Is anyone watching/following the Alex Murdaugh trial?

[dksnj]

It's on day 15/16 and I've watched pretty much everyday (at least on in the background while I work from home).

Curious if anyone has thoughts on his guilt/innocence?

[lindsaywhit]

I haven't been watching the trial, but the whole Murdaugh Family saga is jaw-dropping. Is there any way the murderer could be anyone but Alex Murdaugh? Or Buster? I remember first reading about the double murder, and then the history of the boat accident/death, and then the rest started to unfold and I kept thinking I was walking into a soap opera.

[notoriousmkg]

As a husband and father, I don't want to believe someone is capable of this, but if you read the Wikipedia entry on this family, it does NOT look good:

1. 2015 - the openly gay classmate and friend (Stephen Smith) of older (and still alive) son Buster is murdered via blunt force trauma. Nobody arrested. Investigation reopened in 2021.
2. 2018 - the long-time housekeeper (Gloria Satterfield) trips and falls down the front steps, and eventually dies from complications. No coroner, no autopsy and the death certificate says "natural causes". An investigation into her death was opened in 2021.
3. 2019 - boat accident where Mallory Beach dies in an accident where Paul (who had a .286 blood alcohol level at the time) had been piloting the boat.
4. June 2021 - Paul (son) and Maggie (wife) Murdaugh are shot to death. I didn't realize until now that Maggie had been estrange with Paul and did not want to meet up with him when he called her that night.
5. September 2021 - Alex is supposedly shot while changing a tire on the side of the road. Except it was someone he conspired with to kill him so that Buster could collect on a $10 Million insurance policy. Alex has admitted to this.

Apparently, in court today, Murdaugh admitted he lied about the timeline in the murder of his wife and son. He said that he had not seen them that evening until he found their bodies. But because his sone sent a video to a friend where Alex voice could be heard in the background, that claim unraveled.

[trixie]

I've been slightly following this, I think I saw a Dateline on it in the past, but it's been all over tv now so it's hard to avoid. Honestly, I don't see how anyone but the father could have done this, and he's lied so much why should the jury or anyone believe him now. The one thing I noticed in the clips of his testimony today was him saying he would never intentionally harm them so what is that supposed to mean? He was a drug addict I believe, assume prescription drugs, opiates. Did he also drink? That intentionally just stood out to me, is he going to try to say if he did it, he was in a blackout state or something? He seems to be throwing whatever he can against the wall.

[lindsaywhit]

Feb 24, 2023 1:01:19 GMT notoriousmkg said:

As a husband and father, I don't want to believe someone is capable of this, but if you read the Wikipedia entry on this family, it does NOT look good:

1. 2015 - the openly gay classmate and friend (Stephen Smith) of older (and still alive) son Buster is murdered via blunt force trauma. Nobody arrested. Investigation reopened in 2021.
2. 2018 - the long-time housekeeper (Gloria Satterfield) trips and falls down the front steps, and eventually dies from complications. No coroner, no autopsy and the death certificate says "natural causes". An investigation into her death was opened in 2021.
3. 2019 - boat accident where Mallory Beach dies in an accident where Paul (who had a .286 blood alcohol level at the time) had been piloting the boat.
4. June 2021 - Paul (son) and Maggie (wife) Murdaugh are shot to death. I didn't realize until now that Maggie had been estrange with Paul and did not want to meet up with him when he called her that night.
5. September 2021 - Alex is supposedly shot while changing a tire on the side of the road. Except it was someone he conspired with to kill him so that Buster could collect on a $10 Million insurance policy. Alex has admitted to this.

Apparently, in court today, Murdaugh admitted he lied about the timeline in the murder of his wife and son. He said that he had not seen them that evening until he found their bodies. But because his sone sent a video to a friend where Alex voice could be heard in the background, that claim unraveled.

Great timeline, Mo - thank you! (No pressure, but have you even done one graph on GR2?  )

I didn't know Maggie & Paul were on the outs either. Was it about his accident?

[dechayz]

He also stole their housekeeper's sons' beneficiary money

[thejackiedaytona]

I'm so sick of the nicknames. He's really stepping in it today. I think he's guilty but I'm not sure he'll be convicted. I hope he is. That whole family are horrible people and I'm sure they've done financial crimes too.

[mivvi21]

Feb 24, 2023 16:01:28 GMT dechayz said:

He also stole their housekeeper's sons' beneficiary money

He did. Over 4 million dollars he stole from them, and did so while he knew the family was losing their house to foreclosure. He also stole over a million dollars from a settlement he got for a guy who was left a quadriplegic in a car accident. He stole over a million dollars from a settlement he got on behalf of a teenage girl who was killed in an accident. He stole millions upon millions from multiple clients he represented, over more than a decade. He is a ruthless, sociopathic bastard. I fully believe he killed his wife and son, and did so for the insurance money. The entire Murdaugh family is rotten to the core. 

[no1novice]

I'm just catching up on Dateline.

