say when/how the particle got on his hands.

Fletcher found no GSR particles on the kit collected from Murdaugh's shoes.

Fletcher also tested the seat belt of Murdaugh’s Chevy Suburban, which he drove on the night of the slayings. Found one GSR particle. Can’t say when it got there or where it came from.

I have to imagine the Murdaugh defense team will argue the Murdaugh family shot guns all the time, all over the property, likely discharging GSR onto everything, everywhere.

Now we are moving on to the blue rain jacket, which we have been told was coated in GSR on the inside. Waters thought that was important enough to mention in his opening statement.

Fletcher testifies she found GSR particles on the outside of the blue rain jacket. Didn't say the amount.

Then she tested the inside of the jacket and found a "significant" amount of GSR particles. She stopped counting at 38. There were probably more.

Fletcher said she stopped counting because there were so many on the inside of the jacket. It would have taken her a week to count them all.

Fletcher testifies the amount of GSR on the inside of the coat is consistent with someone shooting a gun while wearing the coat inside-out, or wrapping the jacket around “objects with a high amount of GSR on them.”

It was a large amount of particles, she said.

This is why Murdaugh's legal team fought so hard to tear apart any alleged link between this blue rain jacket and their client.

Prosecutor Meadors: How long would GSR particles stay on an inanimate object like this jacket?

Fletcher: “Until it is actively removed.” By brushing, hosing, aggressive cleaning, etc.

Meadors closes by asking if the amount of GSR on the interior of the blue rain jacket is consistent with a recently-shot firearm being wrapped up in the jacket.

Fletcher: Yes.

Meadors finishes questioning Fletcher. Defense won't get to cross until tomorrow. Sheesh.

We are done for the day.

It seems like the state has done a great job of clock management on several occasions, including today, ending their questioning right around 5:30 p.m. and giving the defense no time to cross.

"I/they" was another good example of this.

The biggest stray caught today was the court transcription company that the defense paid $450 for a report on what Shelley Smith said yesterday.

Dick Harpootlian called them out as being terrible and a waste of money. So that's in the court record in a high-profile trial.

Story from the day

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1623114382405238797

This concludes the Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 12 Megathread.

Thank you for following along. See you tomorrow. Same time, same place.