Thread by @AveryGWilks

🚨🚨🚨Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 13 (Feb. 8) Megathread starts now 🚨🚨🚨

The state will continue to call financial witnesses in its quest to establish a motive for the 6/7/21 slayings of Maggie and Paul.

#AlexMurdaughTrial #AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughTrial #Murdaugh

But first up this morning at 9:30, Murdaugh’s legal team is set to cross-examine Megan Fletcher, the SLED scientist who found small amounts gunshot residue on Murdaugh’s hands and clothes and large amounts on a blue rain coat. Our story from yesterday:

postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Our daily Understand Murdaugh podcast on yesterday’s revelations: open.spotify.com/episode/5YkGVq…

Here’s my dog Scoop

For those just catching up, our Murdaugh news landing page is a great place to start postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Some of the financial witnesses called today will, like Seckinger yesterday, repeat some of the testimony they gave last week with the jury excused.

I will do the same thing I did for Seckinger: Live-tweet any new testimony and refer back to previous coverage for repeat stuff.

Court is back in session.

We begin today with defense attorney Jim Griffin's cross-examination of SLED forensic scientist Megan Fletcher.

Griffin starts by establishing with Fletcher that gunshot residue can stay on an inanimate surface forever - or until something scrubs or washes it off. No way of knowing when or how it got there.

Griffin establishes with Fletcher that GSR accumulates on guns as well and will stay there until cleaned.

Fletcher: “If you touch a gun that had been fired at any point, then you have the potential to transfer it to your hands.”

Griffin establishes with Fletcher that the seat she’s sitting in could have GSR on it, given all the guns that have been presented to and by witnesses already in this trial.

Griffin asks if the small amount of GSR particles found on Murdaugh's hands and clothes is consistent with a transfer from the shotgun he retrieved from Moselle's main house for his protection.

Fletcher agrees.

“That would be consistent with somebody that had a firearm in his hand prior to collection," Fletcher testifies.

She told SLED investigator David Owen that as well.

Griffin establishes that investigators found no GSR particles on the Chevy Suburban seat belt itself. None on the latch plate. Just one particle on the buckle.

“I could not tell you when that particle was deposited,” she said.

Griffin supposes it could be some 2 years old.

Fletcher agrees with Griffin that she can’t tell when or how GSR got onto the blue rain jacket. It could have been years old.

Griffin supposes that the GSR on the rain jacket could have come from Randolph Murdaugh III tossing his jacket onto his shotgun as he entered his truck. Fletcher says that could explain it.

Griffin establishes again that investigators did *not* test the blue tarp they recovered from Murdaugh's parents' home. Just the rain coat. Fletcher says that's because the jacket was balled up haphazardly in a closet and the tarp was folded in a storage container.

Fletcher says the rain jacket was slated for further DNA analysis, but she does not know the results of that testing.

She says the rain jacket was a large. So we finally know the size.

Griffin finishes his cross-examination. Prosecutor John Meadors is up on redirect.

Fletcher clarifies that she found 38 GSR particles on the inside (and stopped counting because there were so many) and 14 on the outside.

Griffin: “What I gathered is that there are a whole lot of possibilities of what could have happened.”
Fletcher: “Correct.”

G: But you can’t tell us what actually happened. Just what you saw in the microscope.
F: Correct.

Fletcher steps down.

The state's 36th witness is Annette Griswold, a Hampton native who worked as Alex Murdaugh's paralegal.

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters is questioning her.

She will speak to Murdaugh's alleged financial crimes and how they were discovered.

Griswold on Murdaugh's style, work habits:

“Extremely intelligent when it comes to the law. I respected and admired” that greatly.

He kept odd hours. We always joked he would show up right before 5 p.m. when we were ready to leave.

Griswold: “I sometimes referred to Alex as a Tasmanian devil.”

He would come into the office loudly and talking to everyone.

“He was hard to sit still and get answers from," Griswold said.

