Alex Murdaugh murder trial updates: Week 3 concludes with more circumstantial evidence
The video at the top of the story will play a live feed of the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial or a replay upon completion of today's proceedings.
Week three of the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial in Walterboro, South Carolina concluded with more highly technical and scientific circumstantial evidence from the state.
The State called Mathew Wilde, an FBI Supervisory Special Agent and an expert on historical call data analysis and cellular location analysis, who has testified in more than 130 cases where investigators were trying to use cell data to track the location and movements of suspects and victims.
Wilde testified on the location and movement of the cell phones of Alex, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, using call data, cell tower data, on-the-ground testing and other resources.
Wilde’s testimony showed that Alex Murdaugh’s phone was in the general vicinity of the Moselle crime scene from 6:40 p.m. until roughly 9:10 p.m., and from 9:12 p.m. to 9:18 p.m. the phone was more south of the property, close to the border of the estate. Murdaugh’s phone then moved towards his mother’s home in Almeda from 9:20 to 9:46 p.m.
This testimony and data coincides with other evidence and testimony that puts Murdaugh at the crime scene during the time that investigators believe Maggie and Paul were killed – roughly 8:50 p.m. on June 7, 2021. Murdaugh had told authorities that he did not visit the dog kennels where the murders occurred until finding the bodies and calling 911 around 10:07 p.m., but a cell phone video taken around 8:44 p.m. by Paul contains a voice that multiple witnesses said was Murdaugh’s voice.
Upon cross examination, Murdaugh attorney Phil Barber asked why the FBI did similar analysis on the cell phones of other people, including Murdaugh employee C.B. Rowe and alleged Murdaugh drug and finance crime accomplice Curtis Edward Smith – in an effort to suggest police were looking at other possible suspects.
Paul Murdaugh's friend takes the stand
The State called Paul’s longtime boyhood friend, Nathan Tuten, who also positively identified one of the voices in the incriminating June 7 cell phone video as belonging to Alex Murdaugh.
Tuten further testified that, while working at PMPED from 2019 to 2022, Murdaugh sent him to cash checks for him at Palmetto State Bank, and when he returned to Murdaugh’s office he would often find the same people waiting there with Murdaugh: Cory Fleming, who was charged in criminal wrongdoing in the Gloria Satterfield Estate case: Murdaugh’s friend Gregory Alexander, who is the Yemassee Police Chief, and friend and fellow attorney Chris Wilson.
Tuten said that Murdaugh stopped asking him to cash checks prior to the double murders – which is the time that PMPED officials seriously confronted Murdaugh on missing legal fees.
Alex Murdaugh double murder trial: Key observations and unanswered questions after Week 3
The witness added that, after the killings in July 2021, Murdaugh told him that he wanted to “clear Paul’s name” in connection with the 2019 fatal boat crash in which Paul was charged and Murdaugh sued, and with Paul gone he could “beat the boat case.”
Court is scheduled to resume around 9:30 a.m. Monday. The prosecution hopes to rest around midweek of next week, said lead prosecutor Creighton Waters, and the defense may need a week to present its case, Murdaugh attorney Richard Harpootlian said.
Friday a.m. updates in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial
Day 15 of the Alex Murdaugh murder trial in South Carolina got chippy as Judge Clifton Newman denied a motion for a mistrial and sent the jury out of the room amid a flurry of contentious objections.
After hearing several days of highly contested financial crimes testimony - which the State says relates to Murdaugh's alleged motive - and then hearing questions about the Murdaugh's anxiety over finances related to pending lawsuits, Murdaugh attorney Richard Harpootlian objected and moved for a mistrial.
Seconds earlier, Assistant Attorney General John Meadors had asked Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson, one of the Murdaugh's household employees, if murder victim Maggie Muraugh was concerned over anxious over money matters.
Harpootlian immediately objected on the grounds of hearsay, and stating that Meadors was "testifying" instead of answering questions. "You can't un-ring the bell" once the jury has heard something, contended Harpootlian.
After sending the jury from the room to discuss, Newman overruled the objection and denied the motion, citing the fact that Murdaugh's defense had previously asked questions about Murdaugh's "loving" family that didn't appear to have any problems.
This contentious moment midday Friday came after Murdaugh's defense tried unsuccessfully to strike two witnesses: financial victim Tony Satterfield and Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley.
Housekeeper Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson offers testimony
Amid a lot of detailing questioning that often seemed to go nowhere, some pearls of evidence emerged from Simpson that may impact the case.
Simpson testified that:
∎Prior to the killings, Maggie Murdaugh and Alex were worried about what she was told was a $30 million lawsuit in the boat case.
∎Maggie told her that Alex wanted both Maggie and Paul to make a special trip to Moselle on the day of the killings.
∎After the killings, she never saw the clothes Murdaugh was wearing that evening ever again.
∎She cooked Paul and Maggie's last meal: cubed steak with gravy, rice and green beans.
∎Murdaugh asked her to go to the Moselle home, which was a crime scene, and "straighten up" the morning after the killings.
∎Alex coached her on what to say if police asked her what clothes he had been wearing that day. "I felt confused at first," she said. "I know what we was wearing when he left the house (to go to work)... It didn't feel like he was enquiring what clothes he was wearing. It felft like he was trying to convince me of what clothes he was wearing."
∎She identified Murdaugh's voice on an incriminating cell phone video which placed him at the murder scene.
∎She found Maggie's wedding ring in her Mercedes after the killings.
What to know before Friday's court session
The double murder trial for disgraced and disbarred South Carolina attorney Richard "Alex" Murdaugh continues today at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, part of the 14th Judicial Circuit where Murdaugh's ancestors once held legal power for 85-plus years as solicitors.
Murdaugh, the fourth generation of a legal dynasty in Hampton County, is charged with the shooting death of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at their Colleton County home on June 7, 2021. After a verdict is reached on those charges, Murdaugh, jailed in the state capital on a $7 million bond, must then stand trial on roughly 100 financial and drug-related charges.
After enquires by the defense in order for it to call its witnesses, the State says it hopes to rest its case by the middle of next week. Murdaugh's team says it will take a week for the defense's case.
To date, the State has called 42 witnesses and has roughly 400 exhibits of evidence.
What happened in the Murdaugh trial Thursday? Chris Wilson, Mark Tinsley testimony
Murdaugh's friend since boyhood, Chris Wilson, took the stand on Thursday and testified about missing legal fees which Murdaugh allegedly stole that led to a June 7, 2021, confrontation with PMPED CFO Jeannie Seckinger, a row that the two had and about the deaths of Paul and Maggie.
Before the end of the day Mark Tinsley, the Allendale attorney representing the Estate of Mallory Beach in the 2019 wrongful death suit involving the Murdaugh family, also took to the stand to talk about the boating incident.
Court adjourned for the day around 5:54 p.m. and will continue Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. with further questioning of Tinsley.
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This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Alex Murdaugh trial live stream, updates: Day 15 of witness testimony
