Original subtitles

alex, alex murdaugh,

Why did you kill your wife and your son?

for 29 days,

And the small town of walterboro by storm.

- You know where we're going?

- No, that's what I'm asking you.

- People from all over have been flocking here

To the colleton county courthouse.

- People would line up 5:30 in the morning

To come into the courtroom.

- People were watching the trial

To see if alex was capable of murdering his son

And also his wife.

for the first time,

Alex murdaugh shares his thoughts on the trial.

- And alex's only living child, buster,

Tells his side of this story in an exclusive interview.

Did you ever go there and say,

"maybe it's possible that he did this?"

- No,

Because I think that I hold a very unique perspective

That nobody else in that courtroom ever held

And I know the love that I have witnessed.

- On June 7th, 2021,

Maggie murdaugh and paul murdaugh were brutally

And maliciously murdered by alex murdaugh.

- A trial like that is a combination of science,

And acting, theater,

And you've got actors on the stage

And they're all playing their part.

- Did you make a written note of him saying that?

- The state, we're in the construction business.

Can a six-foot-four person

And a five-foot-four person still shoot the same angle,

Just at different distances?

- Absolutely.

- The defense, they're in the demolition business.

- There were multiple tire tracks coming and going.

What did you do to preserve those?

- Nothing.

- None of this evidence

Would've met the minimum requirements

With the typical csi forensic show.

- This is the 300 blackout rifle.

- It was the totality of the evidence

And how it basically worked together like sheet music.

- Can you point out alex murdaugh,

The person whose voice you recognized in this video

In this courtroom, please.

- Sitting right in a gray jacket.

- There was a gasp in the gallery.

Everybody was gathered around,

Trying to argue about what they heard.

- They may not have had a smoking gun

But they did have a smoking cell phone video.

- It was as if hollywood came up at the last minute

With the plot twist that who ever would've imagined

That that existed?

- Would you say you think the police didn't do the job?

- There's an awful lot of pressure

On a law enforcement entity to come up with a suspect.

- You said that you thought they rushed to judgment

Because the person who found the bodies

Was the easiest person to charge.

Why would they wanna do that to your dad?

- Well, I think it's one of those things where

You have to do something and I think that it was,

And that's the option in the route

That they decided to go with.

My biggest thing that I want people to realize,

That there are always two sides of the story.

Now, they can pick which one they wanna believe

But I think there's a heck of a lot

That still needs to be answered

About what happened on June the 7th.

three days after the murders of maggie and paul,

Two south carolina law enforcement agents

Interrogate alex

With his attorney, jim griffin present.

One of those agents, jeff croft,

Makes a striking statement about that interrogation

While on the stand.

- Special agent croft,

When you asked the defendant about the traumatic picture

That he saw of paul and maggie,

What did he say?

- I did him so bad.

- I did him so bad?

- Yes, sir.

- I was in the car with alex

When he was being interviewed on the 10th,

And if he had said, "I did him so bad,"

I would've jumped up and said,

"what the hell are you talking about?"

- You definitely saw a traumatic picture

And sitting there talking today is tough.

- It was just so bad,

They did him so bad.

- There was a gasp in the gallery.

Shortly after that, we took a break.

Everybody was gathered around,

Trying to argue about what that meant.

- When we left the courtroom that day,

It was a classic perry mason type moment

Where the state threw that out there

For everyone to think about

Until the next session of court.

It's a bell that's already been rung

And you can't un-ring it,

And the jury's already heard it.

during his trial for the murder

Of his wife and son,

Alex murdaugh says he kept a journal.

He recorded excerpts from it for this documentary.

- That night before the cross-examination

Of agent croft, we were in our compound.

Thankfully, we had that video.

You got it turned up?

We had a good it guy.

you definitely...

...So bad, they did him so bad.

they did him so bad.

- I think it's pretty obvious that he said,

"they did him so bad,"

But it's very difficult to gauge a jury's reaction

To evidence.

I've been trying cases for 33 years

And I have yet to perfect the art

Of interpreting a juror's thoughts.

- We have our witness back, cross-examination.

- Thank you, your honor.

- Mr. Griffin.

- Good morning, agent croft.

- Good morning, sir.

- The exhilaration of a trial is

It's three-dimensional chess.