It got worse after the boating accident. He was rarely available, even when he was in the office. He was always on his phone. “He would come in lots of times, and he was not his normal self. It was just very tense.”

Griswold: “You could tell the boat crash was weighing heavily on him. It was consuming his life, almost.”

Referred to him as having his “ass on his shoulders.”
“He just wasn’t himself with us anymore.”

He didn’t treat us the same way he did before.

Griswold testifies about how Murdaugh had her write checks out to "Forge." He corrected her when she tried to write them to the legitimate "Forge Consulting." Told her "Forge" was a subsidiary of that company.

He never wanted those checks mailed to Forge Consulting, she said.

Griswold testifies Murdaugh would tell her he was going to meet with Michael Gunn of Forge Consulting or see him soon, and he would deliver the check himself.

(In reality, Murdaugh was depositing the checks in his "fake Forge" Bank of America account. That was clients' money).

Griswold testifies about multiple instances where money - legal fees and client funds - from cases she was handling was routed to Murdaugh’s “fake Forge” account while she was out of the office.

Murdaugh had another paralegal who was unfamiliar with the cases handle the payments

Waters: “Was the defendant using the opportunity of you being out of the office to push these things through?”

Griswold: “Yes.” He would do it a few minutes before 5 p.m. on Fridays when it was less likely people would pay attention and ask questions.

Griswold testifies Murdaugh forged a client's signature on a disbursement sheet in which he stole $125K from a settlement that was owed to that client.

Griswold said she was shocked to learn in spring 2021 that Alex Murdaugh had gotten legal fees directly from a Mack Trucks case he worked with his buddy, Chris Wilson.

Griswold figured Murdaugh had just lost the check, since he was so scattered all the time.

Griswold: “I assumed they gave Alex the checks and he’s lost them. They’re misplaced. They’re somewhere in his truck. They’re in a file folder.”

She asked Murdaugh about it. He said he never got the checks. So she started going back and forth between her boss and Chris Wilson’s law firm trying to find out what happened to the missing $792K in legal fees owed to PMPED.

Eventually, Murdaugh told her Wilson had the money.

Griswold said she brought CFO Jeanne Seckinger into the loop.

“She was instantly on high alert because it didn’t look good.” But they were hoping it was a misunderstanding or a one-off.

“But we both had that nagging feeling of, ‘this is not good. Something is wrong.’”

Prosecutor Waters is doing a great job of walking Griswold through the story. It is clear the state has the financial portion of this case nailed down.

But it still feels like a night and day difference from what we're seeing with the recent non-financial witnesses.

Griswold said she was hoping she was wrong as she looked into the possibility that Murdaugh had stolen the $792K Mack Trucks case legal fees. But she was really stressed out. Her daughter overheard her talking about the case and became really worried.

Griswold said her daughter urged her to update her resume. “Once you turn all this in, they may fire you,” she said.

Our running story with live updates from today's proceedings, plus a live stream: postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Griswold testifies left the PMPED office at 5:15 p.m. Murdaugh was still at the office.

She had her phone on silent. She woke up in the middle of the night, and her phone was full of messages and calls. Randy Murdaugh texted her to please call when she could. She did.

Griswold: When Randy answered, he was upset. She asked what was wrong. “It’s bad, Annette. It’s real bad.” She assumed it was about Randolph III.

Randy said no, Maggie and Paul have been shot and murdered.

Griswold said she had “a million thoughts” running through her head. She was worried about Alex and Buster and the family’s safety.

The firm was scared for the Murdaughs' safety. "We were in complete mama bear mode."

They watched out for strange cars that drove by the office.

Griswold testifies the law firm rallied to the Murdaughs’ aid after the slayings.

They stopped asking about the Mack Trucks fees.

Griswold said she stopped thinking about it until September 2021.

Griswold testifies about walking into Murdaugh’s office on the afternoon of 9/2/21 to look for a file folder. As she found it, “a check from it floated like a feather to the ground.” She picked it up and saw that it was a March check from the Chris Wilson Mack Trucks case.

