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Jurors in Alex Murdaugh‘s double murder trial today visited the family’s hunting lodge which has remained frozen in time, with bullet hole-riddled windows and forgotten family possessions.
Eerie footage showed the kennels where Murdaugh’s wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were shot dead on the hunting estate in Moselle on the night of June 7, 2021.
The video revealed a plant pot painted with the name ‘Buster’ and a snowman standing on a table between two rocking chairs on the porch.
An abandoned bicycle which Maggie would ride from the main house to visit her beloved dogs at the kennels was parked out on the front lawn.
The video was taken Wednesday morning after the jury visited the sprawling 1,800-acre estate at the request of Murdaugh’s defense attorneys, in a rare move reminiscent of the OJ Simpson trial.
A bike outside the front of the property which jurors visited Wednesday morning. The court has heard Maggie would often ride a bicycle down to the kennels, while Paul would drive the 400 yards
A plant pot painted with a snowman and the name ‘Buster,’ Murdaugh’s sole surviving son, was seen on the porch during the jury’s visit Wednesday
Jurors this morning visited the estate after the defense requested they get a better understanding of the crime scene. Holes are seen in the glass of the feed room where Paul was blasted twice with a shotgun
The feed room where Paul was blasted twice with buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun
Maggie’s body was found a few yards to the right of the doghouse while Paul’s was in the doorway of the feed room at the kennels (far right)
The State says Murdaugh first blasted Paul twice with a shotgun in the feed room of the kennels before shooting Maggie with a .300 Blackout rifle yards away.
Jurors have heard gruesome evidence of how Paul’s brain was blown out the back of his head by a close range blast of steel buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun.
Maggie was shot at least four times, with bullet wounds to her thigh, wrist, torso and head. The final shot was fired into the back of her head as she lay face down on the ground when she was already dead.Â
During his testimony, Murdaugh floated his own theory of who committed the murders, saying he believed that vigilantes killed his wife and son in revenge for Paul’s drunken boat accident which killed a 19-year-old girl.Â
He said Paul had been attacked and threatened after the wreck in which Mallory Beach was killed in February 2019.Â
After sitting through more than a month of testimony, jurors were escorted by cops to see the exact spot where Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul were shot dead.
The judge then allowed three journalists, a reporter, photographer and videographer, to attend the scene only after the jurors had left.
The 12 jurors and two alternates were loaded into three transport vans with blacked-out windows and were guarded by a convoy of cop cars as they made the half-hour trip from the Colleton County courthouse to Moselle.
A hole though one of the window panes at the feed room of the kennels where Paul died
The front porch of the house at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
Maggie’s body was found a few yards to the right of the wooden doghouse in front of the lean-to, Paul’s body was discovered in the doorway of the feed room at the kennels which is behind the doghouse in this photo
The jury were seen walking the narrow path between the kennels where Paul was blasted with a shotgun and the lean-to where Maggie was killed with a rifle. Press were only allowed on the scene after the jury had leftÂ
Law enforcement cars and vans to transport the jury are seen on the driveway at the entrance to the kennels on Wednesday morning
Murdaugh’s defense attorneys leave the Murdaugh property following the jury visit this morning
The hanger and dog kennels at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday in a photo taken after the jury visited the crime scene this morning
The hose at the kennels which jurors have heard much about in evidence. First responders said the scene was wet and that the bodies of the victims were saturated with water as well as blood, despite the fact it had not rained yet that night
Judge Clifton Newman rode in a pickup truck driven by Colleton County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jason Chapman. Chapman testified on the first day of the trial as one of the first cops on the scene the night of Maggie and Paul’s murders.
The outing came after Murdaugh’s defense attorneys told the judge the visit would would allow jurors to see ‘how small the feed room is (where Paul was killed)’ and understand its location in relation to Maggie’s body.
The visit lasted an hour and 15 minutes and jurors then returned to the court to hear the prosecution’s closing argument.
