Alex Murdaugh verdict: Disgraced lawyer guilty of killing wife and son

In order to hide his multi-million dollar financial crimes, a disgraced South Carolina attorney was found responsible of killing his wife and son.

After a six-week trial, the jurors took less than three hours to find Alex Murdaugh, 54, guilty of two counts of murder.

For each murder allegation, he faces a sentence of 30 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On June 7, 2021, close range gunfire erupted near the dog kennels on the Murdaugh family farm.

As his verdict was announced during the trial in Walterboro on Thursday night, Alex Murdaugh stood motionless.

"The evidence of guilt is overwhelming," South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman said as he denied a defence request for a mistrial.He scheduled sentencing for Friday morning.

The case, which details the fall of a family endowed with privilege and power, made national news and served as the basis for documentaries on Netflix and HBO.

Before 2006, Murdaugh's family members had been the top prosecutors in the region for decades. Murdaugh had once been a prominent personal injury lawyer in the state.

However, it was revealed during the trial that he had been stealing from his customers and law partners for years in order to support his painkiller addiction and extravagant lifestyle.

Murdaugh had entered a not guilty plea to the charges of killing his wife and youngest boy in an effort to hide years of financial fraud that he had admitted to himself in court.

After the 12-person jury's verdict, dozens of spectators gathered outside the back of the court where officers ushered a handcuffed Murdaugh quickly into a black van.

Reporters shouted questions, though he remained silent. As police tucked him inside the vehicle, one man behind the media line shouted that he was praying for him.

As they worked to sort through the convoluted case, it took detectives more than a year to apprehend Murdaugh.

Murdaugh took the stand in a risky move for any murder defendant, attempting to persuade the jurors that someone enraged over a fatal boating accident involving Paul in 2019 might have killed his son in an effort to exact revenge.

Murdaugh said during his testimony, "I would never hurt Maggie, and I would never hurt Paul — ever, under any conditions.

He was charged solely on the basis of circumstantial proof. There was no direct proof offered at the trial, such as a murder weapon, blood on his clothing, or an eyewitness.

Instead, the prosecution concentrated on a damning Snapchat video that Murdaugh's son had shot right before the killings.

On the vast hunting farm owned by the family and known as Moselle, Paul and his mother were killed at the kennels.

Alex Murdaugh repeatedly informed law enforcement that he had not been at the dog kennels at all that evening and was instead at home napping for the next 20 months following their deaths.

However, the defendant's voice could be made out in the background of Paul's Snapchat footage that was recorded just moments before the shootings.

Murdaugh acknowledged lying while testifying in court, claiming that his long-term dependence on drugs had rendered him paranoid.

The bizarre effort Murdaugh made to stage his own death in an insurance fraud scheme just three months after he had killed his 52-year-old wife and 22-year-old son was also brought up in court.

Jessica Williams, a 38-year-old local, was on the phone with her 6-year-old daughter while she stood outside the court and observed the events.

"After the decision was made, she expressed her happiness to BBC News, saying, "I recall where I was when the verdict for OJ Simpson [in 1995]. The same scenario happened here."

Judge Newman decided early on in the proceedings that prosecutors could present evidence of Murdaugh's claimed financial crimes.

According to investigators, he stole millions from customers and coworkers, including $3.7 million (£3 million) just last year. Murdaugh also confessed to widespread theft during the trial.

Prosecutors argued it was these crimes that drove him to murder - that he thought the deaths of Maggie and Paul would gain him sympathy and stave off a reckoning over his other misdeeds.

Murdaugh and his defence team had argued in court that this theory was ludicrous and financial problems would never have led him to murder.

According to several witnesses, Alex Murdaugh had urged Maggie to come back to Moselle on the evening of the murders while she was at the family's other property in the neighborhood of Edisto Beach.

Marion Proctor, Maggie's sister, testified in court that Maggie didn't intend to leave and much preferred Edisto to Moselle. Murdaugh's old father, however, was nearing the end of his life, so Mrs. Proctor urged her to help him.

The Moselle residence was home to a collection of firearms, and Alex Murdaugh and his two boys enjoyed hunting.

One of these, a.300 Blackout assault-style rifle, was allegedly used by Murdaugh to murder Maggie, and another was allegedly used to kill Paul. However, they were unable to locate either weapon and present them in court.

The trial heard that their boy was shot twice with a shotgun and that Maggie was shot four or five times with a rifle.

"Today's verdict shows that no one, no matter who you are in society, is above the law," said Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina.