Thread by @AveryGWilks

🚨🚨🚨Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 25 (Feb. 27) Megathread begins now 🚨🚨🚨

The defense is expected to rest its case today, at the start of the trial's sixth week, after calling a few more witnesses.

#AlexMurdaugh #AlexMurdaughTrial #MurdaughTrial #Murdaugh

For those catching up, here’s the Megathread from Friday

https://twitter.com/averygwilks/status/1629098458148732931

Our full story on Alex Murdaugh's brutal cross-examination Friday. We also broke the news that AM has been charged with a misdemeanor related to contraband

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1629300557092466690?s=20

Our Understand Murdaugh podcast episode from Friday

open.spotify.com/episode/3GIJne…

Our Murdaugh news landing page, a good place to catch up on the story and find our latest work postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Our Sunday front page Murdaugh deep dive:

Alex Murdaugh just told the jury his distrust of police fueled his decision to lie about his alibi on 6/7/21.

We dove into his cozy, longstanding relationship with law enforcement before the slayings

postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Some photos from lead prosecutor Creighton Waters' cross-examination of Alex Murdaugh on Friday. Via pool photographers @GraceBeahm and @JAABPhoto

@GraceBeahm @JAABPhoto More photos from AM's cross-examination

It seems court is running a few minutes behind today

And we're back.

Judge Clifton Newman reminds the audience not to vocally react to anything they hear while court is in session. No laughing, cheering or jeering.

Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian says the defense will call three witnesses today before resting its case.

Harpootlian says he has one caveat: “We believes it would be useful for the jury to see Moselle.”

Harpootlian asks Judge Newman to ask the jury if they want to see it.

Waters: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of asking a jury if they want to do something.

Waters has an additional qualm: Moselle has changed considerably since the 6/7/21 slayings. A group of trees has grown up between the kennels and the house, for example.

Harpootlian says that's not a big deal. The defense has already conceded that trees have grown up there.

Harpootlian: “There were literally dozens of people at Moselle last weekend trespassing, taking selfies in front of the feed room.”

Judge Newman says he won’t put the matter up to the jury for a vote, but he will arrange for a jury field trip to Moselle if the defense wants them to go.

Harpootlian: “I do.” But he wants security to secure the property first so jurors don’t see trespassers and vice versa.

So the jury will go to Moselle at some point.

The defense calls its 12th witness, Dr. Jonathan Eisenstat, a pathologist and the former chief medical examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

linkedin.com/in/jonathan-ei…

Our live feed and live stream of today's proceedings. Jurors are going to Moselle at some point postandcourier.com/murdaugh-updat…

Eisenstat testifies he has been qualified as an expert on gunshot wounds in 20-25 states. He has testified in 75-100 cases, he says.

Eisenstat testifies he has been paid $3,000 by the defense already to review this case and will get another $5,500 for testifying today.

Eisenstat testifies about estimating time of death upon arriving at a crime scene. Two thermometer readings: one in the rectum of the deceased and one reading of the environment (ambient temperature). You’d also look at the rigidity of the deceased’s body.

Harpootlian: “Tell me what you would learn by sticking your hand under the armpit of the deceased.”

Eisenstat: “You wouldn’t learn anything.”

Tough look for Colleton County’s elected coroner, Richard Harvey.

To a large degree, though, that testimony from Eisenstat is countering a point that the state isn’t making. The state didn’t even call Harvey or any medical expert to testify about Maggie and Paul’s times of death. The state is using cell phone records to try to establish that.

The defense called Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey, seemingly in an effort to mock/discredit in general the work of first responders and law enforcement officials that evening.

It does sound like the defense wants Eisenstat to counter some of MUSC pathologist Dr. Ellen Riemer’s findings about how Maggie and Paul were shot.

Eisenstat is now up on his feet, reviewing a diagram of Maggie’s wounds, inflicted by a .300 Blackout semiautomatic rifle.

Our daily TikTok previewing this week and recapping Alex Murdaugh's dramatic two-day testimony tiktok.com/@postandcourie…

Eisenstat agrees with Riemer on a number of things. But he disagrees on the direction of one of the shots. What Riemer described as the first fatal wound to Maggie - shot from behind - Eisenstat believes was shot from the complete opposite direction.

Instead of the bullet entering Maggie’s chest at an upward trajectory and going up into her brain, Eisenstat says the bullet went downward. The shooter would have been facing her front.

