The Murdaugh Murders (podcast)

[Kendra]

I'm just starting to watch Low Country. I think it was done two years ago, but CNN just aired it and via Xfinity app I queued it up and a replay since I slept through it Sunday night

[AndyinPA]

Netflix program coming soon. Don't know if it's new or not.

[pjhimself]

[pjhimself]

[RVInit]

Creighton Waters is just blowing it this morning. He wants so badly for Alex to say specific words about the stealing and it simply is NOT GONNA HAPPEN. He is losing the jury, that was already clear yesterday according to some people who are in the courtroom watching the jury.

He needs to move on to the timeline, Alex cannot get the better of him on the timeline of the murders and the lies he told on the stand in order to get around the timeline.



I am getting more and more convinced that he will be acquitted or hung jury. Not because he should be, but this prosecutor, who has been great up to now, is blowing it will this opportunity to confront the lying POS.

[RVInit]

He heard me. He just now moved on to the drugs.

I think hie probably intends to point out that Alex is lying to the jury about why he stole the money. He is trying to blame it all on the drugs. The problem is that he could not possibly have spent 4 million dollars in one year on drugs that have a street cost of $15 per pill. And if he was buying street oxycontin, how did he avoid a fatal amount of fentanyl?

Alex is indeed cunning and cagey. He just will not answer any of the prosecutions questions about money or drugs. He is being asked how many pills approx did you take in any day. He just talks in general about addiction and it varied, and all kinds of answers except giving any actual number of pills he may have taken in any given day. He wont' say because this is not where all that money went. I am convinced that he either gambled it away or that he has it stashed somewhere. Maybe they should check the Bahamas.

Oh, he's now giving symptoms that opioids would not give you. Diarrhea. Not a chance. Opioids cause constipation in most people. You have to keep very busy and active to maintain normal BM function when you are regularly taking opioids.

OL, now sounds like Waters is finally heading towards what he NEEDS to get Alex to talk about. The timeline of the day of the murders. he needs to get there quick or this jury is just going to get fed up and acquit him in an hour because they can't figure out WHY he would have done this.

[RVInit]

Alex is talking about having paranoia. That id NOT a symptom of opioids. Not at all. Especially for someone who KNOWS that he is privileged and that he's displaying a badge on his dashboard of his $150,000 car in a town where the average income is 30,000.

[Kendra]

I still have to watch episode three, but the Low Country documentary that CNN now has available is really worth the time. It digs so much deeper than the national coverage we've seen. So many bodies and questions around this family.

[tek]

Why is MSNBC running this wall-to-wall?

seems insane.

[RVInit]

I still have to watch episode three, but the Low Country documentary that CNN now has available is really worth the time. It digs so much deeper than the national coverage we've seen. So many bodies and questions around this family.

yes. The Netflix special is also 3 episodes and it's actually a different special with a different title. It covers the same stuff and many of the same people are interviewed, but some additional information came out in the Netflix special, such as Connor asking his parents if they thought the Murdaughs would have him hurt or killed. The Murdaughs were trying really hard to shift the blame for the boat accident onto Connor, even called his parents from the hospital to tell them definitively that Connor had been driving and was responsible but "don't worry, I will take care of him".

Yesterday afternoon in cross examination the subject of Alex being investigated for obstruction in the boat accident came up. It makes me think they will bring Connor on during the rebuttal case. The defense has been so bad about opening the door to all this other stuff coming in. I believe they are doing it on purpose so they can yak on and on and on to the jury about how much time during a murder trial they spent talking about finances and the boat case and everything except murder.

I didn't think it would work, but now I'm changing my mind after it appears the prosecution spent way too much time during Alex cross, I believe according to court observers that he lost the jury.

[RVInit]

He's gotten himself in trouble with his kennel testimony. Except if the prosecution has lost any of the jurors I believe it may not matter at this point.

His problem is that he has to say that he changed his mind and went to the kennels because "Maggie asked me to". But, he also has to say that he went down there, spent two minutes and headed right back to the house, because otherwise he can't explain why he was still outside but never saw or heard the shooting.

[RVInit]

Oh boy. So, I just finished listening to the morning cross exam of Alex Murdaugh. He is indeed cunning, parses words, and in some ways is getting the best of the prosecutor. I do think the prosecutor is making very good points, getting stuff from AM that will be used in closing.

The most interesting information I got from this morning was a surprise which had never come out before. He said the family had attended a ball game together. Turns out that he remained in the hotel room and his explanation was that he was detoxing. This was the day before the murders. He didn't leave the hotel room until around 6 PM. They have proof that in May Maggie had found a stash of Alex' pills. I think they may be building up the idea that his finances were clearly falling apart and coming into the open at that point, but also, additional pressure of his family attempting to get him off drugs and the very day before the killings he was apparently trying to detox. But he says he wasn't detoxing on the day of the killing.

One of the problems is he's painting himself as being so utterly addicted to drugs, and refusing to go to rehab, only being willing to attempt to detox, that alone could have caused him to rid himself of the two people who were most involved in trying to get him to give up drugs, which he clearly did not want to do.

[RVInit]

In general I think Creighton Waters is not doing the best job of this cross exam. It's not a total disaster, but I already believe he did it. I can see someone who is not yet convinced just utterly wanting the prosecutor to shut up and sit down at this point.

One issue I have with the prosecution is that he is trying over and over and over trying to get Alex to admit to things that he simply WILL NOT admit to. And while he keeps asking him over and over again, Alex finally has enough time to have concocted a story and he turns to the jury and gives a plausible story. But if Creighton would just make his point quick and get on to the next thing, Alex wouldn't have the time to concoct all these seemingly plausible stories. Which a juror can easily hang their hat on.

