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The jury in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial has been shown a Snapchat video of the legal heir filmed an hour before their deaths wearing a different outfit to the clean white t-shirt cops found him in after he called 911 claiming to have just found their bloodied bodies.
Murdaugh is on trial in South Carolina for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul, who were shot dead at the family’s hunting lodge in June 2021.
Prosecutors are still laying out their case, which includes a video they say puts Alex at the scene of the crime moments before the pair were shot dead.
He denies the murders, and says he was visiting his elderly mother when the pair were shot.
Yesterday, the jury was shown a video which showed Alex trying to plant a tree on the property. It was taken at 7.56pm, and shows him wearing a light blue shirt and khaki pants.
7.56pm: Alex Murdaugh is shown in a Snapchat video filmed by his son Paul. He is wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants, and is planting a tree in the family’s yard
10.20pm: Alex called 911 at 10.07pm, claiming he’d just returned home from visiting his elderly mother to find his wife and son dead, their bodies covered in blood. He was wearing a pristine white t-shirt and shorts
At 8.44pm, Paul filmed a video of a dog he was looking after, in which prosecutors say Alex’s voice can be heard.
All activity on Maggie and Paul’s cell phones stopped suddenly after that video was filmed.
At 10.07pm, Alex Murdaugh called 911, claiming he had just come home from his mother’s house to find his wife and son lying dead.
He later described a gruesome scene, telling cops he flipped over his son’s bloodied body to find a pulse, and that he could see his ‘brains’.
Bodycam footage and dashboard footage shows him wearing a pristine, white t-shirt and shorts.
Yesterday, prosecutors pointed out to the jury that he had changed, but they offered no explanation for it.
Murdaugh’s attorneys have not yet offered an explanation for the outfit change.
12.56am: Murdaugh in police car. He described being able to see his son’s ‘brain’
Maggie and Paul Murdaugh (left) were murdered in June 2021. He denies the killings. Their oldest son, Buster, is shown, right
They had claimed in opening statements that the video would help to exonerate their client, and that it showed what a loving father he was.
Today, the judge will rule on whether prosecutors will be able to disclose to the jury that Alex was drowning in debt and stealing from his law firm.
He has been charged with embezzling millions from the firm.
The jury has not yet heard of those crimes, which the prosecution claims paints a picture of a desperate man trying to hold on to whatever he had left.
Alex sobbed in court yesterday as the jury was shown the video of Paul playing with the dog.
His friend, the dog’s owner who was meant to receive the video, testified that the voices in the background of the video were undoubtedly Alex and Maggie’s.
Alex’s mother, who he says he was visiting at the time of the murders, is ‘on her death bed’.
The 83-year-old woman suffers from Alzheimer’s and is not among witnesses on either the state or the defense’s list.
Yesterday, Rogan Gibson, who described the Murdaughs as his ‘second family’, listened to a video taken by Paul at 8.44pm at the dog kennels where the 22-year-old was shot dead with his mother Maggie shortly after 8.49pm on June 7, 2021.
Gibson told jurors he was positive he could hear Paul, Maggie and Alex in the footage. 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.
Prosecutors say Paul couldn’t send the video as promised because Murdaugh had shot him dead with a shotgun before turning a rifle on his mother.
Gibson’s testimony contradicts Murdaugh’s claim that the last time he saw Maggie, 52, and Paul alive was when they were having supper at the house on the estate in Islandton, South Carolina.
The disgraced attorney, 54, told cops he only saw them at the kennels when he arrived back from his mother’s home to find them dead.
Gibson testified that Paul used his phone ‘a lot’ and had been communicating back and forth with him frequently that evening.
At 8.40pm, the two friends had a phone call about Gibson’s Labrador during which he told jurors he was ’99 per cent’ sure he could hear Murdaugh in the background.
Gibson said they were discussing a problem the dog had with its tail and Paul said he would try to Facetime him to show him what it looked like.
However, the reception at the estate was such that Paul told Gibson he would send a video if that did not work.
Records show that a few seconds after their phone call ended, Paul attempted to Facetime Gibson – that call lasted just 11 seconds.
Paul then recorded the video of Gibson’s dog in which his friend says he can hear Alex, Maggie and Paul together.
But he never sent it.
Gibson then texted Paul about the dog at 8.49pm – but the message went unanswered.
He also tried calling five times and even messaged his mother at 9.34pm asking Maggie to get him to call back.
Gibson told the court he learned of the murders early the following morning. He drove down to Moselle, as the Murdaugh’s estate is known, to pick up his dog and then met with detectives.
They asked to see his phone and he described having a phone conversation with Paul about a problem with his dog’s tail the night before at 8.40pm.
Murdaugh wept at the defense table as the video was played to the court Wednesday. Paul’s voice can be heard speaking to the dog as he tries to film its tail, the prosecution says that a woman speaking in the background is Maggie, and the third male voice heard is Murdaugh
Gibson told the cops he was ‘99% sure’ that he could hear Murdaugh’s voice in the background during that call.
Gibson told jurors he met police again in November 22 and they showed him the video Paul took of his dogs at the kennels.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters asked: ‘Did you recognize the voices of your second family?’
Gibson said: ‘I did.’
Waters asked Gibson if he ever spoke to Murdaugh about hearing his voice in the video.
MURDAUGH’S LAST TEXT AND CALLS TO HIS WIFE: At 9.47pm Alex Murdaugh texted Maggie, saying: ‘Call me babe.’ The prosecution say she had been dead almost an hour by this point. The phone also shows Maggie’s missed calls, including five from Alex on the night of the murders
PAUL’S FRIEND ROGAN GIBSON’S LAST TEXTS TO MAGGIE AND PAUL: Gibson texted Paul about his dog, who was being cared for at the Murdaugh kennels, at 8.49pm, following a conversation they had on the phone. That message went unanswered. Gibson then sent a text to Maggie at 9.34pm, saying: ‘Tell Paul to call me’
‘No sir,’ he told the court.
Waters followed up: ‘Not a subject you wanted to talk about?’
Gibson replied: ‘That is correct.’
The young man said he spent a lot of time at Moselle after the killings and recalled telling Maggie’s mother, Kennedy Branstetter – who Gibson affectionately knows as Grandma – that he ‘heard Mr Alec’ at the kennels.
Waters asked: ‘Did [Murdaugh] stand up and say, no I wasn’t there?’
Gibson replied: ‘He did not.’
Murdaugh claims he had supper with Maggie and Paul around 8.15 before they headed down to the kennels. 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.
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