Thread by @AveryGWilks

🚨🚨🚨Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 23 (Feb. 23) Megathread begins now 🚨🚨🚨

I’ve confirmed this morning Alex Murdaugh WILL take the stand and testify today, barring some last-minute change. This will be big.

#AlexMurdaugh #AlexMurdaughTrial #MurdaughTrial #Murdaugh

The decision comes after Murdaugh defense team was said to be at the local jail late last night meeting with AM.

This was not a done deal until late last night or this morning. Even now, I’m told AM could (and might) change his mind right up until the minute he takes the stand.

Our Megathread from yesterday, for those catching up

https://twitter.com/averygwilks/status/1628362725431603200

Our story on yesterday’s proceedings, in which one of AM’s pissed-off old law partners perfectly illustrated the risks and rewards of calling people in AM’s orbit (or Alex Murdaugh himself) to the witness stand postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Our podcast on the same topic open.spotify.com/episode/5OvqVA…

For those who might be new to the Megathread, I’ll provide play-by-play and analysis throughout the day from Walterboro.

We also have a live updates feed and livestream over at the @postandcourier website.

Postandcourier.com/murdaugh is our landing page for Murdaugh news

The man who will very likely cross-examine Alex Murdaugh today is lead prosecutor Creighton Waters, who oversees the state grand jury in SC.

If you’re watching/following today, I promise you’ll want to first read this profile of Waters I wrote in December postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Murdaugh’s attorneys are very clearly worried about how that cross-examination will go. Yesterday they asked for a court order limiting the scope of the state’s questioning, including preventing any queries about AM’s alleged financial crimes.

Judge Newman wasn’t going for it. He said it wouldn’t issue a blanket order.

Waters will likely cross-examine AM extensively, trying to eviscerate whatever credibility AM might have with the jury by confronting him about his lies, thefts and betrayals of everyone in his orbit.

Anyway, it’s not quite 7 am and I’ve got to get my life together before heading to court. We’re back in session at 9:30 am.

By popular demand, here’s a pic of my dog, Scoop, in the meantime.

TikTok recorded. Let's ride.

I can't confidently predict how this is going to go.

But I will say that Alex Murdaugh will likely become emotional on the stand at times, and prosecutor Creighton Waters has done an excellent job of preparing the jury not to buy anything they see/hear from him.

Waters has spent the past 4.5 weeks establishing with witnesses that AM was a master manipulator, a con man, a personality-driven lawyer who understood the value of emotion in his legal cases - someone who could make anyone feel special and heard even while stealing from them.

The defense's main goal will be to humanize AM - which is a difficult task given all the jury has already heard.

They also need him to explain some of the things only AM can explain: why he lied to investigators about his whereabouts on the night of the slayings, why he ...

... didn't take Maggie with him to Almeda when he left after 9 p.m. that evening to visit his mom; why he didn't leave by the dog kennel driveway to see Maggie and Paul before heading to Almeda, given that he had called and texted Maggie while leaving; why he didn't talk ...

... much to family and friends about wanting to find Maggie and Paul's killers in the weeks and months after the slayings.

Maybe we'll even find out what the heck is going on with that $1,000 Gucci transaction that was circled on a credit card statement found near the scene.

Our daily live feed. Alex Murdaugh is expected to testify today in his own defense

postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

It's all happening tiktok.com/@postandcourie…

If I look like a guy who woke up at 6 a.m. to start making calls, well

Pictures/exhibits from yesterday, via pool photographers @GraceBeahm and @JAABPhoto

1. Prosecutor John Meadors goes back and forth w/ a defense witness
2. Journalists, including our guy @thadmoore (right)
3. Libby Murdaugh caregiver Barbara Mixson embraces Randy Murdaugh

Court is back in session.

Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian starts the day by renewing all the defense’s motions to exclude testimony about AM’s alleged financial crimes.

He says if the financial crimes hadn’t been allowed in, the defense would have advised their client to take the stand.

It sounds like Harpootian is hinting Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys tried to talk him out of testifying.

It also sounds like it didn't work.

Murdaugh’s defense is once again trying to get a court order preventing the state from asking AM about the financial crimes as part of a “character assassination” on cross-examination.

Programming note: My 'e' button has become uncooperative. Please attribute any and all typos to that moving forward, though I will try to catch them before hitting send.

Harpootlian: “We’re going to spend the next day or two or three with the state going through the minute details” of each of the financial crimes. “This is a Bernie Madoff trial. This isn’t a murder trial.”

Judge Newman: You can make that argument to the jury.

Newman notes Murdaugh’s defense has done a good job of preserving its objections for appeal, if convicted.

Harpootlian: “Haven’t we wasted enough time on financial matters?”

Newman: “All right.”

AM was just sworn in. Judge Newman is now explaining him his rights, including his Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to testify against himself.

Newman warns AM he can be “examined or cross-examined on any relevant issue in this case.”

The jury is not here rn.

