Alex Murdaugh was once sentenced to 2 consecutive lifestyles phrases in jail on Friday, an afternoon after the once-prominent lawyer was once discovered to blame of murdering his spouse and son.
Pass judgement on Clifton Newman passed down the ruling after a jury convicted Murdaugh on two counts of homicide for capturing his spouse, Maggie, and son Paul in 2021 on the circle of relatives’s looking belongings in Islandton, South Carolina. Prosecutors mentioned Murdaugh killed his members of the family in an try to achieve sympathy and stay a bevy of monetary crimes from being uncovered.
Murdaugh spoke in brief earlier than his sentencing, pronouncing, “I’m blameless. I might by no means harm my spouse Maggie, and I might by no means harm my son [Paul].”
He had maintained his innocence all over the trial, however prosecutors confirmed he had lied about being on the scene of the crime simply mins earlier than his spouse and son have been killed. Murdaugh admitted he lied about being at his property’s canine kennels, the place the shootings happened, however mentioned he left the pair and returned to search out them useless.
The jury rejected that declare, attaining a to blame verdict on each counts of homicide and two counts of possessing a dangerous weapon throughout the fee of a violent crime.
The six-week trial rocked the state. The tough Murdaugh circle of relatives has been a prison dynasty within the Deep South for generations, with individuals controlling a regional prosecutor’s workplace for greater than 80 years and working an impressive regulation company within the house.
“Nowadays’s verdict proves that no person, no person — regardless of who you might be in society — is above the regulation,” South Carolina Legal professional Common Alan Wilson mentioned after the decision was once delivered Thursday.
The minimal sentence for homicide in South Carolina is 30 years in jail. Prosecutors had mentioned they’d search a sentence of lifestyles in jail with out the opportunity of parole earlier than Newman’s resolution was once rendered.
Murdaugh can attraction the ruling.
He’s nonetheless expecting trial for a sequence of monetary crimes he admitted to whilst at the stand in his homicide case, in addition to fees of insurance coverage fraud, tax evasion and cash laundering.
Murdaugh was once disbarred closing summer season. Prosecutors have charged him with stealing just about $9 million.
CORRECTION: A prior model of this tale mentioned Murdaugh was once sentenced to concurrent phrases; the phrases are consecutive.