(CNN) For a year and a half, Alex Murdaugh denied being anywhere near where his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, were brutally murdered.
But it was one of his victims — his son — who would provide crucial evidence after his death that legal experts say exposed his father’s web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction for double homicide.
“It’s ironic, in the end, that it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, the state’s attorney for Palm Beach County in Florida, told CNN Thursday night.
Murdaugh, a now-disgraced former South Carolina attorney, was found guilty Thursday of killing his wife and son and, a day earlier, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. lantern. He maintains his innocence.
The key piece of evidence comes from a video, which Paul recorded moments before he was shot and killed. It shows one of the family’s dogs near the kennels on their property. It also captures Alex Murdaugh’s voice in the background — and places him at the scene of the crime.
The video, which Murdaugh didn’t know existed before the trial, marked the collapse of his alibi and he had no choice but to take the stand and explain why he had lied repeatedly to authorities about his whereabouts, legal experts told CNN.
Murdaugh, while denying that he killed his wife and child, testified that he lied about his whereabouts due to paranoid thoughts stemming from his long-term drug addiction to opioid painkillers, as well as his lack of confidence to the investigators. While on the stand, he also admitted to several lies, admitting in court that he had stolen millions from his law firm and clients over nearly two decades.
He told the jury that despite his repeated deceptions in the past, he was honest about one thing: he did not kill his family.
But the jury did not believe him.
And in a case with little or no direct evidence linking Murdaugh to the scene, South Carolina’s top prosecutor credited the video clip for the jury’s quick conviction.
“This is a circumstantial evidence case but what people need to understand is that circumstantial evidence is just as powerful as direct evidence,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was part of the prosecuting team, said Friday. . “I think the kennel video hangs him.”
“The jury saw how he tried to manipulate them, saw how he lied and they read it, and they heard the kennel video and they made the right decision.”
Maggie Murdaugh (left), Paul Murdaugh (center), and Alex Murdaugh.
The video convinced this jury
Craig Moyer, one of the jurors who helped convict Murdaugh, told ABC News in his first public interview that the panel reached a unanimous decision in less than an hour.
The video is what convinced him.
“I heard his voice clearly,” Moyer told ABC. “And everyone else can too.”
Moyer said he was surprised Murdaugh admitted he lied about the video, but, he added, he still doesn’t believe the defendant is being truthful about what happened on the night of June 7, 2021.
Murdaugh was a “good liar,” Moyer said, “but not good enough.”
“When he took the stand — that is, Alex Murdaugh — that was his chance to make his case. It was a tough sell, though,” said the criminal defense attorney and CNN Legal Analyst. Joey Jackson. “As much as you deny, deny, deny being at the kennels, you stood up because it came out that you were there. Cell phone data put you there, car data put you there, in addition to your own voice. You were put there, because as recorded by your son.”
“I think because of what the jury said, it’s clear that he’s of the view that … (Alex Murdaugh) continues to lie, the evidence is clear and that he’s guilty,” Jackson added.
Why did Murdaugh say he lied about being at the scene of the murder
The video was recorded by Paul at 8:44 the night of the murders, according to testimony during the trial.
Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey testified that he estimated Maggie and Paul’s time of death to be around 9pm – although he said it was possible the pair can be shot anytime between 8pm and 10pm
After admitting he lied to authorities about where he was that night, Murdaugh said he briefly went to the kennels and left around 8:47 p.m.
He later visited his mother and found the bodies of Maggie and Paul when he returned home, Murdaugh testified.
Murdaugh told the court that as his longtime addiction progressed, it often caused him to “paranoid thinking.” Those paranoid thoughts were triggered the night of the homicides, he said, when investigators tested his hands for gunshot residue and asked him about his relationship with his wife and son. Murdaugh admits that’s why he lied.
“All those things, put together after finding this, combined with my distrust of the (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) caused me to have paranoid thoughts,” he testified. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think I was capable of reasoning. And I lied about going there, and I’m very sorry that I did.”
“When I told the lie, I told my family, I had to keep lying,” he told the court.
Former prosecutor Sarah Ford told CNN that Murdaugh “had no choice but to take the stand and explain” the kennel video.
“And the jury didn’t buy that explanation. He lied long before he walked into that courtroom, before he took the stand and the jury believed he lied to them on that stand,” Ford said.
What’s next for Murdaugh
After his sentence, Murdaugh was released to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
He was processed Friday night at a reception and evaluation center in Columbia, the department said in a news release. As part of that process, he had his head shaved, a standard procedure for inmates processed into the system, department spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.
Murdaugh will next undergo medical tests and a mental health and education assessment, the release added.
Over the next month and a half, department officials will consider the results of his tests and assessments as well as his crime and sentence in deciding which maximum security prison to send him to, the department said.
Correction: A previous version of this story did not say which video captured Alex Murdaugh’s voice. This is a video captured on Paul Murdaugh’s phone of the family’s dog kennels.
CNN’s Alta Spells contributed to this report.