Newman notes the decision on whether to testify is Murdaugh’s alone, not his attorneys’.

Newman asks if AM needs to consult with his lawyers on this any further.

“No sir, I don’t need to talk to them anymore. I am going to testify. I want to testify.”

Harpootlian says the defense has one witness who will testify briefly before AM.

The defense’s 10th witness is Nolan Tuten, the brother of Nathan Tuten, who testified earlier in this trial. Tuten is a friend of Paul Murdaugh.

Tuten is being questioned by defense attorney Maggie Fox. This is her second witness of the trial.

Tuten testifies he hung out with Paul a lot at Moselle. They would hunt and fish there.

Tuten: “We would never walk” to the kennels. They would drive.

Paul would leave guns in his truck “all the time” at Moselle, including the .300 Blackout rifle.

Tuten saw AM at Moselle on the night of the shootings. “He was pretty distraught. … He gave me a hug and started crying and told me they were gone.”

Prosecutor David Fernandez rises to cross Tuten.

“You were as close a friend to Paul as there could be,” Fernandez said.

Tuten agrees.

Tuten says Paul was a loyal friend, someone you could call in the middle of the night and he’d be there for you.

Tuten says Maggie Murdaugh was like a second mom to him.

Prosecution trying to establish that it was odd AM didn’t take the dog kennel driveway on his way out of Moselle toward his mom’s house on the night of 6/7/21.

Fernandez: If you all were down there (at the kennels) and Maggie or Alex were at the house and knew you were down there, would they typically drop by before leaving to see if you needed anything?

Tuten: “More often than not, yeah.”

Tuten testifies he has watched the kennel video. He said he hears Paul, Miss Maggie and Alex Murdaugh in background of the video.

I’ve lost count of the number of witnesses who have confirmed that Alex’s voice is in that 8:45 p.m. video at the crime scene.

Tuten testifies he and Paul planned to work on a sunflower field at Moselle on the afternoon of 6/7/21, but Tuten got hung up at work and couldn’t make it.

Tuten testifies Alex Murdaugh kept repeating “the boat wreck” to him on the night of the slayings. AM also asked Tuten to get in touch with Rogan Gibson, another friend of Paul’s who was the last to speak with him before the shootings began.

Tuten testifies that from the Moselle main house, you can tell if the lights are on at the kennels (about 400 yards away), and you can see the roof of the kennels, but you can’t see what’s going on down there.

The jury is excused for a short break before Alex Murdaugh testifies.

Newman asks if Harpootlian needs any more time to confer with his client.

Harpootlian: “He indicated he doesn’t need to talk to me. Hurts my feelings,” but we don’t need any more time.

We’re on a 10-minute break before we return with AM on the stand.

We're back for Alex Murdaugh's testimony. He is the defense's 11th witness, though his attorneys have made clear they don't want him on the stand.

#AlexMurdaugh #AlexMurdaughTrial #MurdaughFamily #murdaughtrial #murdaugh

Defense attorney Jim Griffin will question Murdaugh.

“The defendant Richard Alexander Murdaugh wishes to take the stand,” Griffin says.

Griffin: “Did you take this gun or any gun like it and blow your son’s brains out?”

AM: “No I did not.”

Griffin starts by asking Alex Murdaugh point blank if he did it.

AM: “Mr. Griffin, I didn’t shoot my wife or my son any time, ever.”

AM admits he was at the kennels at 8:44 p.m. He admits he repeatedly lied to SLED and sheriff’s deputies about being there. “I did lie to them.”

Griffin asks AM why he lied to investigators about being at the dog kennels.

AM says his opioid addiction made him paranoid. He was paranoid while in the police car doing the interview, investigators asked about his relationship with Maggie and Paul.

AM: “On June 7, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. And I lied about being down there. And I’m so sorry that I did.”

He apologies to his relatives for lying. “I would never do anything intentionally to hurt them, ever.”

Griffin asks why AM kept telling that lie.
AM: “Oh what a tangled web we weave. Once I told the lie, and I told my family, I had to keep lying.”

AM has angled his body directly at the jury since even before the questioning began. He’s leaning forward in his chair, rocking a bit, looking directly at the jurors as he speaks.

AM says Maggie left to go to Charleston to visit the doctor earlier that day and had to do some work on their Edisto Beach house. “I always always asked Maggie to come back home and stay with me.”

AM testifies he met Paul later that afternoon, and they rode out to the dove field in Buster’s black pickup truck and saw that the sunflowers there were killed.

AM now crying: “After that, we just rode the property. We spent time together.”

Griffin asks AM about the 7:38 a.m. Snapchat video Paul took of AM trying to stand up a droopy tree. AM says he remembers it. Paul was laughing at him. “What you see me doing is fooling with a fruit tree.”

Griffin: Were you and Paul having a good time?

AM has difficulty answering. He’s crying and shaking his head. “You could not be around Paul, you could not be around him and not having a good time.”

