Closing Arguments - Defense/Rebuttal

MR. GRIFFIN: Wow. We're at the stage of the case that's called closing arguments. I don't know why they call it argument. I'm not here to have an argument with you in any form or fashion, but what I'm here to do today, this morning, is to review the evidence with you that you have heard in the courtroom over the last six weeks. In reviewing this evidence, my goal is to address questions that you may have about what you've heard. And the jury system that we have, frankly, is the greatest criminal justice system in the world because it's the only system, jury system, that a criminal defendant's fate is put in the hands of his or her peers. In this country, we don't leave the decision of guilt or innocent up to the governor, the attorney general, to the prosecutors, or to the presiding judge. You, ladies and gentlemen, make that decision. And as perfect as our jury system is, there's one thing that I wish it provided: an interchange during the course of the trial between us.

Y'all are sitting there and listening to what we say, and we don't know what questions you have and what you want answered. By the same token, you know, we may have questions of you that we can't ask. Here is my opportunity to try and answer the questions that I think you have. There may be some things that I go over that you've already decided and I'm wasting your time, and if I do that, I apologize, I truly do. But I don't -- this case is so important, I don't want to leave anything out that one of you may have a question about. I think I can probably speak to everybody in this courtroom, that's there one thing that we on this side have no questions about is that y'all have been ideal jurors. We've been here six weeks, and each of you have come every day on time, and you've been very attentive, and it has not gone unnoticed, and we do appreciate you for your service. We know what a sacrifice it is being away from your home, your work, your family, your personal obligations.

Maybe some of you missed vacations, but you've been here in a three week trial and here we are at the end of six weeks. And I want to thank you personally, I want to thank on behalf Mr. Harpootlian, Mr. Barber, Ms. Fox, and especially on behalf of Alex Murdaugh. In his opening statement, Mr. Harpootlian explained to you that the law of governing your service requires each of you to engage in an unnatural task. In every criminal case, jurors are required to begin the process by presuming the defendant innocent. In this case, you were required under your solemn oath as we began to presume Alex Murdaugh innocent of these charges, and frankly, as he explained, that's not natural. When you hear on the news that a crime has occurred and an arrest has been made, you feel a little bit relieved. Thank God they caught him.

And, frankly, I would not be surprised if some amongst you when you read in the paper that Alex Murdaugh was charged with the murders of his wife and son, that you thought, oh good, they got him. But those opinions -- and each of you when you filled out your questionnaire agreed and affirmed that you would leave those at the door of the courthouse, and that you would decide this case solely on the evidence, and that's what the law requires. And when we began, the law also requires you to presume him innocent of these charges. Now, I've been doing this a long, long time, and I've -- up until the advent of instant replay in sports, it's been very difficult to explain just how to do that to jurors, how jurors can do this, apply this presumption of innocence. And if you're not interested in sports, I apologize for this analogy, but the analogy is the instant replay.

Whether you're a Clemson fan or a Georgia fan, that on a Saturday afternoon there's a play called on the field, and then it's reviewed. And under the rules, the call on the field stands unless there's visual and incontrovertible evidence that the call on the field was wrong. We see that every weekend on sports. Here the call on the field is that Alex Murdaugh is innocent, innocent of these charges. That's what the law requires, and that unless and until the State proves his guilt to each one of you individually, voting individually, proves his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then that presumption of innocence stays with him. You're not being tasked here to give your opinion in this trial. You're being tasked to apply the constitution, the bedrock principles that protect us all from the government, and those bedrock principles are, first, you get tried by a jury of your peers. Second, that the jury of your peers begin with presuming innocent.

And third, that you will remain innocent until the government, if they can, proves to you individually in your mind that the person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, the Judge will give you jury instruction on what that means, beyond a reasonable doubt. But the definition has been defined that reasonable doubt is doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate when making an important decision in their personal affairs, such as to buy a house, get married, any consequential decision. And you will be making, you will be making, when you get this case probably later this afternoon, you will be making one of the most consequential decisions that you will have ever made in your life, I suspect. I don't know all of your backgrounds, but it will be a very consequential decision.

And if the proof that the State has put before you causes you to hesitate when you go to fill out that vote as you're deliberating in your jury room -- each of you will have a vote, and you will have the right to vote guilty or not guilty, and each of you will write it down. If there's any reasonable cause for you to hesitate to write guilty, then the law requires you to write not guilty. This burden of proof that we have -- many of you may have experience with civil cases, and in civil cases the burden of proof is much lower, and it's called by a preponderance of the evidence. And you may have seen lawyers, or judges, or watched on TV as they give a visual image of Lady Justice, who's blind, and who's blindfolded so she doesn't -- is not biased for one side or the other, and there's scales on Lady Justice, and those scales are the scales of justice.

And in a civil case, if one party proves their case by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning ever so slightly tilt those scales in their favor, then they're entitled to the verdict. There's another heightened level of burden of proof in a civil case called by clear and convincing evidence, and the law requires things like to prove fraud or some intentional acts, you have to prove by clear and convincing evidence, and that's an intermediate level of proof. And so it's not just tilt the scales ever so slightly in the favor of the party that prevails, but you have to get sort of three quarters of the way there. But now proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest standard of proof the law recognizes, and it is you have to tilt the scales all the way to one side in order for the State to meet their burden. A little bit about the verdict. You will have an option of guilty or not guilty. My friend Dick Harpootlian over here, is a -- he travels a lot.

He has been to a lot of countries, and he frequently -- he recently returned from Scotland where he attended a jury trial in Scotland. And he tells me it's much like this except the lawyers wear a wig. I might benefit from something like that, but in Scotland it runs about the same until it gets time to the verdict in a criminal case. And the jury in Scotland, where we derive our laws from, they are given three options. One option is guilty, the second option is not guilty, and the third option is not proven. Not proven. Now, here in America we have combined the verdict of innocent and not proven into one of not guilty. And so when you go to render your verdict, if it's a verdict of not guilty, it's either you concluded that the defendant is innocent of the charges, or that the government has not met their burden of proof, their heavy burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now -- and one of the reasons that defendants are presumed innocent and the government has such a high burden is because in criminal cases, the defendant really doesn't have the ability, doesn't have the resources, doesn't have the lawful authority to execute search warrants, subpoena documents to prove his or her innocence. And so a defendant cannot secure a crime scene, cannot lift a crime scene for fingerprints, shoe wear impressions, cannot secure telephones to get electronic data in the course of an investigation, so the defendant is limited on what they can do. In this case on 9 -- on June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh called 911, and Officer Deputy Greene, and then followed by other deputies, rolled up on the scene. And he is standing on his property, his wife and son lie dead in a pool of blood each -- she's within yards of him -- and he's just put a shotgun down. He just put a shotgun down. And what would that look like 90 out of 100 cases when the officer rolls up?

It would look like the person who had the shotgun and two dead bodies may have done it, probably would have done it. Certainly it's someone who should be strongly considered, and all of the officers in this case told you that. Deputy Rutland said, yeah, Alex Murdaugh was a suspect. But there were a lot of suspects out there. Everybody was a suspect. Fair enough. Agent Owen says, well, you know, we have a circle, an investigative circle, and it starts with immediate family members, particularly if they found the deceased, the victims. So, he's in the circle by virtue of calling 911, and that's fair enough. But what doesn't strike us as fair is that the next morning on June the 8th, after the gruesome murders of Maggie and Paul, this is what is issued, a joint press release by Colleton County and SLED that says: At this time, there's no danger to the public. At this time, there's no danger to the public. You have two people who have been executed within -- y'all were out there.

I don't know, is it 100 yards, 200 yards from Moselle Road? They've been slaughtered. And at this time there's no danger to the public? Does that tell you that on June 8th, law enforcement had decided it had to be Alex Murdaugh? It's a fair question for you to ask yourself. It's a question that's not been fairly answered in this trial. But we know from the June 7th or June 8th, Alex is a suspect and he's in the circle, and from that day forward he is at the mercy, he is at the mercy of the ability of SLED to exclude him from that circle. They have the ability to do the forensic work, they have the ability to interview witnesses, and they have the ability to gather electronic data, and we believe that we've shown conclusively that SLED failed miserably in investigating this case. And had they done a competent job, that Alex would have been excluded from that circle a year ago, two years ago, but he would have been excluded. What did you hear from the witness stand?

