One of Alex Murdaugh’s best friends did not pull any punches on the stand Thursday, detailing to jurors how he felt “betrayed” after spending months by Murdaugh’s side in the wake of his wife and son’s murders—only to learn the former lawyer had stolen $192,000 from him.
“Shocked. Betrayed. Mad. I don’t know. Numb,” Chris Wilson told a packed Colleton County courtroom before choking up. Wilson was Murdaugh’s law school roommate and said he was “one of my best friends if not my best friend.”
The heartbreaking discovery came after Wilson said he and Murdaugh had worked on a personal injury case together in early 2021. After winning the case, he said Murdaugh asked him in March 2021 to make out his $792,000 in legal fees in three separate checks directly to him. He said he planned to use the funds to purchase annuities and that he had been cleared by his family law firm—an explanation Wilson said he accepted because he “trusted his friend” of three decades.
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But Murdaugh eventually sent him back a portion of the money, noting that he had “messed up” the fee structure and would pay him back so Wilson could send the payment to his law firm. Wilson, however, said he only received $600,000 of those funds—and learned over Labor Day weekend from Murdaugh’s former law firm that he had been stealing money for years.
“I wanted to talk to him face-to-face,” he said, noting that he had been previously gracious to Murdaugh after Paul and Maggie had been brutally murdered on June 7, 2021.
Wilson said that he confronted Murdaugh on the porch of his mother’s house the morning of Sept. 4, 2021, where his former friend admitted to stealing the money—and confessed to stealing from several other people and having a two-decade addiction to opioids. He added that Murdaugh “broke down crying” as he confessed to his years-long secret Wilson said he had “been good about covering it up, especially the drugs.”
“I’ve shit you up. I’m sorry. I shit you up. I shit a lot of people up,” Murdaugh allegedly told Wilson, who noted that was their last verbal conversation.
Hours later, Murdaugh would call 911 to report that he had been shot in the head while changing a tire on a South Carolina backroad. Later, Murdaugh would admit that he had staged the botched assisted suicide scheme with his distant cousin, Curtis Eddie Smith, to secure his $10 million insurance policy for his only surviving son, Buster.
The insight into one of Murdaugh’s closest relationships came on the third week of his double-homicide trial, where prosecutors allege he murdered his 52-year-old wife and 22-year-old son at their hunting estate on June 7, 2021, in a twisted attempt to cover up his financial crimes. Murdaugh, 54, is facing two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in connection with the case.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his lawyers insist that the former lawyer had no motive to murder his “wonderful” family.
Wilson also noted on the stand that Murdaugh was incredibly close to his family—and that his family also had a close relationship with them. During cross-examination, Wilson said that he never saw any signs of opioid addiction and noted that his family was Murdaugh’s number one priority.
“He was not just my best friend. Our wives were close, our kids were close,” Wilson said, noting that he spoke on the phone with Murdaugh almost daily.
Wilson said that he had one of those casual chats at around 9:11 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just minutes after prosecutors allege Murdaugh fatally shot his family with two different guns. In the call, Wilson said he told Murdaugh he was working on a broken pool pump while he and his wife were watching The Bachelor on their porch.
After the brief chat, Murdaugh texted Wilson at 9:52 p.m., asking him to “call me if you're up.” Wilson said he called his friend back immediately, but Murdaugh did not answer. Wilson said he called him back and Murdaugh answered saying that he had just visited his mom and was almost on his way home.
Minutes later, Murdaugh would call 911 to report his wife and son shot outside their dog kennels. Wilson said he was woken up a short time later by his “hysterical” wife and several phone calls notifying him Maggie and Paul had been murdered.
Wilson stressed that those among Murdaugh’s inner circle remained close to the former lawyer after the murders—worried about his mental health and that he may do something drastic.
“I was worried he was going to kill himself, as I think several people were,” Wilson said. “We talked regularly about being there for him.”