Eisenstat: “The explanation that I think is probably most reasonable is that she’s learning forward, most likely from pain from the abdominal wound.”

The shooter fired into her head as she leaned forward toward the shooter, according to Eisenstat.

Eisenstat is basic this opinion about the bullet's directionality on Maggie's wounds, and particularly on the shape and features of skin tears on them.

Eisenstat says he agrees with Dr. Riemer on four of Maggie’s wounds and disagrees with her on one. Now we’re moving on to Paul.

Eisenstat on Paul’s chest wound. Shot from about 3 feet. A shotgun wound across the chest. Doesn’t enter the chest cavity. Leaves the armpit. Some of the pellets go through the arm. He agrees with Riemer on range and directionality.

Eisenstat disagrees with Dr. Riemer on how Paul was shot in the head. Riemer said Paul was shot at a dramatic upward trajectory, with pellets grazing his left shoulder before entering his neck and blowing out his brain.

Eisenstat believes the shotgun blast came from the opposite direction. He says Paul was shot in the back of the head, which caused his head to explode. Pellets then traveled through Paul’s neck and into his shoulder.

Eisenstat seems confident Paul was shot at close range in the back of the head. He says Dr. Riemer could have proven that if she had shaved what remained of Paul’s head to look for stippling or soot, indicating a short-range entry wound.

Riemer earlier testified she didn’t do that because the trajector of the blast was obvious to her.

The defense has yet to tell us why this matters, I should say.

Eisenstat emphasizes the point: He says this is a "textbook" case of a contact shotgun wound to the skull, not an exit wound as Riemer described.

When brains are blasted out of a skull by a shotgun, it's from an entrance wound, not an exit wound, he says.

Eisenstat on Paul’s position for the fatal gunshot wound: “He is most likely bent over.” Can’t say how far bent over he is. But the shot came from Paul’s right to the top/back of his head, Eisenstat says. Not from an upward trajectory from Paul’s left.

I'm not sure how that helps AM.

We're on a short break. The mayor of Walterboro, whom many mistook for John Grisham last week, just strolled through the media center.

We are back after a short break, with Eisenstat still on the stand.

The defense is done questioning Eisenstat.

Prosecutor Savanna Goude is now cross-examining him. She notes he was actually here Friday, meaning he is getting paid $5,500 for that too. That means he will make more than $10,000 just for appearing in court two days.

Goude asks Eisenstat: If Paul’s head wound was an entry wound, and shotgun pellets expand, why would the exit wound through Paul’s neck be so small?

E: Pellets would have only traveled about a foot before exiting through Paul’s neck, so they would still be close together.

Goude asks how blood spatter got onto the feed room ceiling and the top of the door and wall if Paul was shot directly in the head from a downward angle.

Eisenstat says the pressure and force of the shotgun blast essentially cased Paul’s head to explode, ejecting matter upward.

That is all for Eisenstat.

The defense's 13th witness is Tim Palmbach, a crime scene analyst from Connecticut.

Palmbach says he is an expert in blood spatter analysis. Oh boy.

Palmbach was involved in the 2001 case that was featured in HBO's "The Staircase"

esquire.com/entertainment/…

Palmbach: The fatal shot to Paul was obviously consistent with a contact wound, but it was written up as an exit wound. So I told Murdaugh’s attorneys “this doesn’t look right.”

Griffin: How close would the shooter have been in relation to the shot on Paul’s head?

Palmbach: This is a contact would. The shotgun barrel would have been in contact with Paul’s head.

Palmbach says the blast would have sprayed “a lot” of biological material onto the shooter at that close range. It would have covered their face/head/upper body and gotten into the shooter’s hair.

Palmbach: I don’t think it is at all possible that the second, fatal shotgun blast hit Paul from the angle Dr. Riemer and Kenneth Kinsey described in earlier testimony.

The jury is seeing a lot of graphic crime scene and autopsy images today.

Palmbach: There was blood spatter on the floor of the feed room, and that was from the exit wound under Paul’s chin/neck.

Both of the defense’s witnesses today believe Paul was shot directly in the back of the head during the second shotgun blast.

Palmbach says the shotgun blast that killed Paul had enough force to blast his blood, brains and bits of skull upward and toward the top of the feed room.

