Guilty on all counts.
After a six week trial
with more than 70 witnesses,
it took a South Carolina jury
less than 3 hours of deliberations
to decide
that Alex Murdaugh
was guilty of killing his wife and son.
His sentencing is set for tomorrow.
We're back with S.E. Cupp, Dave Aronberg.
Patrick McEnroe joins us.
Natasha Alford as well.
So, David, you are an attorney.
What do you think?
Sealed the deal and allowed the jury
to decide this in 3 hours.
The jury saw right through this con man.
He lied from day one.
He lied to his family, lied to police.
And then when he got caught in a lie
because of his son's video,
he changed his story on the spot.
And the jury didn't
believe his news story.
And ironically,
it was his son, Paul,
who solved his own murder.
Yes, we've been saying that.
So Paul's cell phone captured the audio
of Alex Murdoch
at the kennels that night
where he said he wasn't.
Didn't he know in discovery?
I mean, don't
they present these things in discovery
where he would have been tipped off
that they had this video?
Like, why was he caught in that lie?
Didn't he know that they had this
cell phone video?
They knew later.
They found it months later.
But when they found it,
I think he thought he could
get away with it
because maybe it wasn't clear
that his voice was on it.
But then when his own witnesses
that his team called admitted.
Yeah, 100%. That's Alex voice.
He was in a lot of trouble.
And then he had to come up
with the opioid excuse.
The opioids made me paranoid,
which the jury didn't buy.
Just to remind
everybody, let's listen
to some of the lies that Alec Murdoch had
to admit to on the stand.
The second that you're confronted
with facts that you can't deny
immediately come up with a new lie.
Isn't that correct?
Mr.
Waters, have we established I have lied
many times.
Maggie asked me to go
to the kennels with her,
and I wasn't going to go
I said, I'm not going to go.
And how long after she left
did you supposedly go down there?
It was very quickly.
You get out of the golf cart to do that.
I did.
All right. And you had to go walk to where it was?
Well, yeah.
I mean, it
TV, but I did that.
Yes. All right.
So how long did that take?
Said we're we're at eight 46 now.
How long did that take? Seconds.
Just seconds.
All right.
And what did you do after that?
Got back on the golf cart.
Did I get on the golf cart
and lead that second?
Probably not.
But did I get on the golf cart and leave
very quickly?
And I don't know, Natasha,
I found when he would
when he was speaking in court,
him to have sort of a folksy,
aw shucks demeanor that I thought
that didn't scream liar to me
when I was listening to him.
And maybe that was strategic
or he was doing that
because, you know,
this is an experienced professional
And the entire system
seemed to be working in his favor
for many years.
I think we got the sense
from watching the prosecution at the end
that they were
welcomed by this community.
And it seems that this is a community
that felt that justice
should have been delivered long ago.
But I thought he was,
you know, above that.
So I get the sense
he was doing what he always did.
And this time it just didn't work.
That's such a great point
because it came out in trial
that he had stolen millions from people
and there were bodies and other bodies
that pop up around this family
in suspicious circumstances.
Well well,
I mean, as Natasha just said, spot on,
because what I was here about a week
ago and I was getting myself familiar
with this situation.
And I listened to Murdoch on the stand.
I've said to you, Allison,
and to our panel at the time,
this is a guy who's gotten away
with everything
throughout his entire life, the power,
the privilege, the family.
And the chickens came home to roost
because to Natasha's point,
and I think the reason the verdict
was delivered
so quickly
was because these people there knew it.
They knew exactly what this guy
had been doing
for many years,
not just murdering his wife and his kid,
but swindling people and lying
to people and manipulating people
throughout many, many years.
Ashley,
we've been talking about
how this is an example
of how there's justice for all.
They're from a wealthy,
privileged family.
They could afford the best attorneys
he'd be getting away with it for years.
But this shows that,
you know, rich people can go to prison.
But haven't we seen that before?
I mean, are we making too big of a deal of that?
I think there's been so
many high
profile cases
from Phil Spector to Robert Durst to
I mean, we've gone through the list.
Don't rich people go to jail a lot?
Yeah. Sometimes money and fame
can make you an example, right.
And put a bull's eye on you.
Not saying that those
people weren't guilty, but absolutely.
That can draw attention
and make you an example for a judge or
a prosecutor or even a jury.
But I think
while I agree with everything
Natasha and Patrick just said, I think we
we should also be careful not to intimate
that this jury
had some bias against the Murdoch family
because they maybe knew who they were.
I think they did their job.
And the prosecutor's burden is high.
Right.
But that burden of reasonable doubt
that could have squeaked in anywhere.
And it just didn't
it didn't
in any of these moments of the trial
for them to come back so quickly
meant no reasonable doubt.
Not one juror said, well,
I'm not convinced on this one thing.
That's enough to hang a jury
or to have an acquittal.
And that didn't happen.
I just think it was so damning.
What do you think was going on in there
for those 3 hours?
I mean, 3 hours
since you're someone who knows his way
around the courtroom.
Does that mean they all got in there
and said, like,
okay, we know
he's guilty,
but let's give this
some air of legitimacy
and sit around for 3 hours?
Well, there was there
one person who was on the fence?
What does that
mean, 3 hours
Well, they go in there
after not talking about it
with each other
and they say, let's take a vote.
And I think that they had 11 or 12 hands
right off the bat.
Then the next biggest question is
do we wait
long enough to get free dinner?
Because at some point their idea,
yeah, they're going to feed you.
You know, Patrick said something interesting,
so the chickens came home to roost.
Think about how close
this case came to unraveling.
If Bubba and, you know, Bubba is now
who's Bubba Bob? A family dog.
If Bubba hadn't eaten that chicken, Alex
voice wouldn't have been on the recording
that Paul recorded.
And I don't think Alec would
have been tied to the murder.
And can I
can I add something
to this question of, you know,
does this prove
that we finally have justice
only when certain victims were killed?
Right.
Did things sort of come together? Right.
And again,
this is not to speak to
whatever process it took to really,
you know, build this case.
But there were certain victims
who were helpless.
Think about all the people who he stole
money from,
the young man who was a quadriplegic
who had his settlement
money stolen from him.
Those victims, you know,
they didn't see justice. Right.
In this case, Maybe they had to wait.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So, you know,
the system worked in this instance,
but I think it's a moment of reflection
across the board.
What other ways does this system fail?
Can we make sure that justice is enforced
across the board?
And just enough I mean, I agree.
There were.
It took a long time
for justice to catch up
We all know people.
I guess his family,
because other victims did catch
did die around them.
The housekeeper
was died in suspicious circumstances.
And then, of course,
his son was going to be,
I guess, on trial for the death of the
in the boat accident.
Even Smith, don't forget Stephen Smith,
young man
who was killed
treated as roadkill, essentially.
But now they're
looking at the family
because there may have been
something nefarious going on.
It was a young man
who was killed in the middle of the road
And so this is just a crime
family, it seems like.