SC attorney general steps in to close out state’s murder case against Alex Murdaugh
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Alex Murdaugh Coverage
The Murdaugh family saga has dominated the news after another shooting, a resignation and criminal accusations — with Alex Murdaugh at the center of it all. Here are the latest updates on Alex Murdaugh.
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Editor’s note: This article contains graphic information from witness testimony.
The South Carolina pathologist who performed autopsies on Paul and Maggie Murdaugh after their murders on Tuesday disputed defense witnesses who said her conclusions about how the son and mother died were incorrect.
The testimony was among others as both sides clashed Tuesday, and the first in-court action by the state’s attorney general as he questioned the state’s last witness.
Dr. Ellen Riemer, a pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, disputed testimony in Alex Murdaugh’s double-murder trial from the defense pathologists that Paul died from a close-range shotgun blast to the back of the head, rather than a lower shot that passed out the back of his head.
“You can look at pictures, but doing an autopsy makes certain information available to a pathologist that is not available to people who are not performing the autopsy,” she said.
Those defense witnesses said the force of the blast at close range would be enough to explain how Paul’s brain exited his skull and flew into the door frame of the feed room where he was shot. Riemer disputed that determination.
“I know what you’ve seen is horrible, but it could have been much worse” with the kind of shot the defense suggested, Riemer told the jury. “His eyes would have been displaced from the orbital bones. ... He would not have had a face left.”
Murdaugh, 54, is accused of killing his wife and son the night of June 7, 2021, at the dog kennels at the family’s 1,770-acre Colleton County estate, called Moselle. In the now-six-week case, prosecutors called 62 witnesses, some testified twice, and the defense put up 14, including Murdaugh himself.
In her testimony, Riemer sat at times during fierce cross-examination by defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, who questioned why Riemer didn’t X-ray Paul’s brain to see if it held shotgun pellets
“The reason you didn’t take X-rays of Paul’s brain is because you already reached a conclusion,” he said.
“I did not, because I felt comfortable with my determination,” Riemer replied.
Whether Paul’s brain had pellets in it is central to a key defense point that Paul was shot at close range in the back of the head by a shotgun-wielding assailant and not, as the defense contends, by someone up to several feet away who fired at his shoulder and the shotgun blast then traveled upwards.
Prosecutors finished calling their rebuttal witnesses Tuesday, and the defense declined to call any rebuttal witnesses of their own setting up the final stage of the six-week-long double-murder trial that has focused national and international attention on the South Carolina Lowcountry.
The jury, under stiff law enforcement escort, will visit the crime scene at Moselle Wednesday morning.
Judge Clifton Newman allowed the visit after a request by Harpootlian, who early Wednesday took issue with the number of rebuttal witnesses the state put up.
“The state’s position seems to be let no dead horse go unbeaten,” Harpootlian said. “This is a process that has got to stop at some point.”
The jurors will travel about 20 miles from the courthouse Wednesday morning, accompanied by Newman, the attorney and court officials. Newman told the jurors they can’t discuss the case during the trip, and that they can only ask questions of him while there.
A small pool of media — a reporter and still photographer selected by a lottery system and a videographer with CourtTV — are expected to also view the site following the jury view.
Court will resume at 11 a.m., when both sides will make their closing arguments to jurors. Then, it will be up to 12 ordinary Colleton County men and women to decide the once-prominent attorney’s fate.
SC’s attorney general asks the questions
In a surprise appearance, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson on Tuesday questioned his first, Ken Kinsey with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, a ballistics expert who previously testified in the case.
Wilson has been seated with his team of prosecutors in the front of the courtroom nearly every day, but until Tuesday he had not taken an active part in the trial. An elected official, Wilson won a fourth term last November as the state’s top prosecutor. It is rare for an attorney general, the state’s top law enforcement officer, to question a courtroom witness.
Kinsey was called back as a rebuttal witness to challenge a defense analysis that determined Murdaugh was too tall to be the gunman that killed Maggie and Paul. Instead, they found the shooter must have been between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-4.
Kinsey testified that the pair of bullet holes at the scene examined by defense expert Mike Sutton could have been fired by a gunman of any height depending on the angle. A gunman standing further back or kneeling could produce the same angles, Kinsey said.