If I had to guess, I'd bet the defense is stressing this contact-wound theory because under that narrative, the shooter would have been covered in blood/brains, and AM was mostly clean when investigators arrived on scene that evening.

Palmbach on Maggie’s wounds: Maggie was facing the shooter during each of the shots. “She is moving, for sure. There is some degree of movement” from where the shooting most likely began. The shooter also moved toward Maggie, Palmbach testifies.

We just published an Understand Murdaugh mailbag episode tackling some of the best questions we've received about the case in recent weeks

open.spotify.com/episode/4UGqjw…

Griffin asks Palmbach if he thinks the carnage inflicted at Moselle was committed by one shooter or two.

Palmbach: “My opinion is the totally of the evidence is more suggestive of a two-shooter scenario.”

Palmbach: “With Paul, I believe he was shot first. I believe he had no idea it was coming. He took the shot to the chest and very soon after, the one to the back of his head.”

Palmbach says one reason for the two-shooter theory is that the person who shot Paul would have been hit with a high-degree of force by pellet fragments, bone fragments and biological material. The shooter would have likely been stunned, “kind of out of it” for a short period.

Palmbach: They couldn’t have instantaneously suffered that, dropped the shotgun, picked up a rifle and “engaged in a meaningful assault.”

Palmbach also testifies it would have been impractical for the same shooter to carry two long guns.

Palmbach testifies the person who shot Paul would have had at least one foot in the feed room. He testifies there was an opportunity for investigators to collect footprints.

Palmbach is helping the defense score points on their “investigators were inept” angle. He says investigators should have sprayed specific chemicals in the feed room to identify possible footsteps left behind by Paul’s killer. “Absolutely should have been done in this case.”

Prosecutor Savanna Goude starts her cross-examination with a sudden, playful dig.

“Is it ‘doctor’ Palmbach?”
“No.”

Goude: Wouldn’t Paul’s whole head be blown off if this was a contact wound?
Palmbach: His head was basically blown off.

G: But wouldn’t his brain have been destroyed?
P: “There were pieces of his brain throughout the room, including on the ground.”

Palmbach is done and we are breaking for lunch until 2:45 p.m.

I would expect a Murdaugh relative, probably his brother John Marvin, to testify when we return.

While we wait, here’s my dog, Scoop

We're back after lunch.

Photos from the first half of today, via pool photographers @GraceBeahm and Jeff Blake

@GraceBeahm

The defense's 14th witness is John Marvin Murdaugh, Alex's younger brother. He could be the defense's final witness.

Here we go

Defense attorney Jim Griffin: Are you the only son of the three that didn’t go to law school?

JMM: “I am, and I’m quite proud of it.”

Laughter in the courtroom.

JMM: “We’re just a normal family, doing normal family things.”

G: Was it routine for your brothers who lived in Hampton to stop by and check on your parents?

JMM: “Oh, absolutely.” Because they were close by. AM visited their parents a lot.

JMM chokes up talking about Paul: "Excuse me, I'm going to have a hard time talking about Paul."

He says they were close. Paul went by a few nicknames: "Paul Paul," "Paul Terry," "Little Rooster."

The family called him Paul Paul

JMM on AM’s relationships with his sons: “It was a great relationship. Anything that the boys were doing, Alex wanted to do. The boys always came first to him.”

JMM on AM and Maggie: “It was a great relationship. All marriages, I’m sure, have hiccups here and there, but I’m telling you it was a good marriage. In coming here, I was trying to think of ways to describe it.”

JMM says he went on a double-date to a Darius Rucker concert once. AM & Maggie sat just below them.

“Alex and Maggie are holding hands and swaying together. My wife tapped me and said, ‘Why aren’t you holding my hand?’”

They would host big tailgates before USC football games.

JMM says Paul was notorious for leaving stuff everywhere, including guns. He remembers a time Paul came duck hunting with him at his property. They had a great time. But JMM returned a couple of weeks later, and Paul’s hunting gear was still at the spot where they had hunted.

“I had to smile when I saw it. That’s Paul," JMM said.

Both AM and JMM become red-faced and emotional as JMM describes finding out their father was about to die.

JMM testified that AM called him after 9 p.m. on the evening of the slayings.

It was a normal conversation. AM asked about JMM and their father’s health. “It was a brief conversation.” JMM said he asked if they could talk later because he was watching a movie w/ his wife

Then, after 10 p.m., JMM says: “Alex called me and, just, absolutely hysterical. As soon as I heard his voice, I knew something bad was going on. I didn’t know what.”