[RVInit]

I've had a thought about why he was calling Rogan so desperately after he "discovered" the bodies.

The night of the boat accident, he tried to get the blame pinned onto one of Paul's friends. First he tried to get Connor to say he couldn't remember who was driving, also tried to get all the other kids to say they couldn't remember who was driving. Then, he told Connor's parents that Conner definitely WAS driving the boat and he was able to get a police officer to change the kids' stories. There is actually an obstruction investigation going on about how much Alex influenced reports and tried to influence who was charged in the boat case.

He admitted this morning that he thought Rogan was right around the corner the night of the murders. And he made at least three phone calls to Rogan's phone right after calling 911. I do not think it's a stretch that a man that would try to get his son out of trouble by pinning the blame on one of his son's friends would try to get himself out of trouble by trying to pin the blame on one of his son's friends.

[RVInit]

Oh lordy.

I am not impressed with this prosecutor. He was great when he was fully prepared, but he's not on his game with cross examination of Murdaugh. He's making points, but he does not know when he's already made the point that he can argue later. And he hasn't figured out that continuing to ask Murdaugh questions that he is clearly avoiding to answer is just giving Murdaugh more and more time to eventually come up with yet another soliloquy that sounds almost plausible.

Usually I love to listen to cross exam of a witness, it can often be very interesting. This is not interesting. I guess he thinks he's letting Alex show that he can come up with stories on the fly, but it cuts both ways and any juror that wants to acquit is getting plenty of reason to do it. And he's spending way too much time repeating the financial stealing stuff. The defense is going to be able to justifiably argue that the prosecution proved that Alex stole money. Period.

I will be shocked if he's convicted at this point.

[Patagoniagirl]

Thanks for the play-by-play, RV and the rest of you legal fanatics

[humblescribe]

I am curious about the Moselle estate. I understand that the title was in Maggie's name. Alex testified (not sure if direct or on cross) that he had been texting his buddy, Lafite, at the bank for a loan against Moselle. This testimony was in response to the assertion that he was out of money and needed to repay his law firm or others, I believe. He thought it was worth about $2 million give or take, including the timber.

It would seem to me that the prosecutor ought to delve a little more deeply into this. Why was there no borrowing against Moselle? Did Maggie refuse to sign the loan docs? What happens to the title on Moselle if Maggie dies--does he inherit?

I wanna know. There may be some relevance here.

[RVInit]

OK FINALLY the prosecutor made a slam dunk point and said "nothing further".

That was a big point, but I think if he's already lost the jury it doesn't matter.

Alex had to explain WHY he said he was at home sleeping when Paul and Maggie were down at the kennel. That was one of the first things his lawyer asked him after getting him to say "No, I did not kill Maggie. No, I did not kill Paul". He HAD to explain the lie that was exposed when investigators found the kennel video and friends and family positively identified Alex' voice in the background.

His explanation for why he lied was because he did not trust SLED. Today he added a new twist, which was that he believed the SLED investigator named David was the same "David" that he claims had railroaded one of his friends. He also added that they had taken GSR from his hands and other things that SLED did that made him not trust them and that caused him to lie.

So, the very last thing the prosecutor played for him was a recording of him talking to a law enforcement (not SLED, but a local friendly law enforcement), and sure enough, Alex had told him the same lie. And right in front of the jury he denies that this goes against the statements he made about why he lied. He really is a narcissist. But I still am afraid he will get away with it.

[RVInit]

I am curious about the Moselle estate. I understand that the title was in Maggie's name. Alex testified (not sure if direct or on cross) that he had been texting his buddy, Lafite, at the bank for a loan against Moselle. This testimony was in response to the assertion that he was out of money and needed to repay his law firm or others, I believe. He thought it was worth about $2 million give or take, including the timber.

It would seem to me that the prosecutor ought to delve a little more deeply into this. Why was there no borrowing against Moselle? Did Maggie refuse to sign the loan docs? What happens to the title on Moselle if Maggie dies--does he inherit?

I wanna know. There may be some relevance here.

I agree and I think this is probably one of the things the prosecutor already has enough actual paper evidence to bring on rebuttal and go over with a banker. Not sure, but I would guess that's his plan (if he has one on this point).

[sad-cafe]

watching low country now

that family is evil

[RVInit]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Thanks, RV!

[Kendra]

watching low country now

that family is evil

Yes, a lot of dead people in their trail. Have you got to part two where they talk about the young man whose dead body shows up in the middle of the road and the local police treat it like a car accident? And the state trooper (who has the expertise in car accidents) says

Whether there's a Murdaugh connection, we don't really know

[pjhimself]

Another analysis from “experts” follows.

But what does the jury think ?

[Reddog]

I watched some of it. IANAL, but for those on here. How common is it, in their experience, for defendants to testify in their own defense? I always thought it wasn’t considered wise.

It seems to me that’s he’s adopted the Kenosha defense. .

Is the prosecutor trying to avoid alienating the jury by picking on someone who is coming across as someone who is under extreme distress?

I realize everyone’s different, but thinking back to personal traumatic events in my life, some going back well over 50 years. I can reconstruct the events with no lapses, e.g. almost 53 years ago I had a compound fracture right tibia. The only moment I don’t remember of that whole day is when I was under anesthesia for several hours. I don’t have a particularly good memory, the mundane things, “did I lock the car” etc. yeah I don’t seem to remember. The day my Mom died, the day my best friend died etc. it’s like a movie.

Also what bothers me is he was familiar with crime scenes, but seemed to intentionally disregard proper procedures. This gives him a perfect reason to have had trace evidence on him. GSR from what I understand is fairly easily washed off.