Libby Murdaugh's caretaker saw Alex night of murders for '20 minutes', but he said '30 to 40'

Mushelle "Shelly" Smith's testimony, at times reluctant, was another setback for the defense as Week 3 got underway in Murdaugh's double-murder trial in Colleton County after the judge gave the OK for prosecutors to introduce a series of witnesses who will testify about Murdaugh's precarious finances, which includes allegedly stealing money from vulnerable clients, his law firm and friends.

"The court ... (finds) the defendant sought to divert attention from the looming disclosure of theft, fraud and deceit that he committed against his clients, friends, family, law firm and business associates," Judge Clifton Newman said in his ruling.

"It is more probative than prejudicial," Newman added.

State prosecutors, who want to show Murdaugh's looming financial issues were the motive in killing his wife and son, are expected to parade up to eight witnesses, who will tell the jury about Murdaugh's alleged financial frauds that swirled around the former Hampton attorney before June 7, 2021.

Defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin have vigorously opposed letting their client's financial issues and allegations be aired out in court, arguing Murdaugh has not been convicted of any crimes and it has nothing to do with the murder case.

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, on the family's 1,700-acre Colleton County estate, called Moselle. If convicted, Murdaugh faces life in prison without parole.

Smith, the caregiver for Murdaugh's mother, testified Monday that Murdaugh unexpectedly showed up at the house on the evening of June 7, 2021, while Smith was sitting and watching a game show with Murdaugh's mother, who has Alzheimer's.

Smith said Murdaugh sat with them for 20 minutes and then left.

Several days later, after Maggie and Paul were shot to death and after Murdaugh's father, Randolph, died, Smith said Murdaugh approached her at his parent's house.

"And what did he tell you?" prosecutor John Meadors asked.

Taking a brief pause, Smith said, "That he was at the house," referring to his mother's house.

"And what was he telling you about? He was at the house the night of the murders?" Meadors pressed on.

"That he was there 30 or 40 minutes," Smith responded, struggling to speak.

Prosecutors hope to show the jury that Murdaugh was indirectly urging Smith to pump up Murdaugh's alibi. Murdaugh told law enforcement he was not on the Moselle property when the murders occurred, but was away visiting his mother, and discovered his wife and son's bodies when he returned.

Smith said she remembered Murdaugh's visit was after 9 p.m. on June 7, 2021, unusually late, she thought, for Murdaugh to show up at the house for a night visit. She noted he also made a point to call the house phone to say that he had arrived, even though he was right outside his parents' Varnville home.

Murdaugh was "fidgety" as he sat with his mother, who was already in bed and likely unaware of her son's presence, Smith said.

"Hey mom, how're you doing? I just came to check up on you," Smith said she recalled Murdaugh saying.

Smith also testified Monday that Murdaugh was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt at his mother's home, the same clothes he was wearing when he spoke to investigators later that night after finding Maggie and Paul's bodies and calling 911. He was also wearing cloth, "Sperry-type" shoes, she said.

But the clothes are different than those seen on a Snapchat video shot by Paul earlier that day, which showed Murdaugh wearing a light blue, short-sleeved button down shirt and khaki pants.

While the prosecution emphasized that it was unusual for Murdaugh to come over so late, Smith said it was an unusual day, when responding to Griffin on cross-examination.

Randolph, Murdaugh's father, who had been in and out of the hospital, had been readmitted just that day with what was believed to be pneumonia. He died a few days later.

The day of Randolph's funeral, Smith testified that she spoke to Murdaugh at his mother's home, and he said that he had been at the house twice as long as she remembered the night of June 7, 2021. Smith testified that Murduagh then changed the topic of conversation, offering to help pay for her upcoming wedding and saying that he knew the principal at the high school where she held a job in the cafeteria.

Smith said Murdaugh said to reach out if she ever needed anything at work, adding she later called her brother to tell him about the conversation.

In his cross-examination, Griffin argued it took Smith five minutes to let Murdaugh into the home to visit his mother, what may have added to his time. And, he said, when Smith was interviewed by an investigator on June 17, 2021, Smith said it was not unusual for Murdaugh to visit his mother in the evening during her shift.

The Murdaughs are "a good family, and I loved working there," Smith said, hardly able to whisper with emotion. "They're good people."

Caregiver questioned over blue tarp

Three days after Randolph's funeral, Smith said Murdaugh came to his mother's house again, this time around 6:30 a.m., carrying "a blue tarp something" bundled up in his arms.

He took the tarp upstairs, Smith said.

"And it did not look like a shovel handle or a gun or anything?" Griffin asked.

"No," Smith said.

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters first introduced the significance of the blue tarp during opening statements, almost two weeks ago. He stated that investigators found a rain jacket "wadded up" inside of the tarp, and gunshot residue was found on the inside of the jacket.

During a search of the home on Sept. 16, 2021, months after the murders, investigators found the tarp inside of a storage bin in a second floor bedroom, folded on top of some plates, according to Kristin Moore, an agent with the State Law Enforcement Division, who executed the search warrant on Murdaugh's mother's home.

