wealth and local stature of defendant disgraced south carolina attorney alex murdaugh, and the depravity of his crimes, slaughtering his wife and son. the trial ended with murdaugh in cuffs, taken back to jail with sentencing tomorrow after a remarkably speedy verdict, three hours of deliberation. then this. guilty verdict. verdict guilty. verdict guilty. verdict guilty. guilty on all four counts, including two counts of murder. prosecutors, including south carolina s attorney general, spoke to reporters. justice was done today. it doesn t matter who your family is. it doesn t matter how much money you have or people think you have. it doesn t matter what you think, how prominent you are. if you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in south carolina. creighton waters, the prosecutor. what took three hours was a long time in coming. before we talk about details of the testimony and the verdict and what comes next, our randi kaye has
would the jury believe that was such a compelling motive that he would do what seems to be unthinkable? which is, point blank, point a shotgun and a rifle at your son and wife and pull the trigger repeatedly. i thought that was a really interesting part of the prosecution s rebuttal. the prosecutor said toward the end of it, we don t have to prove motive. i think i ve proved motive, i think i know why he did it, which is he loved alex more than he loved paul and maggie. so this may have not forever solved his problems but put it off for a while, so he did what he needed to do for alex. i thought that was interesting. an acknowledgement that maybe the state s theory of motive wasn t perfect, but it was the best they could come up with, and at the end of the day they didn t have to prove motive. in this hbo max documentary, they have the prison phone calls between alex murdaugh and buster after he s incarcerated, obviously. and they are just pathetically sad. just the long silences.
any anything, as i believe you ve implied, that i was cleaning off or washing off or washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat. and i can promise you that i wasn t doing any of that. back now with our panel. there is this other moment that he ticked through all the things that would have had that somebody would have had to have been there exactly right after he left in the few seconds or minutes that they would have had to have come with no guns and realizing that there would be guns there. and that they would have left and taken the exact same path that he took when he left? yeah, the prosecution established a really tight timeline. i think they had it down to about 17 minutes between when there s the cell phone video where the defendant s at the pennels with paul and maggie, then where i think the time when they when the defendant left moselle to go see his
shorter time period than any time prior, as you ve seen from the testimony in this case. so what were you so busy doing? going to the bathroom? no, i don t think i don t think that i get on a treadmill? no, i didn t get on a treadmill. jog in place? nope, i didn t jog in place. jumping jacks? no, sir, i did not do jumping jacks. what were you doing in those four minutes? preparing to leave for my mom s house. i know what i wasn t doing, mr. waters, and what i wasn t doing is doing anything as i believe you ve implied that i was cleaning off or washing off or washing off guns or putting guns in a raincoat. and i can promise you that i wasn t doing any of that. so what you re telling this jury is that it s a random vigilante, the 12-year-old, two people, happened to know paul and maggie were both at moselle on june 7th, knew they d be at
mother. that was the tight timeline they were working with. i continue to think that was the most important evidence for the prosecution was to just pin down that timeline, which made it just seem utterly implausible that somebody else would have been able to get to this remote property, which maybe the jury visit helped establish how remote it was, get there at precisely that time paul and maggie would be alone at the kennels, knowing there would be weapons available. randi, how do you think that played when the prosecutor did that? i think it played really, really well with the jury. they had heard so much information, and they weren t allowed to take any notes during this trial. they put on an investigator from sled in the final day of the trial, of the state s case, at least. and that s the south carolina law enforcement division. he helped the jury understand and put the pieces together. a couple of inconsistencies as you heard there. kennels 8:44, then 8:47 left the kennels,