Alex Murdoff allegedly ambushed their son Paul in the dog house’s dining room before turning on his wife, Maggie, who tried to escape only to be shot in the knee, according to chilling testimony from a top crime scene expert. Killed and killed.
Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Deputy and crime scene expert Dr. Kenny Kinsey gave graphic testimony at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina on Thursday where he The jurors went through each and every moment of the horrific attack of 7 June 2021.
Expecting to be one of the prosecution’s final witnesses, he went into intense detail about the victims’ final terrifying moments, including where each gunshot was fired and where the gunman was standing when he fired each shot.
Paul was shot twice with a shotgun while his mother was shot five times with an AR-15-style rifle. The guns were never found.
Based on Kinsey’s crime scene analysis, jurors heard that Paul was caught off guard in the dog kennel’s dining room and did not have time to defend himself.
After killing Paul, the gunman exits the dining room and approaches Maggie outside.
In her final terrifying moments, she confronts her killer and retreats, knocking over the family’s ATV before being shot by her killer.
She was stabbed twice before falling to her knees, at which point the killer shot her twice in the head.
Mr Murdo is accused of murdering his wife and son to distract attention from his alleged financial crimes – at a time when his multimillion-dollar fraud scheme was on the verge of being exposed.
Mr Murdaugh – the once-powerful scion of a South Carolina legal dynasty – has pleaded not guilty and claims the killer or killers are still at large.
During Dr. Kinsey’s detailed and painful testimony, Mr. Murdaugh was seen in the courtroom crying and wiping his eyes.
Dr. Kinsey said that Paul was standing in the middle of the 10-foot-long feeding room of the dog kennel when the killer fired the first shot.
His hands were not raised, indicating that he may have been ambushed by the gunman, who was standing outside the room at the door, looking inside.
The first shot, which hit Paul in the chest and arm, was not fatal.
The feeding room at Digg Kennel where Paul was ambushed and shot by his killer
(Fox 19)
The 22-year-old man stood still for several moments as Dr. Kinsey noted drops of blood fell down his arm and his fingers fell to the ground.
He then “slowly” walked towards the door of the feeding room – and towards his killer – leaving a bloody footprint in the ground as he went.
As he reached the door frame, he was shot a second time.
At that point, Dr. Kinsey said that the shooter was standing to the right of the doorway and fired upward, with the bullet going into Paul’s shoulder and into his brain.
This second shot was fatal—causing Paul to “immediately” land outside the dining room.
“When he got this wound he stopped all movement,” Dr. Kinsey said, adding that any movement would be “due to gravity”.
Jurors were shown graphic crime scene photographs of Paul’s blood spatter, biological material and hair on the dining room door.
Biological material could also spray onto the shooter if the shooter were too close to the muzzle of the firearm.
The crime scene expert testified that there was no way the gunshot wounds appeared nor any way the shooter had fired them from above. He also said that bullets were not fired from point blank range.
Doctor. Kinsey testifies about the gunshot wound to Maggie, revealing that the gunman fired several shots “in very quick succession” from an AR-15-style rifle as she was facing the direction of the dining room. Was.
Depending on the angle of the gunshot, the shooter was standing about four or five feet away when he first fired.
The first two or three shots—the first hit Magee’s upper thigh and the second passed through his abdomen, around his kidneys—were not fatal.
Although not fatal, she “suffered” and “fell to the ground”, Dr Kinsey said.
Alex Murdaugh breaks down in tears as he listens to an interview with SLED Special Agent David Owen during the trial
(AP)
In a courtroom demonstration by prosecutor Creighton Waters, McGee fell to his knees with at least one hand on the ground when the gunman fired “down on him”.
The next shot—from the left side of his abdomen to his breastbone, his jaw, and his brain—was fatal.
The second shot – also to her head and “a major blow” – would also have been fatal but she was already dead.
Magee fell face down on the ground, he said, and “there is no evidence that her body was tampered with or moved”.
Asked whether the angle of the shot was consistent with the shooter coming from the dining room after killing Paul, Dr Kinsey said: “It certainly could.”
