Alex Murdaugh prosecutor slams defence in rebuttal for ‘blaming’ investigation when ‘he lied about alibi’
‘You don’t lie about being at the scene when your family is being brutally murdered. You don’t lie about that,’ said John Meadors
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A prosecutor in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial slammed the defence for “blaming” law enforcement for the investigation when the disgraced attorney “obstructed” the case by repeatedly lying about his alibi for the night of the brutal slayings.
Prosecutor John Meadors hit out at Mr Murdaugh and his legal team as he delivered a high-octane rebuttal case in the high-profile double murder trial in Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
Mr Meadors condemned the defence for accusing law enforcement of fabricating evidence and botching the murder investigation – when the defendant has spent the last 20 months lying to investigators about when he last saw his wife Maggie and son Paul alive.
“I find it offensive that a family with a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather [in the legal system]... that the defence, the defendant who is also a part-time soliticor say that the police didn’t do his job – when he is withholding and obstructing justice,” he said.
“When he didn’t say: ‘I was down at the kennels’.”
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Mr Meadors accused the defence “of putting law enforcement on trial” and trying to “blame everybody else” bar Mr Murdaugh – the accused killer – for the murders of his wife and son.
“They’re trying to put us on trial for doing our jobs – blaming everybody else,” he said.
Mr Meadors hammered home the fact that Mr Murdaugh had lied to law enforcement, his family and friends ever since that fateful night on 7 June 2021.
In the 20 months between the murders and the trial, Mr Murdaugh denied ever being at the dog kennels on the family’s Moselle estate with Maggie and Paul.
But, a cellphone video found on Paul’s phone revealed that he, Maggie and Mr Murdaugh were all there together just minutes before the murders.
When he took the stand in his own defence, Mr Murdaugh finally confessed that he had lied about his alibi.
“Why wouldn’t you tell them that?” Mr Meadors asked, telling jurors: “Credibility. Believability.”
“Can you imagine not telling law enforcement that ‘I was down there and I saw them, I saw something’?” he continued.
Mr Meadors acknowledged that there may be gaps in knowledge – gaps he said “only one person knows” – and that officials do sometimes make mistakes.
But he said that Mr Murdaugh’s lie about his alibi on the night of the murders was “no mistake”.
“Do we make mistakes? Yes... but you don’t lie about being at the scene when your family is being brutally murdered. You don’t lie about that.”
Mr Meadors told jurors that Mr Murdaugh’s appearance on the witness stand further only further proved that “he is a liar”.
“When he took the stand he corroborated that he is a liar,” he said, adding “that’s all you can judge people on”.
The prosecutor urged jurors to use “common sense” as they deliberate on the case as he walked them through several ways that Mr Murdaugh allegedly tried to build an alibi and cover his tracks after killing his wife and son.
Mr Meadors told jurors that prosecutors believe the disgraced attorney hid the murder weapons – a 12-gauge shotgun and a .300 Blackout semiautomatic rifle – at his parents’ home that night.
Prosecutors say that Mr Murdaugh killed Maggie and Paul at around 8.50pm.
Cellphone data, car data and witness testimony have revealed that Mr Murdaugh then drove to his parents’ home in Almeda just after 9pm – staying just 20 minutes.
When he drove back home, he called 911 claiming he had found his wife and son’s bodies.
Me Meadors told jurors that “common sense” shows that Mr Murdaugh hid the guns on the grounds of Almeda, pointing out that he parked out the back of the property instead of on the driveway.
“We submit to you that’s when he went to hide the guns. That’s common sense,” he said.
“He wasn’t going there because he loves his momma. He wasn’t going to be with her. He was going because he loves Alex.”
Mr Meadors reminded jurors of the testimony of his mother’s caretaker Shelley Smith who said that he told her to tell law enforcement he had been at his mother’s home double the length of time he had.
He also tried to align his story with the Murdaughs’ housekeeper Blanca Simpson, he said.