G: “Were you close to Paul?”
AM: “You couldn’t be any closer than Paul and I.”

AM testifies the clothes he wore in Paul’s Snapchat video were the clothes he had worn to work that day. This contradicts what housekeeper Blanca Simpson testified earlier.

AM says he took a shower after riding around with Paul, and after Maggie arrived home. He said he changed into the white T-shirt and green shorts “that you’ve seen in the trial.”

AM testifies that after he showered and changed, they ate dinner in the den in front of the TV. “If we were in the house, the TV was on.”

AM: Paul had left earlier. He wasn’t eating dinner with Maggie and me. Maggie wanted to go to the kennels. She asked me to go. I didn’t go at that time. I didn’t want to go. It was hot. I had just showered. I knew I would end up doing more work and sweating more.

AM: On Friday, 6/4/21, his father was in the hospital. AM spent the night with him. The nurse found him a soft chair, like a recliner. He thinks he slept, but not much.

AM: On Saturday, 6/5/21, he and Maggie met with Buster and his girlfriend in Columbia to go to South Carolina’s NCAA Regional baseball game.

AM: On Sunday, 6/6/21, he and Maggie went to another USC baseball game. That night, they returned home. They visited AM’s parents and brought them Krispy Kreme donuts. They spent that night together at Moselle.

AM: Maggie left to the kennels without him. It seems, based on the records, like she rode down there with Paul. AM says he initially lay on the couch with his feet up. Then he changed his mind and went down to the kennels on a golf cart.

AM: When he got down to the kennels, “it was a little bit of chaos. It was clear to me that Mags was just letting the dogs out.”

Grady the black lab, Buster’s dog. Also Bubba, a family dog.

“Maggie loved Bubba. She loved Grady too, but she had a special place for Bubba.”

AM: The first thing Bubba would do when let out was to pee on every tree. And he was doing that when AM arrived, so AM figured he had just been let out. Grady was chasing a guinea, which was normal.

AM: Bubba didn’t chase the chickens to kill them. They did kill them sometimes. “It was about the chase with those dogs. And they were proud when they caught one. You could tell by the way they would prance when they caught one.”

If nothing else, AM's testimony is helping to restore the good name of the yellow lab Bubba, who has been held up as some kind of serial chicken murderer throughout this trial.

AM testifies he got the chicken out of Bubba’s mouth and put it on top of a dog crate. “That chicken did die.” Well.

Griffin: What did you do after getting the chicken out of Bubba’s mouth?

AM: “I got out of there.” Went back to the house.

Griffin: Did you do anything else before leaving after getting the chicken out of Bubba’s mouth?
AM: No.

Griffin: How long did it take to get the chicken out of Bubba’s mouth?
AM: Not long. Bubba came right up to me to show me the chicken he caught. He was proud of it.

Griffin asks what AM did next.

AM: “I went straight back to the house, to the air conditioner” and lay down on the couch. The TV was on. And then he decided he would go see his mom.

AM on why he went to see his mom that night.

“I believe my mom knew when my dad wasn’t there because she would get agitated. … She’d cry a lot. She would be fussy when she normally wouldn’t be fussy. I know Alzheimer’s patients can be unpredictable, but I’m convinced she knew.”

AM says he parked in the back when he arrived at his parents’ house in Almeda. He says that’s where “we always parked any time we were going in that entrance.” Buster provided similar testimony on Tuesday.

AM says he used that back entrance because it was closer to his mom’s room. “This is the part of the house they were always in.”

His siblings used the back entrance too. “We all did.”

AM testifies he knocked on the door when he arrived, but Shelley Smith didn’t hear him. So he called Shelley and asked to be let in.

AM: “My mom was awake. I held her hand. Her condition was not good at any time. But given her overall condition, she seemed to be doing pretty well.” She was not agitated.

Shelley Smith previously testified AM’s mom was asleep during the entire visit.

Griffin: Was Maggie planning to go with you that night?

AM: She wasn’t. “In fact, Maggie didn’t really like to visit my mom. She loved to visit my dad. And she loved to spend time with my dad. She spent a lot of time with my mom when she was healthy.”

AM testifies at this point, his mom "was a shell of her old self.”

It was sad to visit her.

AM testifies he left out of the main gate to visit Almeda that night.

Griffin: Why didn’t you go by the kennels as you left?
AM: “There wasn’t a reason to go by the kennels at that point. And I was going to Almeda.” So he used the gate that was closer to Almeda.

AM on Maggie’s lack of response to calls or texts: “At that time it didn’t concern me at all. For one, she was with Paul. Number Two, it’s not unusual not to be able to get to somebody all the time.” All the testimony we’ve already heard about how spotty cell service was.

Griffin: At some point in time, you stopped for a minute in your mother’s driveway. What were you doing?
AM: I was getting my phone. It had fallen between the console and the seat where I couldn’t reach it.

Griffin: “Were you disposing of murder weapons, Alex?”
“No.”
“Were you disposing of bloody clothes?”
“No.”