The check was to Alex Murdaugh. It was the money Murdaugh had claimed he had never received. “I found this check that supposedly did not exist.”

Griswold on what she thought at the time: “He’s been lying this whole time. He had these funds. He lied to me. That feeling in the back of my mind was correct. He did take these funds.”

Griswold testifies she brought the check to Jeanne Seckinger, who was doing her own review of Murdaugh’s fees and cases and was also suspicious.

“He was fired the next day.”

Griswold is a super compelling and clear witness. She injects color and detail that isn't required, but that helps tell the story. The fact that the check "floated like a feather to the ground," for example, will probably end up in a lot of stories today.

Our TikTok recapping yesterday and previewing (accurately, so far!) today’s proceedings tiktok.com/t/ZTRGgv41J/

We're back after a little break.

Judge Newman just overruled another evidentiary objection from the defense. At this point I'm struggling with whether that constitutes "news" anymore.

Prosecutor Waters is taking great care with witnesses to establish that Murdaugh was a prolific cell phone user (making it strange that his phone recorded no steps for nearly an hour on the night of the slayings at a time when the dog kennel video puts him down by the kennels)

“He was always on his phone,” Griswold testifies.

She testifies he would sometimes have two phone conversations at once, with a phone at either ear.

Waters plays the dog kennel tape for Griswold in court.

Griswold: “I hear Paul Murdauggh, Maggie Murdaugh and Alex Murdaugh.”
Waters: “How sure are you?’
Griswold: “I’m 100 percent sure.”

Waters also showed in court a 9/26/21 text Murdaugh sent Griswold weeks after his ouster from the law firm.

“The worst part is knowing I did the most damage to the ones I loved the most,” Murdaugh wrote.

Griffin begins his cross-examination of Griswold now.

Griswold on Murdaugh: “I cared about him. I respected him. I loved him.”

“It was hard to work for him sometimes. He was a bit erratic. Yeah, for all the respect and love I had for him, it was still very difficult to work for him.”

Griffin is working to establish with Griswold that Murdaugh was a family man. He would take his family with him on work trips and to legal conventions.

Maggie came and stayed with him in Columbia during the Mack Trucks trial, Griswold said.

Griffin is trying to tear apart the state’s theory that Alex Murdaugh killed Maggie/Paul to escape scrutiny for the financial crimes.

Griffin: As a result of the murders, “Alex Murdaugh became front and center of a media spotlight, didn’t he?”

Griswold: Yes.

Griffin establishes that Alex Murdaugh didn’t spend another night at Moselle after the slayings, that the killings seemed to mellow him out. He was a different person afterward. He stayed with family in the wake of it. Griswold agrees.

Griffin asks about the 9/26/21 message Griswold and the other secretary got from Murdaugh.

Griswold says the message was sent from rehab.

“I assumed it was probably one of the steps of reaching out to those you hurt and telling them you were sorry.”

Griswold reads the entire message aloud. I didn't catch all of it.

Parts, though: “I know you both have been hurt badly by me. I know it sounds hollow, but I am truly sorry.”

“I am committing to getting better and hope to mend as many relationships as I can.”

Message continued: “Please know how sorry I am to have made you part of my misdeeds.”

Griswold on Murdaugh's relationship with the community: “He was trusted by everybody, and they knew that if they needed something, they could reach out and he was going to help them.”

Griswold steps down from the stand. The state's 37th witness is Michael Gunn, principal of Forge Consulting - the firm Murdaugh impersonated to steal from his clients.

He is being questioned by Johnny Ellis James Jr.

Gunn previously testified with the jury excused.

I expect Gunn will explain how Forge Consulting actually works and how it doesn't work.

Prosecutors will also call on him to explain the difference between "real Forge Consulting" and Murdaugh's "fake Forge" account.

