Alex Murdaugh stands during a break in his murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, on Friday, Feb.
24, 2023. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Pool/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Alex Murdaugh’s theft of millions of dollars was about to be revealed so he killed his wife and son to buy time to figure a way out, a prosecutor said Wednesday during closing arguments in the disgraced South Carolina attorney’s murder trial.Fearing his years of stealing from his law firm and clients would be exposed and hoping to maintain his lofty standing in the community, Murdaugh killed his wife and younger son in the hopes it would make him a sympathetic figure and draw attention away from the missing money, prosecutor Creighton Waters told jurors.
Aided by his knowledge of how criminal cases are constructed, he hatched a clever plan to make sure they were at the family’s Colleton County property on the night they were killed, June 7, 2021, he said."The pressures on this man were unbearable.
And they were all reaching a crescendo the day his wife and son were murdered by him," Waters said. The defense will get to sum up its case on Thursday.Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison if he is convicted of either murder count.