Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has filed an appeal of his convictions for killing his wife and son in 2021.
The 56-year-old former socialite was sentenced to two life imprisonments without the possibility of parole after being found guilty of murdering his wife and son. The jurors, made up of seven men and five women, needed less than three hours to reach a verdict.
According to crime scene investigators, he ambushed his 22-year-old son, Paul, at the kennels, shooting him twice. He then proceeded to shoot his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, five times as she dropped to her knees on their 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina on June 7th.
Recently, the convict and his legal team submitted a 121-page appeal to the South Carolina Supreme Court, presenting arguments on why they believe his conviction should be overturned.
He and his legal team claim that his conviction should be overturned because of alleged jury tampering by Becky Hill, the former clerk of court for Colleton County.
His attorneys have argued that weeks after the highly publicized trial ended, they were told by jurors that Hill, who resigned from her position earlier this year, made comments to jurors to not be deceived by Murdaugh, and to ‘watch his body language.’
In January, the claims were brought to former South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal as Murdaugh’s lawyers pushed for him to have a new trial.
They have also argued that evidence presented during his murder trial that showed Murdaugh’s involvement in major financial crimes – that saw him sentenced to an additional 40 years – should have not been presented to prosecutors.
Alex Murdaugh, 56, and his lawyers have filed a 121-page appeal with the South Carolina Supreme Court that outlined reasons why they think his murder conviction should be tossed
Murdaugh was convicted of slaying his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and their son Paul Murdaugh (both center), 22 on June 7, 2023 at the family’s 1,800-acre hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina
After getting word of the possible jury interference, Toal questioned each juror, as one said her decision may have been swayed because of Hill’s alleged comments, WCNC reported.
Toal later denied the new trial request, citing that Hill’s comments had to have made it so a juror’s decision changed the verdict as a whole, or what she referred to as ‘unprecedented jury tampering’.
Then in August, Toal’s decision was overturned by the Supreme Court which is now tasked with considering whether Murdaugh should be granted a retrial.
‘Common sense says that when an elected state official goes into the jury room during a murder trial to advocate for a guilty verdict because she wants to make money selling books about the guilty verdict, the result should be a mistrial,’ his lawyers argued.
They claimed Hill would improperly enter the jury room on a regular basis, ask jurors about their opinions on Murdaugh’s guilt or innocence, and hold private conversations with jurors about the evidence.
One juror was dismissed after Hill claimed to have seen a Facebook post by the juror’s ex-husband suggesting that she had told him she already knew what the verdict would be.
Hill denied telling a juror that Murdaugh had probably ‘got to’ a witness, and that ‘everything Mr Murdaugh had said was lies’.
He and his legal team claim that his conviction should be overturned because of alleged jury tampering by Becky Hill (pictured), the former clerk of court for Colleton County
She also denied claims she told the jury ‘this should not take long’ as they began their deliberations.
‘Ms Hill betrayed her oath of office for money and fame,’ Murdaugh’s lawyers claimed in their motion.
Murdaugh, a former lawyer himself, has lodged a separate appeal against his conviction which has been put on hold while his allegations of jury tampering play out in court.
His six-week trial heard that both his wife and son were shot in the head after initially being wounded near dog kennels on the family’s rural estate.
Paul was shot twice with a shotgun, each round loaded with a different sized shot, while his mother, apparently running towards her son as he was slaughtered, was shot multiple times with a .300 Blackout semi-automatic rifle.
Murdaugh claimed he found the bodies of his wife and son after returning home from a visit to his parents, but prosecutors based their case on damning cell phone evidence that showed him at the crime scene near the time of the murders.
Hill’s book about the case, ‘Behind the Doors of Justice’, made her $100,000 but was pulled from the bookshelves within weeks after she admitted plagiarizing parts of it.
Murdaugh claimed he found the bodies of his wife and son after returning home from a visit to his parents, but prosecutors based their case on damning cell phone evidence that showed him at the crime scene near the time of the murders
In August, the Supreme Court decided they would consider granting Murdaugh a retrial after South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal initially denied it
South Carolina officials filed 76 counts of ethics violations against Hill in June, alleging she arranged a photo of Murdaugh to be taken in his holding cell, gave herself bonuses, and used county money to buy dozens of lunches for her staff, prosecutors and a vendor.
She resigned in March during the last year of her four-year term, citing the public scrutiny of Murdaugh’s trial and wanting to spend time with her grandchildren. She has not publicly addressed the ethics allegations.
Her lawyer, Justin Bramberg, has previously said that her resignation had nothing to do with the pending investigations against her.
The murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh shocked South Carolina, where the family were well known as a political and legal dynasty.
Members of the family had served as solicitor and district attorney for the Low Country region for 85 consecutive years.
In addition to his murder charge, Murdaugh was convicted of 22 federal financial crimes, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering after stealing millions from clients at his law firm.
He is currently serving 40 years for those crimes at the same time as his 27-year sentence for state fraud convictions, and will run consecutively with the disgraced lawyer’s pair of life sentences for the murders of Maggie and Paul.
He was also ordered to pay $9 million in restitution for his financial crimes after taking settlement money from inflated fees or expenses for more than two dozen clients.
Prosecutors said the FBI found 11 more victims than the state investigation found and that Murdaugh stole nearly $1.3 million from them.
The killer apologized to his victims at his sentencing, saying he felt ‘guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation.’ Just like at his state sentencing, he offered to meet with his victims so they can say what they want to say and ‘more closely inspect my sincerity.’
‘There’s not enough time and I don’t possess a sufficient vocabulary to adequately portray to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did,’ Murdaugh said.
