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The media reports that this video was made four minutes before the murders. What I don't understand is how this was determined?

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It wasn't determined when the murders happened. State's theory was that lack of cell phone activity means they were dead.

Of course Alex's phone showed no activity for an hour that night but he wasn't dead.

Because that is when they both stopped using their phones, therefore they must be dead. I think there is much more time, but I didn't stick my fingers in a corpse's armpit to establish a good time of death.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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Because that is when they both stopped using their phones, therefore they must be dead. I think there is much more time, but I didn't stick my fingers in a corpse's armpit to establish a good time of death.

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Nor use either a rectal thermometer or liver punch to get an accurate body temperature. The Coroner is an ancient guy who has been the Coroner forever.

Did the family use vehicles to move between the main house and the kennels/hangar? Wondered about this in regards to how the timeline played out.

And I'll offer a blanket apology to all here if these issues have been brought up prior. My obsession with this whole disaster is recent and strong. Ha.

PanzerAggie06 said:

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Did the family use vehicles to move between the main house and the kennels/hangar? Wondered about this in regards to how the timeline played out.

And I'll offer a blanket apology to all here if these issues have been brought up prior. My obsession with this whole disaster is recent and strong. Ha.

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Paul usually drove his truck or an UTV. Alex used the gold cart. Maggie would sometimes ride a bike or walk if she wasn't riding with someone else.

Alex used the golf cart that evening. But no one ever processed the golf cart for blood or DNA.

Vehicles, golf cart, ATVs, bikes. Sometimes walked.

I'm still focused on the golf cart. Ranch carts are filthy messes but Alex cleaned himself up nicely so as not to impact the dirty old cart.

Here's the problem:

Starting point is: Alex Murdaugh is presumed innocent

Evidence we have:

A video of him at 8:45pm with two alive people.
He lied about his whereabouts at that time
Cell phone usage stopped 4+ minutes after video where everyone was alive
About ten minutes later, AM's phone is being used 1200-1500' away.
Sometime between the last proof of life at 845 and ~90 minutes later, the two people are killed
The son was shot with two different types of shotgun shells
The mom was shot with 300BLK

Evidence we never received:
Any evidence to narrow down the time of death
The guns used
DNA evidence connecting AM to crime scene
DNA evidence connecting victims to AM
GSR indicating that AM fired the guns
Motive for AM to kill his wife and son

With a presumption of innocence, do we have enough evidence to find that he killed them beyond a reasonable doubt? I don't think so.

"the murders were committed with guns of the type the family owned which were not found is probably enough to convict on."

The murders happened with a shotgun and an AR. In low country SC, I bet you'll find a shotgun and an AR in just about every hunters arsenal. They weren't exactly rare weapons.

What absolutely is rare is a single person using multiple long guns to kill two people a one scene

Guitarsoup said:

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"the murders were committed with guns of the type the family owned which were not found is probably enough to convict on."

The murders happened with a shotgun and an AR. In low country SC, I bet you'll find a shotgun and an AR in just about every hunters arsenal. They weren't exactly rare weapons.

What absolutely is rare is a single person using multiple long guns to kill two people a one scene

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Don't forget SLED failed to collect bullets from the dirt berm at the firing range to compare to the bullets recovered from Maggie's body, the quail pen or the doghouse.

Guitarsoup said:

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Here's the problem:

Starting point is: Alex Murdaugh is presumed innocent

Evidence we have:

A video of him at 8:45pm with two alive people.
He lied about his whereabouts at that time
Cell phone usage stopped 4+ minutes after video where everyone was alive
About ten minutes later, AM's phone is being used 1200-1500' away.
Sometime between the last proof of life at 845 and ~90 minutes later, the two people are killed
The son was shot with two different types of shotgun shells
The mom was shot with 300BLK

Evidence we never received:
Any evidence to narrow down the time of death
The guns used
DNA evidence connecting AM to crime scene
DNA evidence connecting victims to AM
GSR indicating that AM fired the guns
Motive for AM to kill his wife and son

With a presumption of innocence, do we have enough evidence to find that he killed them beyond a reasonable doubt? I don't think so.

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Did the prosecution ever state where the weapons are believed to have been?

Were they already in the kennel? Were they in a nearby vehicle? Etc.