AM said he was driving normally on the way to and from Almeda. That’s just how he drove. He says he got home and spent several minutes inside the house but didn’t see Maggie and Paul there. He assumed they were still at the kennels.

Griffin: Were you surprised Paul and Maggie had not made it back to the house?

AM: Not sure I was surprised. But I thought they would have made it back by then. “It wasn’t like I was shocked. But I thought they would be there."

Griffin: Then you drove down to the kennels in your Suburban.
AM: Leaning forward and rocking. Crying. “I did.”

G: “What did you see?”
AM: “I saw what y’all have seen pictures of.” Long pause. “So bad.”

AM asks for water. He takes a deep pull from the bottle.

Griffin: Did you see them on the ground when you were pulling up in your Suburban?
AM resumes crying. “I did.”

Griffin: What did you do when you came to a stop?
AM: “I think I jumped out of my car. I’m not sure exactly what I did.” Thinks he ran back to his car and called 9-1-1.

He said he was tending to Maggie and Paul, going back and forth between their bodies, while on the phone.

G: What did you do when you went up to Paul?
AM: Crying. “Paul was so bad. At some point, I know I tried to check him for a pulse. I know I tried to turn him over.”

G: Why did you try to turn him over?
AM: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know why I tried to turn him over. He was laying face down, and he’s done the way he’s done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do.”

AM saying he checked Paul and Maggie’s bodies while on the phone helps defuse one aspect of the state’s case - that he called 911 less than 20s after parking the Suburban at the kennels.

AM doesn’t say until several minutes into the 9-1-1 call that he had touched their bodies.

Griffin begins playing the 911 tape.

“I got out of the car. I mean, I knew,” AM testifies. “I got out of the car. I don’t think I ever went all the way to them.” He says he ran back to the SUV and called 911. He went to Maggie and Paul after dialing 911.

AM: If you listen to that call, one of the first things she asked me was if they shot themselves. “I knew, knew there was no way. I knew they didn’t shoot themselves. There wasn’t a gun. They didn’t shoot themselves.”

Griffin: Did you roll the hose up?
AM: “No.”
G: Did you do anything at the kennels other than call 911?
AM: “No. I do know that I was trying to find a flashlight. I was trying to find a gun. Other than those things, no, I didn’t do anything at the kennel.”

Griffin: “Was there anybody with you?”

AM: “No.”

Griffin: At one point in the tape, you say, “I should have known.” What are you referring to?

AM: I should have known. “Paul Paul got so many threats I didn’t take serious, didn’t think twice about.”

Griffin: “When was the last time you saw Maggie and Paul?”
AM: “Right after I took the chicken from Bubba.”
Griffin: That was at 8:44 p.m.
AM: Right. I took the chicken from Bubba right after the 8:44 p.m. video on Paul’s phone.

AM on returning to the Moselle house to grab a shotgun: “I believe I got that gun off the pool table. … I was grabbing the first gun I could get.” Grabbed a handful of shells.

AM says he didn't realize he was loading a 16-gauge shell into a 12-gauge shotgun.

Griffin: “Why did you go back up to the house to get a gun?”

AM: Breaking into tears again. “I just didn’t know. … I didn’t know if somebody was still out there.”

Griffin is trying to establish that AM was traumatized on the 9-1-1 call, reporting incorrect info about the distance between the Moselle house and kennels and loading the wrong ammo into the shotgun he retrieved.

Griffin: You told 911 Paul had reported these threats (since the boat crash case).
AM: I don’t believe there were any formal police reports or that kind of thing. “It was well-known.” I never thought there was a police report or some formal report.

Griffin: Did he make a report on campus (at USC)?
AM: I know he did. There was a time when he was asked to come meet with the dean of students. It turns out it was really just - they were wanting to make sure he was OK.

Griffin: Did you call family after 911?
AM: Yes. Called brothers Randy and John. Tried to call Rogan. “Well, Ro-Ro’s not family.”
Griffin: Why did you try to call Rogan?
AM: Rogan’s house was like 2 ½ miles, maybe 3 miles away. “Rogan was like family.”

Griffin: “Had you seen Rogan’s name on Paul’s phone in any way that night?”
AM: “No.”

Griffin asks about a group text AM got from Michael Gunn after AM called 911.
AM: “I can promise you I wasn’t reading any text messages.”

AM also says he wasn’t googling the name of a restaurant in Edisto Beach. “I’m assuming it was in my search history” and it came up by accident as he was dialing numbers that night.

AM also accidentally called a wedding photographer.
“Obviously, they are unintentional,” AM says.

Griffin is eliciting testimony that AM was a traumatized mess in the immediate aftermath of the slayings.

We're on a 10-minute break now.

Per a source, it appears the Murdaughs named their dogs after Sanford and Son characters.

My family once named a rescue dog NoMo because we weren't sure if his previous owners had named him Noah or Moses. But we knew it was one of them.