“I think he said ‘Maggie and Paul have been hurt really badly, please get here as fast as you can.’”

JMM: I got dressed, ran outside, and realized I don’t have a car. I had Paul’s farm truck. “It was a hunk of junk.”

JMM tried to drive it to Moselle, and the truck broke down. He was picked up by Yemassee police chief Greg Alexander, who took him the rest of the way to Moselle.

JMM on arriving at Moselle on 6/7/21: “You could see the lights flashing. There were tons of people.” Mostly first responders.

JMM: We pulled up, and I saw Alex. Before Greg even parked the car, I jumped out and ran to him.

“He was just broken, distraught. Everybody was. … All we did was hug and cried. I don’t even know that we talked.”

JMM: The last officers he saw that night were the ones who said they needed to leave the crime scene. “They were going to be doing stuff with the bodies, and we needed to go to the house.”

There were people already at the main house when JMM arrived, including AM’s law partners.

JMM: Thinks Alex had showered and changed by the time they got to Almeda that night to stay at their parents’ house.

JMM testifies he got little sleep the night of 6/7/21.

JMM testifies he was the first to arrive back at Moselle on the morning of 6/8/21. “I knew others were coming, so I just kind of sat there, just in disbelief still.”

JMM testifies he went down to the kennels on 6/8/21. There was a lot of activity up at the Moselle main house.

“I just felt like I needed to go down, I needed to see for myself what had gone on and just kind of take it in.”

JMM says he first reached out to a friend in law enforcement to make sure it was OK.

SLED had released the scene.

"It was not cleaned up."

JMM says he could see where Maggie's body had been.

The feed room was still covered in blood, brains, pieces of Paul's skull.

JMM on cleaning the feed room on 6/8/21: “I felt like it was the right thing to do. I felt like I owed him. And I just started cleaning.”

“No mother, father, aunt or uncle should ever have to see and do what I did that day. I’m not blaming anybody. But I was just overwhelmed.”

JMM on cleaning up the feed room: “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

JMM testifies about learning that Maggie’s iPhone had not bee recovered. He used Find My iPhone on Buster’s phone to find out where the phone was. It showed it was out in front of the Moselle property. So he went and told law enforcement.

JMM said he brought Buster’s phone to SLED and showed them they could find Maggie’s phone. The agent said no worries, they were about to get a technology on scene that could be used to find it. JMM was perplexed about why they didn’t want to try to find the phone before it died.

JMM: I then walked over to 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone, and they decided to go get the phone before it died. I accompanied them as they drove down to it. They found it, marked it, and called in SLED to come pick it up.

JMM: I didn’t know the password. I called Alex, and he gave me the password. I repeated it to the agent. He put the password in, and it was opened.

Griffin repeats over and over that Alex was the one who gave him the password to Maggie’s phone.

Griffin asks about the “no danger to the public” news release.

JMM: “It’s quite baffling. It still is. Two people have been killed, and you’re telling me that everybody’s safe. That tells me that whoever’s done this is in jail, and they are 100 percent positive."

JMM went back up to Moselle. SLED said they needed to come into the house and search for things.

JMM says he escorted agent Katie McCallister throughout the house. She said there were so many people in the house, she said she didn’t want to go barging in.

JMM: McCallister said she would take her badge and gun off. She wanted to be walked through each room. She was looking for 12-gauge shotguns and ammo and .300 Blackout rifles and ammo.

"I took her through every room."

Griffin establishes JMM was a liaison between the family and SLED, making sure they had everything they needed.

G: Did anyone ask if they could search Almeda?
JMM: “No one asked anything.” I would have given them consent and would have helped with the search.

Griffin now pivots to the supposed “I did him so bad” confession.

G: Do you know your brother’s voice?
JMM: “I know his voice very well.”

G: What does he say on that tape?
JMM: “Crystal clear, ‘they did him so bad.’”

G: Had you heard that before?
JMM: “I think I heard him say it the night of or the day after, but I’ve also heard him say it many times after.”

JMM testifies he was with AM a lot after the 6/7/21 slayings.

G: How was he doing?
JMM: “You can use any word you want to use to describe, but I can promise you words don’t do it justice. I would have to create a new word to describe how distraught he was. Just terrible.”

