Alex Murdaugh murder trial: lawyer admits lying to police

Alex Murdaugh, the scion of a powerful American family, unexpectedly gave evidence at his murder trial, admitting he repeatedly lied to police.

Alex Murdaugh, centre, blamed his addiction to opioids for clouding his thinking. Picture: Jeff Blake/The State/AP/The Times

A South Carolina lawyer from a powerful local family unexpectedly gave evidence at his murder trial, denying shooting dead his wife and son, but admitting that he repeatedly lied to police.

Alex Murdaugh, 54, is charged with killing his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, who were shot near the kennels on their sprawling South Carolina ranch in June 2021. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted.

The case has made headlines across the US and is the subject of a Netflix series, Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal. “I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them,” Murdaugh said in court on Thursday.

Murdaugh, who ran a legal practice that represented people who suffered accidents or workplace injuries, admitted that he lied to police about being at the kennels with his wife and son shortly before the shootings, blaming his addiction to opioids for clouding his thinking.

“As my addiction evolved over time, I would get in these situations, these circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking,” he told the court. Once he started lying about being at the kennels, he said he felt he had to continue. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Once I told a lie, I told my family, I had to keep lying.”

The once-prominent lawyer had told police that he was visiting his ailing mother in another town and was not close to the family home near Charleston in the hours beforehand. Several witnesses testified that they had heard Murdaugh’s voice along with his son and wife on video taken at the kennels about five minutes before the shootings.

Murdaugh described arriving to find the grisly scene of the killings and pausing there as he cried. “It was so bad,” he said. Murdaugh said he tried to help his son, who was lying face down, but that he was already dead. “I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do,” Murdaugh said.

He testified that he also checked on his wife before calling for the emergency services and then went back to the house to get a gun for his own safety.

Murdaugh’s decision to testify is a risky gamble. Prosecutors can question him about not only his wife and son’s killings but also the roughly 100 other charges he faces. They include stealing from clients at his former law firm, from which he has been asked to resign, to arranging his own shooting on the side of a road.

Murdaugh called the police to say he had been shot in the head as he attempted to change a tyre on his car. Murdaugh then said that he had asked a cousin, Curtis Smith, to shoot him so that his other son, Buster, could collect on his life insurance policy.

Smith has contradicted Murdaugh account, saying the gun had gone off while he was trying to stop his cousin from killing himself.

The case continues.

The Times