NoMo had a lot of quirks after being a homeless neighborhood dog for a few years. But he was a good boy.

We're back after a break.

AM testifies he got blood on his fingertips after touching Maggie and Paul. If Maggie’s blood is on the shotgun, “I put it there.”

AM: “There’s no way that I had high-velocity blood spatter on me.” He saw reports that said that.

Griffin: “Were you anywhere in the vicinity when Paul and Maggie were shot?”
AM: “I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot.”

Prosecutors abandoned blood spatter shortly before trial and haven’t mentioned it since. But the defense is bringing it up every so often.

AM: Every time I talked to SLED investigator David Owen, I would tell him to get SUV data and cellphone data to confirm where I went.

“I knew my phone and Maggie’s phones never crossed paths, and that was extremely important to me. I asked about it every single time we talked.”

AM: Maggie loved to have everybody on Find My Friends.

She loved to look and see where people are. And she loved to surprise you. If she saw you were at Walmart, she would text you a joke, like get me a TV from Walmart.

“I just knew there would be GPS data on Maggie’s phone.

That GPS data was never obtained from Maggie’s phone. A previous defense witness said that’s because investigators failed to put her phone in a protective bag that could have prevented its GPS data from overwriting itself.

AM testifies about how he wanted investigators to obtain his SUV data. They only successfully got that data from General Motors a few weeks into this trial.

“It would demonstrate that I couldn’t have done this,” AM says.

AM says he was not left alone the rest of the week after the slayings. “I was attached to Buster at the hip.”

Defense is trying to counter the state’s theory that AM returned to Almeda days later to dispose of the murder weapons and other evidence for good.

Griffin is trying to establish where AM stayed on each of the nights after the slayings. It seems he is trying to contradict Shelley Smith’s testimony about AM showing up to Almeda early one morning to stash a blue tarp/rain jacket.

AM on Shelley Smith’s testimony about stashing the blue tarp: “I know for a fact I didn’t go to Almeda at 6:30 in the morning. I was in Summerville.”

Griffin: Did you ever take a blue tarp into Almeda the week after your dad’s funeral?
AM: “No, I did not.”

Griffin brings up the blue rain jacket that was covered in gunshot residue.

AMM: “Never seen it before. Never touched it. Don’t know anything about it.”

None of Murdaugh's relatives could identify it either.

AM testifies he took care not to talk much about the homicide investigation after the slayings.

That’s because after the 2019 boat case, “there was so much talk about how I fixed witnesses and structured the investigation, things that were totally false..."

"... that were absolutely baseless. But it was said repeatedly, repeatedly, it was reported repeatedly.”

“I wasn’t taking any chances.”

AM on the 8/11/21 SLED interview: He said he had been begging SLED’s David Owen to meet with him and Maggie’s parents. “I’d been begging him for weeks” because Maggie’s parents had so many questions that AM could not answer.

AM says he thought the 8/11/21 meeting was to get an update on the case. But by the end, Owen had made clear AM was the prime suspect.

AM said he had a follow-up conversation with housekeeper Blanca Simpson about his clothes because SLED had made an issue of it during the 8/11/21 interview.

AM said he asked Blanca about what clothes he had on that day - 6/7/21. AM said he asked if she remembered getting his clothes when she returned to Moselle on 6/8/21.

AM again contradicting testimony from a previous state witness.

AM says SLED never asked him for those clothes, the ones he had on earlier. “My clothes were never an issue in this case until y’all figured out, as my lawyers, figured out that there was no blood spatter on me.”

AM describes the state’s previous theory - that he had blood spatter on his clothes - as “a lie.”

AM: “Once they (his lawyers) found the documents and they proved that that was a lie, all of a sudden the clothes that I was wearing (earlier) that day became an issue.”

AM testifies he was staying all over the place - with relatives and in a law partner’s guest house - in the days after the slayings. Everywhere but Moselle. He had clothes in different spots.

Griffin is trying to establish that the fact AM’s shirt from that day hasn’t been recovered doesn’t mean AM necessarily disposed of it.

We break for lunch until 2:40 p.m.

Whew.

We are back after lunch. Griffin continues to question his client, Alex Murdaugh.

Griffin brings up Jeanne Seckinger’s 6/7/21 confrontation of AM about missing $792,000 in legal fees from the Mack Trucks case AM worked with Chris Wilson.

G: “Did (the money) come to you directly?”
AM: “Yes.”
G: “Should it have come to you directly?”
AM: “No.”

AM: “The conversation got interrupted very quickly. I told Jeanne that the funds were in Chris Wilson’s account, and there was nothing to worry about.”

Griffin: What was your level of concern about the inquiry?

AM: “There was some level of concern because she was asking me about money that I took that I wasn’t supposed to have. … It wasn’t a very big concern.”

Griffin asks whether Wilson was going to turn over financial documents to PMPED that could expose him.

