Day 9: Witness says dozens of calls missing from Murdaugh’s phone on day of murders
Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty. He faces life in prison without parole if found guilty. The trial started last week with jury selection, opening arguments and the initial round of witness testimony. It is expected, for now, to run through
How to watch the Murdaugh double murder trial, who to follow from The State,
Judge
Friday morning will kick off with more argument from defense and prosecution over whether it’s appropriate to present evidence of Alex Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes in the double-murder trial.
Murdaugh has been indicted, but not convicted, of numerous white-collar crimes. Defense attorneys
Earlier Thursday, Judge
It seems unlikely either legal team will back down, and Newman will have to make the trial’s most consequential ruling.
During emotional testimony, Alex Murdaugh’s longtime friend,
The two met at Murdaugh’s parent’s home in
“I had never had any dealings with him that I had any reason to distrust what he was telling me. He was a partner in that firm, he had the authority as far as I knew to make decisions,” Wilson said of Murdaugh’s request to receive his fee checks in a new format.
Murdaugh previously asked Wilson to disperse fees from a
In the months after Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s deaths, Wilson said Murdaugh told him he wasn’t able to structure the money the way he’d thought, and that the
Murdaugh sent Wilson
In
“I mean, I loved the guy for so long, and I probably still loved him a little bit. But I was so mad,” Wilson testified.
Wilson said Murdaugh admitted to struggling with an opioid addiction for two decades, and to taking money from the law firm.
“He was concerned about me getting my
About a month before the conversation, Wilson had Murdaugh write him a promissory note indicating Murdaugh would repay the
“I was concerned, just like everybody else, everybody in his firm, everybody in his family, that he was gonna do something to himself, that he was gonna kill himself,” Wilson said.
Prosecution has called as their next witness
Wilson’s testimony opened emotionally.
“He was one of my best friends, and I thought he felt the same way about me,” Wilson told lead prosecutor
“Do you feel that way now?” Waters asked.
“I don’t know how I feel now, Mr. Waters,” Wilson said, his voice noticeably wavering.
Murdaugh told Parker Law Group’s CFO,
In
Cope, an attorney for
Gunn confirmed that the consulting firm had no records of any kind related to the first list of names.
Cope also asked if the firm banked with Bank of America, Gunn told the court Thursday.
“I told him that we had banked with Bank of America, but had not done so for about three or four years,” Gunn said.
Just after
“I spoke with
“Is that a legitimate account?” lead prosecutor
“Absolutely not,” Gunn answered.
Earlier Thursday, with the jury absent, the court heard testimony from Parker Law CFO
The missing fees that caught her attention, Seckinger said, totaled
Judge
The state has summoned
Forge has denied involvement in Murdaugh’s alleged “inappropriate conduct.”
The jury has left court for the day. Gunn’s testimony will help Judge
The state has leaned heavily on the possibility of financial ruin motivating Murdaugh to allegedly kill his wife and son, Maggie and
Defense attorney
“When you look at the drain in a shower, if somebody’s recently showered off blood, you would expect to see some trace evidence there, would you not?” Harpootlian asked.
McCallister responded that she was unsure she was “qualified to answer that.”
She did confirm that SLED has teams that would swab drains to search for traces of blood or tissue, but said those specialists were never called to Moselle to her knowledge.
“You were the only one to (check the drains), correct?” Harpootlian said.
“Yes,” McCallister answered.
“You’re telling this jury you saw no evidence of blood, tissue, or anything that would indicate that somebody had showered, or washed off, or bathed to remove evidence of a crime, is that what you’re telling us?” Harpootlian asked.
“Yes sir,” McCallister confirmed. “There was nothing visible to me.”
The court has now entered a 10-minute break. The state’s next witness is expected to arrive around
The jurors have since been excused, and will return to court at
SLED senior special agent
McCallister is the fifth SLED agent to take the stand so far. She responded to Moselle on
McCallister was one of the agents present when Maggie’s cellphone was discovered about a half-mile from the crime scene.
When Hightower reviewed call records law enforcement received from Verizon, the network recorded dozens of phone calls that were missing from the device itself.
“During that time frame I compared the call logs from the extraction, or from the actual device, to the call logs that I saw on the call detail records from Verizon,” Hightower said. “On the data in question, on
“What did that tell you when you saw that missing information?” asked prosecutor
“It could be a multitude of things,” Hightower said. “They were either removed by the user, or the one responsible and using the device, it could’ve overlapped from the call log history, it could’ve been a series of things.”
“So there’s no way for a user to delete records from Verizon, correct?” Conrad said.
“No sir, there is not,” Hightower confirmed.
The extraction method Hightower used on Murdaugh’s phone at the time couldn’t detect “deleted artifacts” that may still have had traces on the phone, he testified.
“As far as calls themselves, when did you start seeing call records start (on the cellphone itself)?” Conrad asked.
“Right around the late morning, early afternoon of
Hightower said one explanation for the gap between the phone’s call records and calls recorded in Verizon’s data could be a user manually deleting them or call records “overlapping,” meaning older data is deleted to free space on the device.
Hightower did not say if the calls were incoming or outgoing, or who they were made to or from.