The raincoat was balled up inside of a hallway closet, Moore said.

The jacket was found to be negative for human blood when tested with both phenolphthalein and leuco-crystal violet, she said.

Griffin noted that Smith described the item carried by Murdaugh as a tarp "like would cover a car," a remark she reiterated on the stand Monday and did not say it was a rain jacket. After Moore's testimony, the defense moved to exclude the rain jacket from evidence, arguing that it had no connection to the tarp that Smith saw being carried into the home.

"She never, ever, ever said that was what she saw when he came through the door," Harpootlian said. "That blue coat balled up appeared to be the same color. No one ever said they saw him with that jacket."

Waters described the coat as a "very large raincoat that could be easily mistaken for a tarp."

Newman ruled against the defense.

Jury will hear financial evidence

In a win for prosecutors, Newman said Monday the jury can hear about the financial crimes Murdaugh has been accused of.

Despite Murdaugh not having been convicted of any crimes, Newman said there is an "exception exists show motive, identity, existence of a common scheme or plan."

"It is necessary to the presentation of the full case, especially as the state is relying heavily on circumstantial evidence," Newman said.

But Newman advised the 12-member jury Monday that the evidence was to be only considered for motive, not Murdaugh's "propensity" to commit crime.

The jury first heard from a representative with Bank of America, Natasha Moodie, who established Murdaugh had various checking accounts at the bank.

Earlier Monday, without the jury, Newman heard from Mark Tinsley, an attorney representing the family of Mallory Beach, who was killed in a 2019 boat crash. Murdaugh's son, Paul, was reportedly driving the boat after a night of drinking. Tinsley, who sued Murdaugh in the crash, said Monday he thought he would have to drop the case after Murdaugh's wife and son were murdered.

The family recently settled part of a wrongful death lawsuit with Buster Murdaugh, Murdaugh's surviving son.

Tinsley sued Murdaugh personally over the boat wreck and was seeking knowledge of his financial situation after Murdaugh claimed he would be unable to pay the kind of money the Beach family was seeking.

"When you practice law and go to a (court) roster meeting, if there are 50 cases on the roster in Hampton County, 50 or 60% are Alex's," Tinsley testified Monday. "I know he's making money. He can't possibly be broke."

The move to target Murdaugh personally angered Murdaugh and others in the legal community, which boiled over into what Tinsley described Monday as an act of intimidation. At an annual trial lawyers' conference on Hilton Head Island in 2019, Tinsley said Murdaugh tried to "bully" him out of seeking compensation for Beach's family.

"Alex sees me (at the conference), and he comes across and he gets up close in my face (and says), 'Hey Bo, what's this I'm hearing about what you've been saying. I thought we were friends?'" Tinsley testified.

After Paul and Maggie were killed, Tinsley said he considered the possibility they were killed as revenge for the death of 19-year-old Beach.

"If it seemed like this was retaliation, a jury wouldn't return a verdict against Alex," Tinsley said. "I would have dropped the case."

The prosecution has argued that Murdaugh committed the murders to create a diversion from his impending financial crimes.

Defense attorney Phil Barber pushed Tinsley Monday on whether he was anywhere close to gaining access to Murdaugh's financial information as part of the lawsuit.

Barber took the position that Murdaugh would not have been compelled to open his books as a result of a June 10, 2021, hearing. Tinsley responded by dramatically retrieving an order from his breast pocket signed by the judge in the case from Oct. 7, 2021, that he claimed would have allowed him access to the documents. Barber disagreed with this interpretation of the judge's order.

"It would have been apparent to me what Alex was doing," Tinsley replied. "There were a number of threads being pulled that were coming together."

Allowing the jury to hear about Murdaugh's alleged financial misdeeds could be damaging to the defense, even if the details are unrelated to the charge he faces of murdering his wife and son.

Newman's order has opened the floodgates to financial testimony. Evidence the court could hear includes that:

Murdaugh was some $4.2 million in debt to Palmetto State Bank and hundreds of thousands of dollars overdrawn on his account by summer 2021.

The CFO of Murdaugh's former law firm confronted Murdaugh about missing money owed to the firm hours before his wife and son were killed.

Murdaugh diverted funds intended for his law firm to a Bank of America account that he created, which operated under the name Forge, the same name of a legitimate structured settlement company that his firm did business with.

Some witnesses have offered deeply personal testimony of betrayal that the jury may now hear.

Murdaugh's former friend and law school roommate, Chris Wilson, testified that he gave Murdaugh almost $200,000 of his own money to cover for hefty fees from a settlement that Murdaugh convinced Wilson to send to him instead of his law firm. Michael Satterfield, the son of the Murdaughs' late housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, testified that Murdaugh stole millions of dollars in insurance money that was owed to Satterfield's family after she died in a fall at the Murdaughs' house.

Other information about the family and their property also has surfaced in court.

On Monday, for example, the jury learned through one of Paul's friends that the Murdaugh family had three dogs: Labrador retrievers named Bubba, Bourbon and Grady.

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