The decision to call Alex Murdaugh to the stand at his own double-murder trial shocked legal observers—with one going so far as to describe his appearance as a “train wreck.”
But the full impact of the disgraced ex-lawyer’s testimony—which continues Friday—won’t be known until prosecutors are done cross-examining him.
“Murdaugh’s decision to take the stand is a huge surprise, and the entire case will rise or fall on his testimony,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, who is following the trial, told The Daily Beast. “Murdaugh has already admitted to lying to law enforcement and is trying to explain away the bad cell phone and other forensic evidence against him.
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“He’s an experienced lawyer and the prosecution has a difficult circumstantial case, so his decision to testify means that Murdaugh and his team think the case is getting away from them,” Rahmani added.
A spokesperson for Murdaugh’s legal team told The Daily Beast that the “final decision was up to Alex” to testify. Murdaugh is charged with fatally shooting his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and his 22-year-old son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, near the dog kennels of their South Carolina estate in a deranged scheme to garner public pity and evade questions about his financial crimes.
Prosecutors called over 61 witnesses to detail cell phone data, ballistics evidence, and videos that they contend prove that Murdaugh was the only person who could have killed his wife and son. The evidence undermined Murdaugh’s claim to investigators that he was nowhere near the kennels around the time of the murders. When Murdaugh took the stand Thursday, he admitted he was at the kennels minutes before the shooting but was back home, dozing in the front of the TV when the killings took place.
Murdaugh Says He ‘Had to Keep Lying’
Breaking down on the stand, Murdaugh claimed that drug-fueled paranoia—from opioids he got addicted to after a knee surgery two decades ago—prompted him to lie about his whereabouts.
“On June 7, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reason. And I lied about being down there. And I’m so sorry that I did,” Murdaugh said.“Oh what a tangled web we weave. Once I told the lie, and I told my family, I had to keep lying,” he added.
Murdaugh told jurors that while he may have lied, he did not kill his wife and son and discovered their bodies when he went to look for them after his nap and visiting his ailing mother at her home about 15 minutes away. He sobbed as he testified about how he turned over Paul and “could see his brain laying on the sidewalk.”
Gerald E. Harmon, a South Carolina criminal defense lawyer who has been following the case, found Murdaugh “thoughtful and collected” on the stand. Harmon added that Murdaugh “needed to explain why that occurred to the jury himself,” even though he now runs the risk of a “thorough cross-examination.”
“I can imagine the jury is engaged and is using his testimony to fill in holes,” he added. “It’s complicated to analyze how effective his decision to testify will be with the jury. I do not believe Alex has substantially harmed his case with his testimony.”
For criminal defense attorney Duncan Levin, however, Murdaugh’s testimony has been nothing short of a “train wreck that has inched the prosecution significantly closer to a conviction.”
“It was clear prior to his testimony that his own lawyers did not want him to testify, and now we know why,” Levin told The Daily Beast. “The prosecution has done a very good job so far at showing the jury who Alex Murdaugh really is. And he really appeared to flounder during cross-examination.”
Levin noted that Murdaugh admitted to abusing a law enforcement badge he obtained as a volunteer for the solicitor’s office, stealing from clients for years, and lying about her whereabouts the night of the murders.
“His demeanor was also off, snapping at the prosecutor, who was asking about his financial crimes,” Levin added. “He repeatedly admitted lying and blamed it on a drug addiction. The question is whether the jury will accept his excuses, and it seems pretty incredible to believe that anyone on the jury was swayed in his direction during his testimony [on Thursday].”