Ms Simpson had testified that Mr Murdaugh was wearing a different outfit on the day of the murders to that which he was wearing in bodycam footage when the first officer arrived on the scene. That initial outfit was also captured on a Snapchat video by Paul just one hour before the murders.
Ms Simpson – who did the family’s laundry – told the court she never saw that clothing again.
Days after the murders, Ms Smith testified that he then returned to his parents’ property with a bundled up “blue thing”.
Law enforcement later found a blue raincoat covered in gunshot residue with prosecutors claiming Mr Murdaugh wrapped the guns in the item before disposing of them.
Mr Meadors questioned why Ms Smith would take note of that if it wasn’t unusual – or mention it if it weren’t true.
“Is Shelley making that up? Did she make that up?” he asked.
The prosecutor pushed back on the defence’s questioning of the timeline saying that the last cellphone usage of Maggie and Paul does show “time of death”.
If it weren’t, he said Mr Murdaugh wouldn’t need to dispute being there at the kennels at that time.
Mr Meadors returned to Paul’s video placing Mr Murdaugh at the kennels, with the accused killer heard shouting at the family dog Bubba which had caught a chicken.
“Does Bubba have a sixth sense?” he asked, suggesting that the dog caused Mr Murdaugh to yell out in the footage – ultimately placing Mr Murdaugh at the scene of the murders.
“Thank god for Bubba.”
He concluded: “I think he loved Maggie. I think he loved Paul. But you know who he loved more than that... he loved Alex.”
The rebuttal came after the defence’s closing statement, with attorney Jim Griffin imploring jurors to recognise reasonable doubt and acquit Mr Murdaugh.
Mr Griffin had argued that investigators “failed miserably” in their handling of the case and had pinned the murders on Mr Murdaugh because they refused to look at anyone else.
Over the past six weeks, jurors have heard gruesome testimony about how Maggie and Paul were gunned down at the dog kennels of the family’s sprawling 1,700-acre Moselle estate back on 7 June 2021.
Two different guns were used in the attack – neither of which have ever been found.
Paul was ambushed by his attacker as he stood in the feed room of the kennels, being shot twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. The first shot struck his chest, while a second fatal shot tore through his shoulder, neck and head, blowing his entire brain out of his skull.
Just yards away from Paul, Maggie was shot five times with a .300 Blackout semiautomatic rifle, as she tried to flee her killer.
Mr Murdaugh called 911 at 10.06pm that night claiming he had found his wife and son’s bodies.
Now, it is down to the jury to decide the fate of the once-powerful legal dynasty heir.
If convicted, Mr Murdaugh faces life in prison.
But this is far from his only legal trouble – as he awaits trial on 100 charges in his financial fraud scheme.
He is also awaiting trial over a September 2021 bizarre botched hitman plot where he claims he asked his distant cousin and alleged drug dealer Curtis Eddie Smith to shoot him in the head so his surviving son Buster would inherit a $12m life insurance windfall.
Prosecutors claim this was another plot by Mr Murdaugh to paint himself as a victim when his other crimes and scandals were closing in on him.
Beyond the murders, Mr Murdaugh is also facing several lawsuits over the fatal 2019 boat crash where 19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed.
Paul was allegedly drunk driving the boat when it crashed, throwing Beach overboard.
He was facing 25 years in prison on felony charges at the time of his death while Mr Murdaugh was being sued by the Beach family as well as being investigated for potentially trying to influence witnesses.
The murders of Maggie and Paul also brought to light a series of unexplained deaths surrounding Mr Murdaugh.
Days on from the murders, an investigtion was reopened into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, who was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County.
The openly gay teenager, 19, had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But the victim’s family have long doubted this version of events, with the Murdaugh name cropping up in several police tips and community rumours.
An investigation was also reopened into another mystery death connected to the Murdaugh family – that of the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield.
She died in 2018 in a mystery trip and fall accident at the family home. Mr Murdaugh then allegedly stole around $4m in a wrongful death settlement from her sons.