You heard from Chief Barry McRoy. I didn't know Chief McRoy until I got involved in this case, but his reputation is outstanding and he's a consummate professional. And he explained that when he got there, he was concerned that cars would be pulling up, and there's some tire tracks that were not being protected, and that they could have evidentiary value. And then you heard from Mark Ball, who had a conversation with chief -- I mean, excuse me, Sheriff Hill, who's another fine public servant here, and he also -- I mean, we've got to stop cars from coming in here to preserve these tire impressions, and it was not done. It was not done. Captain Chapman from the Colleton County Sheriff's Office, he testified about seeing other sets of tire tracks.

As you have came in off Moselle Road, you probably saw where Deputy Greene's vehicle had stopped right at the kennels, but then on the other side where you saw that Alex was parked and pacing on some of these videos, that's where Captain Chapman had talked about seeing tire tracks, and he tried to track them. SLED was coming on, and then it was -- it was like a trail to nowhere. It was a trail to nowhere. Deputy Rutland talked about seeing hair in Maggie's hands, as you'll recall. You didn't hear anything about the hair in Maggie's hands from that moment forward. Was it tested? Was it sent off for analysis? There was no evidence of what, if anything, happened to the hair in Maggie's hands. Was it as a result of a struggle with her assailant? Was it her own hair? We don't know the answer to that. We know they failed to take fingerprints from the feed room, and they should have.

They failed to properly take footwear impressions from the feed room, or at the apron right outside, and I think that's -- I mean, I don't think that's uncontradicted. The -- Agent Worley, who was doing the best she can, did not go there to document footwear impressions, did not do that. You heard from our expert, Mr. Zerci, what is required. And I believe Dr. Kinsey also agreed that it was not done. I know Mr. Palmbach did. And both -- now, I'll get to the shot angles in a little bit, but both Dr. Kinsey and Mr. Palmbach have this murder for Paul standing on the concrete, standing on the concrete, whether one foot is in, one foot is out, both feet are in. But there should have been footwear impressions but we'll never know because it was not preserved. It was not taken. The thing that has baffled us, has completely baffled us is why do they never take DNA samples off of Maggie's clothes, her dress? Why did they never take DNA samples off Paul's clothes? They never did.

They never did. And we asked their investigator. Why didn't you? Well, that's somebody else's job. That's somebody else's job. It was never done. But you know whose clothing they took DNA off of extensively? Alex. And you heard Agent Zapata talk about all the different grids on the shirt where DNA was -- samples were taken. Was Alex assaulted on June the 7th? No, he wasn't assaulted. Was Alex wrestling with the assailant on June the 7th? There's no evidence of that. So, why are they taking DNA evidence off Alex's clothing in June of 2021? And there's only one reason, and it goes back to this right here. There was only one reason, only one reason is that they had decided that, unless we find somebody else, it's going to be Alex. Unless we find somebody else, it's going to be Alex. The -- and I'll get into more detail about Maggie's phone, and Maggie's phone was not secured properly. Maggie's phone was -- well, let me just go right into it.

Maggie's phone was found on the side of the road in the morning of, or early afternoon, on June the 8th. Whoever killed her threw that phone on the side of the road without a doubt, without a doubt. Alex from the get-go has said you get Maggie's phone, you get my phone, and you get my OnStar data, and you will not see my car traveling down the road with Maggie's phone because it did not happen. It could not happen. Detective Owen, have you gotten it yet? No, no, we've not. We sent the black box from -- on the Chevy to the FBI. It was a new model. Turns out the data is encrypted, and so we haven't got it yet. Well, what about General Motors? I'll do what I have to do, whatever I can do and said, well, you know, we're looking into it. We're looking in to it.

Well, what we learned during this trial is, sure, SLED sent a subpoena via fax machine to somebody in Detroit, I believe, and whoever got it in Detroit, whether there was a number off, I have no idea what the reasoning was, but we do know the initial response was we don't have anything. We don't have any OnStar data that you're looking for. There's no indication that SLED followed up with a phone call; there's no indication that SLED followed up with a letter. There's no indication SLED did anything other than put it in a file, put the response in a file, and that was it. That was it, ladies and gentlemen, until somebody watching this trial somewhere contacted somebody at General Motors and said why don't you guys cooperate with the FBI and SLED on this investigation? Well, what are you talking about? So Friday, you know, during some time the last six weeks, low and behold, here comes all of the OnStar data that you got to see.

And that would be great, that would be great but for the fact that when they seized Maggie's phone it had -- they put it in airplane mode. They knew how to put it in airplane mode. Excuse me. I'm losing my voice. Let me get some water. I apologize. That pollen is something else. The -- they put it in airplane mode. But what you'll see -- I've got a photograph -- is the location services were still on, meaning still pinging off GPS satellites, and the phones don't hold that much memory. They hold a lot of data, as we have learned, but they don't hold that much memory, and it writes over itself. And for GPS location services, the ping points that we see from Paul's phone on all of that data, that would have been on Maggie's phone for the 7th but for the fact that it wasn't extracted until some time in -- like, June 16, I think that's the date. If I'm wrong I apologize, but it was around the middle of June.

And that pinging information that we see on Paul's phone from Maggie's phone, it goes back to June the 9th. Well, a lot of good that does, a lot of good that does, but we don't have it. We would have had it had they extracted it earlier. Now, Agent Dove says we didn't have enough data and upgraded software that would read it. It took us awhile to get it. I don't know why it took them awhile to get it. There was really no explanation about that. But you heard about Faraday bags, put it in a Faraday bag so it's not pinging against satellites, not overwriting. They didn't do that, and it's lost.

And had they done it, I hope we wouldn't be here, I hope because I know it would say, because we have enough evidence in the record, and we have to go around our elbow to get to our thumb to get there, but there is evidence in the record to show that Alex Murdaugh was not driving down the road, Moselle Road, with Maggie's phone in the car and tossed it at whatever time when it went by at 9:08. I don't know what time they think it was tossed. But that would have gotten him out of the circle, I would hope, but probably not because they've been so focused on him. Now as I mentioned, Alex asked multiple times -- I think the testimony was five times -- Agent Owen, Agent Owen, you know, if you get this data, it will show I wasn't there. And, you know, we were -- we didn't learn why they didn't get it off of Alex's phone until very recently. Because on -- you'll remember on June 10th he gave SLED his phone. Yeah, you can copy it.

Please copy it because it will show -- it'll show that I wasn't with - - driving -- that my phone was not with Maggie's phone at any point in time going down the road, and I did what I said I did. Well, they did extract it, but what we've learned is that the extraction was a superficial extraction, not because Alex requested it. That's just what they did. Said a logical surface extraction. So, they didn't go in and pull out any GPS pinging data like you see on Paul's phone. They didn't get it off Alex's. Now, if Alex had not made those requests to Owen -- and they are disputing that -- it's one thing you can be 100 percent sure of is they would have come, Detective Owen, up here on the witness stand during their rebuttal case to say, no, he's lying. He didn't ask that of me. I mean, they got Sheriff Smalls in here to say I didn't give him permission to put a blue light in his car.

They came and challenged whether he had authority from the sheriff, or maybe a deputy sheriff, to put a blue light in his car. But they didn't contradict anything he said about I've been asking, I've been asking, I've been asking for that data that would get me out of the circle. And now we know why it took so long to get the stuff from -- get the stuff from his car is because the -- General Motors -- I mean, it's because the FBI wouldn't go to General Motors on this event data and they were -- the FBI was up there and they bought a Suburban. They're riding it around and they're reverse engineering all of these systems to try to come up with reports, and then they come in here and tell you, well, it's not complete, some of it is inaccurate, but this is what we got. And during the middle of all of that, that's low and behold we get OnStar. Thankfully we did, thankfully we did.

But -- so then we roll in to Labor Day weekend of 2021, where Alex's longtime drug problem, his financial issues, misconduct were exposed, and that made him an easy, easy, easy target for SLED. And I hate to say this, but the evidence is crystal clear: from that moment, they started fabricating evidence against Alex. Now, Mr. Griffin, that's an awful, awful charge. Don't all lawyers accuse law enforcement of fabricating evidence? And, you know, I can tell you this guy right here was a federal prosecutor, was a state prosecutor, and some of my best friends are on law enforcement, and I don't make that claim lightly. Here what you have heard is they came up with a report that says Alex's t-shirt had high velocity blood spatter on it, high velocity blood spatter. What's that? That means you're within feet of a shooting, and they didn't just say any shooting.

