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Alex Murdaugh Seen In Video Crying Near Bodies Of His Dead Wife And Son
“It’s bad. It’s bad,” Alex Murdaugh said in the body cam footage as he doubled over and put his hands on his knees. “I checked the pulses.”
A sobbing Alex Murdaugh is seen standing near the bodies of his wife and son the night they were killed in newly released body cam footage.
The eerie video, which shows Murdaugh talking to law enforcement officers, was shown to the jury in the ongoing double murder trial last month, but was just released to the public Monday, according to CNN.
Murdaugh is seen wearing a white T-shirt and shorts as he stands outside the dog kennels on the hunting property, known as Moselle, where both his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were shot to death.
Talking to Colleton County Sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Greene, Murdaugh tells him that “because of the scene” he went to “go get a gun and bring it down here,” adding the weapon was now propped against the side of his vehicle, according to the video also obtained by The New York Post.
“It’s bad. It’s bad,” Murdaugh said as he doubles over and puts his hands on his knees. “I checked the pulses.”
About 30 seconds into their conversation, Murdaugh begins to theorize about what he believes may have prompted the fatal shootings.
“This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck... months back. He’s been getting threats,” Murdaugh said in the footage. “Most of it’s been benign stuff. We didn’t take it serious, you know, he’s been getting like punched. I know that’s what it is.”
At the time of his death, Paul had been facing criminal charges of boating while intoxicated for allegedly driving a boat that crashed into a bridge pylon, killing 19-year-old Mallory Beach in February of 2019. The five others on the boat that night, including Paul, survived.
After offering a possible motive, Murdaugh then turns his focus back to his wife and son, asking officers whether they are really dead.
“They are dead, aren’t they?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s what it looks like,” Greene responds as Murdaugh appears to sob.
Greene then questioned Murdaugh about the last time he saw his wife and son. Murdaugh tells the officer that he saw them “earlier tonight” before leaving to go visit his ailing mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
“I was probably gone an hour and a half from my mom’s, and I saw them about 45 minutes before that,” he said.
The timeline has played a critical role throughout the ongoing trial. Murdaugh told investigators that he had dinner with Maggie and Paul before falling asleep while his wife and son went down to the family’s dog kennels.
Murdaugh insisted he never went to the kennels before leaving the home to go to his mother’s house, about a 15-minute drive away, just after 9 p.m. He told officers he returned home about an hour later and discovered the bodies, before placing an anguished call to 911 at 10:07 p.m.
Prosecutors, however, argued that a video captured on Paul’s cell phone just minutes before his death challenges that story and places Murdaugh — who can allegedly be heard talking in the background of the video — at the dog kennels at 8:44 p.m. that night. Authorities believe Maggie and Paul were killed just minutes later.
Inside the courtroom Monday, jurors heard graphic testimony from a pathologist who performed the autopsies on both victims.
Dr. Ellen Riemer, of Medical University of South Carolina, testified that Paul would have been able to survive his initial injury from the shotgun, which struck the left side of his chest and exited near his armpit, according to Fox News.
“It actually did not pierce the chest or cause any internal bleeding,” she said.
However, the second shot produced an “extremely severe fatal injury,” she said.
The shot went through his shoulder and traveled up his neck and out the top of his head.
“His brain was ejected out of the top of the right side of his head and actually arrived at the autopsy in a separate bucket,” she testified.
Riemer believes that, at the time of the fatal blow, Paul had likely been facing his shooter with his head turned slightly to the left, according to CNN.
“I don’t see anything on his hands that would indicate he had his hands up to his face in anticipation of the injury that was about to happen,” she said of not finding any defensive wounds. “That first shot, his arm was down, and I don’t see any evidence of injury to his hands from the second.”
Maggie Murdaugh was shot with a separate weapon, an “assault rifle,” according to Riemer. She was struck at least four times.
Maggie had likely been standing when she was hit with the first two shots by a shooter standing no more than 3-feet away, according to the testimony. The first shot went through her abdomen, while the second tore into the inside of her left thigh.
"We know she must have been in a lot of pain," Riemer testified, according to Fox News. "She had projectiles, ammunition, going through her left kidney. You can imagine that was a painful wound and may have caused her to fold over."
Riemer believes Maggie collapsed to her knees with her head leaning forward when the third shot went through her chest, passing into her jaw and head. The shooter was likely standing behind her when the third shot was fired before the fourth and final shot to the back of her head. It’s possible a fifth shot struck her wrist, but Reimer said it’s also possible she got the wound from one of the earlier shots.
As Reimer described the graphic injuries to his wife and son, a visibly distraught Murdaugh cried at the defense table.
Riemer’s testimony is expected to continue on Tuesday, when she’ll be cross-examined by the defense.
Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges against him, has continued to insist he didn’t kill his wife and son.
The now-disbarred attorney is also facing around 100 other criminal charges for a series of alleged financial crimes, which prosecutors contend were the motive for the murders. He’s accused of stealing millions from his former law firm, legal clients and others.