- Now from the video,

It appears you're back there taking some notes.

- yes, sir. - Did you take notes?

- I made a mental note on it.

- Did you make a written note of him saying that?

- I don't recall if I wrote it or not, sir.

- So, it's possible that you're sitting there

With a guy who's now been charged with murder

On June 10th,

In the interview, the father says,

"I did him so bad,"

And you can't tell the jury you even wrote it down

On a piece of paper.

- I don't recall if I actually made a physical note of it

Or not, sir.

- I'm gonna play that clip from state's exhibit 243

Which is in evidence.

- The defense on cross-examination played it

At one third speed, slowed it down.

it's just so bad,

They did him so bad.

- Did you hear "they" then?

- No, sir, I did not.

- I hear, "I did him so bad."

- They did him so bad.

- And I've slowed it down and I still hear,

I did it -- I did him so bad.

Um...

I don't know.

- I continued to hear "they."

- I heard "they"

- The first time I heard it,

I was pretty sure he said "I,"

But then later,

I went back and listened to my recording of it

And slowed it down and it sounded like he said "they."

- It was just so bad, they did him so bad.

- It was kinda like those memes, you know,

Where you, you know,

You look at it one way and then all of a sudden,

Your brain flips over and you look at it the other way.

I went back and listened to it and listen to it again

And I couldn't say that that's not what it said,

But ultimately, this man was in the car

Listening to what he had to say and he said,

"that's what I heard."

- I think there's extreme confirmation bias about this.

I think if you believe alex murdaugh did it,

You heard "I."

If you believe that alex murdaugh didn't do it,

Then you heard "they."

- It was such a weird moment in the courtroom.

It doesn't make a lot of sense

Because if the investigator is saying that he said,

"I did him so bad,"

Then why wouldn't it be case closed?

Why wouldn't they have arrested him then?

but it isn't just what the jury's hearing,

It's also what they're seeing from the night of the murders.

- I remember we approach the main entrance to moselle.

We can see all the police cars

And the lights shining through the trees.

- I can't even imagine you get to your home

Where your family lives and you've spent all this time

And it's crawling with law enforcement.

Did you go over to the kennels at all?

- No, I did not.

People did tell me not to go down there.

The crime scene had been cut off

And they sent everybody, sent everybody over to the house.

- And what'd you say to your dad?

- I didn't say anything to my father.

I walked inside and I saw him and it was utter silence.

It was a big embrace.

He immediately broke down crying.

I started crying and that was what that was.

I mean, it's difficult to relive these tough circumstances.

- Witnesses took the stand today

To talk about their involvement in the case.

I have been a reporter and anchor in south carolina

Since August of 2014,

So this is a very prominent case for south carolina.

We have been covering it for years.

We started with the first investigator

Who arrived to the scene at moselle

And he was wearing a camera on his uniform.

in a quarter mile, arrive at 4147 moselle road.

- Sergeant greene, this is your body cam video.

Is that correct? - That's correct.

- Your honor, permission to publish this exhibit

To the jury.

There are graphic images on this

So everybody needs to cover the monitors please.

At this time, I'm gonna fast forward it until he arrives,

I believe, without objection from the defense.

- Without objection, your honor.

Right there to the left of the screen,

What did you see right there?

- To the left was paul's body.

He was laying face down on the ground,

Large pool of blood around him.

- Well, let's keep going.

What are we seeing to the right of this image?

- So, on the right would be maggie's body

Also laying face down on the ground,

A large pool of blood around her head.

- What's happening to you

While this is being relayed to you?

- Ah, it's very sad.

It's a void in my heart that I will never be able to fill.

- This crime was just so brutal and also so personal

And whether or not you saw the photos

The way the jury had to,

We know that paul's brains were down by his feet.

- And we know that maggie was shot,

You know, execution-style,

You know, in the back.

- We see an individual standing.

Who is that?

- The individual standing in the background

Would be mr. Murdaugh.

- The person you previously identified in this courtroom?

- That's correct.

- Did you ever see him approach the bodies?

- I did not see him approach them, no.

- Did you observe any visible blood on him?

- There was no blood on him that I could see.

