US attorney Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison
Alex Murdaugh during his trial
Influential U.S. attorney Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the 2021 murders of his wife and son, following a trial that revealed the murder of his wife and son. extent of the decline of this heir to a large South Carolina family.
The country has been passionate for weeks about this affair which has already made the #x27;the subject of podcasts and documentaries, including one on Netflix.
Before pronouncing the sentence, Judge Clifton Newman spoke at length to Alex Murdaugh in a calm tone that was all the more bitter, saying his incomprehension in the face of the duplicity and the lies of the; lawyer.
The latter, handcuffed and dressed in a beige prison uniform, again proclaimed his innocence. His son Buster was in the room.
I respect this court, but I am innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie and […] my son, he assured.
The magistrate sentenced him to two sentences of life imprisonment which will apply one after the other.
On Thursday, jurors in court in Walterboro, South Carolina, needed just under three hours to reach their verdict.
< p class="e-p">The evidence of guilt is overwhelming, the judge had commented upon reading the verdict.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was accused of stealing insane amounts of money from his law firm, friends and even his housekeeper's son, and suspected of shooting his relatives to death. avoid being unmasked.
While he acknowledged these thefts, which he believes were intended to fuel a costly addiction to opiates and to compensate for bad investments, he does not x27;never admitted to double murder.
Alex Murdaugh shot and killed his wife Maggie, 52, and their youngest son Paul, 22, with two separate guns on June 7, 2021, in Colleton County, South Carolina, near their dog's kennel, according to the prosecution. huge property, called Moselle, where the men liked to hunt wild pigs.
The jurors went there on Wednesday to better understand the layout of the premises.
The case fascinated the United States, where all the media, including the most serious, dissected the life of this opulent family, proud of its three generations of prosecutors and of local judges, as well as the vertiginous fall of the father.
Several podcasts have already been devoted to the case and a documentary, Murdaugh Murders < em>: A Southern Scandal, is among the most-watched shows on Netflix, with 40 million hours watched in the country last week.
During the whole lawsuit, news channels broadcast live the parade of defrauded colleagues and friends, who recounted how Alex Murdaugh stole millions of dollars from them for years without them noticing. ;report it.
