South Carolina jurors will be allowed to hear about Alex Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes in his murder trial—a tremendous win in the prosecution’s argument that the former lawyer fatally shot his wife and son in a twisted cover-up scheme of his misdeeds.
Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman on Monday granted the state’s request to introduce evidence surrounding allegations Murdaugh engaged in a years-long scheme to steal over $8 million from his former law firm and clients in an attempt to maintain his public standing as a member of a prominent legal family in the Lowcountry.
“I find that the jury is entitled to consider whether the apparent desperation of Mr. Murdaugh because of his dire financial situation, the threat of being exposed for committing the crimes for which he was later charged, resulted in the commission of the alleged crimes,” Newman said Monday.
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The evidence is the crux of the prosecution’s argument that Murdaugh murdered his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son, Paul, in June 2021 in an attempt to garner sympathy and shift the public narrative away from his financial crimes.
The ruling came after a two-day hearing outside the presence of the 12-person jury, where prosecutors presented several witnesses who detailed how Murdaugh allegedly stole money under the guise of legal assistance, how he was being forced to expose his financial statements in a civil litigation surrounding a 2019 boat crash, and how he was confronted about almost $800,000 of missing legal funds by a co-worker on the day of the murders.
“The state argues that the logical nexus between the murders and other crimes is that the looming exposure of financial crimes provided motive for the murders and is evidence of malice, an essential element of the crime of murder,” Newman added.
Murdaugh, 54, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in connection with the double homicide.
Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh murdered his family amid mounting fear that a years-long scheme to swindle money from those around him was going to come to light.
Over the last two weeks, prosecutors have called over a dozen witnesses to the stand to describe how Paul and Maggie were brutally murdered near the dog kennels of the Murdaugh family estate. Defense attorneys, however, say there is no hard evidence or motivation to prove that Murdaugh killed his family.
Law enforcement officers have described a slew of evidence prosecutors say proves that Murdaugh is the only perpetrator here, including cell phone data and his initial interviews with law enforcement.
The only real piece of evidence that has blown up the defense’s argument so far has been a video Paul Murdaugh made in the dog kennels five minutes before he was murdered—where prosecutors allege Alex and Maggie can be heard in the background. Two of Paul’s friends also testified last week they were “100 percent” sure Alex Murdaugh can be heard in the video, which would shatter his alibi that he was asleep in the main house at the time of the murders.
On Monday, jurors also heard from the caretaker of Murdaugh’s mother, who said the former lawyer “was fidgeting” when he came to visit the night of his murders.
Mushelle “Shelley” Smith testified that it was “unusual” for Murdaugh to visit late at night and that he had stayed over for about 20 minutes. Later, she said Murdaugh told her he had been at the house for “30 or 40 minutes.”
In another conversation after the slayings, Smith said Murdaugh offered to help her with her wedding expenses—though she said they had never discussed her upcoming nuptials previously. She also said Murdaugh offered to pull strings to help her get another job.
Prosecutors, however, have not yet been able to explain to the jury why they believe fear of exposure led Murdaugh to murder his family—and how his alleged financial crimes are involved. Prosecutors have also not been able to explain to the jury how Murdaugh would have been able to fatally shoot his son and wife with two different guns before visiting his ailing mother in quick succession.
But Newman’s ruling will now finally give prosecutors the chance to clear some confusion for the jury about their case. It will also provide jurors with insight into Murdaugh’s last few days before the murders.
Jurors are expected to hear testimony about how Murdaugh was over $4.2 million in debt and how thousands of dollars had been overdrawn from his account that summer.
Jeanne Seckinger, the CEO of Murdaugh’s former law firm, told Newman last week that she confronted Murdaugh about missing money owed to the firm on the day of the murders. She said that Murdaugh insisted that he was preparing his “financials” for an upcoming hearing in a civil litigation case about the 2019 boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach. At the time of his murder, Paul was facing charges after drunkenly crashing the boat that killed his friend.
Jurors are also expected to hear from Mark Tinsley, a lawyer who represented the Beach family. Tinsley told the judge Monday that he was pushing to see Murdaugh’s financials after he claimed he would be unable to pay the settlement the civil case was seeking.
“He doesn’t want me to have access to his accounts, to see how much money he is making and actually has, so let’s enter into an agreement and settle the case,” Tinsley said. “If you’re a good plaintiff’s lawyer, everything you do in a case is to put pressure on the other side.”
After the murders, however, Tinsley said that the June 10, 2021, hearing into Murdaugh’s finances was postponed—and he considered dropping the case if there was any chance the crimes were connected to his client’s death.
“If it seemed like this was retaliation, a jury wouldn’t return a verdict against Alex,” Tinsley said. “I would have dropped the case.”
Seckinger also noted that after the murders, Murdaugh was “distraught and nobody wanted to harass him about” the missing legal fees, which prosecutors allege was his main goal. Three months later, however, Seckinger said her team pressured Murdaugh again about missing funds—leading to his ultimate resignation.
For Robert McDonald, a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven, the prosecutorial win does not necessarily mean a slam dunk conviction. He noted that it will be “tough to say how the jury will accept” the prosecution’s argument that Murdaugh was motivated to murder his family based on fear of exposure in his other crimes and success in the state’s case “will have to do with how it is presented if it is allowed into the trial and how the defense will refute that issue.”
He also added that the defense “will continue to try to poke holes in the testimony of the investigators and witnesses to counter the prosecution's case.”
Murdaugh’s lawyers “will need to set up a strategy that will present some explanations to the jury as to why he was engaging in that unethical behavior and will need to attempt to separate the financial issues with the murder of his wife and son,” McDonald, who is not connected to the case, added.
