The Murdaugh Murders

[happily single]

Has anyone else found Buster to be an irritating distraction? He can’t sit still and always seems like he’s talking or squirming or looking like he is bored. He’s 26 and attended law school, so he certainly has an idea of proper courtroom decorum. Plus he is hearing the horrible details about the murder of his brother and mother. That is dad is on trial for committing. His demeanor is so off for this. He looks like a bored kid during a church service.

And how about the note from the jury yesterday? That the judge had to remind the courtroom that the jurors are anonymous. I immediately assumed it was Buster.

What happened with the note?

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

What happened with the note?

That was a few weeks ago, but something happened and the judge made a big announcement without the jury present that people couldn’t be doing anything to try to identify them. The jury had given a note to the judge because someone must have been uncomfortable or noticed something off.

It was not too long before the Murdaugh family got moved further back in the gallery and Buster was suspected to be giving the finger to Tinsley.

 

[TeresaBelle]

Death toll tied to this story so far:
2015- male
2018- female
2019- female
2021- male and female

And the plot thickens...

I saw a TikTok yesterday where this girl said, "Where there's a Murdaugh, there's a murder!"

 

[DCLMP]

Has anyone listened to this podcast or been following this story out of SC? I have been listening to the podcast, and now following the story as it’s hit nationwide news.

I didn’t know much about it until I watched the Netflix documentary.

 

[WEDWDW]

Why don't they get that man a box of Kleenex?!!!!!

Every time he gets "emotional" talking about the Murders,the "nose drippage" is unattended to!

GROSSES ME OUT!!!!

 

[Robber Baron]

Why don't they get that man a box of Kleenex?!!!!!

Every time he gets "emotional" talking about the Murders,the "nose drippage" is unattended to!

GROSSES ME OUT!!!!

He worked hard to produce that snot.

He doesn't want to clean it up quickly.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

I have a couple questions hopefully some of you have answers.

1) Is it me or if he shot from the golf cart would that not be at that unusual angle defense tried so hard to make an issue but I never heard prosecuter talk about it. Was that shot inside the shed?
2) Does no one else find it strange that the VP of finance or CEO or whatever she was brother in law was the guy he worked with at one of the bank with shady tranasctions. I mean to me it seems like hiding all this for so long seems pretty hard to do. With so much stolen its hard to believe no is anywhere to be found.

I'm not a big court tv watcher aside from the Depp Herd thing which was some of the best TV I've seen in years. But that prosecutor's cross was awful. He kept letting him go on, and he should have never questuoned him second day about was it just the drugs that made him steal. That answer about where he had to cover the other peoples loses as the land deals went bad was sympathy gold.

 

[TLSnell1981]

I have a couple questions hopefully some of you have answers.

1) Is it me or if he shot from the golf cart would that not be at that unusual angle defense tried so hard to make an issue but I never heard prosecuter talk about it. Was that shot inside the shed?
2) Does no one else find it strange that the VP of finance or CEO or whatever she was brother in law was the guy he worked with at one of the bank with shady tranasctions. I mean to me it seems like hiding all this for so long seems pretty hard to do. With so much stolen its hard to believe no is anywhere to be found.

I'm not a big court tv watcher aside from the Depp Herd thing which was some of the best TV I've seen in years. But that prosecutor's cross was awful. He kept letting him go on, and he should have never questuoned him second day about was it just the drugs that made him steal. That answer about where he had to cover the other peoples loses as the land deals went bad was sympathy gold.

The prosecutor is being out lawyered IMO

 

[Kae]

I didn’t know much about it until I watched the Netflix documentary.

It was very interesting.

 

[DCLMP]

It was very interesting.

Yes it was. I don't normally get into this kind of stuff, but that was some good entertainment on the treadmill. The time flew by.

 

[barkley]

Has anyone else found Buster to be an irritating distraction? He can’t sit still and always seems like he’s talking or squirming or looking like he is bored. He’s 26 and attended law school, so he certainly has an idea of proper courtroom decorum.

i don't think they cover decorum the first semester.

buster got kicked out of law school for plagiarism during his second semester and despite his family paying out $60K to arrange for his re-admittance he has not returned.

 

[lpereira]

Couple of things. This is headed for a hung jury. But they can hang a hundred juries the guy isn't going anywhere. He will be in jail for far longer than the concurrent 30 year max he could get if convicted.

