Alex Murdaugh’s son, Paul, confronted him about his drug use a month before he and his mother were shot to death on the family’s South Carolina hunting estate, prosecutors first revealed Friday.
The Colleton County jury was shown a text message Paul sent to his father on May 6, 2021.
“I’m still on EB because when you get here we need to talk. Mom found several bags of pills in your computer bag,” Paul allegedly wrote. “EB” likely refers to the family’s Edisto Beach home.
Murdaugh is accused of executing Paul, 22, and his wife, Maggie, 52, on June 7, 2021.
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Alex Murdaugh looks on as his defense attorney Jim Griffin at his murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, February 10, 2023. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier/Pool)
Assistant Attorney General Creighton Waters called Special Agent Peter Rudofski of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division as the state’s last witness.
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The transcribed voice message was introduced during his testimony. It was also revealed that Maggie had conducted various Internet searches from May 6 to May 26, 2021 to identify specific pills.
“White pill 30 on a side rp,” he wrote in a Safari search engine on May 6, describing a 30-milligram oxycodone tablet.
Alex Murdaugh’s son, Paul, confronts him about his drug use in a text message on May 6, 2021, about a month before Paul and his mother were killed. The text was presented Friday at Murdaugh’s double murder trial. (South Carolina Attorney General’s Office)
The next day, Murdaugh sent a text to his wife. “I’m so sorry I did this to all of you. I love you,” he wrote. Maggie did not respond, according to Rudolfski.
Maggie’s older sister, Marian Proctor, testified Tuesday in the Colleton County courthouse.
He said that Maggie called Paul her “little detective” because if there were pills in the house that his father shouldn’t be taking, he was determined to find them.
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Three months after the murders, Murdaugh admitted to investigators after a failed suicide attempt that he was spending up to $60,000 a week on pills.
He confessed that on September 4, 2021, he had his drug dealer, Curtis “Cousin Eddie” Smith, shoot him in the head, so that his living son, Buster, could collect a $10 million life insurance payout. But Smith only brushed his head.
Alex Murdaugh, left, bows his head as his sister-in-law, Marian Proctor, testifies February 14 on behalf of the state at her double murder trial in Walterboro, South Carolina. (Fox News)
Agents with the state division of law enforcement later found $2.4 million in checks that Murdaugh wrote to Smith.
The disbarred lawyer told investigators that he had misappropriated fees from his law firm and clients to fuel his raging addiction.
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Murdaugh faces 99 counts of financial crimes spanning 19 indictments alleging he stole nearly $9 million through various schemes.
In another text from Murdaugh to former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte, he urgently requested a $600,000 line of credit for Moselle.
Prosecutors produced two photos while questioning their last witness. Marian Proctor and her younger sister Maggie Murdaugh pictured on the left. Buster, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh pictured on the right. (South Carolina Attorney General’s Office)
“My dad will also sign if necessary. How long will that take?” he asked in the June 3, 2021 message. Laffitte was later convicted of six federal crimes stemming from his dealings with Murdaugh.
At the end of Rudofski’s testimony, Waters showed the jury two photos. In one, Maggie poses with Proctor, her only sister.
In the second, she’s beaming in a blue dress, as Buster and Paul stand on either side of her.
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Prosecutors have argued that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to prevent his financial misdeeds from being exposed.