AM: No. Not anytime soon. He and Wilson were close. “It wasn’t anything that was a big deal.” No sense of urgency on 6/7/21 about Seckinger’s inquiry.

Griffin: “On June 7, did you believe that your financial house of cards was about to crumble?”

AM: “On June 7? Absolutely not.”

Griffin: Did Maggie’s death make it more difficult to obtain financing immediately after the murders? On June 7, 8?
AM: Yes. Because the entire Moselle property was 100% in Maggie’s name. The Edisto property was 50% in her name.

Griffin is trying to discredit the state’s alleged motive for the slayings, showing that Maggie’s death hindered AM more than it could have helped him.

Murdaugh said he was not concerned about the 6/10/21 motions hearing in which Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley was seeing Murdaugh’s financial records.

Griffin: “Were you concerned that your financial house was going to be opened up to the world at that hearing?”

Murdaugh: No. I’ve been a plaintiff’s lawyer for my whole career. I do the exact same thing as Mark Tinsley. In my 27 years of practicing, plaintiffs are always ...

... trying to get financial documents from defendants. In my 27 years, I’ve never been able to get a judge to order anything more than a net worth statement prior to trial.

Griffin: “Alex, the jury has heard testimony about you stealing client funds. Did you do that?”

AM: “I did.”

Griffin: “How did you get in such a financial predicament that led you to steal money that wasn’t yours.”

AM: “I’m not quite sure how I let myself get where I got. I battled that addiction for so many years. I was spending so much money on pills.”

AM says he first became addicted to painkillers in the early 2000s after a knee surgery for a lingering issue that began when he was injured while playing football. “It just escalates and escalates.”

He has been to a detox facility three times. First in December 2017. He said he had tried to detox before at home. Didn’t work. “Maggie would help me.”

“Opiate withdrawal is, whew, it’s hard,” Murdaugh said. Initially, “you’re sick. You throw up. You have terrible diarrhea. You sweat like you’re running a marathon. You can’t hold your legs still.”

AM says he would relapse soon after detoxing. He never entered rehab to learn how to stay off drugs for good. He has now been opioid-free for 135 days. “I’m very proud of that.”

AM says he confessed to stealing money and told his law partners about his opioid addiction in September, when they confronted him with evidence he had stolen from clients and his law partners.

“I’m certain that they were not aware” of my opioid addiction, AM says.

AM essentially describes himself as a high-functioning addict.

535 days without drugs, by the way. Not 135. I mistyped.

AM on Curtis Smith and the September 2021 roadside shooting.

“I meant for him to shoot me so I’d be gone.”

Griffin: “Why did you want to be gone?”
AM: “I knew all of this was coming to a head. I knew how humiliating it as going to be for my son.”

AM testifies he had an $8 million policy and a $4 million policy for himself. He says he never had any life insurance on Maggie or Paul.

AM on Maggie: “Y’all saw a picture. She was just as beautiful inside as she was outside. She was so adventurous. You couldn’t tell her something was good or bad. She wanted to find out for herself. She wanted to do it, see it, experience it on her own.”

“She was devoted.”

“She never took not working for granted. She might not have worked, but I promise you she worked.” She made sure me and Paul and Buster had everything.

AM testifies about how difficult both of Maggie’s pregnancies were. She was sick all the time. She initially wanted a big family but they had to stop after Paul.

“I just think how hard it was on her just made her love those boys so much more.”

AM: Maggie looked at home in a ball gown at the governor’s mansion and while working at a food bank in Hampton. “She was just a special person.”

Griffin: Would you ever do anything to harm Maggie?
AM: “I would never hurt Maggie, ever.”

AM on Paul: “He was 100 percent country boy. He was tough. He could hunt anything. He could catch any fish. He could run any piece of equipment. He could use any tool. He could do anything. At 22 years old, he could do so many things.”

AM on Paul: AM: “On the other hand, he had a side to him that was just so sweet.” He would go out of his way to check on his grandparents. He would get all of his buddies to go on a boat and go watch a sunset.

AM: “He was fiercely, fiercely loyal. He was so misrepresented in the media.”

He challenges anybody listening to find somebody who really knew Paul and doesn’t have an ulterior motive to say something negative about Paul.

Griffin asked AM a couple of open-ended questions and let him go for a while about Maggie and Paul.

Griffin: “Did you love Paul?”
AM: “Did I love him? Like no other. He and Buster.”

Griffin: “Did you love Maggie?”
AM: “More than anything. I loved Maggie from the first time we went out.”

Griffin: “Did you kill Maggie?”
“I would never hurt Maggie. And I would never hurt Paul. Ever. Under any circumstances.”

Griffin ends his questioning of AM.

We are on a 10-minute break. Then the state will begin cross-examining AM. Buckle up.

Creighton Waters is the prosecutor expected to cross-examine Murdaugh. Our profile of him a few months back: postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters rises.

“Mr. Murdaugh, let’s start with a few things I think we can agree on.”