- I'm a parent to two children

And if my spouse and one of my children is found

In a horrific state like that,

I would've been covered in blood from head to toe, you know,

Taking them and holding them.

That didn't happen here.

- There was a lot of evidence suggesting

That the family had a close relationship

And alex and paul had a close relationship,

And just the idea of a parent killing their child,

It was just a very dark and unusual occurrence.

To believe the prosecution's case,

You really had to put your mind into this very dark headspace.

- Okay, let's talk a little bit about crime scene processing.

Can you play that forth please?

- Everybody recognized that,

Given the significance of this family,

That colleton wanted to bring sled in.

Sled is the state law enforcement division.

They are essentially the state police.

They do forensic testing for many agencies

Throughout the state,

But they're also called into work complex cases.

but before sled arrives,

For almost an hour and a half,

The crime scene is in the hands

Of the colleton county's sheriff's office.

- Part of the defense strategy was clearly to cast doubts

About the quality of the investigative work

When the local police arrived.

- Let's talk about that sheet that was on paul's body.

Tell us, would you use a sheet to cover a body?

- I'd probably use a tarp of some sort.

- Something that's not absorbent.

- Correct.

Or other materials that may be loose

Could be picked up,

Especially when it becomes moist, all right.

It now becomes like a sponge

And actually picks things up and takes it away.

You don't know it's not there.

- If I'm the defense,

You have to turn people's attention everywhere

From where it's supposed to be.

We're in the construction business,

They're in the demolition business.

That's basically what we do for a living.

We build cases.

Their job is to tear cases down

So that we can't get over the hurdle

Of beyond a reasonable doubt.

- We have two dead family members in a very grizzly scene

And we have a living family member present

And other family members arriving

And so in that situation, common decency sort of wins out

And they were going to cover those bodies with a sheet,

And nothing about that has indicated

That any sort of evidence that would've been of significance

Was compromised.

- I mean, it's totally false.

They did not process the scene that night,

Clearly under any standards that are recognized

By forensic experts.

You can see that officer has two feet inside the feed room.

- Yes, sir.

- Did you notice any protective covering on their feet?

- No, sir.

- No booties?

- Correct.

- What, if anything under the procedures you understand,

Is the purpose of those?

- So that they don't contaminate the scene

And also the scene doesn't contaminate them.

- I mean, the integrity of the crime scene,

There was no integrity.

The police have totally ignored evidence.

- And footprints.

We found out later on,

One of those bloody footprints was the police.

- If I was at the original crime scene at moselle,

I would've protested

And got everyone out of that crime scene

That didn't need to be there,

But the officers that responded to moselle,

They had the cards stacked against them

Before they got there.

You're talking about a prominent family,

If not, the most prominent family in this area.

You're talking about a large, large area of real estate

And they did a great job with the hand they were dealt.

the defense doesn't just highlight

One or two issues,

They point to a litany

Of seemingly questionable police work.

- In your notes, you indicated,

It was the fire chief I believe,

Pointed out to you tire tracks.

The fire chief said you need to preserve those.

There's fresh tire tracks back here

And then cars drove over them.

They were obliterated in a matter of minutes.

- There were multiple tire tracks coming and going.

What did you do to preserve those?

- Nothing.

- Did you take pictures of the tracks?

- I did not take any pictures of the scene.

It's not part of my job description.

- It's possible.

- Those tire tracks,

If they could be matched to another vehicle, were lost,

And as a result, you couldn't determine whether

Or not a third party been there.

- I've never seen a perfect crime scene.

I've never gotten in a vehicle to leave a crime scene

And said, "man, I did everything perfect,"

Because there's too many things happening around you.

There's too many different spokes on that wheel.

- We believe sled came in

And they disregarded every other potential suspect

Beginning that night because at that point,

They were sure that the husband did it.

- Defense's theory wanted to assert,

Alex was the only person that they looked at

And they never looked anywhere else.

That is entirely untrue.

- Sled came in and they immediately

Started verifying alibis

For all the people that were involved in the boat case.

Sled really focused on trying to identify anyone

And everyone who could have had contact with them

Or who could have been on that property

During the relevant time period and excluding them.

- Anytime that we got a tip or a lead,

No matter how ridiculous or tenuous it was, it was pursued,

And hundreds of man hours were spent

Pursuing leads that never amounted

Or materialized into anything important.