The jury has returned to the courtroom after being absent since
Hightower responded to the scene of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s murder the day after, on
Judge
After nearly two-and-a-half hours of testimony from Parker Law Group CFO
Murdaugh has not been convicted of any financial crimes he was charged with.
Additionally, Griffin argued, admission of the state’s numerous exhibits and witnesses to testify on Murdaugh’s supposed financial misdeeds could unduly extend the trial to “the end of February or to early March.”
Lead prosecutor
Ultimately, Newman decided to redirect Thursday’s proceedings to focus on other aspects of the case in order to return the jury to the courtroom. Jurors have been absent since around
Newman broke for lunch with an ultimatum regarding the admission of financial evidence.
“If you can’t (reach an agreement),” Newman told both parties, “then I’ll make the call.”
Records recovered during the Parker Law Group’s investigation of Alex Murdaugh’s financial crimes revealed Murdaugh allegedly pocketed money intended for clients since 2011, a prosecution explained to a jury-less courtroom Thursday.
Most of the thefts the firm uncovered took place around 2011 and 2012, Parker Law Group CFO
“(The money) went to a fake Forge account, where Alex stole money from the client,” Seckinger testified.
“Every last bit of it?” lead prosecutor
“Every last bit,” Seckinger confirmed.
Among the largest cuts Seckinger said Murdaugh kept was
Murdaugh received
On
Seckinger said the company had received an expenses check for the case, but never received a fees check from Murdaugh.
The missing fees were a staggering
“That would’ve been wrong, and we didn’t want any part of that,” Seckinger said.
Murdaugh repeatedly assured Seckinger that Wilson’s office received the money, she said.
Seckinger testified she finally confronted Murdaugh on the morning of
“He turned to look at me when I came up (to his office) and said, ‘What do you need now,’ and gave me a very dirty look, not a look I’d ever received from Alex,” Seckinger testified. “We went into his office and closed the door, and I told him at that point I had reason to believe he’d received the funds himself, and I needed proof that he did not.”
During that conversation, Seckinger testified that Murdaugh again insisted Wilson’s office received the fees and he could get the money at any time. Before Seckinger could press for more, Murdaugh received a call about his father being moved into hospice care, she said.
When Seckinger took up the investigation again later that year, she said she looked at records of the law firm’s payments to
“As I did that, I started to print out all the documents that would relate to those disbursements,” Seckinger said. “As I started printing the canceled checks off, I could see Bank of America on the back of all of them, and Alex Murdaugh’s signature.”
When the partners later confronted Murdaugh in
When the law group continued digging, Seckinger said she noticed unusual payments to
Prosecutors say Murdaugh’s motive lurks in a history of theft. Can they tell the jury?
Judge
The state will make final arguments for allowing evidence pointing to Murdaugh’s financial situation as motive for his wife and son’s murders on
The state has called
Seckinger was a key witness in the
Seckinger had a lengthy professional relationship with
Heidi Galore, an employee of
Prior to Paul Murdaugh’s death, around
The use of Alex Murdaugh’s financial trouble as a motive for Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s murder can be permitted at court, Judge
The court will rule on the admissibility of specific evidence pointing to Alex Murdaugh’s financial crimes as the trial progresses, Newman said. He shared that in the court’s view, based on legal precedent, the evidence is valid as broader context to the circumstances of the murders.
Defense “opened the door” by asking witnesses about their knowledge of Paul Murdaugh’s 2019 boating accident and if they could think of any reason
“Evidence of other crimes or bad acts is necessary if it is an essential part of the crimes on trial, or where it furnishes part of the context of the crime, or is necessary to a full presentation of the case,” Newman said. “Or, is so intimately connected with and explanatory of the crime charged against the defendant ... that its proof is appropriate in order to complete the story of the crime on trial (and) to prove its immediate context.”
Judge
On Wednesday, the defense objected to lead prosecutor Creighton Waters’ questioning of
“The witness was asked (by the defense) whether he could think of any reason possible why
Newman said the door was opened for the prosecution to question the witness about their knowledge of Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes as a motive.
“In addition to all of that, the objection was totally inappropriate, as the court laid out and reviewed with the parties early in the trial that objections should be made and the legal basis stated,” Newman said. “An objection, if totally inappropriate, in the words of (
Judge
Did
“Do you have the facts on any of that?” Waters asked Loving.
“No sir, I do not,” Loving said.
Newman ended court and dismissed the jury. But told lawyers he will rule this morning over whether Murdaugh’s financial problems can be introduced to the jury, who already have been teased about it.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the jury heard testimony about a cellphone video captured on Paul’s phone that Paul’s friends say they heard three voices on the video: Paul’s, his mother Maggie’s and Murdaugh’s, who previously told police he didn’t see his family at the kennels the night of
Friends also testified about the family’s bond, about how much Murdaugh loved Maggie and especially Paul, who, they added, often left guns everywhere, including his truck.
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Chris Wilson tells court former friend Murdaugh confessed he was ‘stealing money’
Prosecutors say Murdaugh's motive lurks in a history of theft. Can they tell the jury?
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