Gunn was the state's second non-financial witness. He testified Feb. 2. Here's my previous thread on his testimony.

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1621255760721092624

Waters seems to have abandoned his "did you really know Alex Murdaugh" final question. He seemed to build up to it with Griswold and then ended his questioning. The last time he tried it, Griffin objected and the judge sided with Griffin.

A few things that haven't come up at all yet in this trial: high-impact blood spatter and Murdaugh's jailhouse calls.

Curtis Smith was mentioned briefly earlier, but he hasn't played a central role either.

Griffin is cross-examining Gunn. So far, he’s tried to establish an image of Murdaugh as a family man.

Gunn on Murdaugh’s demeanor at Maggie’s funeral. “He was a broken man. You could tell. He was very upset.”

Gunn steps down.

The state's 38th witness is SLED computer crimes agent Brian Hudak.

Judge Newman says "we have to evacuate the building at this time. We'll be in recess until we discover what's going on. We'll couple this with a lunch break until 2:30."

Okie doke.

I don't know anything more, but Newman's tone didn't seem to suggest panic or urgency.

Forge Consulting and Michael Gunn just released this statement shortly after he stepped down from the witness stand. Forge Consulting has been hinting for months at a possible lawsuit against Bank of America over all of this

A lawyer in the case texts me a “bomb threat” is the reason for the evacuation.

We are working hard to provide clear, accurate info here postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

A Walterboro fire truck just pulled up to the courthouse.

postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

State prosecutors are across the street ordering lunch from food trucks.

I spoke with another lawyer in this case who expressed surprise that it took this long for something like this to happen.

SLED statement on the bomb threat

If you have theories about who might have called in this bomb threat and why, now would be a wonderful opportunity to keep them to yourselves.

While we're waiting, here's the full text of Alex Murdaugh's 9/26/21 message to his former paralegal, Annette Griswold.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin had Griswold read this in court.

Special thanks to @JSCollinsAP for clipping the audio.

UPDATE: Court official tells @thadmoore the threat placed the supposed bomb in the judge’s chambers — the most secure part of the building.

The courthouse remains locked down. It appears Murdaugh has been moved to a secure location. postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

It appears the search is over and the all-clear has been given. @jocgrz spotted prosecutors walking back into the courtroom.

@jocgrz Murdaugh's defense team has re-entered the courthouse.

Spectators have begun to form a line outside the courthouse, though they have not yet been allowed inside, per @jocgrz.

We expect court will resume soon, though no start time has been given.

@jocgrz postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Court is back in session after a fruitful search for lunch and a fruitless search for bombs. The jury is returning to the courtroom.

State prosecutor John Conrad is questioning the state's 38th witness, SLED computer crimes agent Brian Hudak.

Hudak testifies he removed the "infotainment" system and On-Star module from Alex Murdaugh's 2021 Chevy Suburban, which he drove to the crime scene on the night of the slayings.

SLED didn't have the tools necessary to analyze those things, so he sent them off for examination.

Little chain of custody witnessing there. Hudak steps down after just a few minutes.

The state's 39th witness is Dwight Falkofske, FBI electronics engineer in the electronic device analysis unit.

He extracts data from automotive systems and puts them into a readable format.

If I were a gambling man, and I can assure you I am not, I would put my entire bank account on this analysis having something to do with telling us about Alex Murdaugh's movements and whereabouts on the evening of 6/7/21.

Falkofske testifies the data on Murdaugh’s work-issued Chevy Suburban was encrypted, meaning it could not be unlocked and read without a "key." He testifies that is rare for vehicles.

But the FBI broke into it anyway after “approximately one year.”

Falkofske said the FBI found call logs, contact lists and “a little bit of location data” in Murdaugh’s Suburban.

Falkofske testifies the FBI also found data indicating the “state” of the 2021 Suburban, including whether the car was moving, whether doors were open or closed, whether windows were up or down, etc.

This is why I typically own terrible, old, cheap cars. Among other reasons.