- The defense is always going to challenge

The sufficiency of the evidence.

They're gonna challenge the manner

In which the evidence was collected,

But none of that precluded any significant evidence

From being gathered.

- I was the first out-of-state reporter to go down there

A week after the murders and went to moselle and I thought,

Isn't this strange, there's no crime tape,

There's no barrier.

There are two entrances to moselle and they were wide open.

It looked to me then suspicious,

And we know now that the crime scene at the time

Was completely mishandled.

They were letting alex murdaugh's brothers

Come in there.

All sorts of people were walking into that place,

Onto the crime scene and they weren't prepared

For the world scrutiny

And that's what they got.

you decided to attend the trial every single day.

Why?

- How grueling was that for you?

- It was incredibly grueling.

I mean, every anxious negative emotion

Is going through my mind at this point.

I'm trying to take it in.

I'm trying not to break down,

Trying to hold composure and it's,

I mean, it's an absolutely excruciatingly

Difficult experience.

- First thing that the

Colony county sheriff's department did was get

A search warrant for the whole property.

- The night of the murders,

They never searched the moselle house for murder weapons.

They never searched outside the moselle, you know,

On the track of land for murder weapons.

They knew he went to his mother's house

The night of the murders

And why they did not go to alameda,

Which is where his mother lived

And search for weapons

And search the house is beyond me.

because the murder weapons aren't found

That night at the crime scene,

Sled special agent jeff croft

Searches the murdaugh's main house

At moselle the next morning.

- I went to the residence to secure any firearms

Or ammunition,

Spent shell casings of that nature

That would be potentially compared to

Or similar nature to what was at the scene.

How you doing, sir?

- There was a lot of discussion

About the guns being everywhere.

- A lot of people across the country watched that

And they think that's unusual.

- Yeah, no.

Well, I can understand how someone can perceive it

As unusual.

- All right, let's go shoot this one.

- We obviously grew up with a love for the outdoors,

Love for hunting.

And I think everybody's seen the video of the gun room

With the big gun cabinet where everything is.

- And they're loaded and ready to go?

- Normally, unloaded would always be the key.

You know, our father from a very early age,

Taught us gun safety and to not really just be leaving

A bunch of loaded weapons around,

But sure, absolutely there are times when,

You know, you forget about it and they stay loaded

And you forget to unload 'em.

- From the house at moselle,

Sled agents collect an ar 15 300 blackout rifle

And several 12-gauge shotguns.

These are all the same types of weapons used

To kill maggie and paul.

- I'm gonna have you take a look at that

And see if you recognize that.

Go ahead and pull it out.

Just make sure not to point it at the jury.

What is that item right there?

- This is the 300 blackout rifle which I secured

From the gun wall.

- All right, lemme see it.

Now your honor, at this time,

We would move state's exhibit 84 into evidence.

- Your honor, I object on relevancy grounds.

There's no evidence that this gun was the gun.

I mean, it's just not relevant.

It was found in the house.

- 'cause it ain't the gun.

- Thank you, your honor.

- Your honor, I would put some further argument

In the record in that the guns

Had been tested ballistically.

The test excluded the guns as murder weapons

And as a result, they're just not relevant.

- These guns were around the crime scene.

Issues have been raised regarding multiple guns

And that's the basis for the court's order

With regard to admitting that evidence.

- We believe the judge erred, with all due respect.

The truth of the matter is,

There was no smoke coming out of that gun.

There was, well maybe it was just,

Maybe this is too cute, smoke and mirrors.

- Within the first two days, we had six firearms introduced

That by the prosecution's own admission,

Had not one thing to do with the murder.

- All right, thank you very much.

- I think it's difficult for a prosecution to win a case

Without a murder weapon.

They never found the shotgun,

They never found the ar

But they were allowed to put into evidence other guns

So they could flash guns around the courtroom.

- Would it been nice to recover those murder weapons?

Of course.

But if you know anything about hampton and colleton county,

There's a body of water every 15 feet.

It would be like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

- While investigators never find the actual murder weapons,

The prosecution has a theory

As to which weapons killed maggie and paul.

- He did.

- What was the one that he favored?

- That was a super black eagle, original black shotgun.

