Alex Murdaugh’s decision to take the stand and testify in his double-murder trial sealed his fate, said several jurors in the case who said his crying on the witness stand “wasn’t genuine” and looked like he might be “enabled”. and leaves.”
“No, I didn’t think she was crying. On and off,” Gwen Generette told NBC on Monday in an interview with two other jurors who also voted to convict him on Thursday.
“We were able to read everything,” juror James McDowell said of the fourth-generation attorney’s dramatic emotions as they pleaded not guilty on the witness stand. “I think he thinks it’s so addictive that he thought it was his last resort.”
via the Associated Press
Ultimately, all 12 jurors concluded that the 54-year-old shot and killed his wife and child near the family’s hunting dog allotment in South Carolina in 2021 before calling 911 and he claimed to have found them dead upon returning home.
Murdaugh initially told detectives he was never at the crime scene, but later recanted that claim after authorities discovered cellphone video that appeared to capture his voice at the animal shelter minutes before the death of his family. Murdaugh admitted he lied about his whereabouts after being confronted with a video that had been recorded of his murdered son Paul.
“I think it probably would have been a hung jury if it wasn’t for that video. It was like he was speaking from the grave,” Generette said of Paul.
A fourth juror in the trial, Craig Moyer, called Murdaugh “a big liar” and accused him of fake crying in an interview with ABC News on Friday.
via the Associated Press
“He didn’t cry. All he did was blow snot. No tears,” said Moyer, who said he could see Murdaugh’s eyes clearly from his seat in the courtroom.
He is a “good liar, but not good enough,” she said.
The jury deliberated less than three hours before announcing a verdict, though Moyer said it took about an hour behind closed doors to reach a guilty verdict. Two of the 12 jurors initially believed Murdaugh was innocent, and a third wasn’t sure, he said.
To make the decision, he said, they reviewed body camera footage taken the night of the murders by a responding police officer and discussed the relevance of different types of shotgun shells found at the scene. The defense argued that the bullets indicated there were two shooters and not one.
Moyer told the New York Post on Sunday that he wasn’t sure what ultimately led the two jurors to switch from not guilty to guilty.
“It was a bit loud, everyone was talking over each other, but we got through,” she said of their discussion.
As for why Murdaugh killed his family, the three jurors who spoke to NBC on Monday said they didn’t know.
Generette suggested it was “greed,” and McDowell said it could be a broad combination of things because Murdaugh’s life appeared to be in ruins at the time of the murders. He admitted on the witness stand that he struggled with drug addiction and stole large sums of money from his clients and his law firm.
The third juror who spoke to NBC, Amie Williams, agreed.
“I think it was a combination of things, not just financial. But it all weighed on him, I think,” he said.
Murdaugh pleaded not guilty after the verdict was handed down.
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