After five and half weeks of testimony, the jury in the double-murder trial of Alex Murdaugh is expected to begin deliberations on Thursday.
Before they begin to consider a verdict, the 12 jurors and two alternates visited the scene of the crime — the dog kennels and feed room at the Murdaugh family’s 1,700-acre Moselle estate.
It was there that Mr Murdaugh is accused of brutally murdering his wife Maggie, 52, and younger son Paul, 22, were brutally murdered on 7 June 2021.
Paul was shot twice with a shotgun as he stood in the feed room of the kennels, with the second bullet blowing his brain from its skull.
Maggie was shot four to five times with an AR-15-style rifle a few yards from her son, as she backed into an ATV parked under a hangar.
Mr Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty.
Once they had inspected the site, jurors were brought back to Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, and the State of South Carolina‘s lead prosecutor on the case Creighton Waters, and his team, including the state’s Attorney General Alan Wilson, presented their closing argument outlining why Mr Murdaugh should be found guilty of the murders.
Mr Murdaugh’s defence team, led by attorney Dick Harpootlian, will outline their grounds for why the defendant should be found not guilty based on reasonable doubt that he committed the murders on Thursday morning. Attorney Jim Griffin will present their closing argument.
Judge Clifton Newman did not set any time limit on closing arguments, and Mr Waters spoke for three hours on Wednesday, pushing the defence case over into Thursday.
Once complete, the state will have the ability to respond to the defence argument.
Judge Newman will then issues jury instructions before they retire for their deliberations.
As with any trial, there are few clues as to how the jury has absorbed testimony from 61 prosecution witnesses, 14 defence witnesses, and six rebuttal witnesses over almost six weeks.
Reporters in the court have described them as attentive throughout the trial.
A unanimous guilty verdict is required for a murder trial, so only one juror needs to believe that the state has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is not expected that the jury will gather over the weekend but this has been a trial full of surprises.