It said -- in their report it says as a result of Paul's murder, high velocity blood spatter on the shirt as a result Paul's murder. That was number one. Let's stick to number one. Why do I say that it's fabricated? Well, you heard Agent Zapata said we did hematrace confirmatory blood tests on that shirt. That means there was two types of tests. There was a presumptive test, which is when they use a product called LCB that makes it turn purple where it might be blood, but it turns purple on other agents as well, including bleach, you heard. And you also heard that the shirt came out of the bag wet it and smelled like detergent. Anyway, they spray it, it turns purple in places, so they think, well, that must be blood. The next thing they do at the SLED lab is they do a confirmatory test to see if it's blood. Zero for 74, not blood, not blood. That didn't stop -- that didn't stop SLED from going out and pursuing with vengeance this report.

They didn't give the no blood test result to the guy in Oklahoma. And when it surfaced, when it surfaced, they had a problem on their hands, and they were pushing it up until this trial. And you heard the testimony from the stand that they went from Mr. Bloody Shirt leading up to this trial to Mr. Clean during this trial, and they asked him, and they raise issues during the trial with Blanca. Where were his clothes? No one is asking about the man's clothes that he had on the Snapchat video back in -- at 7:00 with his son until November or so, I think is what she said. I mean, the issue of changing clothes, it was late to the dance because when they went to -- as you heard, when they went to the Colleton County Grand Jury to get an indictment that you're going to be deliberating on, they told that grand jury they had an expert report that says high velocity blood spatter.

And I asked Agent Owen, I said when you went to the grand jury and you fabricated the report, how did you not know -- he was chief investigator -- how did you not know that there's a hematrace test that says there's no blood? Well, I didn't get the email. And I say it in somewhat jest, but, you know, did the dog eat his email? I mean, how does a lead investigator in the case not get the lab report that says there's no blood on the shirt? Now, ultimately it was produced to us and we were raising cane about it and say how can you say this on one hand and that on the other hand? And here we are with a Mr. Clean theory, that he washed off. After brutally murdering Maggie and Paul, he takes a hose and washes himself off, and gets in a golf cart butt naked, I guess, and drives to the house. So, that's the blood spatter fabrication. The other is, is this blue raincoat with GSR, and you remember that testimony. Shelley Smith, who worked for Ms. Libby and Mr.

Randolph, had told SLED after September, after Alex has had -- the problems have been exposed, after she had a conversation with a Allendale police officer following an accident investigation where she was in an accident, that on the morning she said in here on -- as she told you on Wednesday after Mr. Randolph's funeral -- and that turned out to be, I think, June 16th -- that Alex shows up at the house at Almeda at, like, 6:30 in the morning, knocking, trying to get in, and he has a blue tarp. And in this blue tarp he -- she lets him in and he goes upstairs with this blue tarp. He comes back downstairs, he lays this blue tarp out on Ms. Libby's retirement rocking chair for -- in the living room, and then he leaves. And then she leaves to go to her day job, and when she left, the blue tarp was laying out on Ms. Libby's rocking chair. I mean, that was her testimony. And so SLED gets that, gets a search warrant, goes to Almeda, and they seize a blue rain jacket.

They seize a blue rain jacket. And when they do, they take that blue rain jacket, and they show it to just about every family member -- let me get it right quick -- that they can think of, and it's Defendant's 87. Doug, if you can pull it up? But they show this blue rain jacket to as many family members as they can get in contact with, and the rain jacket is -- and no one recognizes it. No one sees it. No one says Alex ever wore it. No one has said Paul has ever worn it. No one has said Buster has ever worn it. No one said Maggie has ever worn it. Have not seen this blue rain jacket. Has not seen this blue rain jacket. One more thing about this blue rain jacket. When they did the search at Almeda, when they did the search at Almeda, John Marvin was there. And John Marvin asked them, well, did you find anything? And they said, well, we found the blue rain jacket back on the property. Back on the property. Back on the property.

And he said, well, you know, my dad drives a buggy around. Maybe it fell off the back of his buggy. Clearly John Marvin was understanding that it was back on the property, and then they asked him to come look at the blue rain jacket, and he was told it was found in the closet. He was told it was found in the closet. And he said that didn't sound right. And they never clarified it. Now, here is a picture -- I'm not going to put it up -- but 411 is a picture of this closet, and you can see the blue rain jacket that's sort of folded up and stuffed down here at the bottom right. That's the blue rain jacket. And apparently right before this trial, they showed Shelley Smith this picture and said does that look like the blue tarp you saw? And she goes, well, yeah, sort -- yeah, sure it looks like it. They never showed her this. They never showed her this. And she said this -- and when I'm saying this, it's Defendant's 87; it's on the screen. She'd never seen this.

She'd never seen this. But they did GSR testing on this, and it says whew, that's a high. It's high. A lot of GSR on that. A lot of GSR on that. Manufactured evidence, ladies and gentlemen. And then -- and then -- then there's this issue of misrepresenting what are the type ammunition found in the shotguns at the residence at Moselle. Paul was murdered with a -- first shot was a buckshot through his chest. He was turned this way, went in here, and then out under his arm, and that was buckshot. The second shot was in the head, either, depending on what expert and what pathologist, it was either this way or this way, but into the head, and that was steel duck shot. I learned that you can't shoot ducks with anything but steel pellets because they don't want lead in the water, so you've got to have steel pellets.

And then Agent Owen testified, admitted begrudgingly, that he had testified to the grand jury that there were four weapons found up on the property in the gun room, 12 gauges, that were loaded -- or I'm not saying 12 gauges, I'm sorry, four shotguns that were loaded with buckshot and birdshot. There's four other ones, so that matches. Well, guess what? Totally not true. That was totally not true. And he admitted on the stand it was not true. He admitted telling Alex during that interview, and he said, well, I can do trickery, and we'll see that shortly, but he -- and I said are you trying to trick the grand jury? Oh, I didn't say that. Well, we walked through it and he did say it, and he didn't remember it. And you'll remember the testimony, and I said, well, people make mistakes, don't you? Yeah, that was a mistake. And it's okay to make mistakes, right? Yeah. And you can make mistakes about the time. Well, that's the most common things people mistakes about.

It's not all right for Alex Murdaugh, who's in the center of the circle, who's -- it's not all right for him to make mistakes about time. It is not all right according to the same investigator who says it's okay to -- missed this part -- but here we go, then Eureka. Eureka. They finally get into Paul's phone in April of 2022 and see Alex -- well, they don't see Alex. They see Cash, the dog, and they see Paul's feet walking around, and they hear voices in the background, and one of them sounds like Alex, and off they go. They go off and get an indictment from the Colleton County Grand Jury relying upon high velocity blood spatter, relying on four guns having the same load, and relying upon a rain jacket that has got GSR on it, and Alex is lying about being down at the kennels. Now, we know after we've been here six weeks, of those four things --

MR. GRIFFIN: That was Dale Davis. Which brings us to the question. Why? Why, why, why, why would Alex Murdaugh on June 7th execute his son, Paul, and his wife, Maggie, who he adored and loved? Why? The State's theory is that it was a storm a-coming, clouds were arising, and that his financial house of cards is about to collapse and he's about to be exposed, and because of that he does what every rational person would do, go kill your wife and son. That is their theory of motive. That is their theory of motive, that it -- oh, and it worked, too, by the way, because he killed his wife and son guess what? Jeannie Seckinger quit asking questions for a few weeks. Oh, and the boating case, whoa, that won't be anything now that his wife and son have been murdered because he's sympathetic. Have you heard of such? One thing Mr. Waters and I agree on is the best thing about jurors is you bring your common sense in here, and you use your common sense, and that's what it's all about.

That's with you're collective wisdom. And just collectively think, individually think. What kind of sense does that make? Alex's financial house is a wreck. He was stealing money from clients. He's got to produce a financial statement maybe in a hearing coming up. And his dad goes back in the hospital that day. His dad goes back in the hospital that day and he dies a few days later. Okay. So, I get a call, Jenny comes in, my dad is in the hospital, Paul is coming home. That would be a good time to kill Paul, wouldn't it? That is their theory of the case, and if you don't accept that beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, I submit the verdict has to be not guilty because there's no reason for him to do it. No reason whatsoever. Now, you've heard a lot of the testimony about these financial crimes, misdeeds, and he told you he did it. He told you he did it to support a very expensive drug habit.