Jurors were also shown a photograph of an imprint on the back of Magee’s calf – an imprint which was raised by Mr Murdaugh’s lawyers at the trial.
Dr. Kinsey reveals that he compared the tire imprint on the ATV under the hangar next to Maggie’s body.
The imprint matched the tire and tire mud was also found on Maggie’s leg.
“This is a tire tread impression. This is my opinion,” he said.
“It is most likely that the tire [on the ATV], If it is not that tyre, it is a similar tire with the same distinctive tread design.
Dr. Kinsey testified that this was consistent with the backing in Maggie’s tire.
“At some point Maggie Murdoff made contact with the tyre”, he said.
“I didn’t see any evidence that she ran away so she had to have contact with it at some point.”
Dr. Kinsey testified that there was no evidence of any struggle between Paul or Magee and the shooter, and that the victims had no defensive wounds.
The crime scene expert also testified regarding the location of Paul’s cellphone, which was found lying on the right rear pocket of his trousers.
Dr. Kinsey told jurors that the phone had been “placed there” by someone else.
Left to right Buster, Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdoff
(Maggie Murdoff / Facebook)
“In my opinion, his phone was put in there by someone else,” he said.
“There was no movement after the fatal shot… [there’s] There was no way Paul could take the phone out of his pocket and put it on his pants.
“If it was in his hands, he would not have landed there. In my opinion, it would have fallen to the ground… It would not have fallen behind him, up in the air and onto him.
In the 911 call reporting the murders, Mr. Murdaugh told the dispatcher that he had taken his son to check for signs of life and that his phone had been taken out of his pocket. He claimed that he picked it up and then put it back down.
During a tense cross-examination, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian questioned the shooter’s location when Paul was shot, pulling out a protractor to make his point that it was an “unusual angle”.
At one point, Dr. Kinsey pushed back his line of questioning, saying: “I feel like you’re fooling around with me, Mr. Harpootlian.”
When Mr. Harpootlian replied “You got that feeling?”, he replied: “I got that feeling.”
Prosecution
The brutal double murders brought to light a series of scandals surrounding Mr. Murdo, including unexplained deaths, a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, and a failed hitman plot.
At the time of the murders, Paul was awaiting trial over the death of Mallory Beach – a 19-year-old woman who died in 2019 in an accident on the Murdoff family’s boat.
Paul was allegedly driving a boat under the influence of alcohol and crashed on the beach. His body washed up on shore a week later. Paul was charged with several felonies over the boat wreck and was facing up to 25 years in prison at the time the killing,
The Beach family sued Mr. Murdo and a trial was set for the week of the murders. It was postponed following the murders of Maggie and Paul.
Days after the shootings, an investigation was reopened into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, who was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County.
The openly gay teen, 19, had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But the victim’s family has long doubted this version of events, with the name of the deceased appearing in several police tips and community rumours.
Bodycam shows Alex Murdo as first officers arrive at scene of wife and son’s murders
An investigation into another mysterious death involving the Murdoff family was also reopened – that of Murdoff’s longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield.
She died in 2018 in a mystery trip and accident at the family home. Mr. Murdaugh allegedly stole nearly $4 million in a wrongful death settlement from his sons.
Then, on September 4, 2021, three months after the murders, Mr. Murdoff was suddenly shot in the head by a roadside in Hampton County.
He survived and called 911, claiming he was ambushed in a drive-by shooting while he was changing a tire on his vehicle.
But, Mr. Murdaugh’s story about the incident soon came to light.
A week later on 13 September, he confessed to law enforcement that he had orchestrated the entire saga, paying an alleged hitman to shoot and kill him in a suicide plot so that his surviving son, Buster, could have a life of $10m. Can get insurance
He told investigators that he paid Curtis “Eddie” Smith – a former law firm client, distant cousin and allegedly his drug dealer – to do the shooting. Both she and Mr. Smith were arrested for the incident.
The plot, which has been described as a “roadside” incident, marked one of the most bizarre turns in the past 20 months in a scandal engulfing the disgraced heir to a prominent South Carolina legal dynasty.
Mr Murdaugh, 54, is facing a life sentence for the murder of his wife and son. He has pleaded not guilty.