Judge Clifton Newman requested Murdaugh if he had something he needed to say earlier than sentencing, and the lawyer maintained his innocence.
“As I tell you again, I respect this court. But I am innocent. I would never under any circumstances hurt my wife Maggie and I would never under any circumstances hurt my son Paul Paul,” Murdaugh responded.
“And it might not have been you. It might have been the monster you become,” when taking giant quantities of opiates, Newman stated, noting Murdaugh’s decades-long habit to painkillers.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters stated not one of the victims of the crime — members of Murdaugh’s household and the dad and mom and family of his spouse — wished to talk on behalf of the prosecution earlier than sentencing.
“The depravity, the callousness, the selfishness of these crimes are stunning. The lack of remorse and the effortless way in which he is, including here, sitting right over there in this witness stand — your honour, a man like that, a man like this man, should never be allowed to be among free, law abiding citizens,” Waters stated.
Prosecutors requested for a life sentence to carry Murdaugh accountable for what they are saying are many years of mendacity, stealing and utilizing his household’s appreciable clout of their tiny county to his benefit. Any sentence would don’t have any probability of parole.
As Murdaugh stood earlier than the choose to study his destiny, he was in the identical courtroom on the circuit the place his father, grandfather and great-grandfather tried circumstances because the elected prosecutor for greater than 80 years. His grandfather’s portrait hung at the back of the room till the choose ordered it taken down for the trial.
Instead of the gown shirt and sport coat he wore by the six-week trial, the legal professional who made thousands and thousands suing huge firms on behalf of individuals injured in wrecks arrived at court docket in a jail jumpsuit the day after he was convicted of two counts of homicide.
The Colleton County jury deliberated for lower than three hours earlier than discovering Murdaugh responsible of killing his 22-year-old son, Paul, with a shotgun and his 52-year-old spouse, Maggie, with a rifle on June 7, 2021.
The juror agreed with prosecutors that the important thing piece of proof was a video locked on his son’s cell phone for a 12 months — video shot minutes earlier than the killings on the similar kennels close to the place the our bodies could be discovered.
The voices of all three Murdaughs will be heard on the video, although Alex Murdaugh had insisted for 20 months that he hadn’t been on the kennels that night time.
When he took the stand in his personal defence, the very first thing he did was admit he had lied to investigators about being on the kennels, saying he was paranoid of regulation enforcement as a result of he was hooked on opioids and had tablets in his pocket the night time of the killings.
“A good liar. But not good enough,” Moyer stated.
Prosecutors did not have the weapons used to kill the Murdaughs or different direct proof like confessions or blood spatter. But that they had a mountain of circumstantial proof, together with the video placing Murdaugh on the scene of the killings 5 minutes earlier than his spouse and son stopped utilizing their cell phones without end.
Source: www.9news.com.au