And none of that is an excuse, but he is an addict, and addiction is real, and addicts lie, addicts cheat, addicts steal to keep getting their drugs. The evidence was permitted in this case for you to hear solely to consider did he murder his wife and son because he had this storm a-coming, and he was going to be exposed. Is that why he murdered? That's what they say. That's why he -- and that's why you're allowed to consider it. Now, Judge Newman in his jury instructions will tell you that's all you can consider it for. You can't consider it by saying, man, I never knew he could do that. So if he could do that, he must be able to do the most heinous crimes in the world, kill his wife and son execution style. That's a no-no use of that evidence. The only permissible use of the evidence is, is that sufficient provocation, motive, for him to kill his wife and son? Is it sufficient motive, not provocation.

And the evidence in the case is that there was no impending financial doom on June 7th. June 7th was a day which, frankly, was no different than any other day in the frenetic lifestyle of Alex Murdaugh. He had so many balls in the air, and even -- I forgot his paralegal's name, and I apologize to her, I think Kristi, she said he would come in like a Tasmanian Devil. I mean, he was frenetic. And they were on to this $792,000 fee in the Faris case, and they were asking questions of Chris Wilson's office. But the reason they were concerned -- they weren't concerned that he was stealing money. They were concerned he was sheltering money, trying to hide it from being disclosed in the boating litigation, which he was a defendant, and they didn't want any part of that. And that situation with the boating -- I mean, excuse, me with the Faris fee, as Ms. Seckinger, Jeannie Seckinger said, that was a one-off.

That was completely on its own, different type conduct than all of the other stuff that you've heard about. That was a one-off. And what happened on June 7th? She says I'm in his office, and he gets a phone call that his dad is put back in the hospital and, and she thinks that he told her it was terminal. He may have, I don't know, he may have, but his dad was put back in the hospital. He wasn't terminal that day, but the next day he got a terminal diagnosis. The -- in any event, she takes off her CFO hat and puts on her mama bear hat and hugs him, and a friend hat. And, you know, their theory is he slaughters Maggie and Paul to buy time from her investigation. That is it. That is their theory; that is their theory. And it's totally fabricated. They've got no evidence of that. There's no evidence that Maggie was on to his financial misdeeds. There's no evidence that she was about to blow the whistle on him.

There's no evidence that she -- that he had a $20 million life insurance policy on her, and that if he murdered her that he could get out of a financial bind. None of that. None of that. And I asked Ms. Seckinger, how long of a delay did that buy Alex? Well, a month maybe. A month? A month? That's their theory. That's what their case is built upon. And then this motions hearing. There's a motions hearing scheduled for Thursday. It had previously been scheduled two other times, and it was continued at the last minute on the other occasions because two of the lawyers had cancer and were receiving treatment, but it wasn't sure it was going to be continued previously. Did he go murder anybody, you know, to get out from under those prior hearings? No. It had nothing to do with it. And, you know, so they brought the plaintiff's lawyer in, and he's an excellent lawyer. He's, you know, like any plaintiff's lawyer: I'm going to clean his clock.

I'm going to take everything he's got. That's what they all say. So, then we had to bring the defense lawyer in to say that was a negligent parenting case and it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Folks, that's what we are in the murder case, and that's what we're having to deal with because that is their theory of motive. But even if the financial day of reckoning was impending, if it was right there, Alex would not have killed the people he loved the most in the world. There's no evidence that he would do that. We do have evidence of what he would do and did do. And if you will pull up Defendant's Exhibit 125, which is in evidence? On September 2nd, 3rd, 4th, I forget the day, this is the Labor Day weekend, he gets his drug dealer, Curtis Eddie Smith, to shoot him in the head so he couldn't go on because it was all going to come crashing down and he had a big life insurance policy.

So when Alex is at financial collapse, he doesn't go kill somebody else, he tries to end it himself. This is a natural response. You don't want anybody to do it, but this -- people kill themselves from being exposed. They don't kill their wife they adore, his son, the apple of his eye as some people have said. That's not -- that's not -- that's -- I don't have the adjective for that, that is so outlandish. I don't have a word for it. Totally illogical, irrational, and insane, those are the words I wrote down, for someone to kill their loved ones when their criminal conduct has been exposed. You can take that down -- yeah, thank you, Doug. So, yesterday we heard a lot from Mr. Waters, and I've been in Mr. Waters's position. As I explained, I was a federal prosecutor for a number of years. I've been a state prosecutor, part-time mostly, and I have done the job. It's a very rewarding job, and I hold him and I hold his office in very high esteem.

But there's just some times folks just get caught up in a case that, you know, they desire to win. They get so intoxicated by the attention that's brought on by the case that they start sort of a win at all cost approach. And I'm going to go through some things that Mr. Waters stated to you that just aren't facts, and aren't supported by the facts and the evidence that you've heard. And before I do that I want to give you a cautionary statement. We lawyers aren't witnesses. I didn't take an oath to stand up here and talk to you. I have ethical obligations about what I can say, and limitations under the rules, but I'm not a witness. I'm here to talk to you about the evidence, and the same applies to Mr. Waters. You decide what the evidence is. You decide. And --

MR. GRIFFIN: Thank you, Your Honor. Yesterday in Mr. Waters's closing argument, he said that the evidence established that Paul and Maggie were murdered with family guns, and that perhaps is his view of the evidence, but that's not a fact. In fact, the State's ballistic expert testified that the 12 gauge shotshells that were found in the feed room were fired by the same shotgun, that the shotshells, the things that rolled under the door, were fired by the same gun. That's all he testified to as to shotgun. Now, they have put a lot of guns in evidence here that have nothing to do with the crime. So, we don't know what shotgun was used. It could have been a shotgun bought at Wal-Mart that afternoon. It could have been a twenty year-old shotgun, but all the evidence, ballistic evidence is the shotshells were fired with the same gun, and that's -- don't know that you really need am expert for that. But that's what the testimony was on the shotgun.

With regard to the 300 Blackout, you'll recall that the -- that this guy, Paul Greer, testified that the cartridges found that the -- at the crime scene, and Maggie was shot with a 300 Blackout. That the tool marks -- it's called tool marks -- that the extractor and ejector marks from the cartridges found at the crime scene matched extractor and ejector tool marks on some cartridges found at the house and some found at the driving range -- excuse me, shooting range. And -- but what he didn't say, that where the firing pin breaches that cartridge, which is one of the most reliable indications, it did not match. No match. And he also did not, did not compare projectiles. There was a projectile found -- when I say projectile, that's the bullet, that's the bullet thing, that goes -- that went into Maggie's body and broke up. But one went into the dog house and was found in the dog bed.

So they have that, and what they did not do is take that projectile and dig projectiles out of the berm where the shooting range was and compare it to see if they matched, and that's the most reliable way. Now, you know, in David Owen's notes he said that the ballistic expert can't be 100 percent sure until you have the gun. And you heard, you know, my cross-examination of Agent Greer, and this tool mark ballistic examination is somewhat soft science. It has come under criticism. It's what, what, what they rely upon. Not every investigative lab relies upon it. That's what they did here, but it's not gospel. It's not gospel. Another thing about the -- about the 300 Blackout, he -- in his closing, Mr. Waters repeatedly said Alex bought it. Alex bought it. And I assume we're talking about the replacement. I don't know, Alex bought it. Well, Alex didn't buy it. The evidence in the record is Maggie bought it, and he kept saying it's the defendant's and it's not the defendant's.

The replacement 300 Blackout, which, frankly, no one had seen Paul with it in quite some time except Will Loving on one occasion -- in fact, some time in March -- it was Paul's gun. It wasn't Alex's gun. It was Paul's gun. At one point in time during his closing argument yesterday, Mr. Waters reenacted a shooting scenario, if you'll recall. And I'll do my best, but he stands up here and he says that Alex shoots Paul in the chest one time, and 999,999 times out of a million that person is dead. He puts his shotgun down, and he has a 300 Blackout right here because he is so smart and so diabolical that he's going to stage it so it will look like two shooters. So he's got a 300 Blackout here, a shotgun that he just took his son out, but his son was one in a million, he says, one in a million, comes this way. So, Alex has to put the 300 Blackout back down, pick up the shotgun, and shoot Paul. Where in the world does that scenario reside other than in Mr. Waters's mind? It doesn't.