Crime scene visits by juries are relatively rare but have occurred in a number of other high-profile prosecutions, including the 1995 murder trial of OJ Simpson.Â
Legal experts warned the move was ‘a big risk’. On the one hand it could garner sympathy for the alleger killer by showing jurors where his family lived – but they may also see that it was possible him to have committed the murders.Â
Lori Murray, a South Carolina criminal defense attorney, told DailyMail.com: ‘The defense wants the jury to be able to use all their senses to take this crime scene in.Â
‘It’s one thing to have pictures and graphs but quite another to be there in person. At the crime scene, the jury can see the house, the expanse of land, and the kennels.Â
‘They can judge just how close these two murders occurred and the distance from the house and perhaps instead of seeing the murders, they’ll hear Alex’s and John Marvin’s words and see where a family lived.
‘Or they’ll see how clearly possible it was for one person, Alex, to commit these murders. A big risk for the defense.’
The jury were seen walking the narrow path between the kennels where Paul was blasted with a shotgun and the lean-to where Maggie was killed with a rifle.
A bullet hole from an assault rifle is seen on Wednesday in the quail pen at the estate, yards away from where Maggie was killed
The main house at the sprawling 1,800-acre estate. Murdaugh claims he went back up to the main house moments before the State says Maggie and Paul were shot dead
The side of the house where the gun room is at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
Along Moselle Road the housekeeper’s house is seen at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
Several vehicles leave at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
The feed room where Paul Murdaugh’s body was found at Moselle
The dog kennels and hanger at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
One juror was spotted standing inside the feed room looking up at the doorway which has been the subject of gruesome testimony. Paul’s brains and blood were splattered up the door after his head was blown off by buckshot.Â
Judge Newman was with them, standing still, looking down. He was in street clothes.Â
Some of the deputies on watch while the jurors toured were some of the key witnesses in the case, including Detective Laura Rutland, who sat in on Murdaugh’s first interview with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) agent David Owen in the early hours of June 8, 2021.
They were parked that night in Owen’s SUV where Murdaugh sobbed as he recounted finding his wife riddled with bullets and his son with his brains blasted out of his skull.Â
The jury spent the bulk of their time at the kennels and the shed where Maggie and Paul were killed. Towards the end of the visit, they were taken to the main house for a view of the exterior. They were not allowed inside.
Judge Newman warned the jury they are not to confer with each other or ask questions of anybody at the scene. ‘If you have any questions you can only ask me,’ the judge said last night.
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian requested that law enforcement secure the property beforehand because ‘literally dozens of trespassers’ have been mobbing the grounds to take selfies.
He told the judge that the jury needed to be protected from the ‘carnival atmosphere’ of trial enthusiasts who have been at the estate throughout the trial.
Bullet holes are seen in the glass of the feed room where Paul was shot at Moselle
Small holes are seen in the back of the feed room at the Murdaugh Moselle property
A view from where Maggie Murdaugh was found at the estate
The hanger and dog kennels are seen where the bodies of Paul Murdaugh and Maggie were found
A processing shed is seen behind the kennels at the Murdaugh on Wednesday
The rear of the kennels at the sprawling 1,800-acre estate are seen on Wednesday
A stuffed chicken is seen in a dog cage at the kennels where Maggie and Paul were killed
The dog kennels and hanger at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 in Islandton, South Carolina
The quail pen at the Murdaugh property which was struck by a bullet on the night of the killings
The dog cages at the kennels at the Murdaugh estate
A hole through a window pane in the feed room where Paul died
The side of the house at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
The dog kennels at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
The entrance to the house at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
A view from Moselle Road of the kennels at the Murdaugh Moselle property on March 1, 2023 in Islandton, S.C. Jurors have visited the South Carolina estate where prosecutors say disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh shot and killed his wife and son
The caretaker’s house at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday
The dog kennels and hanger at the Murdaugh Moselle property on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 in Islandton, S.C. A processing shed is seen in the background
Cops descended on the estate in anticipation for the visit and the roads around Moselle were taped off.
Lead state prosecutor Creighton Waters objected to the jury outing, arguing the estate looked different now and said a visit might require additional testimony from the state.Â
Nearly three decades earlier, jurors in the OJ Simpson trial toured the scene where prosecutors alleged that he killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
Jurors saw the spot where Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman’s bloodied bodies were found on the walkway leading up to her Brentwood condominium.
Prosecutor Marcia Clark said at the time that taking jurors to see the narrow, confined walkway would show ‘the reason why one person could accomplish this, and how the victims were cornered.’
Simpson was acquitted of the killings but was later found liable for the deaths in a civil suit.
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