Prosecutors in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh presented a video Wednesday of footage they say compromises the disgraced former attorney’s alibi that he wasn’t at the scene of the killings of his wife Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, in June 2021, according to CNN.
The nearly one-minute long video was recorded on Paul’s phone at 8:44 p.m. the night of the murders, stated Lt. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and a state witness, per the report. Dove extracted data from the phones of Murdaugh, his son and his wife, and said the footage appeared to be taken in the area of the Murdaugh family’s kennels, where his wife’s and son’s bodies were found.
In the video, prosecutors say they believe Paul was trying to record video of a dog’s tail and voices can be heard talking about whether a dog had a chicken or guinea in its mouth, NBC reported. Although Dove did not personally know the voices in the video, he said, that three different voices could be heard.
The owner of the dog in the video, Rogan Gibson, later testified that Paul was watching the dog at the family’s estate in Colleton County. Gibson — who said he is a close family friend and has known the Murdaughs for practically all of his life — said that Paul called him at 8:40 p.m. on the night of the shooting. Gibson said Paul asked if something was wrong with Cash, Gibson’s dog, who was in the kennel, according to reports.
Gibson told the court that he could hear Margaret and another male voice that sounded like Alex in the background. Shortly after the murders, Gibson told investigators that along with the voices of Maggie and Paul, he was “99 percent sure” the third person in the video was Alex Murdaugh, CNN reported. Last November, he told investigators that he was 100 percent certain it was Alex’s voice, per the report, and repeated his statement in court Wednesday. When state prosecutor Creighton Waters asked if Gibson recognized Alex’s voice, he replied, “Yes, sir.”
“100 percent?” pressed Waters. “Yes, sir,” Gibson answered.
Alex Murdaugh, 52, is the scion of a long legal dynasty from South Carolina’s small Hampton County, in the state’s southern Lowlands. Murdaugh worked at his family’s law firm — Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick (P.M.P.E.D.) — until he was ousted in September 2021 amid accusations that he’d misappropriated funds. He was disbarred in July by South Carolina’s Supreme Court, after admitting to wrongly taking settlement money from the family of his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield — who died in 2018 at the Murdaughs’ home — and that he owes Satterfield’s sons $4.3 million.
The former South Carolina lawyer has been embroiled in layer upon layer of scandal and criminal accusations, and faces murder charges for the 2021 killings of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh and their son Paul Murdaugh. He has pleaded not guilty, and is being held in jail on a $7 million bond.