Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences in South Carolina on Friday morning.
On June 7, 2021, the defendant brutally killed his wife, Margaret "Maggie" Murdaugh, 52, with an AR-style rifle, and their youngest son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, with a shotgun in the dog kennels at the family's expansive hunting lodge known as Moselle.
On March 2, 2023, after a trial taking up the better part of six weeks, 12 of Alex Murdaugh's peers found him guilty in the Colleton County Courthouse; dinner was not necessary, the press learned, the jury told the court–meaning a verdict had been reached; the timestamp on that decision was 6:41 p.m. EST. Initial indications were jurors spent just shy of three hours deciding the disgraced and disbarred lawyer's fate.
In an interview on Friday morning, however, one of the jurors spoke out – for the first time – and said the call was quite easy and even quicker: It only took 45 minutes to find the defendant guilty.
Prior to their decision, Judge Clifton Newman explained that jurors must find the defendant killed his family with malice aforethought, a legal term of art central to many definitions of murder in many U.S. jurisdictions.
"Malice is hatred, ill will, or hostility towards another person," the judge said. "It is the intentional doing of a wrongful act without just cause or excuse – and with an intent to inflict an injury or, under the circumstances, that the law will infer an evil intent."
And, clearly, such malice was found to have occurred in the Palmetto State that fateful, violent, awful night.
Alex Murdaugh was convicted on two counts each of murder, one for each victim, and two counts each of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime related to each murder. The weapons convictions were not sentenced in light of the life sentences for the murders.
Waters about #AlexMurdaugh: He liked to stare me down as he walked by me and I could see the real Alex Murdaugh. #MurdaughTrial pic.twitter.com/gHHuy0QJbV
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) March 3, 2023
No victim impact statements were made and the state only briefly spoke during the relatively quick hearing – expressing their preference for two consecutive life sentences; which the court obliged.
"I'm innocent," the defendant said in a terse address to the court. "I would never hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never hurt my son Paul Paul."
The proceedings were brief.
The judge called the case "perhaps one of the most troubling cases" for the community in Colleton County, the broader state of South Carolina, the victims, the legal community, and law enforcement. He noted that Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were "savagely murdered" and commented on the long Murdaugh family legacy.
"A respected family who has controlled justice in this county for over a century," Newman remarked. "A person whose grandfather's portrait hangs at the back of the courthouse that I had to have ordered removed."
The judge went on to say it was sad to see the defendant himself go from a lawyer who has practiced in front of him to a grieving father to the murderer who was indicted, tried, and convicted before him.
"You've engaged in such duplicitous conduct," Newman remarked.
The judge also opined that the crimes for which Alex Murdaugh was convicted qualify for the death penalty but said he did not question the state's judgment not to seek capital punishment.
"Many have received the death penalty," Newman mused. "Probably for lesser conduct."
The judge then brought up the defendant's invocation of the cliché-like quote from author Walter Scott about the "tangled web we weave." He then asked Aled Murdaugh what he meant. The defendant spoke and said he lied and felt like he had to keep lying.
After a pause, the judge replied.
"The question is: When will it end?"
Wow!
Judge tells #AlexMurdaugh he's sure Maggie and Paul visit him every night when he tries to go to sleep.
Murdaugh says: "All day and every night"
Judge Newman: "They will continue to do so and will reflect on the last time they looked you in the eyes"#MurdaughTrial pic.twitter.com/LX5QgM84o4
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) March 3, 2023
The judge later expressed some surprise that the defendant was being so tight-lipped during the hearing.
"I'll tell you again," Alex Murdaugh said. "I respect this court, but I'm innocent. I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my wife Maggie. And I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my son Paul Paul."
"And it might not have been you," Newman replied. "It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills. Maybe you become another person. I've seen that before. The person standing before me is not the same person who committed the crime – though it is the same individual."
Roughly an hour after the hearing ends, defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin will addressing the media.