The prosecutor was sloppy and well outside normal trials for the area. This is Colleton County. A lot of its crime is property crimes. It will run between 1 and 8 or so murders a year. Most criminal cases get pled out including murders.

SLED was called in from the get go for two reasons.1) Murdaughs father was a judge for years. They literally had to remove his protrait from the courtroom before the trial. In cases where there is a strong tie between law enforcement and a potential suspect the proper thing is recusal. 2)SLED was also on this guy for over 100 financial felony charges among other things. That is another reason why they led the investigation. The motive for the murders is to cover up financial crimes so the police entity in charge of that investigation should be in charge of a murder involving those crimes.

The thing you have to remember about SC is it is a very small state. The old saying is too small to be a country but too large to be an insane asylum. With the exception of all the recent northerners who moved in everyone in this state is related to everyone else. So everyone on that jury remembers the guy from a prominent family who was convicted for killing his wife because he was a dirt bag. Same kind of case- circumstantial with no hard evidence. Only much later oops. Guy is still a dirt bag but he didn't do it. Or the very very recent case IN Colleton where another person with a pretty hefty rap sheet was pretty much coerced into pleading to a lesser murder charge only to find out later he didn't do it. The jurors all know these cases. It only takes 1 to hang a jury.
Remember SC is a small state? Pretty much no one BUT Dick Harpootlian was ever going to take this case. There isn't a reputable lawyer in the state going anywhere near a disbarred drug addict thief lawyer. Im going to say everything about The Poot knowing I find him greatly entertaining. He is aptly named. He has never met a microphone or camera he didn't love. He has zero shame and zero manners. The judge can rule however he pleases- it won't effect his seat. Also Poot doesn't really care if his client is convicted or not. He is only ever in it for himself.

At this level the legislators who represent that county in both chambers nominate and vote and the larger body affirms. The horse race with the entire senate only takes place with state Supreme Court judges. And believe me Jean Toal always irritated the absolute bejeesus out of the Senate but she was always reelected.

 

[mousefan73]

Havent really paid attention to this case but then my mom and I got sucked in the Netlfix documentary last night. Watched all episodes.
My comments:
1. That family seemed like a joy ( sarcasim)
2. My gut feeling is he will get off- cant see a jury covicting him beyond reasonable doubt without a weapon being found and 100% tying him there.
3. My sympathy for the whole group on that boat is limited. More for the parents. Paul, in the end was the unlucky one who was driving (everyone has been drinking). Mallory was more unlucky because she died. Everyone else was also drunk and partaking in the same activities. But all choose to go on that boat to drink and party. ( s it a thing in S.C. for underage teens to drink and party like that???). How did they get into that bar?? It was all fun and games until the accident and then the blame was on Paul. Not defending him. He should have been convicted. But there are so many cases like this.. A bunch of kids get drink together, sómething happens and in the end one gets blamed.
4. Paul's girlfriend- was it the money, trips and lifestyle that kept her with him for 4 years??? My mom kept saying what is that pretty girl with such an ugly drunk guy. In a way she seems complicent until poop hits the fan. But then again, she was basically still a child probably way and over inBut then again, she was basically still a child probably way in over her head

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

i don't think they cover decorum the first semester.

buster got kicked out of law school for plagiarism during his second semester and despite his family paying out $60K to arrange for his re-admittance he has not returned.

I haven’t been able to find anything talking about what happened, but something about that is really odd to me.

The courses during the first year of law school are very standard across the country and U.S.C. lists their first year courses, and they are in line with everyone else.

There is no paper writing component to law school. Your course grade is based on a final exam. He likely would have written a memo (fall semester) and an appellate brief (spring), but those aren’t things that could easily be cheated on because (I would hope) the professor is using a different set of facts each year to make a new case.

Is it possible that he took some case law and didn’t cite it? Sure. But to be quickly expelled for plagiarism? That is a big leap.

The best I can come up with is that maybe due to the pandemic, he had more take home finals and that he had someone else write them? But even then, if that happened, I don’t know how he would have been caught and punished so quickly.

Certainly not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it just shows the character of the whole family.

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

I agree that the case has a good chance of being a hung jury, but not because the prosecution didn’t do a good job or he isn’t guilty.

