Alex Murdaugh trial: Murderer sentenced to consecutive life sentences after being found guilty
Jack Birle
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Disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to consecutive life sentences a day after being found guilty of murdering his wife and youngest son.
The jury brought down the guilty verdict Thursday night, less than three hours after the defense delivered closing arguments. They found him guilty on every charge levied against him.
ALEX MURDAUGH FOUND GUILTY IN MURDER OF WIFE AND SON
“In the murder of your wife, Maggie Murdaugh, I sentence you for term of the rest of your natural life,” Judge Clifton Newman said at the sentencing. “For the murder of your son, Paul Murdaugh, whom you probably loved so much, I sentence you to prison — for murdering him — for the rest of your natural life.”
Prosecutors asked for a double life sentence for Murdaugh, while Murdaugh addressed the judge, insisting he was innocent and that he did not kill his wife and son.
Newman addressed Murdaugh before handing down the sentence, saying it was heartbreaking to see him indicted in the murder after he had previously known him through his legal career. He then ripped into Murdaugh’s conduct, asking him when the continued lies would end.
“It is also particularly troubling, Mr. Murdaugh, because as a member of the legal community — and a well known member of the legal community — and you’ve practiced law before me and we had seen each other at various occasions throughout the years. And it was especially heartbreaking for me to see you go in the media from being a grieving father, who lost his wife and his son, to being the person indicted and convicted of killing them,” Newman said.
“And you’ve engaged in such duplicitous conduct, here in the courtroom, here on the witness stand, and as established by the testimony throughout the time leading from the time of the indictment and prior to the indictment, throughout the trial,” he added.
Newman then continued to rip into Murdaugh and referred to his struggle with opioid addiction.
“It might not have been you, it might have been the monster you’ve become,” Newman told Murdaugh, referring to the effect Murdaugh’s drug addiction could have had on his actions.
Murdaugh was part of a legal dynasty in South Carolina, with his family wielding power as local prosecutors for nearly a a century. A portrait of Murdaugh’s grandfather Randolph ‘Buster’ Murdaugh Jr., who served as the state’s 14th circuit solicitor from 1940 until 1986, had to be removed from the courtroom during the trial as to maintain fairness for the case.
Murdaugh’s indictment in July 2022 gained nationwide attention given his family’s legal history in the region. The indictment was handed down more than a year after the bodies of his 22-year-old son, Paul, and 52-year-old wife, Maggie, were discovered in June 2021.
Prosecutors said Murdaugh’s financial troubles, for which he faces various charges and indictments, were the reason he decided to murder his wife and youngest son, despite the defense attempting to block testimony about his financial crimes from being allowed in the trial. The defense’s case centered on scanty police work and a lack of solid evidence that Murdaugh committed the crime.
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During the trial, Murdaugh took to the stand and admitted he lied repeatedly to officers about his whereabouts the evening of the murder, swindled legal clients out of millions of dollars, and asked someone to shoot him in the head as part of an elaborate scheme to allow his son to collect life insurance off his death.