The most important thing you are hear to explain is your lie for a year and a half that you were never down by the kennels that night.

AM: “I think all of my testimony is important, Mr. Waters.”

Waters: You agree that you were stealing from your clients, and your law firm.

AM: Yes.

Waters leaning forward at the lectern. He seems to be enjoying this. Let’s talk about your family’s legacy.

AM: “We can talk about anything you want to.”

Waters asks AM if he knew his grandfather, Buster Murdaugh Jr., who was solicitor for 46 years.

AM: “I knew him well and loved him dearly.”

Waters: “Idolized him, did you not?”

AM: I did.

Waters reveals that he worked on a case with AM’s dad in the past.

AM: “He was a fine, fine man and an excellent lawyer.”

They seem to agree.

Waters: “You started first with Moss & Kuhn, and then you went to the law firm that started in 1910 but doesn’t exist anymore because of your activities, is that correct?”

AM: “That’s correct.”

Woof.

Waters is establishing that AM was a successful and experienced lawyer who won cases and was elected leader of the S.C. trial lawyers’ association.

Waters seems to be telegraphing to the jury that AM knows how to appeal to them because he has been doing it his entire career.

Waters establishes that AM worked a lot of car crash cases and is experienced in investigating the facts of them, including by pulling OnStar and black box data from the vehicles involved.

Waters also establishes that AM has pulled cell phone records, cell tower records, and other types of digital forensic evidence for his cases.

Waters is trying to get AM to say he was a successful lawyer. AM isn’t cooperating, saying we’ve talked a lot about his flaws and he doesn’t feel like he was successful as a lawyer, even if that’s what it looked like from the outside. Since he was, you know, stealing from clients

Waters: Did you ever have functions where the law enforcement community was invited?

AM: The law firm didn’t sponsor things like that. But there would be occasions where one of us would do that. We had a lot of friends in law enforcement, and they were always invited.

AM testifies he became a volunteer assistant solicitor when he moved to Hampton from Beaufort in 1998. His father, the solicitor at the time, gave him that badge.

AM says he worked on five trials from 1998 to 2021. He said he mostly did it to spend time with his father.

Waters and AM are arguing about the data pulled from AM’s Suburban. Waters seems to be getting defensive about how AM mentioned that the state only got that data a few weeks into the trial. Which is true. I’m not sure why Waters is dwelling on this.

AM says he would keep his volunteer assistant solicitor badge in the console, in the front seat or in the dash of his car.

Waters is trying to get him to say that he displayed it proudly in the dash.

AM: If I get pulled over, I might have it in the cupholder so the officer could see it when he walked up.

Waters: Why?

AM: “Because I found that law enforcement oftentimes is friendlier when you’re in law enforcement.”

Waters: You think you’re in law enforcement?

AM: Not really.

Waters: You were just using that to your advantage?

AM: I guess.

Waters: You used it to get better treatment if you got pulled over?
AM: I’d say that’s true.

On the radar of terrible things AM has admitted to doing, I’m not sure this makes a blip. He seems perfectly fine admitting it.

We’ve spent a lot of time on AM’s two solicitor badges. One from his dad, and one from his dad’s successor, Duffie Stone.

AM says had blue lights on one of his law firm-owned vehicles. He had them installed by a guy who does that work for the local sheriff’s offices.

AM says he got permission from several local sheriffs to put blue lights on his vehicle. They include Colleton County Sheriff Andy Strickland, one of AM's friends.

Of note: Waters ran Strickland out of office with a state grand jury investigation. Small state.

Waters seems to be implying that AM is performing by calling Paul by his nickname, Paul Paul.

Waters: Did you ever call your son Paul Paul even once over the course of this investigation?

AM: I don’t know.” I called him that all the time.

Waters: Did you have your assistant solicitor badge with you on the night of the boat crash? Did you take it with you to the hospital?

AM: I don’t know.

Waters: Were you acting in an official capacity that night?

AM: No, sir.

Waters shows a photo of AM walking into the hospital on the night of the boat crash with his assistant solicitor badge visible in his pocket.
AM: I don’t remember that.
Waters: What advantage did you want?
AM: When?
Waters: Then.
AM: “I don’t even recall, Mr. Waters.”

It starting to feel like Waters is using this cross-examination as a way to gather information and testimony for his ongoing state grand jury investigations into the Murdaughs, including in the one into possible obstruction of justice of the boat crash investigation.

AM on taking his badge to the hospital: “A badge has a warming effect with other law enforcement. If I was seeking an advantage as you say,” that would be it.

Waters: Did you tell any of the kids not to cooperate with law enforcement?

AM: I never told anybody not to cooperate with law enforcement?

Waters: Did you become aware in March or April or May of 2021 that an investigation into the investigation of that night had begun, as well as your conduct?

AM: Yes. I don't know the status of that investigation, since I've been charged with everything else, and not that.

AM: I’m pretty sure I knew about the boat crash obstruction of justice investigation before 6/7/21.