And did the prosecution contend that AM went to the kennels that.night with the plan to kill MM and PM or did the prosecution state it was an act of passion that came out of some unknown event at the kennel?

Quote:

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Did the prosecution ever state where the weapons are believed to have been?

Were they already in the kennel? Were they in a nearby vehicle? Etc.

And did the prosecution contend that AM went to the kennels that.night with the plan to kill MM and PM or did the prosecution state it was an act of passion that came out of some unknown event at the kennel?

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State had no theory on where the guns were already present or not.

He was charged with premeditated murder in the first degree. He planned it was their contention. No heat of passion.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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I don't understand why the defense didn't strike him. They had strikes to use.

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I'm still not sure they knew at the time. If they did, I agree they should have excused him.

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They did know. He said it during the initial questioning.

PanzerAggie06 said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Here's the problem:

Starting point is: Alex Murdaugh is presumed innocent

Evidence we have:

A video of him at 8:45pm with two alive people.
He lied about his whereabouts at that time
Cell phone usage stopped 4+ minutes after video where everyone was alive
About ten minutes later, AM's phone is being used 1200-1500' away.
Sometime between the last proof of life at 845 and ~90 minutes later, the two people are killed
The son was shot with two different types of shotgun shells
The mom was shot with 300BLK

Evidence we never received:
Any evidence to narrow down the time of death
The guns used
DNA evidence connecting AM to crime scene
DNA evidence connecting victims to AM
GSR indicating that AM fired the guns
Motive for AM to kill his wife and son

With a presumption of innocence, do we have enough evidence to find that he killed them beyond a reasonable doubt? I don't think so.

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Did the prosecution ever state where the weapons are believed to have been?

Were they already in the kennel? Were they in a nearby vehicle? Etc.

And did the prosecution contend that AM went to the kennels that.night with the plan to kill MM and PM or did the prosecution state it was an act of passion that came out of some unknown event at the kennel?

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None of that was explained that I saw. They did say Paul didn't really take care of guns and Maggie only ever touched guns to put them away when Paul left them laying around.

In regards to the juror who has a LEO brother that was at the scene.....

Can the defense use him being on the jury as cause for a retrial? Or, will the appeals court state, "Well, you had your chance to remove him and didn't do so, Thus, you can't state its an issue now."

PanzerAggie06 said:

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In regards to the juror who has a LEO brother that was at the scene.....

Can the defense use him being on the jury as cause for a retrial? Or, will the appeals court state, "Well, you had your chance to remove him and didn't do so, Thus, you can't state its an issue now."

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Most likely the latter.

In effective assistance of counsel to not strike him

Guitarsoup said:

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Here's the problem:

Starting point is: Alex Murdaugh is presumed innocent

Evidence we have:

A video of him at 8:45pm with two alive people.
He lied about his whereabouts at that time
Cell phone usage stopped 4+ minutes after video where everyone was alive
About ten minutes later, AM's phone is being used 1200-1500' away.
Sometime between the last proof of life at 845 and ~90 minutes later, the two people are killed
The son was shot with two different types of shotgun shells
The mom was shot with 300BLK

Evidence we never received:
Any evidence to narrow down the time of death
The guns used
DNA evidence connecting AM to crime scene
DNA evidence connecting victims to AM
GSR indicating that AM fired the guns
Motive for AM to kill his wife and son

With a presumption of innocence, do we have enough evidence to find that he killed them beyond a reasonable doubt? I don't think so.

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Nailed it

I'm surprised people are saying no motive existed… I see numerous motives

Motives for Son:

Expensive criminal defense court case coming up
Civil suits a result of wreck/death allowing was going to give access to Alex's financials



Motives for Wife:

Possible divorce, divorce proceedings lead to legal review of Alex's financials
High price assets were in wife's name


Motives to kill both:

Sympathy for impending financial cases
He's a drug addict that only cares about feeding addiction

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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I'm surprised people are saying no motive existed… I see numerous motives

Motives for Son:

Expensive criminal defense court case coming up
Civil suits a result of wreck/death allowing was going to give access to Alex's financials



Motives for Wife:

Possible divorce, divorce proceedings lead to legal review of Alex's financials
High price assets were in wife's name


Motives to kill both:

Sympathy for impending financial cases
He's a drug addict that only cares about feeding addiction

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As to the motive I've read that the prosecution told the jurors in the closing arguments (paraphrasing), "don't worry about the motive, focus on the malice". I've seen several lawyer types state that this comment might be the tool used by the defense to open the path towards an appeal.

