so whats the next good trial to follow? Idaho killings?

AustinCountyAg said:

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so whats the next good trial to follow? Idaho killings?

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Prelim hearing in late June, I think

TXAggie2011 said:

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Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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LMCane said:

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DallasAg03 said:

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I'm reading a lot of comments that don't know the difference between reasonable doubt and proof. It's a reasonable verdict to assume the only person alive at the scene of a murder did it. It's reasonable to assume he destroyed evidence. I'm not losing sleep over this, he got a fair trial. He had better defense lawyers than 99% of defendants

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EXACTLY THIS

it seems that for weird myriad reasons, some of the posters here have a personal investment in proving he was not guilty

personally, I could care less. I have faith in the jury system

if 12 out of 12 jurors came to the conclusion he did it beyond a reasonable doubt- I take that as more likely than the keyboard attorneys here.

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Both of you have serious reading comprehension skills then. Plenty of people here, in fact the great majority that say they would have decided not guilty, but are not shocked at the verdict at all. I really can't find anyone aghast at the verdict.

And maybe you could care a little less.

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I think they've read the thread(s) just fine. Folks may not be "aghast" but they're certainly arguing this was a huge conspiratorial miscarriage of justice.

At the end of the day, he had to explain away a lot in order to create reasonable doubt and he couldn't do that. And his long time explanation turned out to be a lie.

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Fair enough. I wasn't convinced beyond reasonable doubt but figured it would take a little longer for the guilty verdict that was ultimately coming.

Guitarsoup said:

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redcrayon said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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redcrayon said:

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Bunk Moreland said:

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Muy said:

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So does Buster essentially walk away with all remaining family assets and go on with his life?

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I'd assume the upcoming civil trials will milk most or all of that dry.

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Which civil trials? Buster's money came from his mom's estate. Is he being sued?

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South Carolina (and I think the IRS) is investigating Alex for not paying taxes on the money he stole. I assume they will say the properties are theirs.

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Maggie's estate already went to Buster. Maybe Alex's assets are in danger but I don't think Buster can be held responsible for Alex's debts. But maybe I missed something.

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So if you are stealing from the IRS and South Carolina, make sure you assets put it in your spouse's name, even though you file married, so then the IRS can't get the assets?

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You have any reliable links to the financial crimes info? I've only followed the murder trial. Seems like you have some genuine info that I'd like to read. Or maybe I missed the IRS info when I skipped over some of the financial stuff in the trial? There's so much erroneous info on this case.

This is the settlement I was aware of.

https://www.wsav.com/news/local-news/judge-approves-settlement-between-murdaugh-estate-and-beach-family/

Bunk Moreland said:

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Muy said:

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So does Buster essentially walk away with all remaining family assets and go on with his life?

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I'd assume the upcoming civil trials will milk most or all of that dry.

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Except maybe the 10 million life insurance policy. Under Texas law he could name Buster as the beneficiary and the Dad's creditors can't touch it.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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LMCane said:

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DallasAg03 said:

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I'm reading a lot of comments that don't know the difference between reasonable doubt and proof. It's a reasonable verdict to assume the only person alive at the scene of a murder did it. It's reasonable to assume he destroyed evidence. I'm not losing sleep over this, he got a fair trial. He had better defense lawyers than 99% of defendants

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EXACTLY THIS

it seems that for weird myriad reasons, some of the posters here have a personal investment in proving he was not guilty

personally, I could care less. I have faith in the jury system

if 12 out of 12 jurors came to the conclusion he did it beyond a reasonable doubt- I take that as more likely than the keyboard attorneys here.

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Both of you have serious reading comprehension skills then. Plenty of people here, in fact the great majority that say they would have decided not guilty, but are not shocked at the verdict at all. I really can't find anyone aghast at the verdict.

And maybe you could care a little less.

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I think they've read the thread(s) just fine. Folks may not be "aghast" but they're certainly arguing this was a huge conspiratorial miscarriage of justice.

At the end of the day, he had to explain away a lot in order to create reasonable doubt and he couldn't do that. And his long time explanation turned out to be a lie.

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Fair enough. I wasn't convinced beyond reasonable doubt but figured it would take a little longer for the guilty verdict that was ultimately coming.