- On top of that, sled took all of the 12-gauges

In the house.

There was no super black eagle one.

according to the prosecution,

Not only is a 12-gauge super black eagle missing

From the family's cache,

But also missing is paul's ar 15 300 blackout rifle,

The same type of gun that killed maggie.

There was a lot of discussion obviously

About the 300 blackout rifles.

- We both got one for christmas in 2016, I believe.

So, paul's got lost.

They went to a party,

It was left in a pickup truck

And then when they left the party,

The gun was gone and then, you know,

It was never seen again.

- And he got another one?

- Apparently.

So, I wasn't really aware of that either

But after everything that's been said and heard, then yeah,

It certainly seems like there was another one purchased.

the prosecution does not have

Paul's replacement 300 blackout rifle.

but they do have five weathered shell casings

Found next to the house that paul and a friend fired

From his replacement gun several months prior

To the murders.

- It's not unusual to see some shell casings laid around.

They accidentally got ejecting shells out of the guns

And stuff they or their out there just shooting skeet or

Might be some still laying on the ground out there.

There ain't nobody picked them up.

the state's firearms examiner, agent paul greer,

Compares these weathered shell casings

Linked to paul's 300 blackout

To the shell casings that are found

At the kennels around maggie's body.

- What were your findings concerning those items?

- I was able to identify that the cartridge cases

Of recovered items two through seven near the body

Did have matching mechanism marks

With several of the cartridge cases

That were around the home

And several of those in the shooting field.

the prosecution argues

That these matching mechanism marks

Indicate that paul's replacement 300 blackout rifle

Is the weapon that killed maggie.

- So, that was very significant.

It showed that a family weapon had been used to murder her.

- After listening to all of the testimony by the state

From these experts,

I believed that the weapons that were used

To kill maggie and paul were these family-owned weapons

From moselle that are missing.

but the defense rebuts

The prosecution's theory about the murder weapons.

On cross-examination, jim griffin questions

The reliability of the science used to compare the shells.

- The national academy of scientists issued a report

And was pretty critical of the objectivity of your work.

- I'm aware of some of the criticism, yes sir,

However,

The process of making the identification

Is subjective in nature

But it's based on some objective data that we're looking at.

and jim griffin doesn't drop the argument

When he questioned sled special agent owen

Who spoke with agent greer about the shell casing findings.

- You were informed though that forensically,

At the lab, they could not say with 100% confirmation

That that they did actually match

Until the missing firearm is recovered.

Is that right?

Which firearm that came out of

Until he had a firearm to compare it to.

- Thank you.

- The problem is, there's millions of these

Blackout rifles so it wasn't exactly an exact science.

I would call it more a soft science,

What they were relying on.

- Paul's replacement blackout,

Do you think that's the gun that killed your mother?

- I don't know.

I mean, obviously there's the ballistic reports

And they seem to think that.

I don't have the ability to contradict that,

So that's what the narrative is.

- I'm really not sure that maggie and paul were killed

With family-owned weapons.

I really don't know and there's no way to know

Because we don't have the weapons.

If we had them, then that doubt would be eliminated.

- State your name again for the record.

- Michelle shelley smith.

- When the state couldn't come up with a murder weapon,

They tried to tie alex to a controversial piece of evidence.

- What was your role as a caregiver specifically

For the murdaugh's?

- Ms. Libby, taking care of ms. Libby.

- Michelle shelley smith was able to take care

Of alex's mother, libby, for many years.

They trusted her.

She was a very kind woman.

months after the murders,

Shelley tells a police officer

That a week after the double-homicide,

Alex came by his mother's home very early in the morning

Carrying something out of the ordinary.

- What did he do after he knocked on the door?

Did you let him in?

- Yes, he came inside.

- And did he have anything or was he holding anything?

- A blue tarp, blue something in his hand.

It was like a tarp that could put on the car,

You keep your car covered up.

- Can you show me how he was holding it?

- Like this.

- Is it alright if I touch you?

- Yeah, that's fine.

- How was he doing it?

- Like this.

- Holding something like this?

- Yes.

- Based on shelley's testimony,

They finally search the property

Where alex's parents lived and it turns out,

There was a raincoat,

This blue raincoat that was found wadded up in a closet.