Their argument for this is that if the prosecution believes that the motive is inconsequential then they had zero cause to introduce the mountains of "evidence" that painted AM as an absolute monster and that all his misdeeds had then driven him to desperation and thus the murders. They argue that the motive argument that allowed for all of AM's crappy behavior to be introduced as evidence was not based on creating motive rather it was crafted to simply destroy AM's reputation thus allowing for an easier conviction.

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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I'm surprised people are saying no motive existed… I see numerous motives

Motives for Son:

Expensive criminal defense court case coming up
Civil suits a result of wreck/death allowing was going to give access to Alex's financials



Motives for Wife:

Possible divorce, divorce proceedings lead to legal review of Alex's financials
High price assets were in wife's name


Motives to kill both:

Sympathy for impending financial cases
He's a drug addict that only cares about feeding addiction

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Zero evidence was adduced at trial that Maggie and Alex were having marital troubles, just the opposite.

He was a personal injury lawyer, he knows under comparative negligence laws in South Carolina, his personal exposure as owner of the boat was lower on the list with all of the bars and convenience stores that served or sold him alcohol. Particularly after Paul and Connor were already drunk and they were ordering shots.

Paul was 19, over the age of majority and a college student when the accident happened.

So what was the closer proximate cause of the accident? Alex letting Paul use the boat? Or the people that sold him the alcohol that night?

Quote:

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As to the motive I've read that the prosecution told the jurors in the closing arguments (paraphrasing), "don't worry about the motive, focus on the malice". I've seen several lawyer types state that this comment might be the tool used by the defense to open the path towards an appeal.

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Motive is not an element of first degree premeditated murder. That evidence did not address a core element of the offense charged. Under 404, that evidence sought to be admitted, must be more probative than prejudicial to the defenant and be probative on a material issue to the offense.

Judge made a half-hearted attempt at a limiting instruction to the jury once or twice during the days and days of the financial crimes testimony. The limiting instruction is to be administered nearly every time the state called a new witness regarding prior bad acts that it may not be used by the jury as evidence of Alex's criminal propensity.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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As to the motive I've read that the prosecution told the jurors in the closing arguments (paraphrasing), "don't worry about the motive, focus on the malice". I've seen several lawyer types state that this comment might be the tool used by the defense to open the path towards an appeal.

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Motive is not an element of first degree premeditated murder. That evidence did not address a core element of the offense charged. Under 404, that evidence sought to be admitted, must be more probative than prejudicial to the defenant and be probative on a material issue to the offense.

Judge made a half-hearted attempt at a limiting instruction to the jury once or twice during the days and days of the financial crimes testimony. The limiting instruction is to be administered nearly every time the state called a new witness regarding prior bad acts that it may not be used by the jury as evidence of Alex's criminal propensity.

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Thanks for the info.......I'm starting to feel the need to pay you for your time for all the legal input/advicet. Hope your fees aren't over the top. Ha.

I'm surprised people are saying no motive existed… I see numerous motives

Quote:

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Motives for Son:

Expensive criminal defense court case coming up

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His son is an adult. He doesn't have to spend a dime.

Quote:

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Civil suits a result of wreck/death allowing was going to give access to Alex's financials

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He didn't cause the boat wreck and he had insurance.

Quote:

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Motives for Wife:

Possible divorce, divorce proceedings lead to legal review of Alex's financials

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Zero evidence of divorce or bad marriage presented in trial.

Quote:

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High price assets were in wife's name

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Still community property no matter who's name they were in. If they were all in his name, she gets half and vice versa. After her death, he renounced all rights to her assets so they all went to Buster. Pretty sure that was before he was arrested.

Quote:

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Motives to kill both:

Sympathy for impending financial cases
He's a drug addict that only cares about feeding addiction

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Sympathy didn't get him out of facing the consequences. Murder only made it more difficult. Pretty awful motive to kill your family.

The fact that the prosecution emphasized during closing that he didn't need to present any motive is all you need to know about the motive presented at trial.

Just to be clear, motive if it exists in provable form, is a material issue but not an element. And that's what the state kept arguing that they were going to link to financial issues to the reason for the murders.

