Distinguished US legal professional on trial for killing spouse, son

The scion of an American household of legal professionals went on trial Monday for murdering his spouse and son in a weird crime saga that included him trying to stage his personal demise.

Alex Murdaugh, 54, was a part of a multi-generation dynasty of rich, high-powered attorneys and prosecutors within the state of South Carolina when he plunged into monetary issues and drug dependancy.

His spouse and son had been shot and killed on June 7, 2021 on the household’s sprawling searching property in Islandton, South Carolina.

As police struggled to pinpoint a suspect, three months later Murdaugh tried to pretend his personal homicide on a rustic street so his surviving son may acquire on a $10 million insurance coverage coverage.

Jury choice for his homicide trial started Monday within the small metropolis of Walterboro, in an space of the state the place his household wielded affect for generations.

Whereas the trial focuses on the homicide fees, Murdaugh faces greater than 70 others together with embezzling tens of millions of {dollars}, insurance coverage fraud, drug trafficking and cash laundering.

And police have opened inquiries into the 2018 demise of Murdaugh’s household nanny, initially known as an accident, and the 2015 roadside demise of a younger homosexual man not removed from the Murdaugh residence whose household alleges was additionally a murder.

Murdaugh was first arrested after allegedly recruiting his drug supplier to shoot him on a South Carolina roadside in an insurance coverage rip-off on September 4, 2021.

However Curtis Smith, the hitman employed by Murdaugh, botched the job. He shot Murdaugh within the head however the bullet solely grazed his cranium.

When Murdaugh was arraigned in courtroom, his lawyer Dick Harpootlian mentioned he had a “super opioid dependancy.”

Harpootlian mentioned Murdaugh had monetary issues, and that the deaths of his spouse and son had “put him over the sting.”

“This crime concerned his try to have himself shot in order that his son may acquire insurance coverage,” he mentioned.

In July 2022 a grand jury indicted Murdaugh for the homicide a 12 months earlier of his spouse Maggie, 52, and his son Paul, 22.

He has additionally confronted lawsuits from the household of the previous nanny, from the household of a younger man who was killed in a boating accident involving Paul Murdaugh, and from different collectors.

He was compelled out of his household agency and barred from training legislation within the state.

AFP