JMM testifies visitors to their parents’ house at Almeda often park in the back, where AM parked on the night of 6/7/21. He says he parked there yesterday when he went to visit his mother for her birthday.

JMM testifies about taking his brother to a detox center in Atlanta after his roadside shooting. AM was withdrawing from opioids. “I’d never seen anything like it. I’ve seen television shows talking about the leg twitching and the squirminess."

JMM: "You could just tell, he was sweating. He was thrashing about.”

"He messed himself. He had diarrhea. He just couldn't control it. I'm not talking about in the restroom. I mean, in his pants."

JMM: SLED agent David Owen came up to me in September and said he found a coat “back on the property at Almeda.” He wouldn’t say exactly where he found it. He wouldn’t show it to us either.

JMM said it might be his father's. He rides around the property.

JMM: SLED later asked Randy, Lynn and I to go see the coat. They said it had been taken from an upstairs bedroom. They never explained why they told us it was from somewhere else on the property initially.

JMM: I had never seen that coat before. It was recovered from an upstairs bedroom that was essentially a storage room for "junk." His father couldn't even climb the stairs anymore.

JMM testifies his father used the same shotgun, named Bo-Whoop his whole life. He got it as a high school graduation present in 1957.

Griffin asks if JMM ever saw his father clean Bo-Whoop, which would wipe off GSR.

JMM: “I’m sure it got cleaned somewhere around the way, but I’ve never seen him clean it. I don’t know how the thing still works.”

JMM testifies SLED would give him periodic updates on the investigation.

Griffin asks if SLED ever gave him information that turned out to be false.

JMM says yes. He starts to talk about blood spatter, but the prosecution objects. The jury is excused.

We're now hearing JMM's testimony without the jury.

JMM: I had been called to SLED’s office in Walterboro to view the blue coat and listen to audio. After my interview, Capt. Ryan Neil described the white T-shirt as covered in blood.

JMM: SLED said Alex took the bottom of the shirt and wiped his face with it. “That’s how they knew he was involved. That’s how they knew he was there.”

Prosecutor John Conrad objected on two grounds: hearsay and relevance. Griffin argued the statements in question are from the investigative agency in this case.

Conrad said the state hasn't introduced blood spatter, but the defense is trying to "backdoor" it into the case.

Judge Newman sides with the defense, overruling the objection

JMM on what he did as he was cleaning Paul’s blood and brains off the feed room floor on 6/8/21: “In my mind, I told Paul I loved him. I promised him that I’d find out who did this to him.”

Griffin: You told him you’d find out who killed him?
JMM: “Yes.”
Griffin: Have you found out?
JMM: “I have not.”

Griffin steps down. Prosecutor John Conrad takes over for cross-examination.

Conrad asks if the Murdaughs cooperated with the investigation. JMM says they did.

Conrad asks JMM when he first learned that his brother was down at the kennels with Maggie and Paul shortly before they died.

JMM and Conrad agree that SLED first played the kennel video for JMM on 8/12/22.

Conrad: Wouldn’t you agree that your brother was not cooperating with the investigation, then?
JMM: “Yes, he lied.”

Conrad: “Were you aware that your brother, Alex had loaned (Yemassee Police) Chief Alexander money over the past several years?”

JMM: “I was not.”

And then we move on.

Conrad: “Would you say that the Murdaugh name and legacy is something that’s important to you and your brothers?”

JMM: “Yes, I think any family’s legacy and name is important to them.”

The defense rests its case after presenting 14 witnesses over the course of a week.

Judge Newman denies the defense’s second motion for a directed verdict.

The state says it has 4-5 witnesses in its reply case. Friday, Waters said it had 1-2.

Waters says he can get it all done tomorrow.

Harpootlian doesn't buy it.

Judge Newman says the jury's field trip to Moselle can take place after the state's reply case.

Court is done for the day. Back tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

Writing now.

We will not be allowed to cover the jury’s field trip to Moselle.

Our full story from today's testimony.

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/1630359908477464578

I'm hopping on @11thHour on @MSNBC around 11:40 p.m. tonight to talk Murdaugh.

I'll also join @NewsNation bright and early tomorrow around 7 a.m.

That ends the Alex Murdaugh Double Murder Trial Day 25 Megathread.

Come back tomorrow for more Megathread. Same time, same place.