![]() Smalls, who until recently was sheriff of Hampton County, testified Tuesday that he had never had a discussion with Murdaugh about installing blue police lights in Murdaugh’s personal vehicle. The expert said it was unlikely that the same shooter would have been able to recover and kill Maggie in such a short amount of time. ![]() A defense crime scene expert argued Monday a shotgun contact wound to the head causes the skull to violently explode, which would have temporarily stunned or even injured the shooter. ![]() The method of death is relevant to the defense’s two-shooter theory. How the prosecution of Alex Murdaugh has tried to overcome a lack of direct evidence (Grace Beahm Alford/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool) Grace Beahm Alford/The Post And Courier via AP He is separately facing 99 charges related to alleged financial crimes that will be adjudicated later.Īlex Murdaugh listens to testimony during his double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., Monday, Feb. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the killings. “If I was under the pressure that they’re talking about here, I can promise you I would hurt myself before I would hurt one of them, without a doubt,” Murdaugh said on the stand Friday. Murdaugh indeed confessed to a decade of defrauding his legal partners and clients – yet denied killing his family. Prosecutors have argued he killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and distract from financial misconduct allegations that the state says were about to come to light before the fatal shootings. “I don’t think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I’m so sorry that I did,” Murdaugh said. He blamed his lies on “paranoid thinking” stemming from his addiction to painkillers. Under oath, he admitted he had lied to police about his whereabouts on the night of the murders and that he had in fact been at the dog kennels, near where his wife and son were found dead, shortly before the killings. The most important witness was Murdaugh himself. The prosecution rested its case two weeks ago after calling 61 witnesses, and the defense rested its case Monday following testimony from 14 witnesses. The rebuttal comes more than a month into the murder trial of Murdaugh, the 54-year-old disbarred personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as the local prosecutor consecutively from 1920 to 2006. On Wednesday morning, the jury will visit Murdaugh’s sprawling property in Islandton known as Moselle, where the bodies of Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh were found on June 7, 2021.Īlex Murdaugh appears in court on Tuesday, February 28. ![]() Other rebuttal witnesses included two attorneys who worked with Murdaugh, a local sheriff and the pathologist who conducted the autopsies. Kinsey also criticized another defense expert’s theory that there were two shooters, saying the analysis that led to that determination was “preposterous.” He was questioned by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, his first time questioning a witness in the case. (Alex Murdaugh is 6-foot-4.) Kinsey said there were too many variables to determine the shooter’s height with any certainty, calling the analysis “unscientific.” Kenneth Kinsey, a crime scene forensics expert, was the final rebuttal witness and criticized the methodology of a defense expert who said the shooter had to have been between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-4 in height. State prosecutors rested their rebuttal case Tuesday after calling six witnesses to contradict parts of Alex Murdaugh’s defense as the disgraced attorney’s double murder trial neared its end.
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