It doesn't. There's no evidence to support anything like that. None. None. And the fact that he has to go to such gymnastics to come up with Alex staging a two shooter theory ought to tell you there's two shooters out there. It ought to tell you for someone to do that. Another curious point in Mr. Waters's closing argument yesterday involves Paul's intuitive talent. You will recall that Alex informed agents that Paul was an intuitive little dude, referred to him as a detective. That -- Marian Proctor, Maggie's sister, said that Maggie referred to Paul as Little Detective, her Little Detective, and particularly when it came to trying to root out whether Alex was still doing drugs, and then he sort of left it there. Sort of left it there for you to then take it and run with it, as if, oh, Paul must have found Alex using drugs. There must have been a confrontation down there at the kennels, and that must have been what happened.

Now, he didn't go that far in his argument, but he laid it out there for you to run with, but that was clearly the implication. And I want to tell you. First, there are no facts to support that, none whatsoever. Let me add another scenario that's equally as plausible. What if Paul, the detective, learned the source of drugs that were being sold to his dad? What if Paul, the detective, goes to that drug source and says cut it out. That's my dad, you're hurting my family, and if you don't, I'm going to tell on you, turn you in. And what if the source is a member of a dangerous drug gang.

MR. GRIFFIN: Well, the point is there's no more evidence to support -- and there was no evidence what I -- those were just plausible scenarios that they were throwing out to you, and that you could think up many equally plausible scenarios, but you have to decide the evidence based on the facts that the State puts before you. Not theories, not inferences, not speculation, but cold, hard facts. Mr. Waters also said that Alex, the master liar, accused Shelley Smith, Blanca, and perhaps another witness of lying. He never did such a thing. He never accused anybody of lying from this witness stand. Now, I've been around long enough to know, long enough to know that the witnesses can misremember things and believe them to be true, and frankly I'm the biggest offender of that trait in my household. I have convinced myself that I remembered something accurately, and I will have an argument with my wife until she shows me photographic evidence that I was wrong, and that's what it takes.

I mean, that happens. People misremember things. But because we point out that there was an inconsistent fact, that doesn't mean we're saying someone lied, and we never did that. We never did that. The -- one example is sister Marian, one example of misremembering. Sister Marian said that she spoke with Maggie about 7:00 p.m. while she was at Edisto, and that Alex wanted her to come to Moselle so visit her father. Well, we know that her recollection is mistaken because we have cell phone records, we've got FBI records, we've got a phone bill, we've got -- that shows she was in Mount Pleasant and that she was traveling to Moselle around the period of time where sister Marian thought she was at Edisto. Did not happen. That doesn't mean that she was lying about that, absolutely not. That's just how she remembered it. And she also said that when she talked to Maggie, that Maggie was going to go over and visit Mr. Randolph at Almeda. But we know from the records Mr.

Randolph had already been readmitted to the hospital, and that's in the records. We've got -- and that Maggie knew it. We've got Maggie's text to Blanca, I think, in the day saying they're putting Mr. Randolph back in the hospital, and, you know, we're scared for everybody, and hope Alex doesn't go down to the hospital. Well, none of that got pointed out. This is how Marian remembered it, but she remembered it incorrectly, and that happens. Because we point stuff out like that, we're not saying they're lying. Now -- and the same with the Shelley and the blue tarp. She remembers something, we're not sure what, but the evidence clearly is she says it was on Wednesday, June 16th. And we've got the FBI cell phone forensics, we've got records, and we've got testimony that Alex is in Summerville. He spent the night with his in-laws, the Proctors -- excuse me, the Branstetters on Tuesday, and he stayed there toward the end of the week, and then they went to the mountains at Keowee.

So, Alex could not have been knocking on the door of the Almeda house on the morning of June 16th. And Barbara Mixon came in and told you that she relieves Shelley. Shelley works all night, leaves, and goes to work in the school district. Barbara Ann comes in at 8:00 and relieves Shelley. And Shelley recalled it was -- the tarp was laid out when she left for work. Barbara Ann came in and said I didn't see it. No time during that week when I worked was there a blue tarp. I mean, you know, Shelley remembers something, but it's not a blue raincoat, and it's certainly -- certainly Alex could not have come over there Wednesday. Now, Shelley also says that he spoke to me about times, and I am -- and that bothered me, and I called my brother. We're not disputing that. But what she didn't say is Alex told me say I was here 45 minutes, or things like that, and frankly it doesn't make a lot of sense because Alex kept saying you get my phone records.

You can get my phone records, and you'll know exactly what time I was -- when I was there. And I'll get to this a little bit more in a moment, but Mr. Waters keeps talking about, oh, he's hurrying to get over there. He's hurrying to get over there to compress the time, to compress the time so that it looks like he's been gone from Moselle longer than he was. Fair enough argument, and I understand his point, but the point is -- evaporates when you're talking about how long you are at Almeda. It doesn't matter if he's there 45 minutes or 20 minutes. Does it really matter why -- how long he was there? Now, I guess before you had the OnStar data they could be saying, oh, he said he was there 45 minutes but he was only there 22 minutes, and he spent the other 10 or 15 minutes traipsing through the woods burying bloody clothes and getting rid of murder weapons.

Well, we may have heard that in this trial had we not gotten the OnStar data from General Motors in the middle of the trial, which shows conclusively he drove over there and he drove straight back. Another small point, he said there's biological material on the Polaris. I don't think that was ever tested. It certainly looks like it, but what we've learned in this case is things aren't always as they seem. They thought they had blood on the shirt. It turns out there's no blood on the shirt. And that this biological material showed that Maggie was running toward her baby. Now, I don't know that there's any evidence which way Maggie was running or what she was running to, there's not. I mean, it's a fair inference, and everyone who knows Maggie would know that's what she would do, and we're not disputing that that would be her mother instinct. And did that probably happen? It probably did. But to state it a fact, there's no evidence of that.

Now, one thing he also said was the cell phone backlight turning on. And I don't have an Apple phone, but -- so here is the issue, and mine won't do it because I don't have an Apple phone, I don't think, but if you take a phone flat and pick it up, the light comes on. And why is that important? Why is that important? Like I say, I -- and I probably turned this phone off. And if I'm making a point that you all know the answer to, I apologize, but it's important that you do know the answer why this is important. It's important because now that we have the OnStar data, we know that Alex drove his Suburban by the spot where Maggie's phone was found at 9:08. Now, there's probably some seconds in there, but 9:08. And we know that her phone is in the woods at that point. So, the question is did Alex throw it out the window at 9:08?

And the answer is no, he didn't, because if you throw it out the window, at a minimum the display light is going to come on, at a minimum, and when that display right comes on, it registers. These phones say a lot. I mean, I was -- lesson learned in this case. Wow. It registers in this KnowledgeC database, and it says display light on, and it has a time that the display light came on. Well, there's no -- on Maggie's phone the display light does not come on at 9:08. Okay? So, it means Alex didn't throw the phone out. And, and, and, and yesterday Mr. Waters says every single expert testified that the backlight comes on, and sometimes it doesn't when the phone is raised aggressively. That's not true. Only one person testified to that, and Mr. Manigault (sic), who, over the weekend, he works for the Charleston County Sheriff's Department. I don't know why they didn't get a SLED agent to do it, but he says, apparently he says -- he got a phone similar to one that Maggie had.

Not Maggie's phone, had software but not the same version as Maggie, and he spent all weekend throwing the phone on the ground to see what would happen, or many hours of the day throwing the phone on the ground. And he comes in here and says, hey, folks, sometimes the light comes on, sometimes it doesn't. Well, we -- we -- our expert, Micah Sturgis, says it comes on. It comes on. That's what we're talking about. That's what we're talking about. But, folks, we wouldn't be having this discussion if they had secured Maggie's phone and not allowed -- and not -- put it in a Faraday bag so that -- so that the GPS coordinates on the 7th would not have been written -- overwritten, and they were. So, now we've got a guy down in Charleston throwing a phone around all weekend because they're desperate to prove that Alex threw the phone out when he went by there, and they have got no evidence to that. In fact, the evidence to the contrary, he did not.