- It's state's exhibit 226.

This is the raincoat you collected from

That closet in alameda?

- Yes, ma'am.

- Yes, ma'am.

- When we found it,

It was balled up like this?

- That is correct.

- So, the prosecution argued

And they believed that blue tarp

Was in fact the blue raincoat that shelley saw that night.

- How does a tarp suddenly become a raincoat?

The only reason why the raincoat became so important

Is because of what they found inside it.

- Was there a lot of gunshot primer residue

Inside of the jacket?

- I would say there were a significant number of particles

Characteristic of gunshot primer residue

On the inside of this jacket, yes.

- How many did you determine?

- I confirmed 38 particles characteristic.

- What we found inside the blue raincoat was gsr

Or gunshot residue,

And so how does gunshot residue get inside of a raincoat?

Yes, some hunter can be wearing a raincoat

And gunshot residue gets on the outside of the raincoat

'cause you're wearing it,

But how does gsr get on the inside?

- These are people who are living in rural south carolina.

They're living on farm and hunting properties.

There's guns everywhere.

In south carolina.

- You were shown a picture of a rain jacket?

- Yes sir, I was.

- Okay, and had you ever seen that rain jacket at the house?

- Not at moselle, no sir. - Right.

- They were never able to tie the blue raincoat to alex.

No family member said,

"oh yeah, that's alex's raincoat."

In fact, no one knew who owned this raincoat.

- How long had that raincoat been there?

We don't know, so should not have been allowed in,

Pure speculation.

That's not evidence.

- It's a really inexact science

And to be able to tie this to alex was kind of a dicey move.

- We spent days on a blue jacket,

Which could have been a blue tarp,

But ultimately, there was no blue tarp that mattered.

- I think that was just an interesting piece of evidence

That would've given someone the ability

To think this is probably what he could have done,

But the existence or non-existence of that raincoat

Doesn't prove his guilt in my mind.

There's so much other evidence out there.

your next witness.

- Go have a seat up there on the witness stand.

- In addition to poking holes

And the job law enforcement did,

The defense brought on several witnesses

That tried to say that it was not physically possible

For alex murdaugh to have committed these crimes.

- Based on your analysis,

Tell us how you get to a height for the shooter.

- So, I looked at this

And whoever the shooter was

In whatever posture they were in,

The shooter's hand is 16.2 to 27.6 inches above the ground,

So that's basically two feet above the ground.

So, what I've been showing you is a person

That's five foot two.

- The person's how tall?

- Five. - The shooter's how tall?

- Five foot two.

- Could be someone a little tall

Or crouching down a little bit?

- Could be.

- The defense seemed to be floundering at times

And one of their crazier theories in my opinion

Was that because alex is six foot four,

Presumably a tiny person hanging out in the dog kennels

Killed his wife and son.

That seemed very farfetched to me.

- And and this is all trigonometry?

These are angles?

- It's just trigonometry.

- I think conclusively,

That whoever fired those shots

Was somebody shorter than alex's, six-foot-four frame.

- Dr. Kinsey,

Can a person be on their knee and get the same angle

And be standing and get the same angle?

- Yes, sir.

- Can a six-foot-four person

And a five-foot-four person still shoot the same angle,

Just at different distances?

- Absolutely.

- So, in your professional opinion,

Can you exclude a six-foot-four defendant like alex murdaugh

From shooting that shotgun at that angle?

- Absolutely not.

the defense not only attempts

To make it seem physically implausible

For alex to have committed the murders,

They have another theory of what happened that night.

- Defense calls tim palmbach to the stand, please.

- In this case, there were many, many moments

Where the defense is trying

To create fact issues that create reasonable doubt.

- Mr. Palmbach, do you have an opinion

Whether there was one or two shooters

Who murdered maggie and paul on the night of June 7th?

- I do have an opinion on that.

- And what's your opinion?

- My opinion is the totality of the evidence

Is more suggestive of a two-shooter scenario.

- The state's theory is that alex murdaugh

Killed his wife and son alone

And the defense's theory was that there were two people

Who showed up there,

Probably in retaliation from the boat case.

