Chilling photos reveal bloody crime scene where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were executed

Chilling photos shown at Alex Murdaugh‘s murder trial this week revealed the bloody crime scene at the family’s hunting lodge where his wife Maggie and son Paul were executed.

Two of the family’s Labradors can be seen still locked in the kennels on the sprawling hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, when law enforcement arrived on the night of the double murder. A large blood stain is visible just outside the cages. 

The jury has heard during the trial how much the Murdaugh family loved their hunting dogs, and that Maggie regularly took them out for walks and to the beach. But if the dogs barked that night of the murders, they did so in vain. 

Paul, 22, was shot twice with a shotgun and found partially inside one of the kennels on concrete, while his mother – who had been shot multiple times with an assault rifle – was found several feet away, her blood seeping into the damp ground. 

Murdaugh, 54, is on trial for the murders of his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son Paul on June 7, 2021.

The State claims Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from his financial crimes. He embezzled millions from his law firm and was facing a lawsuit over his son Paul’s drunken boat crash.

Murdaugh pleaded not guilty in June, and the defense argue their client was a ‘loving’ husband and father who could have never have committed such a gruesome crime.

Murdaugh claims he had supper with Maggie and Paul around 8.15 before they headed down to the kennels at the Moselle Road property.

He told cops he remained in the house, falling asleep in front of the TV. He then woke up and drove to visit his mother who is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s at around 9pm.

He says the next time he saw his wife and son was when he arrived home and found them lying dead at the kennels. Murdaugh called 911 at 10.07pm.

Photos taken the night of the murders show dogs locked in their kennels, with pools of blood nearby. 

Based on the descriptions of the dogs provided to the court, the two pictured appear to be Bubba and Maggie – both yellow labs.

Other dogs at the kennels were Maggie’s black lab Grady, Rogan Gibson’s Chocolate lab Cash, Alex’s Red Bird dog Tappy Toes, Paul’s Bulldog Armadillo and Alex’s Bird Dog Dahlia. 

The prosecution allege that Murdaugh was with Maggie and Paul at the kennels minutes before the murders, citing a video heard in court last week. 

Rogan Gibson, a close friend of the Murdaughs told the jury he is 100 percent positive that Alex, Paul and Maggie’s voices were in a cell phone video taken at the crime scene minutes before the murders. 

Gibson, whose dog Cash was being cared for by Paul at the kennels, described the Murdaughs as his ‘second family’, listened to a video taken by Paul at 8.44pm at the dog kennels  after 8.49pm on June 7, 2021.

Paul is seen on the video trying to corral Gibson’s chocolate Labrador retriever so he could film his injured tail. ‘Quit, Cash. Come here,’ he says.

‘He’s got a bird in his mouth!’ Maggie is heard saying in the background. 

‘Bubba!’ a third voice – this one male – calls out to one of their dogs. 

‘It’s a guinea,’ Maggie says.

‘It’s a chicken,’ Paul replies.

‘Come here, Bubba!’ the male voice says. ‘Come here, Bubba!’

Paul had promised to send Gibson the video of his dog who he was looking after – but it was never sent despite the pair talking on the phone moments before.

Gibson’s testimony contradicts Murdaugh’s claim that the last time he saw Maggie and Paul alive was when they were having supper at the house. 

Citing the video, the prosecution told jurors: ‘The evidence will show that he was there. He was at the murder scene with the two victims.

‘More than that, just over three minutes later, 8.49pm and one second, Paul’s phone locks forever. Never reads another text, he never sends another text, he doesn’t answer calls.

‘Three minutes after that video has the defendant at the murder scene with the two victims, Paul’s cell phone goes silent forever.’

The coroner estimates that Paul and Maggie died between 9pm and 9.30pm.

Earlier this week, caretaker Roger Dale Davis told jurors he cleaned the kennels on the day Maggie and Paul were killed on the property. 

Much of Davis’ testimony focused on his usual cleaning routine at the kennels. He was shown photographs of the crime scene and looked at the hose, which he said he would have never left that way.

Jurors have heard evidence that Paul and Maggie’s bodies were saturated with water as well as blood when cops arrived – despite the fact it had not yet rained.

On the day of the killings, Davis said he cleaned the kennels in the afternoon before leaving at 4.30pm.

The prosecutor showed him photographs of the crime scene that night, including pools of water on the kennel floor and the hose.

Davis testified that he never left the hose as it appeared in the photos. 

He also said that water would not have still been pooled at the kennels since he cleaned them, that somebody else must have hosed them down again.

However, the suggestion that Murdaugh had used the hose after the shootings was dashed by defense attorney Jim Griffin.

He played a video taken by Paul at the kennels at around 8.45pm in which the hose can be seen not put away in the neat way described by Davis.

When asked about the footage by the prosecution Davis confirmed he could hear the voices of Alex, Paul and Maggie in the background.

The caretaker earlier told the court how he had once shot an injured dog as a ‘mercy’ because the legal scion could not bring himself to do it.

He described Maggie as ‘so laid back’ and that they would often chat about the dogs.

Davis described Paul was ‘a little wild and crazy’ but that he would work on the land and ‘do whatever his daddy needed him do’.

He said Alex wasn’t around much, he was often at work, but he found that he could be ‘very particular’ about how he wanted things to be done.

Davis described the Murdaughs relationship as ‘lovey-dovey’.

‘I never saw that man even raise his voice at his wife and kids,’ he said. ‘Anything she wanted, or the boys wanted, he would try to get it for them.’

Murdaugh liked to spend time hunting and drinking beer with Paul, Davis said.

The caretaker said he did not see Buster as much but he always seemed friendly with his father.

In another incident in 2018, Murdaugh’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, 57, died after she allegedly tripped and fell over the family dog at the property where she had worked for 20 years. 

The death was never reported to the Hampton County coroner, who asked state police to investigate why she was not called to review what she would consider ‘an accidental death’.

During the trial, Satterfield’s son Tony testified that Murdaugh had promised to take care of him and his brother Bryan, a vulnerable adult, after their mother died. 

Satterfield told the double murder trial Murdaugh pledged to get the pair $100,000 each and cover Gloria’s medical expenses. But he went on to steal more than $4 million from two insurance policies without giving them a cent.

Other lawyers later came in to help the Satterfield family and secured $4.3million for Gloria’s children after suing Murdaugh.

State Law Enforcement Division agents exhumed Gloria Satterfield’s body about a year after the deaths of Murdaugh’s son and wife, but never announced any findings and did not reopen an investigation into her death.

The trial is taking place at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, a sleepy, rural town 50 miles west of Charleston in a low-lying region of South Carolina over which the Murdaugh family has wielded immense judicial and political power.

Indeed, in the courtroom where Murdaugh faces judgment, a portrait of his late grandfather – legendary longtime 14th Circuit Solicitor Buster Murdaugh Jr. – had hung on the wall before it was removed ahead of the trial.