[notoriousmkg]

Feb 24, 2023 13:12:37 GMT lindsaywhit said:

Feb 24, 2023 1:01:19 GMT notoriousmkg said:

As a husband and father, I don't want to believe someone is capable of this, but if you read the Wikipedia entry on this family, it does NOT look good:

1. 2015 - the openly gay classmate and friend (Stephen Smith) of older (and still alive) son Buster is murdered via blunt force trauma. Nobody arrested. Investigation reopened in 2021.
2. 2018 - the long-time housekeeper (Gloria Satterfield) trips and falls down the front steps, and eventually dies from complications. No coroner, no autopsy and the death certificate says "natural causes". An investigation into her death was opened in 2021.
3. 2019 - boat accident where Mallory Beach dies in an accident where Paul (who had a .286 blood alcohol level at the time) had been piloting the boat.
4. June 2021 - Paul (son) and Maggie (wife) Murdaugh are shot to death. I didn't realize until now that Maggie had been estrange with Paul and did not want to meet up with him when he called her that night.
5. September 2021 - Alex is supposedly shot while changing a tire on the side of the road. Except it was someone he conspired with to kill him so that Buster could collect on a $10 Million insurance policy. Alex has admitted to this.

Apparently, in court today, Murdaugh admitted he lied about the timeline in the murder of his wife and son. He said that he had not seen them that evening until he found their bodies. But because his sone sent a video to a friend where Alex voice could be heard in the background, that claim unraveled.

Great timeline, Mo - thank you! (No pressure, but have you even done one graph on GR2?  )

I didn't know Maggie & Paul were on the outs either. Was it about his accident?

No graphs yet.  In the old days, I would do it to help me sort stuff out (like the origins of royal family members, like Prince Philip).

I followed up on the Wiki entry and on the source articles they cited.  One part of the Wiki article had said that Maggie had hired a forensic accountant a few weeks before she and Paul were killed.  A lot of people who are getting separated or divorced do that when they are worried about a spouse hiding assets.  I doubt it was tied to the financial trouble that had emerged from what was going on at the law firm.  Some friends contest the idea that she was going to divorce Alex.

I was also reading that prosecutors were theorizing that Alex killed Paul and Maggie to deflect blame from the financial shenanigans that were soon to be revealed.  That does not sound like a strong motive to me.  I mean, really?  Kill your loving wife and son to buy a couple weeks of sympathy before the sh*t hits the fan?  That seems incredibly unlikely (for normal people).  But there is so much we don't know and who this guy is at the core.

[dksnj]

I think the timeline is too close for anyone else but him to do it. The GPS in his car really pinned it down.

The Netflix documentary leading up to the killings is very interesting.

[kittylady]

Feb 24, 2023 19:56:19 GMT notoriousmkg said:

Feb 24, 2023 13:12:37 GMT lindsaywhit said:

Great timeline, Mo - thank you! (No pressure, but have you even done one graph on GR2?  )

I didn't know Maggie & Paul were on the outs either. Was it about his accident?

No graphs yet.  In the old days, I would do it to help me sort stuff out (like the origins of royal family members, like Prince Philip).

I followed up on the Wiki entry and on the source articles they cited.  One part of the Wiki article had said that Maggie had hired a forensic accountant a few weeks before she and Paul were killed.  A lot of people who are getting separated or divorced do that when they are worried about a spouse hiding assets.  I doubt it was tied to the financial trouble that had emerged from what was going on at the law firm.  Some friends contest the idea that she was going to divorce Alex.

I was also reading that prosecutors were theorizing that Alex killed Paul and Maggie to deflect blame from the financial shenanigans that were soon to be revealed.  That does not sound like a strong motive to me.  I mean, really?  Kill your loving wife and son to buy a couple weeks of sympathy before the sh*t hits the fan?  That seems incredibly unlikely (for normal people).  But there is so much we don't know and who this guy is at the core.

I saw something the other day that said Maggie's estate is estimated to be worth over $4 million.  It wouldn't have got him out of the financial hole that he'd dug but it would certainly provide enough to disappear and restart the same fuckery somewhere else, assuming that he could get his hands on at least a chunk of it pretty quickly.  He renounced his inheritance claim on the main asset, a house with over 1,000 acres of land, in favour of his surviving son Buster so as to keep it out of the hands of his creditors.  I've not been following this trial as deeply as the rest of you, but I'm guessing that he would have considered it being in Buster's hands as good as being in his own.  It's said that Buster is using approximately $600,000 of it to clear the suit Mallory Beach's family have against him.

I can't find the article that I originally read but there is this one: Daily Mail

[Cartermrc]

Yeah, at least for the last few days. We got caught up in the Simpson trial back in 1994. What a fiasco that was.

[notoriousmkg]

The latest is that the judge has granted the defense's request to let the jury visit the area where the shootings occurred. I actually think that is a great idea. For example - how far is this area from the murder house? How far is it from the road, where someone other than a person who knows about the place would reasonably be walking or driving by? I don't think this strategy actually works very well for the defense

[imnotbitter]

No, but I'm watching the documentary about it on HBO Max.