Waters: This was a friend of yours, correct?
AM: Yeah, I considered Andy a friend.
Waters: Would you agree with me that in fall 2020, your friend Andy Strickland was indicted and lost his job for a financial corruption investigation?
Griffin objects. Relevance. Newman sustains.

Waters: You had a pill addiction for 20 years.
AM: That’s about right.
Waters: When did you start stealing money from clients? How long did it take before you started doing that?
AM: “I’m not sure when the first time I did it was. … I’ve been in rehab, and I’ve been in jail.”

Waters is asking about specific cases in which AM stole from clients.

AM is having some apparent memory troubles, says he doesn’t know details off the top of his head.

Waters is now going through AM’s thefts.

He starts with Natarsha Thomas, a teenager for whom AM negotiated a $2 million legal settlement after a car wreck. AM got $800,000 in legal fees for the case but then stole her money too.

AM: “I admit candidly in all of these cases that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it. I hate the fact that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed for my son. I’m embarrassed for my family. I don’t dispute it.”

AM: “Mr. Waters, just to get through this quicker-”
Waters: “You may want to get through this quicker, but we’re not.”
AM: “I misled them. I did them wrong, and I stole their money.”

AM: “You have charged me with murdering my wife and my son. I’ve sat here for all these weeks” and heard this financial stuff. I’m happy to talk with you about it. But I can’t specifically remember the specific details you’re asking me about.

Waters: The point I’m making is that it’s not just as simple as stealing the money. You had to sit down with them and lie to their faces as you stole money from them.

AM: I misled them. I did wrong. But I can’t say in every instance that I sat down with them face to face.

I have sent some texts out to try to determine the exact spelling of Paul Paul/Paul-Paul/PawPaw/Pau Pau, but so far a definitive answer remains elusive.

AM testifies he got nearly $4.1 million in legitimate legal fees from the $10.2M recovery he got for Hakeem Pinckney, who was made a quadriplegic after a terrible car crash. And yet he stole Pinckney’s actual settlement as well.

Waters: Did you live a wealthy lifestyle?
AM: Long pause. “Probably.”

Waters: Would you characterize your lifestyle as wealthy?
AM: That’s not how I would characterize it, but I’m not going to take issue with it.

OK.

Waters is establishing that AM made a lot of legitimate money and stole from his clients anyway to support his lavish lifestyle.

AM concedes that he was spending a bunch of money on pills but was generally spending too much money as well.

Waters: You made millions of dollars, and that was not enough for you.
AM: I stole money. I’ve said that repeatedly.

Waters has led AM through a highlight reel of his most egregious thefts and betrayals and the victims he left in his wake: Natarsha Thomas, Pamela Pinckney, Hakeem Pinckney, Arthur Badger, the Plyler sisters.

AM: “I don’t dispute any of this, that I took money, that I misled people-”

Waters: “I know you want the answer to be simple. We agree on that.”

AM denies he engaged in a conspiracy with former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte to steal money from their mutual clients. “I did that.” He says Laffitte didn’t help him knowingly.

AM repeatedly tries to speed this along by admitting he lied, stole, manipulated and misled. Waters isn’t going for it. He wants to go through each client.

Waters: “How many times did you practice that answer before your testimony today?”
AM: “I’ve never practiced that answer.”

Prosecutor Creighton Waters has spent the past several hours trying to establish that Alex Murdaugh was a big ol’ liar. And Murdaugh is admitting that he’s a big ol’ liar. And so Waters is trying to establish that Murdaugh was a big ol’ liar. And therefore Murdaugh is confessing-

Waters wants Murdaugh to recall a specific time Murdaugh looked into a client’s eye and lied to them as he stole their money. And Murdaugh is basically refusing to do that, saying he can’t recall specifics.

Waters: “These are real people, weren’t they?"
Murdaugh: “These are people that I still care about, and I did them this way.”

Murdaugh: There is no question that I did a lot of damage, and I wreaked a lot of havoc.

Waters: "I hear ya."

“I remember all of these people that I did wrong,” Alex Murdaugh says. “Most of the money that I’ve been accused of stealing, I stole.”

Judge Newman cuts in: We are recessing for the day. Back at 9:30 a.m.

We end the first day of Alex Murdaugh's cross-examination without a single question about the murders.

That was almost 2 straight hours of back and forth between Waters and Murdaugh.

Harpootlian asks Judge Newman if we can interrupt Murdaugh’s cross-examination to present two other witnesses in the meantime who are already in town. Judge Newman refuses, but he does ask the state how much longer this is going to go on.

Waters says three or four hours.

“I could have sworn this was a murder case,” Harpootlian says.

Court recesses. Writing now.

FYI

https://twitter.com/averygwilks/status/1628908392629534723

Here's our story from the day

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1628918701461323778

I'm going on @11thHour tonight to talk Murdaugh. Will provide more details as I learn them.

Looks like it’ll be close to 11 pm