Alex Murdaugh’s financial crimes under spotlight in double murder trial – live

Under cross-examination, the defense cast doubt on the theory that it may have been Mr Murdo who dumped Maggie’s phone on the side of the Moselle road.

Lt Dove accepted that cellphone data suggested that Maggie’s and Mr Murdo’s phones were not in the same place at the same time at 9.06pm as the phase data did not match.

This was significant because the last orientation change – or movement – at 9.06pm was recorded on Maggie’s phone.

Lt. Dove testified that the movement may have occurred because it was being thrown from a vehicle where it was discovered the next day, with the defense stating that Mr. Murdo was walking on family property with his cellphone at the time.

However, under redirection, prosecutors cast doubt on the defense’s timing of when the phone was thrown into Mossley Lane, as Lt. Dove testified that the orientation change could have occurred only when the phone screen was turned on.

The SLED agent testified that Maggie’s phone screen was off between 9:07 p.m. and 9:31 p.m., so if the phone had been thrown from the car during that time, no orientation change would have been recorded.

In dramatic court testimony, jurors heard that calls made by Mr Murdaugh to his wife on the night of the murder were mysteriously “deleted” from his call log afterwards.

In court on Tuesday, Lt Dove testified that Mr Murdaugh had called Maggie five times between 9.04pm and 10.03pm on 7 June 2021, after he allegedly killed her and Paul. None of the calls were answered.

But, according to the call log on his cellphone, Mr Murdo did not make or receive any calls between 4.35pm on 4 June and 10.25pm ​​on 7 June.

Lt. Dove, who processed three cellphones belonging to Mr. Murdoff, Magee and Paul, testified that phone calls made to his wife’s cellphone after Mr. Murdoff allegedly shot the victims were missing from his call log.

The only explanation for the missing data is that the call logs were manually and intentionally deleted by someone between the 7 June 2021 murders and the seizure of her phone by authorities in September 2021, he said.

Prosecutors claim that Paul was shot first at around 8.50am, followed by Maggie – cellphone data being used to narrow down the killings to a precise eight-second window.

SLED Lieutenant Britt Dove testified that Paul’s last phone activity was at 8.48.59 pm and Maggie’s at 8.49.27 pm.

Eight seconds later at 8.49.35 pm, Paul received a text message but it remained unread. Neither Maggie nor Paul used their phones after that time.

Over the next hour, Alex Murdoff called and texted several times at his wife’s home.

Jurors were shown a Snapchat video that Paul sent to Mr Loving less than an hour before he and Maggie were murdered.

The video, sent on June 7, 2021 at 7:56 p.m., shows Alex Murdo on the grounds of the family’s property.

In the footage, Mr Murdo, 54, is seen wearing trousers, loafers and a blue button-down shirt – clothes that do not match the one he was wearing in police bodycam footage taken after the incident the killing,

In bodycam footage shown in court last week, the disgraced lawyer is dressed in a white short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts.

Questions had already been raised about this organization as several law enforcement officials testified that Mr Murdo and his clothes were “clean from head to toe” – despite his claims that he had touched the bloodied bodies of his wife and son. .

It is not yet clear whether investigators discovered or seized the other outfit Mr Murdaugh was wearing in the Snapchat video, and jurors have yet to receive an explanation from the defence.

Paul and Maggie were shot and killed at approximately 8.50 p.m., less than an hour before Snapchat at 7.56 p.m.

In a dramatic day on 1 February, jurors are shown cellphone footage taken by Paul at the dog kennel after he and Maggie were shot dead, which casts doubt on Mr Murdo’s alibi.

Off-camera, three voices are heard – Paul’s, Maggie’s and a man who prosecutors say is Mr Murdaugh.

In dramatic testimony, two close friends of Paul’s family told jurors they were “100 per cent certain” the voice was Mr Murdaugh’s.

Cellphone data shows the video was recorded for 58 seconds from 8.44.49 pm to 8.45.47 pm – less than five minutes before the killings. The sacked lawyer has claimed that he was sleeping at the family home at the time.

Rogan Gibson, who had known Paul since they were young and described the Murdaughs as his “second family”, testified that he was “100 percent certain” Mr. Murdoff is the voice in the footage. Another friend, Will Loving, echoed this.

As the footage was played in court, Mr Murdaugh was seen shaking his head up and down and crying.

SLED Lieutenant Britt Dove, who worked in the Computer Crime Center, testified that he processed three cellphones.

Based on cellphone data, he said the last text Maggie read was a message from her sister-in-law, Lynn Murdaugh, in a group chat, which she read at 8.49 p.m.

After 8.49 p.m., she did not open or respond to messages or calls from several people, including her husband, eldest son Buster and Mr Murdaugh’s brother John Marvin Murdaugh.

Jurors also heard how cellphone data showed Maggie’s phone orientation changed from portrait to landscape at 8.54am and again at 9.06am, indicating it was in someone’s hands. A minute later, at 9.07pm the screen flashed on and off as if someone tried – but failed – to unlock it.

Health app data was also presented to jurors, showing that Maggie’s cellphone recorded 59 steps in the two minutes after 8.53 p.m. – a period that prosecutors allege Maggie and Paul were already dead.

“It tells me that someone got hold of this phone and took steps, and it recorded those steps,” Lt. Dove said.

Maggie’s phone was switched off between 8.49 pm on 7 June 2021 and 1.10 am the following day, when it was found dumped by the side of a road about a mile from the Murdoff property.

Paul’s cellphone was also initially locked after the murders, until US Secret Service digital forensics examiner Jonathan VanHouten testified that he was able to unlock it when he successfully tried Paul’s birthday as his passcode. Stayed.

On Alex Murdoff’s chilling final text to his wife after he allegedly murdered her and their son, in court during his murder trial on Tuesday.

Jurors were shown data from Maggie, Paul and Mr. Murdo’s cellphones on the night of the murders.

Prosecutors say Mr Murdaugh shot Paul first at 8.50pm and Maggie later.

Almost immediately after, cellphone data shows that Mr. Murdaugh made several calls to Magee and other family members.

Mr Murdaugh first called Magee at 9.04pm – minutes after he allegedly shot her dead – and the call went to voicemail.

He then texted her phone at 9.08 pm, claiming he was visiting his mother: “Going to check on M. Come back now.” The text was never read.

In all, Mr Murdo called five times between 9.04pm and 10.03pm after he allegedly killed his wife. None of the calls were answered.

At 9:47 pm, his wife received his last text message, which read, “Call me babe.”

As well as calling Maggie, Mr. Murdo’s cellphone records show that he made several calls to other numbers in the hour between the time prosecutors said he was murdered and he called 911. ,

Minutes after the last call, Mr. Murdaugh called 911 at 10.07 p.m., claiming to have found Maggie and Paul’s bodies.

On 31 January, Mr Murdo’s cousin John Bedingfield testified against him, revealing how the 54-year-old had bought a number of firearms from him in the years prior to the murders – those that matched the type used to kill Magee. Used to eat

Mr Bedingfield, who works for the Department of Natural Resources but has a side business making and selling firearms under a federal licence, told the court Mr Murdaugh had given Paul and his surviving son rifles as gifts before Christmas 2016. Wanted to buy as

He bought two Subsonic 300 Blackout rifles — one black, one tan — for $9,188 so his sons could hunt hogs, he testified.

Two years later in April 2018, he said Mr Murdaugh bought a third rifle from him for $875 because he said Paul had lost his second rifle.