And I tell you what, had the state tailored that request to only the missing fees from the Ferris case upon which Alex was confonted by the firm's CFO that day, that likely would have satisfied any 404 objection because there could be an argument of a causal connection because it happened earlier that day.

But going back over a decade? If anything, the defense could have argued Alex had been in tight financial spots many times over the years and never killed anybody. (It would be a risky argument before this judge because he would have likely viewed it as opening the door for even more financial stuff to have come in.)

All in all, the biggest shocker was the lack of an exclusionary rule being invoked. Family members and experts are allowed to be in court during other's testimony but not every freaking witness on the witness list. In the manner, they were easily able to coordinate their testimony. And there were a lot of lawyers who testified in the case, the actual lawyers for other witnesses to boot. There was a crap ton of coaching happening.

There's no such thing a good motive to murder, much less w regards to your child & wife

But drug addict thieves do drug addict thief things & any of the things I mentioned are reasonable motives in the mind of an addict trying to hide 10 million in theft


I agree w you in regards to all the missing evidence, but if those items are precursors to guilt then how did the case go trial in the first place?

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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There's no such thing a good motive to murder, much less w regards to your child & wife

But drug addict thieves do drug addict thief things & any of the things I mentioned are reasonable motives in the mind of an addict trying to hide 10 million in theft


I agree w you in regards to all the missing evidence, but if those items are precursors to guilt then how did the case go trial in the first place?

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Good question. There was definitely a sense of political payback happening in this case. Most PI Lawyers are Dems,as was Alex. Murdaugh's lead attorney, Harpootlian, is a major Dem and a state senator. State AG is GOP.

But the state should have anticipated he would not waive his right to a speedy trial like he had in the financial crimes indictments. When he didn't, they had to scramble. There were about 17 attorneys assigned to the prosecution team and a crap ton of SLED agents. The state of South Carolina taxpayers paid ten million or more to convict a guy of murder when he was already going to be put away for life anyway.

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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There's no such thing a good motive to murder, much less w regards to your child & wife

But drug addict thieves do drug addict thief things & any of the things I mentioned are reasonable motives in the mind of an addict trying to hide 10 million in theft


I agree w you in regards to all the missing evidence, but if those items are precursors to guilt then how did the case go trial in the first place?

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There are motives that make sense. If he had a $10mm life insurance policy on his wife (like he had on himself) and killing her created the money he needed to pay back the money he needed to get out of the hole, that was a better motive than "maybe if I blow my son's head off, I don't have to deal with his DUI case and people will feel bad for me, so they will totally forget about the $75k check I deposited that I shouldn't have."

They had no motive to make sense.

Motives to kill them that did make sense:

Revenge for death of Mallory Beach
Alex had drug issues and owed money to drug people and couldn't pay up, so they killed his wife and kid
Alex was involved in some sort of organized crime, and his family was killed because of it
Alex owed money to the wrong people

You say those motives were sound in the eyes of a drug addict, but I don't buy it. I don't think his drug addiction was as bad as they were saying it was (like no way in hell he was popping $50k/week of oxy. Further, he was still working as a high-powered attorney, and winning very big cases. So it isn't like he lost all ability to reason.

Agree to disagree I guess

aggiehawg said:

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Just to be clear, motive if it exists in provable form, is a material issue but not an element. And that's what the state kept arguing that they were going to link to financial issues to the reason for the murders.

And I tell you what, had the state tailored that request to only the missing fees from the Ferris case upon which Alex was confonted by the firm's CFO that day, that likely would have satisfied any 404 objection because there could be an argument of a causal connection because it happened earlier that day.

But going back over a decade? If anything, the defense could have argued Alex had been in tight financial spots many times over the years and never killed anybody. (It would be a risky argument before this judge because he would have likely viewed it as opening the door for even more financial stuff to have come in.)

All in all, the biggest shocker was the lack of an exclusionary rule being invoked. Family members and experts are allowed to be in court during other's testimony but not every freaking witness on the witness list. In the manner, they were easily able to coordinate their testimony. And there were a lot of lawyers who testified in the case, the actual lawyers for other witnesses to boot. There was a crap ton of coaching happening.

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Given the numerous variables in play in regards to an appeal trying to predict its outcome is, even for the experts, somewhat problematic as determining future events is often a fools errands.

However, were there enough questionable aspects in the first trial that, at the very least, will ensure he gets a second trial?

