(NewsNation) — Alex Murdaugh took the stand this week in his double murder trial, at times sparring with the prosecution. Was he the best lawyer in the courtroom?
Donte Mills believes so. The criminal defense attorney said Friday on “Dan Abrams Live” that Murdaugh did an effective job of saying what he needed to say to convince the jury of what he wants them to believe.
“Alex has proven that he can control the situation, and that’s what he’s doing. He’s decided to be his own lawyer in this case,” Mills said. “I think he saw how the case was going and said, ‘I need to insert my skill into this, my advocacy.'”
Over the two days of his testimony, Murdaugh admitted to stealing millions of dollars from his legal clients, but said he didn’t kill his wife, Maggie, or son, Paul. The disbarred South Carolina attorney is on trial for shooting the pair to death on their Colleton County, South Carolina, property in June 2021.
Prosecutors allege he did so to deflect from the impending revelation of a mountain of financial crimes hat Murdaugh had committed for years. He is charged with more than 100 counts in a separate case that has not yet gone to trial.
During Friday’s testimony, prosecutor Creighton Waters took Murdaugh through a timeline of the night his son and wife died. Waters used cellphone and car-tracking data to challenge what he said were inconsistencies in Murdaugh’s story.
Murdaugh has said in the past he was taking a nap that evening, then went to his mom’s house before finding Maggie and Paul at kennels near their property. Data shows Paul and Maggie Murdaugh stopped using their cellphones at about 8:49 p.m.
But data from Murdaugh’s phone also shows that he took 283 steps between 9:02 and 9:06 p.m. — a fact the prosecution seized on.
Murdaugh said he was getting ready to go to his mother’s house at this time, but said he didn’t know exactly what he was doing.
“What were you so busy doing?” Waters asked. “Going to the bathroom? Got on the treadmill … jog in place? Do jumping jacks? What were you doing, Mr. Murdaugh, in those four minutes?”
According to his cellphone data, Murdaugh made a number of phone calls after his wife and son died.
Waters used the phone calls Murdaugh made around this time to accuse him of manufacturing an alibi, which the defendant denied.
“It is an absolute fact that I am not manufacturing an alibi,” Murdaugh insisted.
Whichever way the jury votes, former Los Angeles prosecutor Emily D. Baker says Murdaugh’s own words will weigh heavily on their decision.
“If the jury’s leaning toward guilt, they’re going to use his testimony to say, ‘See, we can’t believe anything he says,’ but if they’re leaning toward not guilty, they’re going to say, ‘Look, he admitted to everything else that he did, but he’s adamant that the didn’t do this,'” Baker said. “Alex wanted that moment to tell that story in his own words, and he was going to take it, no matter what.”
Prosecutors have focused heavily on a Snapchat video taken by Paul Murdaugh that puts his father at the scene of the crime just minutes before he and Maggie were killed.
Murdaugh originally told police he had been visiting his mother in another town and was not near the family home before the killings. But several witnesses previously said they heard the former attorney’s voice, along with his wife’s and son’s, on that cellphone video taken at the kennels on their property.
An addiction to opioids, Murdaugh said Thursday, was the reason why he lied to law enforcement regarding his whereabouts, as it made him paranoid and distrustful of state agents.
On Friday, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters asked why he did not say anything about this previously. Murdaugh argued that he tried to meet with the prosecutor’s office, but that he did not get an opportunity to do so.
“You were begging for a meeting, but you admit information was never conveyed that you wanted to change your story after multiple interviews with law enforcement about what happened that night, including the most important fact of all, which is when the last time you supposedly saw your wife and son alive was,” Waters said.
In response, Murdaugh said he doesn’t know “exactly what was conveyed or not to you, because I wasn’t part of that.”
But the prosecution insisted, still, that Murdaugh wasn’t being truthful about lying to police.
“You, like you’ve done so many times over the course of your life, had to back up and make a new story that kind of fits with the facts that can’t be denied,” Waters said.
“That’s not true,” Murdaugh said.
It was tense exchanges such as that one that highlighted the more than 10 hours of testimony given by Murdaugh. In the end, the cross-examination by Waters may not change anything in jurors’ minds.
“I think the people on the jury who believe the prosecution’s case was weak will see things in Alex’s testimony that will lead them to vote not guilty,” said Brian McCormack, a criminal defense attorney. “By the same token, if they believe the state proved their case, then they will vote guilty.”