Good luck learning anything useful from the hollowed-out brain of my 2008 Toyota Corolla, buddy. I don't think so.

Falkofske testifies through meticulous testing, including by test-driving another 2021 Suburban, the FBI was able to determine how to read the data from Murdaugh’s vehicle.

They could tell whether the car was parked or not. But not necessarily whether it was moving.

Falkofske testifies the FBI found two calls on the Suburban’s system from the evening of 6/7/21, when Murdaugh's phone was connected to the vehicle.

One to 9-1-1 at 10:06:14 p.m. and another to 9-1-1 four seconds later.

I don't know if John Conrad drew a short straw or lost a bet with his comrades in the S.C. Attorney General's Office, but if there is a spreadsheet that needs to be read out loud in this trial, he seems to be the prosecutor assigned to the job.

A few takeaways from Falkofske from Murdaugh's 2021 Chevy Suburban data:

9:03:44 p.m. on 6/7/21: SUV system boots up. (Could have occurred with the door opening)

9:06:49 p.m.: SUV cranks up.

9:06:50 p.m.: SUV is taken out of park.

9:22:45 p.m.: SUV is put back in park.

Falkofske testifies he can't say whether the vehicle is moving when out of park. Just that it is out of park.

9:43:05 p.m.: SUV is taken out of park. About 21 minutes after it was put in park. (Correlates with Murdaugh leaving Almeda after visiting his mother)

9:43:59 p.m.: SUV goes back into park. So it was out of park for under minute. Can’t say whether the vehicle actually moved.

9:44 p.m. SUV goes out of park again.

10 p.m. - SUV goes back into park. So it was out of park for 16 minutes. (Leaving Almeda to return to Moselle, potentially)

10:01:17 p.m - SUV goes out of park

10:01:29 p.m. - SUV goes back into park 12 seconds later.

10:01:30 p.m. - SUV goes out of park.

10:01:43 p.m. - SUV goes back into park 13 seconds later.

10:04:49 p.m. SUV goes out of park.
10:05:55 p.m.: SUV goes back into park after a little more than a minute. (Driving from Moselle main house to kennels?)

10:11:45 p.m.: SUV goes out of park
10:12:38 p.m.: SUV goes back into park just under a minute later. (Returning to Moselle main house to get shotgun?)

10:13:39 p.m.: SUV goes out of park. (Murdaugh retrieved shotgun, headed back to kennels)

No log message indicating when it went back into park. Sometimes the system stops recording. The reason is not clear, Falkofske says.

So, that was a lot. And the prosecutor hasn't done anything to explain any of those times to the jury.

But to me, that seems a somewhat clear record of Murdaugh's movements that evening, including his 21-minute stay at his mother's place in Almeda.

The record also indicates it took 16 minutes to drive between Moselle and the Almeda house each time.

Conrad finishes his questioning without providing the jury any more context or narrative. Showering the jury with numbers, trusting that they are following all of this even though they aren't taking notes, and then walking away.

Phillip Barber, the Murdaugh defense attorney who has dealt a lot with digital data experts during this trial, is up to cross-examine Falkofske.

Barber establishes that the Suburban’s data was encrypted by the manufacturer, not Murdaugh.

Falkofske said he didn’t reach out to the manufacturer for their help encrypting the data. Manufacturers typically don’t help, Falkofske said.

We have covered a lot of ground today. Gunshot residue, financial crimes, bombs, vehicle infotainment data and a shotgun named Bo Whoop

We are done for the day, Judge Newman says.

Back tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. with Barber's cross-examination of Falkofske.

Story coming just as soon as I make sense of the day.

Props to Murdaugh family caregiver Shelley Smith, who pretty accurately estimated the time Alex Murdaugh was with his mother on the night of 6/7/21. She said 20 minutes. His SUV's data has him there for 21.

Our full story for today:

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1623469130975260673

🫡 This concludes the Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 13 Megathread 🫡

Back tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.