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I figured it would take longer, too, as I imagined there would be a juror or two who would get caught up on the lack of direct evidence and would play hardball that "all those other crimes don't mean he murdered anyone."

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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AustinCountyAg said:

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Hell, Alex already tried to kill himself. That's what he wants. He deserves to rot in prison and think about all the bull**** he did and have it haunt him. Life in prison is worse for him than death penalty.

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That is part of the dark comedy in this whole thing. The dude smoked his youngest son and his wife and SLED made a mess of the scene but was hail mary'ed by a 30 second video. He finally snaps and arranges to have goofy cousin Eddie pop a couple of caps in him on the side of the road and he can't even get that right. You just can't script a movie like that.

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I am eagerly awaiting the installment of "American Crime Story" about this family. I wonder if they will wait for the other trials to play out.

I did jury duty a few months ago were a man was very obviously selling and possessing heroin and fentanyl in a distributable quantity, neglecting his dogs to the point of their starvation, owned firearms that he wasn't supposed to have due to his prior felonies, and had assaulted police. The case was the most obvious and open and shut thing that I had ever seen. I was viscerally angry at having three days of my life wasted in deliberation, for what were very obvious points, and ending up on a hung jury for three of the 12 charges. It came down to some people think that if you don't have CCTV dead to rights proof of the perp actually committing the crime then how do you really know like really know that they actually did it. Could've been magical elves.

Reading this thread, I can actually see that my experience is probably universal.

Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

Modern technology and investigatory techniques are obviously very helpful in uncovering the truth but also can lead people to expect that investigators pinpoint every detail of a crime…which just doesn't happen, in nearly every case.

TXAggie2011 said:

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I think they've read the thread(s) just fine. Folks may not be "aghast" but they're certainly arguing this was a huge conspiratorial miscarriage of justice.

At the end of the day, he had to explain away a lot in order to create reasonable doubt and he couldn't do that. And his long time explanation turned out to be a lie.

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To be clear on my stance, I do NOT think the guilty verdict was a huge miscarriage of justice nor was it a "conspiracy."

I expected a Guilty verdict and Alex Murdaugh certainly "deserved" it.

I personally would not have voted to find him Guilty. I don't believe parts of the prosecutions case (not because i think they were intentionally "lying" as part of some "conspiracy" but because they genuinely aren't sure exactly what or how it happened and are having to stretch things to fill in the gaps).

I think the investigation was problematic (not because of a "conspiracy" but because people are incompetent sometimes and because outcome bias, confirmation bias, blind spot bias, clustering bias and automation bias are all very real and very prevalent in any investigation).

I think the judge was obviously favoring the prosecution (not because of a "conspiracy" but because the judge genuinely believes Alex did this and had a personal dislike for the things Alex had done).

For those reasons I don't believe I would have been able to convince myself to find Alex guilty because those issues leave me uneasy about being confident in his guilt. However my line of thinking is one of the reasons I will never be on a jury and why 99.9% of the time attorneys will be the struck from the jury pool in the first round. I believe it is perfectly reasonable for the jury to have found Alex guilty and I am not trying to be condescending to anyone that thinks the jury got it right. I definitely understand that point of view.

LMCane said:

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DallasAg03 said:

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I'm reading a lot of comments that don't know the difference between reasonable doubt and proof. It's a reasonable verdict to assume the only person alive at the scene of a murder did it. It's reasonable to assume he destroyed evidence. I'm not losing sleep over this, he got a fair trial. He had better defense lawyers than 99% of defendants

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EXACTLY THIS

it seems that for weird myriad reasons, some of the posters here have a personal investment in proving he was not guilty

personally, I could care less. I have faith in the jury system

if 12 out of 12 jurors came to the conclusion he did it beyond a reasonable doubt- I take that as more likely than the keyboard attorneys here.

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Sounds to me like you are saying its ok for the jury to presume guilt and the defense has to prove innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. The exact opposite of the law.

1939 said:

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Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

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Because apparently when someone doesn't read/respond to a text immediately, then they are presumed dead at that moment.

I apologize for the snark. It hasnt been a great week for me.

There's an HBO show, a Dateline, a new Netflix Show that all describe the death of Stephen Smith.