Under questioning by Wilson, Kinsey said Sutton’s analysis appears to have been based partly on lining the shots up with the cartridges found at the scene. But Kinsey said there is no way to reliably place a shooter based on the position of a cartridge.
“If you knew exactly where they would land, you could put down a bucket and it would go in the bucket, but they are throughout the scene,” he said, and some are located to the left of where an image created by Sutton places the shooter. Kinsey believes both the gunman and Maggie were moving throughout the period when she was being shot, creating many variables in analyzing the scene.
He also said investigators may have inadvertently damaged the bullet holes in the soft cardboard where they were found, making it more difficult for Sutton to later work backward to determine the angle from which they were fired.
Observers gave Wilson generally good marks for being prepared and handling his questions well.
Ex-law partner, former Hampton sheriff take the stand
The state on Tuesday also called Murdaugh’s former law partner, Ronnie Crosby, to the stand, who said he had only heard Murdaugh admit he had been at the dog kennels the night of the murders was when Murdaugh said so during his testimony last week.
Murdaugh had consistently claimed he was not there that night until the state played a cellphone video shot by Paul that places him at the scene moments before the murders occurred.
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters also used Crosby to highlight an apparent inconsistency in Murdaugh’s testimony last week, when Murdaugh told the jury a story about riding with Paul around Moselle on June 7, 2021, and not seeing any wild hogs because “You don’t look for hogs in the daytime. ... Hogs are deep in the swamp in the daytime.
“People who hogs on the property always as a general rule would take a rifle with them, be it day or night, because they are such nuisances,” Crosby testified. “You never know when you are going to see them.”
The hog anecdote seemed like a small matter, but one of the prosecution’s main themes in the trial is that Murdaugh is a chronic lair, always ready with a falsehood, and Waters is likely to mention hogs in his closing argument to the jury.
Crosby was cross-examined by Harpootlian, who insinuated through questions that Crosby made up stories about Murdaugh because Murdaugh had stolen millions of dollars from his former law firm and its partners, money that the firm’s partners have had to pay back themselves by taking out loans.
“Have you had to pay out of pocket to pay back the money that was stolen? How much?” Harpootlian snapped at Crosby.
“They’re still counting, Mr. Harpootlian,” Crosby said. “We have had to borrow millions, ... and if you’re implying that I would come in here and somehow shade truth in any way because of that, I would take high offense at that.”
Harpootlian asked Crosby if he was motivated by anger against Murdaugh.
“I have extreme anger for what he did to my law firm, my partners, his clients, our clients, what he did to his family,” Crosby said. “But you can’t walk around with anger.”
Former Hampton County Sheriff T.C. Smalls, the third reply witness, testified Tuesday that he never gave Murdaugh approval to install blue lights in his personal vehicle when Murdaugh was an assistant solicitor. Murdaugh testified last week he had approval to do so for law enforcement reasons. Under cross-examination, Smalls said he was unaware Murdaugh ever had installed the blue lights or whether anyone else in his office might have given approval.
Paul McManigal, a phone examiner with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office and the fourth reply witness, testified that a phone display screen would not necessarily have come on, and generated data, if it were thrown out of a car onto the side of the road. Prosecutors believe Murdaugh may have thrown his wife Maggie’s phone out his car window when he left the Moselle property the night of the murders.
Defense attorney Phil Barber argued McManigal did not have expertise in cellphone displays, noting he said he based his conclusions on throwing a similar phone around his office over the weekend and did not make records or record video of him doing it.
“In terms of tossing it around and seeing what it does, you don’t have any more knowledge than anyone else?” Barber asked, which McManigal agreed with. “You haven’t said something you couldn’t have found out on Google.”
Barber asked that McManigal’s testimony be thrown out based on that admission, but Newman declined.
Former law partner Mark Ball testified again Tuesday for the state that he had never heard Murdaugh express a distrust of the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, which Murdaugh blamed for lying to investigators about visiting the kennels. He also reiterated that Murdaugh gave inconsistent statements to him about checking Paul and Maggie’s bodies before calling 911, and that he also had never heard Murdaugh say he went to the kennels before Murdaugh’s testimony.
Defense attorney Jim Griffin asked Ball if he was aware Murdaugh was under investigation by SLED for allegedly obstructing the investigation into a fatal 2019 boat crash Paul was charged in. Ball said he was unaware of the investigation at the time.
This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 11:32 AM.
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