washington. disgraced south carolina lawyer and now convicted killer alex murdaugh will spend the rest of his life in prison. a judge handing down that sentence this morning after a jury needed less than three hours to find murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife, maggie, and his son, paul. in the murder of your wife, maggie murdaugh, i sentence you for a term of the rest of your natural life. for the murder of paul murdaugh, whom you probably loved so much, i sentence you to prison for murdering him for the retsst of your natural life. judge clifton newman notably getting very personal before handing down that sentence, talking about knowing alex murdaugh and his family and that
murdaugh s defense attorney spoke as well, abby, they do say they plan to file for an appeal within ten days, a notice of appeal. they maintain that there was just too much reasonable doubt and that they don t think all of the information about the alleged financial crimes of alex murdaugh should have been allowed into this trial. now, look, he got up on the stand and admitted to them, he admitted to lying, he admitted to stealing and they say that that maybe prejudiced the jury against them in the defense s point of view, but, again, abby, it only took three hours from the time they were charged for them to come back with a verdict and according to that juror interview this morning they had decided what they wanted to do within 45 minutes of first polling each other and having a discussion about it. that alone is an extraordinary fact. this trial has gone on for weeks, but the jury didn t really need that much time to come up with their conclusion. dianne gallagher, thank you for al
i ve seen that before. the person standing before me was not the person who committed the crime, though it s the same individual. reporter: just a very sobering moment. there were no victim impact statements made this morning before sentencing on behalf of maggie and paul murdaugh, instead prosecutor creighton waters spoke about them and talked about getting justice for them. you know, this is something that has been very difficult for really everybody in this community to see. there has been so much power in this family, there has been there are so many cases, the judge alluded to that, there are so many other victims who the judge still has to oversee charges, those financial charges against alex murdaugh in 90 some different charges that he continues to face. i talked to the attorney general this morning and he said they will still pursue those, even in light of this life sentence that alex murdaugh has. now, just a few moments ago alex
you. i m sure. all day and every night. yeah, i m sure. and they will continue to do so and reflect on the last time they looked you in the eyes, as you looked the jury in the eyes. reporter: and there was so much discussion about that. you know, this trial likely ended the way, abby, that it only could, which was with alex murdaugh, not his attorneys, addressing the court in that plea before the sentencing. just like he took the stand in his own defense to try to explain why his voice was identified by so many people on that video found on his murdered son paul s phone, six months after he was killed, but it was recorded moments before. they say paul was murdered at those dog kennels, calling for their dog bubba who had a chicken in his mouth.
alex was a well-respected and gregorius person, but the judge also made it clear that he agreed with that guilty verdict handed out by the jury. he accused murdaugh of duplicitous conduct in the courtroom and on the witness stand and he said the lies finally caught up with him. cnn s dianne gallagher is here outside of the courthouse in walterboro, south carolina. diane, it was really the last just 24 hours here very astonishing moments inside of that courtroom, led this morning by the judge himself. reporter: abby, i don t know if people exhaled out here outside of the courthouse watching until judge clifton newman finished speaking directly to alex murdaugh who answered him when was asked questions, but mostly because he has to just sat there and listened. it was a dressing down like i have never seen, going through the family history of the