And the evidence supports everything that he had said from the day he had that interview, or a couple of days: you get the OnStar data, you get GPS data, you get my GPS data, and you'll know I'm not traveling with her phone. Never got it, wrote over it, and now we've got a guy tossing a phone in an office, doesn't even work for SLED. Not every expert said that. The guy even said that's not his area of expertise. So -- oh, yeah, the last one is about me. Mr. Waters says that I did a HBO interview in November of '22, and he references some things I said in the HBO interview. Well, I didn't, and he knows I didn't. It was testified about. There is a HBO special. I am on it. I'm not telling anybody to watch it, but that was filmed back in, I don't know, spring/summer of 20 -- 20 -- 2022. I'm -- well before he was charged with murder. And I'm not on TV talking about his murder charges, but he wants you to think that and I don't why, and I took a little bit offense to that, I really did.

MR. GRIFFIN: Not being interviewed in November of 2022. Not. So, I have asked why? Why, why, why, and they can't answer that. They don't have an answer as to why. Now, how, how, how can Alex in the time period we know -- we're going to -- we're going to get to it, but how could he have butchered Maggie and Paul without leaving a trace of evidence within a matter of minutes? How? How? We went from why and now how, and the answer to the how is he couldn't. But this is the wrong question to be asking yourself because the question that you are tasked with answering is has the State presented evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that shows Alex butchered Maggie and Paul without leaving a trace of evidence within a matter of minutes, within a matters of minutes.

Have they proven evidence -- do they present evidence of that, proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he was able to make bloody clothes, bloody guns, who knows what, how much, disappear in a matter of minutes without leaving a trace? Without leaving a trace. Of course they haven't. A reasonable doubt is a doubt that causes a reasonable person to hesitate, one of the most important decisions of your life. And then here the -- there's no direct evidence of Alex doing anything other than he's at the kennel, 8:44, and it's just pleasant family talking about Bubba the dog getting a chicken. So, the State is trying to weave this story of his guilt based upon circumstantial evidence, and the judge will charge you on circumstantial evidence, and I have no dispute with what the State put up here yesterday because that's the law. And you're going to get it.

He's going to give you the written document with the charge, and you will see in there that when they rely upon circumstantial evidence, it's as good as direct evidence, but there's some things that it has to do to be as good as direct evidence. And what it has to do, the circumstantial evidence, is that the circumstances must be consistent with each other, and when taken together point conclusively, conclusively to the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, and if these circumstances portray the behavior of a defendant as suspicious, the proof has failed as circumstantial evidence. So, what are the circumstances that the State relies upon? Well, he was at the kennel at 8:44. Paul last used his phone at 8:48; he replied to a text with a friend about a movie recommendation. Maggie's phone locked for the last time at 8:50. Actually, it was 8:49 and 50 some odd seconds, but 8:50.

But, however, her phone recorded significant steps around 8:55, and we're going to see that, and her phone tried to activate the camera at 8:55, and it registered an orientation change at 9:06. And I think we pretty much understand orientation change, but when the phone goes from landscape to portrait or -- well, beats me, but it goes from that to that, that is an orientation change, and the phone will tell you. So, it did that at 9:06. And they've got 300 shell casings with extractor and ejector markings matched with casings found around the house at shooting range. So, that's the pretty much it. And then the circumstantial evidence of his guilt. Now, they want to say, well, he lied about it so it's consciousness of guilt, but I'm talking about what evidence they have that put all of the circumstances together to prove he shot and killed Maggie and Paul, and that's pretty much it. And how have they established the time of death here? Solely on cell phone use.

Solely on cell phone use. And using the phone or not using the phone doesn't dictate or define whether you're dead or alive. I mean, I'd say most everybody in this courtroom does not have their phone with them right now. Under the State's theory, as I mentioned before, you know, if they die while they're not using their phone, then they're dead the moment they stop using their phone. That's what we have here; that is their case. There are a number of reasons that Paul would stop using his phone. First -- well, first, I've got two testimonial clips, one from Rogan. You remember Rogan Gibson. If you'll play that quickly, Doug. This is Rogan testifying about Paul's phone.

MR. GRIFFIN: So this is Maggie's phone, timeline that we put in evidence, and this is going from 8:49 to 9:07. And if you'll just walk through it, you'll see 8:49:26, last text message read by Maggie. Okay, go to the next one. 8:49:28, backlight off. Go to the next one. 8:49:31, phone locks and remains locked until recovery by law enforcement. It was locked for the last time and never unlocked. 8:53. And on 8:53 the backlight comes on. The backlight comes on. It's being manipulated. 8:53:12, orientation to portrait starts. 8:53:15, phone begins logging 59 steps. 8:53:20, there's a Siri usage, and the testimony is you can get that by squeezing the button. 8:53:24, an orientation portrait completes, so it switches. And then 8:53:28, backlight is off. Next, backlight is on, backlight is off again, and it's on again. Keep going. Then 8:54:34, camera use starts. It's activated by touching the camera icon or by swiping left from the locked screen.

The -- there was a question as to whether that could be from facial recognition, and Lieutenant Dove said that that information resides in the KnowledgeC database, but he did not look for it. Micah Sturgis, our expert, looked for it, found it, and came and told you that was not a facial recognition miss. It was from intentionally activating the phone only for 1 second. Go to the next slide. Camera usage ends. Go to the next slide. Orientation landscape starts, 8:54:44. It ends and then 8:55 -- so, the point is there's a lot going on with Maggie's phone at -- around 8:55. Keep going. Keep going. And then at 9:03 the backlight goes off. And at 9:04 there's a missed call from Alex, and at 9:04:23, backlight is off. At 9:04:41, the missed call from Alex ends. So, let's back up to -- let's go to 9:04:23, a missed call from Alex. And this was the testimony on 9:04:23, and it's important. Alex calls Maggie, and when that happens, you would -- her backlight was on. Go back one more.

Her backlight is on at 9:03:52. At 9:04, missed call from Alex starts at 9:04:23 and instantaneously the backlight goes off. Now, you heard the testimony of that, it means when that call came in, someone pushed on the side to stop the call. Now, was that done by Maggie because she was over on the other side of the workshop where we see those footprints that we heard about that were never really analyzed and that she didn't want any noise coming through? Or was that some bad guy, or bad person, has Maggie's phone and stops the call? But something is going on with her phone at 9:04, I'll tell you that. And then at 9:04 the next one is missed call from Alex ends. 9:05, backlight on. 9:06 orientation changes to portrait. 9:07, incoming call from Alex -- excuse me, 9:06:14. Keep going, Doug. And 9:06:52. Keep going. And then at 9:07 her phone stops for good. Now, one of the things that you heard in this case is that orientation change was at 9:06 that we just talked about.

And, Doug, if you'll go to the -- if you'll go to Defendant's 156, please? And so these are Alex's steps on his phone that registered during this time period, and if you'll go to entry -- if you'll look at entry 28 -- If you'll pull that out, Doug. All right. So, 28, this is between 9:02:18 and 9:06:47, and this is the time period that Mr. Waters in his argument said was scurrying around because he took -- Can -- yeah, just bring it back a little bit more, please. Can we do it so we can see the whole line? That's fine. So, that -- so, here we see line 28, between 9:02 and 9:06 there's 283 steps, and he went 208 meters. So, I want you to first -- and so they take the position that this is him scurrying around, but if you do the math, which we haven't done here on this document, but 283 steps in 269 minutes -- excuse me, 269 steps turns out to be 1.05 steps per second -- .05 -- 1.05 steps per second. Multiply that by 60, you get 63 steps per second.

And, ladies and gentlemen, this is a slow walk, one step per second. One thousand-one, one thousand-two, one thousand-three, one thousand-four, one thousand-five. This is Alex scurrying around, according to the State's case. And if you'll look at the distance in meters of the last -- when he gets, I guess, to the house at 7:55 to 8:55, he goes 203 meters before it stops registering. And then one thing you'll remember during this time period between 9:02 and 9:06, at 9:06 Maggie's phone has an orientation change. Her phone has moved from here to here, but what her phone doesn't have -- If you'd go to the second page? What her phone doesn't have are steps, are steps. And Lieutenant Dove testified that, yeah, it doesn't look like anyone but -- I mean, that her phone is moving at 9:06, but there are no steps being registered. Alex is walking from 9:02 to 9:06, so it would bear to reason that Maggie is not -- excuse me, Alex is not walking with Maggie's phone. That's the timeline data that I wanted to review with you. The -- if you'll go to Exhibit 524, Defendant's Exhibit 524, please.

