Here are some potential strategies for Alex Murdaugh's defense team in double murder trial
Richard Harpootlian - as he is known to do - didn't hold back while chatting with the media during the fourth week of the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial.
“We don’t have to prove (expletive),” said the veteran defense attorney.
And he is right.
After four weeks of being on the defensive, attorneys for disbarred South Carolina attorney and accused family killer Richard “Alex” Murdaugh are set to take the offensive and make their arguments, present their evidence, and call their witnesses and experts - but this double murder case is not theirs to prove.
The S.C. Attorney General’s Office has had 20 days and 59 witnesses to prove to the Colleton County jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Murdaugh shot and killed with malice aforethought his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son, Paul, 22, at their Moselle home on the night of June 7, 2021.
The defense's task now is to extract reasonable doubt from a mountain of circumstantial evidence – some of which is more incriminating than others. The defense will resume its case after the President's Day holiday at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Here is how they will likely do it - the strategies they will implement, the evidence they will present, and the witnesses they might call.
Friday's Alex Murdaugh trial updates: State rests, but Murdaugh asks for case to be tossed out
Alex Murdaugh questions time of death, early police statements
Murdaugh’s legal team kicked off its case Friday afternoon with two quick but possibly important witnesses: longtime Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey, and C.C. Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Shalane Tindal.
Harvey, who initially told the media the week of the killings that Paul and Maggie died between 9 and 9:30 p.m., testified that he identified the time of death for both victims at 9 p.m. on the death certificates.
Harvey told Harpootlian that the time of death wasn’t exact, that it could have been 8 p.m., or it could have been 10 p.m. Prosecutors, using cell phone evidence, contend that they were killed between 8:50 p.m. and 9:06 p.m. - when Murdaugh was at the crime scene.
Upon examination, however, it was learned that Harvey, an old-school coroner with 30 years of experience, gauged the time of death by placing his hand under the victims’ armpits and not by using a thermometer to determine body temperature.
Harpootlian asked Tindal why the C.C. Sheriff’s Office and SLED issued a joint statement immediately after the killings claiming that “there was no danger to the public.” Murdaugh’s lawyers have long claimed that law enforcement zeroed in on Murdaugh as a suspect early and never properly investigated other suspects – hence police weren’t worried about another gunman on the loose.
Murdaugh attorneys likely to continue attacks on law enforcement
Throughout the trial, Murdaugh attorneys Harpootlian, Jim Griffin, and Phil Barber have suggested shoddy and incomplete investigations and crime scene preservations, and at times perhaps rightly so.
SLED did not preserve the Murdaugh’s primary residence on the night of the killings, allowing multiple friends and family members to enter the massive rural estate and go inside the home, and police did not fully search the home. Police did not search Murdaugh’s parents’ home in Almeda until September of that year, and now investigators know that Murdaugh went straight there after leaving the crime scene.
Judge reverses ruling:Alex Murdaugh defense 'opens the door' to Curtis Eddie Smith
Witnesses may challenge the claim of Murdaugh’s voice on video
One key piece of evidence is a cell phone video taken by victim Paul Murdaugh at the crime scene, the family dog kennels, at 8:44:55. Multiple State’s witnesses, including several close friends of the Murdaugh family, have identified Alex Murdaugh’s voice as one in the background of the video.
Murdaugh’s team may likely call other Murdaugh friends and family members to claim that the voice doesn’t belong to the accused murderer.
Murdaugh’s expert witnesses will challenge ballistics, GSR and forensics
At the start of the trial, both legal teams filed a list of potential witnesses.
On Murdaugh’s defense-only list, there are a number of doctors, pathologists, crime scene experts and forensic scientists.
After hours and days of detailed, often tedious scientific and mathematical testimony and exhibits, the jury and the viewing public may be in for a few more science and math-heavy sessions where experts challenge the findings of other experts on firearm ballistics, gunshot primer residence, and all manner of forensic evidence and crime scene interpretation.
Who will Harpootlian and Griffin call to the stand?
While there is no indication that Murdaugh himself will take the stand, the defense has many options to choose from. There are several promising people on the witness list for both sides that the State didn’t call, including alleged Murdaugh accomplice Curtis Edward Smith, Alex’s brother Randy Murdaugh, and Barbara Ann Mixson, a longtime Murdaugh family employee and caregiver.
There are also 33 witnesses on the defense-only list. Here are some of the most promising:
Buster Murdaugh (Alex’s surviving son)
John Marvin Murdaugh (Alex’s brother)
Lynn Murdaugh Goettee (Alex’s sister)
Liz Murdaugh (In-law)
Kennedy Branstetter (In-law)
Terry Branstetter (In-law)
Marian Branstetter (In-law)
Russell Laffitte (convicted Murdaugh accomplice)
Charles Laffitte II (Hampton banker)
Charles Laffitte III
Amy Bower, Esquire
Stephanie Stanley, SLED
Dr. Robin Cotton (head and neck surgeon)
Dr. Jonathan Eisenstat, pathologist
Tim Palmback, crime scene analyst
Mike Sutton, crime scene exhibits and animations
Kenneth Zerci, crime scene reconstruction
Jim Persinger, computer forensics
Chip Johnson, computer and phone forensics
William Tobin, GSR firearms and ballistics
Micah Sturgis, Cellbrite digital phone evidence
Dr. Amy Brodeur, BPA, CSI
Dr. Donna Maddox, psychologist
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: How Murdaugh's team could defend him on charges he murdered wife, son