It couldn't have been alex,

It would've been two people not part of the family,

Like two marauding bandits as the state called them,

Two five-foot-two to five-foot-four marauding bandits

Who knew where the family guns were kept at the kennels

And knew when paul and maggie would be down there.

- There is just, anybody who deals with firearms,

A logical argument here.

If one of the weapons is the blackout 300,

Well, that comes with a high magazine capacity.

- There were two guns.

One was a high-powered assault weapon

And the other was a shotgun,

And if there's one shooter,

Why are you carrying two guns?

You can get 20 to 30 rounds in there,

So why do you need a shotgun?

- The two-shooter theory is inconceivable

Because two persons could have carried out both

Of those murders a lot more efficiently than what we saw,

A lot more organized than what we saw.

- Casings were everywhere because this was

Spontaneous.

- If you believe your dad's innocent,

Your mom and your brother's killer is out there somewhere?

- That's what I believe.

- Would he get someone else to do it?

- No, ma'am.

I don't think that he could be affiliated

With endangering my mother and brother.

I mean, that's...

I mean, we've been here for a while now

And that's been my stance.

- So, are you fearful for your life

If you believe the killer is still out there?

- Absolutely.

But yes, when I go to bed at night,

I have a fear that there is somebody else still out there.

- We have what's called the csi effect.

People, because of watching those shows,

Are always coming with this idea

That there's always some sort of magic piece

Of forensic evidence in every case

And the reality is that's not the truth,

And so as prosecutors,

We're constantly managing expectations with jurors.

- This is all amazing technology

That most of us carry around in our pockets.

This cell phone keeps track of who we're calling,

Who we're texting, whenever we access apps,

And every time you do that,

There's a record kept in this phone,

And if you're using certain apps,

You can even get gps information,

Where you were when you did that,

That's stored on these phones.

You're gonna hear evidence about that.

What I wanted them to understand

Was that was the most powerful forensic evidence

In this case.

- I'd go on record to say I learned more about a cell phone

During the trial than I ever wanted to know.

- So, maggie's phone was found the next day

On the side of the road, off of the moselle property

And it was used by tracking her phone

And they finally found it.

Alex had maggie's passcode to her phone,

So they were able to easily open it up

And access the phone call records.

- Paul's phone was found on his body.

Alex murdaugh says he touched the phone

And then he realized he shouldn't be touching the phone,

So then he places the phone on paul's backside.

Alex murdaugh did not have the passcode

To get into paul's phone.

- There were multiple attempts

To try to get into that particular phone.

It can be very, very difficult,

Particularly if you have to do

What's called brute forcing a password.

Essentially, you start a computer program

And it does 00001, 00002,

And it just keeps going and that can take forever.

It eventually went to a secret service individual

And tried a few things and put in some seed numbers

And one of the things that worked was a birthday

And the phone popped right open.

- From what I've heard,

Paul's cell phone was like an extension

Of one of his arms.

He had it on him all the time,

Typical for, you know,

A kid 22 years old.

using mobile phone data

From paul and maggie's phones,

The prosecution is able to glean information

About their final moments.

- You're looking at the habits of the two murdered victims.

You're looking at how they operated in their life

With how quickly they read texts,

How quickly they responded, when they stopped.

- Sled special agent peter rudofsky is called by the state

To put together a timeline of the day of the murders

Based on this information.

8:49:01 is the last time

Before that that paul had ever unlocked his phone?

- That is correct.

And at 8:49:31,

What happens to maggie's phone just seconds later?

- Maggie murdaugh's phone locks forever.

- The prosecution believes maggie and paul's time of death

Is right after their two phones lock at 8:49 pm.

- When you look at how we use our cell phones

And when you also, when you look at a particular individual,

You see how they use their cell phone,

That when you see a change,

A very significant and abrupt change

In the way that those phones are used,

I think that's very much reasonable assessment

Of a time of death.

- What's the chance that two people

That are on their cell phones at this time consistently

On these days,

Now both of them stopped at this time?

but not all experts agree with the prosecution

Including farhad manjoo,

An opinion columnist for the new york times

Who focuses on technology.

- I think that one of the most interesting uses

Of technology here was the prosecution's argument

That the time of death was related

To when maggie and paul stopped using their phones,

But there was evidence that paul's battery was down to 2%.