They established that -

- things are bad financially for Alex
- Alex has a pill addiction and was detoxing the day before the murder in the hotel.
- the family name was very tarnished by the boat case and the family name means everything to him.
- Alex lies easily to everyone (family, friends, coworkers, clients)
- Alex steals from everyone (brother, law partners, Satterfields, clients)
- they had an arsenal of guns and their guns were used in the murder.

But, it’s the kennel video that takes him down.

- Alex lied immediately to the first responding officer and to every person after that he wasn’t there - County, SLED, friends, Marian, attorneys. Lied to all of them. Within minutes of finding your family murdered.

- Paul’s video show he was there. Oops.

- Alex takes the stand because he knows he has to try to explain that away. (Ignoring that everything he says on his direct examination is a response to the state’s case and that he offers nothing other than a point by point discredit of their evidence).

- Alex says that - wait for it! - he was at the kennels! But the pills and his distrust of SLED made him lie! (Again, ignore that he runs the local law enforcement and seems to have no fear when carrying a badge or having blue lights in his personal (yet law firm paid for) vehicle and showing up at the hospital like he did after the boat crash.

- WHY WOULD HE LIE??

- There would be no question at all that when your family is murdered at their home and you were with them, you would have been the last person to see them alive. Whether it was eating dinner on the couch before his nap or at the kennels, the answer wouldn’t matter at all. He was the last to see them. So lying doesn’t make sense.

- If he came home and found them dead, he wouldn’t have known when they were killed. It would have been perfectly reasonable for him to believe that they were shot between 9:02-10:06 while he was gone. Him being at the kennels at 8:44 wouldn’t have even raised a red flag.

- So why lie??? Only if he knew that their time of death was 8:49. And that being at the kennels at 8:49 might be a little suspicious.

There are a million other things from that night that are additional clues, but nothing that is more of a slam dunk than that.

Other clues:
- dogs happily peeing on every pine tree and acting normally. No barking from them or the guard guineas that anyone was lying in wait.
- specifically remembering your phone fell between the seat and the center console at 9:22 on June 7th while you were at your mom’s house, but not remembering the last words you ever said to your wife and son???? (To his credit, I thought for sure he was going to come up with a story about how they all hugged and Mags and Paul Paul said he was the best guy every and they loved him so much…)
- if he did work with Paul and showered at 8:09 before eating, his dirty clothes and shoes would have easily been found. Blanca would have either washed and put them back or they would have been in the hamper. Buster said that the night of the murders he packed athletic shorts and tshirts not polos and khakis.
- consistently being able to recall minuscule details about insignificant things while consistently being fuzzy on details about important things (when he touched the bodies, times he lied to the faces of his clients, how he left the kennels, how Maggie and Paul got to the kennels)

 

[mom2rtk]

I haven't been following super closely. Saw a Dateline summary and caught a little bit of the trial on TV (as much as I could stomach anyway).

But every time he refers to "Paul Paul" I have to stop myself from throwing stuff at the TV. That's a name someone would use as an endearment. And thinking of what he did to "Paul Paul" and using a term of endearment are just incompatible. So transparently manipulative.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Yup, I've followed this one from the very beginning. And I actually listened to Murdaugh's testimony on the stand. I'm not sure whether he actually shot them both, but he's involved in some way, potentially setting it up. He lied about even being in the vicinity for months and months, only admitting he was there at the kennel....after video surfaced on his son's phone that he was there 15 minutes before the murders. He tells the truth when he's caught.

Then...we're supposed to believe that he raced back to the house in the golf cart, went straight to the couch where he "napped" for a grand total of 10 minutes, then took more steps in a very short period of time than he had all day....then made lots and lots of phone calls, and then drove 70-80 miles an hour down a dirt road filled with pot holes to go visit his mother who had end stage altzheimers.....at 9:30 at night. He had to keep the "nap" part in his story because that's the lie he told from the jump.

He's a thief and a pathological liar.....who also had a raging opioid addiction. I watched the three part Netflix doc too, and the watched as he and his father straight-up tried to manipulate that situation with those kids....trying to convince the one kid to take the rap for being the driver....when they were at the hospital. When in actuality it was his son, who by that point was a raging alcoholic with serious violent tirades (some physical) with his girlfriend. He and his wife (rip) are greatly responsible for the environment they set up for those kids....booze for everyone, at every age. Guns unlocked everywhere all over the place. But...when your family has likely gotten away with nine zillion crimes previously, for a century, there's nothing to worry about. Until it all falls apart.