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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Agree to disagree I guess

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You don't think getting millions of dollars is a better motive for murder than "Maybe if my family died, people won't ask me about missing money for a couple weeks out of sympathy?"

ok.

Quote:

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However, were there enough questionable aspects in the first trial that, at the very least, will ensure he gets a second trial?

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Not really.

Think he may have a 10% shot at getting a new trial at this point. I'll revisit when I read their appellate brief and see the South Carolina case law they cite and can check those cases out. Co-counsel Griffin is actually an appellate lawyer more than a trial lawyer in recent years. It showed during the trial but he did have one excellent cross of that SLED Lead Investigator, Owen on cornering him and getting him to admit he lied to the grand jury, twice or more.

So stay tuned.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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However, were there enough questionable aspects in the first trial that, at the very least, will ensure he gets a second trial?

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Not really.

Think he may a 10% shot at getting a new trial at this point. I'll revisit when I read their appellate brief and see the South Carolina case law they cite and can check those cases out. Co-counsel Griffin is actually an appellate lawyer more than a trial lawyer in recent years. It showed during the trial but he did have one excellent cross of that SLED Lead Investigator, Owen on cornering him and getting him to admit he lied to the grand jury, twice or more.

So stay tuned.

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Looking forward to your input. I'll buy you a cocktail of your choice if we ever run into one another. Just one.

Guitarsoup said:

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Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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Agree to disagree I guess

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You don't think getting millions of dollars is a better motive for murder than "Maybe if my family died, people won't ask me about missing money for a couple weeks out of sympathy?"

ok.

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Yea sure it's better motive, but it doesn't mean alex didn't have motive


The house of cards was coming down & he had to regain control

Garnering sympathy, blocking the people coming to check your accounts, removing cost, & taking over high value assets all fit the bill of the path a drug addict might take

I think those all make a whole more sense then whatever the weird fake suicide by cousin thing was….

Or going to rehab a few days after your family is murdered

Or stealing 10 million dollars from poor people

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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Agree to disagree I guess

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You don't think getting millions of dollars is a better motive for murder than "Maybe if my family died, people won't ask me about missing money for a couple weeks out of sympathy?"

ok.

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Yea sure it's better motive, but it doesn't mean alex didn't have motive


The house of cards was coming down & he had to regain control

Garnering sympathy, blocking the people coming to check your accounts, removing cost, & taking over high value assets all fit the bill of the path a drug addict might take

I think those all make a whole more sense then whatever the weird fake suicide by cousin thing was….

Or going to rehab a few days after your family is murdered

Or stealing 10 million dollars from poor people

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The house of cards was not coming down. The DA even said that and the DA even made a huge point that he didn't have to prove motive - because he had none.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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Did the prosecution ever state where the weapons are believed to have been?

Were they already in the kennel? Were they in a nearby vehicle? Etc.

And did the prosecution contend that AM went to the kennels that.night with the plan to kill MM and PM or did the prosecution state it was an act of passion that came out of some unknown event at the kennel?

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State had no theory on where the guns were already present or not.

He was charged with premeditated murder in the first degree. He planned it was their contention. No heat of passion.

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States theory on the guns was that Alex hid them in a large blue raincoat (unclear where) in the ~12 minutes he had after killing his wife and kids, and South Carolinas finest were unable to find the guns or raincoat, yet several days after the murder Alex brought the raincoat (and maybe the guns but they aren't real sure) to his parents house and for some unknown reason places only the blue raincoat in an upstairs closet rather than just leaving the incriminating raincoat with the weapons that he was magically able to hide where no one could ever find them. Also, one of the weapons that was hidden in the coat was a shotgun that (even according to States questionable at best experts) was used to to blow someone's brain out of their head from a couple of feet away, somehow no blood/dna transferred from the shotgun to the raincoat, which means either Alex meticulously cleaned the shotgun prior to wrapping it in the raincoat, but only cleaned off the biological material and not gun shot residue, somewhere in that 12 minutes, or he later meticulously cleaned the raincoat to remove all biological material but left gun shot residue behind before storing it in his parents closet.

I'm not kidding that is their actual theory that they presented in a court of law as to what happened to the guns. Like they legitimately made that a part of their 6 week presentation of "evidence" and instead of being insulted at the States obvious disregard for their intelligence the jury evidently ate it up because Alex lied so much.