I have stopped using my phone before because it's at 2%

And I wanna preserve the battery.

It's plausible that he just decided the same thing.

They could have not looked at their phones

And then died minutes

Up to an hour later.

You could be addicted to your phone

But if you put it down for a few minutes,

That doesn't tell you anything about your physical state.

- Establishing a time of death

Was very important for the prosecution

Because there was a video on paul's cell phone

Which was taken at 8:44 pm

And then maggie and paul's phone

Stopped any sort of meaningful activity at 8:49,

Which is when they're contending the murders happened.

it was bad, check the pulses.

- Alex from day one had always said they had a family dinner

And then he took a nap

And that's when maggie and paul went down to the kennels

And then when he was going to visit his parents,

He tried to call her a few times

And that's when he left and went to his mother's,

Stayed for about an hour,

Came back

And that's when he went down to the kennels

And found the bodies.

- So, they left and went down to the kennels.

- Well, maggie went to go to the kennels.

- Okay, and paul left.

- And I'm assuming, you know,

I'm assuming paul left-

- Okay. - Because of, you know,

- Gotcha. - What happened.

I mean, I'm assuming paul-

- Yeah, yeah. - Went to the kennels.

- Okay.

And what did you do once maggie and paul left.

- I stayed in the house.

- He was adamant that he never went down to the kennels.

- Earlier in the day when you were

Down at the at shed in the kennels with paul

And you didn't go back down there after dinner

Until your return trip from visiting your mother?

- Yes, sir.

- He never changed his story

Until that trial.

will you call your next witness?

- Thank you, your honor, we call rogan gibson.

- We met rogan really young.

We obviously played sports together and against each other

And we just grew really good friends

And then he actually ended up moving

Right down the road from us,

So when we had our four-wheelers and everything,

We could just drive down and and hang out.

- Rogan, he would be working out of town

And he can't take the dog with him to take care of him.

what's the dog's name?

- Cash.

- What arrangements did you make for cash

When you were staying in beaufort?

- I would leave him at the kennels at moselle.

- During the course of that day, June 7th, 2021,

Did you have any communications with paul?

- I did.

- Paul and rogan are having a conversation

About an injury that they believe occurred

To the dog's tail.

They're talking about it on the phone

And rogan tells law enforcement

That he thought he heard alex's voice in the background.

Alex denied that and said he must be mistaken

Because in alex's story,

He was never down at the kennels that night.

It was a story he stuck to all the way up until the trial.

- You talked to paul and what did y'all talk about?

What was he gonna do?

- He was gonna try to facetime me.

He said, "you know how the service is out here."

He said, "if I can't get the facetime to go through,

I'll send you a video."

- Did you ever get that video?

- I did not.

- The snapchat video was never sent to paul's friend, rogan.

It was forever only on paul's phone.

paul's video is recorded at 8:44 pm,

About five minutes before the prosecution says

Paul and maggie are murdered.

- Based on the metadata we know,

The video is made 8:44

Where paul is talking about the dog's tail

And you can hear maggie in the background

Talking about their dog.

- They've established that paul's phone went dead

At 8:49,

So that's when they think he was killed.

So presumably, he was murdered just about five minutes

After this little scene by the kennels.

- You recognize paul's voice?

- Yes, sir.

- Do you recognize maggie's voice?

- Yes, sir.

- Do you recognize alex's voice?

- Yes, sir.

- A hundred percent?

yes, sir.

- Can you point out alex murdaugh,

The person whose voice you recognize in this video

In this courtroom, please.

- Sitting right here in a gray jacket.

- Please let the record reflect

He's identified the defendant.

Thank you mr. Gibson.

Nothing further.

- That was a crucial piece of evidence

Because it proved something that we already believed

To be true but couldn't prove that alex was there

Literally several moments

Before they were brutally murdered.

hey, he's got a bird in his mouth.

bubba.

hey, bubba.

- So, the feeling in the courtroom was

Absolute udder shock

When it came to the cell phone video being played

For the first time.

- I was able to see the expressions on people's faces

When it was played

And it was such an inaudible gasp and a look of,

"aha, oh my goodness."

- It was like "bye bye alibi" in just a heartbeat.

come here, bubba.

- come here, cash. - come here, bubba.

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