Also, the nutty "suicide attempt" which wasn't a suicide attempt at all....just some kooky idea he came up with to avert attention from one of the other zillion crimes he committed. If I was on that jury.....he's guilty.

 

[WEDWDW]

Yup, I've followed this one from the very beginning. And I actually listened to Murdaugh's testimony on the stand. I'm not sure whether he actually shot them both, but he's involved in some way, potentially setting it up. He lied about even being in the vicinity for months and months, only admitting he was there at the kennel....after video surfaced on his son's phone that he was there 15 minutes before the murders. He tells the truth when he's caught.

Then...we're supposed to believe that he raced back to the house in the golf cart, went straight to the couch where he "napped" for a grand total of 10 minutes, then took more steps in a very short period of time than he had all day....then made lots and lots of phone calls, and then drove 70-80 miles an hour down a dirt road filled with pot holes to go visit his mother who had end stage altzheimers.....at 9:30 at night. He had to keep the "nap" part in his story because that's the lie he told from the jump.

He's a thief and a pathological liar.....who also had a raging opioid addiction. I watched the three part Netflix doc too, and the watched as he and his father straight-up tried to manipulate that situation with those kids....trying to convince the one kid to take the rap for being the driver....when they were at the hospital. When in actuality it was his son, who by that point was a raging alcoholic with serious violent tirades (some physical) with his girlfriend. He and his wife (rip) are greatly responsible for the environment they set up for those kids....booze for everyone, at every age. Guns unlocked everywhere all over the place. But...when your family has likely gotten away with nine zillion crimes previously, for a century, there's nothing to worry about. Until it all falls apart.

Also, the nutty "suicide attempt" which wasn't a suicide attempt at all....just some kooky idea he came up with to avert attention from one of the other zillion crimes he committed. If I was on that jury.....he's guilty.

Definitely and I am going to go against the grain and predict that he does get convicted and does not get the Hung Jury most predict.

I do not think,in the end,any Juror will ultimately buy that he lied about being at the Kennel because of the addiction.

He lied to save his pitiful hide.

 

[dvcgirl67]

The prosecutor is being out lawyered IMO

When Murdaugh was on the stand, I thought the prosecutor was getting way too detailed about the financial crimes (of which there were many). At some point it was like..."yeah, we get it...he stole money from everyone from children to quadriplegics.....he's a terrible human being"......but let's get on to the murders.

I also don't think that the prosecution presented a really solid motive. The family already knew about the raging pill addiction. So it's not like they would "out' him on that. I've read they have said it was to generate sympathy for him to distract from the financial crimes...and I'm not sure exactly how that would work either. But...I do think that he hatched so many crazy plans, that in Murdaugh's mind...he may have thought that.

The fake suicide attempt is an example of that. At one point he said that he'd hurt himself long before he'd ever hurt "Mags and Paw Paw (the worst nickname every for a human being)".......and I don't buy that. He's a coward first and foremost.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Definitely and I am going to go against the grain and predict that he does get convicted and does not get the Hung Jury most predict.

I do not think,in the end,any Juror will ultimately buy that he lied about being at the Kennel because of the addiction.

He lied to save his pitiful hide.

I hope so...I think he's guilty. And I think that video and the data (number of steps, calls, and on-star) should do him in.

Here's a guy who said many times..."I didn't want to go to the kennel because I already took a shower and I knew I'd get dirty...and I wanted to take a nap". So then he races back to the house, takes a ten minute nap, then jumps and up and says..."well, guess I go see Mama"....at 9pm. He went to see Mama for an alibi and so he could come back and "find" the bodies....end of story. I'd love to know how many other times he left his couch and air-conditioning (which seemed important to him).....to run over at night to ease his mother's anxiety.

Would he jump out of bed in the middle of the night when Paw Paw slammed a boat into a bridge killing a poor young woman....yes, for two reasons. To make sure his son was okay, and to try and pin the accident on someone else. Both of which he did. Would he jump off the couch after a ten minute nap to visit his mother with late stage alzheimers at 9pm? Nope.