MR. GRIFFIN: If you'll go to the slide where -- no, sir, not 38 -- do you have the whole document or you don't? Well, drop that. Okay. Well, the -- I mentioned earlier -- and so State's Exhibit 524 is all of the OnStar data you will see there, that he goes by this spot at 9:08 where Maggie's phone was found, and there was testimony that he sped up after he went by there. He sped up to, like, from 42 to 45, and went back down to 44 miles an hour when he went by there. He's not speeding up when he goes by the area where Maggie's phone was found whenever it was tossed. And then they have, you know, a chart or a slide that talks about how long it took him to get over there and the speeds that it took, and Mr. Waters was arguing to you that that compressed the timeline. The faster he gets over to Almeda, the -- it means that he's gone longer from Moselle and it gives him a better alibi because, as you know, he's orchestrating this alibi.

And so he's driving fast over to Almeda, according to their theory. And we graphed it out, and he's driving. He's passing some cars, and he is -- you know, he's a fast driver. Okay. So they say, oh, he's compressing the timeline. Compressing the timeline is that they say, compressing the timeline. But then they say he drives fast on the way back. Why? He's driving the same speed over there, same speed back. There's no reason to compress the timeline coming back. I mean, you would want to be driving as slow as you can to make it appear you'd been gone a lot longer. I mean, he drives the same speed from Moselle to Almeda, as from Almeda back to Moselle. It takes him the same amount of time. He's not compressing any timeline at all. And what's the most curious part about Maggie's phone -- about Maggie's phone, what's most curious about it is Alex has per password. Alex -- if he is wanting to change the timeline, when he calls her phone, he should answer her phone.

When he texts her, he should reply to that text to show activity on her phone that she's still alive. If he wants -- if he's manufacturing a timeline by speeding, the easiest way to do it is use both phones, talk on both phones, and he didn't. This whole thing about using Maggie's phone, driving Maggie's phone, throwing Maggie's phone out is -- it's such a stretch for them to come in and try to put her phone in his hand. And then you start thinking through. Why would Alex take her phone and not Paul's phone? Let's start there. Why would Alex take her phone and not Paul's phone? That's a question I don't have an answer to. It makes no sense. It just makes no sense why he would take Maggie's phone. If there's something on there, he knows her password. Put it in. See what it is. We know from all of this phone data her phone was never unlocked, and he had the keys. So, if he's taking her phone to unlock or to do something with it, he did it. And so why? Why, why, why?

And these are circumstances that have to be consistent with each other, and have to point conclusively to the guilt of Alex Murdaugh beyond a reasonable doubt. And these circumstances just raise more questions, ladies and gentlemen, raise more questions that we wouldn't have to be dealing with if they had just simply secured Maggie's phone in a Faraday bag on June the 8th when they got it. We wouldn't be here. So, we do know from the timeline that Alex left the property at 9:07. Were they killed before he left? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that. But we do know that if he was in the house when the shots were made down at the kennel that he would not have heard them. We had decibel testing from Mr. Sutton. Now, they were angry with Mr. Sutton's angle test. They were angry -- not angry, but they challenged his conclusions on a lot of things, but they didn't touch his acoustics testing, didn't doubt that, haven't challenged that.

And so if he's in the house and shots are going down -- ringing down at the kennel, he doesn't hear them. He doesn't hear them. Now, they say that some time after 8:44, and they peg it at 8:48/8:50 because that's when Paul last responded to a text from this, you know, friend of his, but they ignore the fact there had to be clean up, and I think Buster testified that takes 10 minutes at least to get the dogs in, clean up, and et cetera. But -- and then there's all of this 8:55 stuff going on on Maggie's phone. But let's take them at their theory. At 8:50, after having a pleasant conversation, talking about is it a guinea or is it a chicken, and Bubba, you know, and getting -- I mean. All right. So, 4 minutes later, let's go ahead and kill my wife and my son because I got questioned at the office today by Jeannie Seckinger. Okay. That's their case. Well, let's run with it and see where it takes us. Well, it takes us that he leaves the property at 9:07.

So from the moment -- so if he's got, you know -- well, if it happens at 8:50, he's got 10 -- he's got 17 minutes. 17 minutes. He would have to be a magician to make all of that evidence disappear. As you heard under either Dr. Kinsey or Mr. Palmbach, Dr. Riemer, Dr. Kinsey, Mr. Palmbach, and Dr. Eisenstat, either way, the shooter is covered with blood on Paul's shooter, and that's what all that testimony was about. It wasn't about trying to figure out who's, who's got the right angles. The whole point of that is while -- we ended up having to get our own experts to, to prove the shooter is covered in biological material, covered in blood, covered in everything because of the blowback. And it wasn't until on reply that Dr. Kinsey said, oh, well there would be blowback under my version, too, blowback meaning blood, biological material from killing Paul. So, the shooter is covered in blood. The shooter's gun is covered in blood.

And that -- there's not a sufficient amount of time to clean all of that up, and make all of that disappear, and then call your son, Buster, driving to visit your mother, who he had gotten a call from Barbara Mixon earlier today and said your mother is agitated because your dad went back in the hospital. You might want to check on her. He goes to check on her. He calls Buster. And does he say, hey, Bus, I just blew your mom and brother up? You should see the damn mess. Are you kidding me? He calls Chris Wilson, normal conversation. He calls his brother John Marvin, talking about his dad. And then he goes over there and he sits there with Shelley and sits on his mom's bed, and he stays there 20 minutes, not 40 minutes or 22 minutes, I don't know. The records show what time. But the fact of the matter is he's got no blood on him. He's acting normal as every day. He is the same old Alex.

Yet their theory is he just blew the person he -- the people he loved the most in this world, he blew them away. Now, I talked a little bit about the angles that Mr. Sutton did his reverse trajectories on the shots, and they're having a good time joking about the size of the figure in the FARO, saying, oh, it must have been a twelve year old kid, 5-2, 5-4. And, I don't know, let them have their fun, but that's not what the testimony was. The testimony was that the barrel of the gun has to be at that level to make the shot into the quail pen. We didn't take the measurements. SLED took the measurements. And so, yeah, could a 6-4 person get down to that level? Sure. Mr. Sutton says that's not a natural shooting angle. Could a 6-4 four person get on their knees? Sure. Shooters are in movement, and a 6-4 person is going to be moving around on their knees? I don't think so. But, you know, the most common sense thing here is there were two shooters because there were two guns.

And as Mr. Palmbach said, one gun is high capacity. It holds ten, twenty, thirty rounds, and if you're going down to execute somebody, one gun is enough. Why take another gun that only has three shots? It's -- and Dr. Kinsey agreed with the angle coming out of the bird -- the quail pen so that the angle puts it pretty far away from the door of the feed room where Paul was killed. But it's not our burden. It's not our burden. It's their burden to prove to you, based on circumstantial evidence, that all of the circumstances are consistent with each other and point conclusively to the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and those facts are just not consistent. Those facts are just not consistent. I want to say a word about the condition of Paul and Maggie, particularly Paul, and I'm not going to show you any photos, but I think you would agree that it was so bad. It was so bad.

And Alex, in the back of the car with me in the back of that -- you could see me on the camera sitting there talking to Agent Owen and Agent Croft, and he says: It was so bad, they did him so bad. Agent Croft misheard that and said he said I did him so bad. I think the evidence is to -- everyone who has listened to it and everyone who knows what Alex was talking about around that time was they did him so bad. And Agent Owen was in the car and he doesn't say to you, oh, he actually said I did him so bad. I think we can put that issue to rest, but that issue points to a bigger question. What would they be saying in this trial if that conversation wasn't videotaped? What would they be saying? We know Agent Croft would be saying he said I did him so bad, and then where would we be then? I'm grateful to SLED that they videotaped that so that you'll hear it if you have any questions. I don't think you should, but they did him so bad, that is for sure.

Another thing that we're going to clear up right now is Alex's concern for Buster. You heard that, and you heard that in Mr. Waters's closing, that on the -- that in the statements that Alex made on the roadside shooting in Labor Day weekend where he tried to arrange an assisted suicide, that he told officers that there's no danger to Buster. Of course there was no danger to Buster because of that roadside shooting because he knew who shot him: Curtis Eddie Smith. He knew he was trying get himself killed. But from that he was going -- the reason he knows there was nothing to worry about Buster is because he knows he did it. That's what was just argued yesterday. Well, Deputy McDowell in a body cam video that's in evidence captured Alex speaking to Buddy Hill about his concern about Buster's safety. And will you play that now, Doug? It's in evidence.

MR. GRIFFIN: Did you hear that? Can y'all get a police officer for my oldest son in Columbia? What about Buster? What about Buster? Can y'all get a police officer for my oldest son? Buddy, can y'all get a police officer for my oldest son in Columbia? That's Buddy Hill, the sheriff. They want to come in here and tell you he wasn't concerned for Buster's safety. Once again, I'm grateful the Colleton County Sheriff's Department had body cams because now you know. You know Alex was concerned; you know Alex asked for a police officer for his son in Columbia, Buster. Now, I'm almost done, I promise, but I do want to talk about Alex's misstatements about time. Alex told Deputy Owen during interviews that -- well, first, Alex's statements about time are not lies. They were just misstatements. And like I said, Deputy Owen said people make mistakes about -- all of the -- Agent Owen, I'm sorry, Agent Owen, they make mistakes about time all the time, and they do. Now, Mr.

Waters is critical because Alex was wrong every time he gave a time estimate. It turns out I think Mr. Waters is probably right about that. Whether the time period is inconsequential or consequential, he's wrong about it. And the -- and we have brought in -- you know, Alex had told deputies in an interview that he got home at 5:00, and that's not true. That he went to work that day at 8:30. That's not true, and that -- and so he is just wrong on times. But what was consistent whenever he had a interview, he said you get the records. You get the records and it will show what time I was -- did this, what time I did that. It will all be in the records. And guess what? They're in the records. And when the records show that his time estimate was wrong, you know, they jump up and down. Jump up and down. The statement to Deputy Greene, he says I'd gone to my -- I'd gone to my mom's for about a hour and a half and I last saw them 45 minutes. Now, that -- I don't know.

Frankly, I don't know if that's wrong or not. I mean, he's talking to Deputy Greene by 10:30. A hour and a half from 10:30 is 9:00, and he left at -- he left at -- you know, he left at 9:07. But that's at -- the question about what he did when he got down to the scene, and he said he ran up to Paul and Maggie, and he left his phone, and then he went back to get his phone, and, and that -- then he's talking to the 911 operator, and you can hear it, and he says I've been up to them now and it's bad. He doesn't remember the sequencing, and I don't think anyone should hold that against him. You know, Mr. Waters gets up here and says Maggie was running to her baby. Alex was running to his baby. And can you imagine what he saw? And is it evidence of guilt that he doesn't remember what the sequencing was in that moment? Is that evidence? Is that evidence of guilt, or is that evidence of trauma? This is a guy that then went to get a 12 gauge shotgun and he put 16 gauge shells in it.

He knows the difference, but he didn't know that night. And I'm not quite understanding what the State makes of this. Did he not go up to the bodies? Because the forensic evidence sure speaks to the contrary. What we have is Maggie's DNA all over his t-shirt, and you heard that from Agent Zapata. We have Paul's DNA on his t-shirt. How did he get Paul and Maggie's DNA on his t-shirt if he didn't touch them? If he brutally murdered them, hosed off down there next to their dead bodies, got in the golf cart butt naked, drove to the house, changed clothes, went over to his mom's, goes down, calls 911, and then searches for Whaley's Restaurant menu, and checking emails waiting for the police to show up, how does he get their DNA on his body? Because it's on there. Their forensic lab tells you that because he went up to them and touched them. And then there's a spot of blood on the Suburban steering wheel that was Maggie's.

And we know that the Suburban was never down at the kennel thanks to the OnStar information, thanks to -- I'm not sure that was an accepted fact until OnStar sent their stuff in, but the Suburban never went down to the kennel until after he returned back to Moselle. So, we know the blood got on the steering wheel after he checked Maggie like he did on the 911 call. And then there's a spot of blood on the gun that he went to get. And then there's GSR, there's GSR. There's three particles of GSR on the shirt, three particles of GSR on his shorts, and one on his finger. And the SLED agent testified that's consistent with transferred GSR when you pick up a gun. So, really we're back to the lie. We're back to the lie because that's all they have in this case is that Alex lied to them when he was -- when he last saw them, and he shouldn't have, and he shouldn't have.

And he said what a tangled web weave when once we start to deceive, and once he lied the first time, he had to stick with the lie, and he continued to lie, and he shouldn't have. He shouldn't have. And he told you, you know, what was going through his mind. Probably wasn't rational, but he was in the throws of an addiction, and he just found his wife and son murdered. And he's being interviewed, he'd been swiped for GSR, and he does think David Owen is the guy that investigated his friend, but he was wrong, and he told you. It turns out he was wrong, but I thought that's who it was that night. And he was under investigation. He was being accused of obstructing the boating accident investigation, and he was under investigation by SLED for that. And he had all of these skeletons in his closet, and he was wanting to get them away from him and looking for the real killer.

The State in this case has gone to lengths trying to, through a slight of the hand, convince you of this, show you that, and without mentioning guilt and without showing evidence of guilt convince you that he murdered his wife and son because the financial misdeeds are going to come out, which is about the most illogical thing imaginable, and there's no evidence of that. And then the State brings all of these shotguns in here, and I'm not going to pick every one of them up, but the forensic evidence on these shotguns is they have -- or they can't be excluded. Well, okay. They can't be included either, so you know nothing more about these shotguns than you would have the day you showed up for jury selection because there's nothing to know about them.

You can't exclude them, can't include them, according to them, but we do know there's no blood, guts, brains on any of -- on any of the guns that would have been there from the shooting under everybody's interpretation of how Paul was murdered. The -- I mean, they want -- they want -- they want you to think that because you own guns that you should be viewed differently. I don't know what else to make of that. I don't know what else to make of that. When this trial began with opening statements on January 25th, Mr. Harpootlian asked why? Why? Why would Alex execute his wife and son in cold blood? And here we are six weeks later, and you've heard weeks of testimony about Alex's financial crimes, drug addiction, and lies, but after all of that, the State has failed to prove, to provide a satisfactory answer to this question, why. Why? Why? The State cannot provide an answer to this question because the answer is he would not.

He would not under any circumstances murder those that meant the most to him. Your oath requires that you hold the State to the exact standard of proof, that the State must prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and when they rely solely on circumstantial evidence, these circumstances must be consistent with each other, and when taken together point conclusively to the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. And if they merely portray the behavior of the defendant as suspicious, you must find him not guilty. The State's evidence fails to meet these requirements. The circumstances don't point conclusively to Alex's guilt, far from it. Mr. Waters wants you to believe that Alex slaughtered Maggie and Paul on June 7th, and repeatedly lied and changed the story to fit the timeline in evidence.

As it turns out, as it turns out, in fact, the State is the one that's been manipulating evidence to fit their theories of guilt, which changed over time from the date of these murders until yesterday. And the absence of forensic science and reliable investigation, the guns, blood spatter, the time and opportunity to have committed these murders, you're instead left to make inferences about all sorts of interactions and behaviors. The prosecution wants you to view the evidence through the diabolical monster lens that they have tried to paint, but the law requires you to view it through the lens of innocence where none of these things, individually or taken together, prove conclusively to Alex's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Up until now you've not been able to say a single word. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be, but soon, soon you will have the most powerful voice in this courtroom.

With your words, you can let everyone know that in a court of law, only evidence and the burden of proof matters, not gossip, innuendo, opinions, and most of all not theories layered on top of speculation. With your words, you can let the State know that they don't get to obtain an indictment by misleading a grand jury and then bring you -- before you a case built on theories and speculation. There are two words that justice demands in this case, and those two words are not guilty. The oath you've taken in this case is to follow the law, and to follow the constitution, and to hold the government to the burden of proof that requires a verdict of not guilty. On behalf of Alex, on behalf of Buster, on behalf of Maggie, and on behalf of my friend, Paul, I respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another. Thank you.