It's been awhile since I've seen them all...but the gist is that his death was ruled a hit-and-run accident since he was found dead in the middle of a country road, but there was no evidence of a hit and run by vehicle. It was more likely he was beaten up with a blunt-force object, e.g. a baseball bat or something else.

When police tried to "investigate" their investigation was "impeded". But they still got people on record saying that they heard that it was Buster Murdaugh who did it.

All I am saying is that now that the fear of AM has subsided, we might get a little more info/movement on this case.

1939 said:

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Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

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Because the coroner measured the armpit temp and came up with his estimate on time of death along with no more activity on their phones.

I LITERALLY STATED THAT IF 12 OUT OF 12 JURORS FIND HIM GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT then I trust their decision.

what are you talking about?

1939 said:

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Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

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Investigators theory is that phone data from Maggie and Paul conclusively prove that murders occurred between 8:50 and 8:55. This is because both stopped using their phones during that time period and never used their phones again after.

It's a good theory, but for me, I can imagine other scenarios that would explain the phones not being used for a while thus extending the time frame for when they were murdered.

Admiral Adama said:

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I did jury duty a few months ago were a man was very obviously selling and possessing heroin and fentanyl in a distributable quantity, neglecting his dogs to the point of their starvation, owned firearms that he wasn't supposed to have due to his prior felonies, and had assaulted police. The case was the most obvious and open and shut thing that I had ever seen. I was viscerally angry at having three days of my life wasted in deliberation, for what were very obvious points, and ending up on a hung jury for three of the 12 charges. It came down to some people think that if you don't have CCTV dead to rights proof of the perp actually committing the crime then how do you really know like really know that they actually did it. Could've been magical elves.

Reading this thread, I can actually see that my experience is probably universal.

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What was the charge in your case?

I fully believe AM is a lying, thieving, narcissistic D-Bag, and deserves to pay for multiple crimes. That being said, I do have a problem with this case and the burden of proof of committing THIS crime not nearly being met by the state. A timeline that doesn't work, no murder weapons, a total botch of the forensic evidence in multiple areas, and questionable practices by SLED. Plus, a myriad of people that could have motive, means, and ability to destroy this family - seeing that many people were either affected directly by financial crimes of AM, or by the decisions of AM's father, GF, or GGF in times past. No magical elves needed here.

I suspect that other than the fact that you sat on a jury that took a long time to resolve, there is next to nothing correlating to THIS case. (Edit. And not to pile on, but even that doesn't correlate, since this jury only deliberated for 45 minutes) ;-)

Hope your week ends better!

LMCane said:

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I LITERALLY STATED THAT IF 12 OUT OF 12 JURORS FIND HIM GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT then I trust their decision.

what are you talking about?

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Yeah, I have listened to enough of the Wrongful Conviction podcast and enough of Barry Scheck to know that 12 people voting guilty after 45 minutes in a 6 week trial so they can enjoy the weekend isn't enough for me.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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1939 said:

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Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

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Because the coroner measured the armpit temp and came up with his estimate on time of death along with no more activity on their phones.

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The coroner used his fingers to measure the armpit temp. This is one of the many investigative shortcomings IMO. He could have taken a rectal temp and gotten a much more precise time of death. The investigation was just so sloppy. One witness tossed his own cell phone around and then was called to testify about it. I just expect better if you're going to put someone away for life.

I won't lose any sleep over AM living out his days in prison.

LMCane said:

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I LITERALLY STATED THAT IF 12 OUT OF 12 JURORS FIND HIM GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT then I trust their decision.

what are you talking about?

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If that's what you are saying then ok, but the OP and your response to it makes no sense to me.

You seem to be saying its reasonable to assume guilt because he was the only one that can be placed at the scene around the time of the murders.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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LMCane said:

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DallasAg03 said:

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I'm reading a lot of comments that don't know the difference between reasonable doubt and proof. It's a reasonable verdict to assume the only person alive at the scene of a murder did it. It's reasonable to assume he destroyed evidence. I'm not losing sleep over this, he got a fair trial. He had better defense lawyers than 99% of defendants

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EXACTLY THIS

it seems that for weird myriad reasons, some of the posters here have a personal investment in proving he was not guilty

personally, I could care less. I have faith in the jury system

if 12 out of 12 jurors came to the conclusion he did it beyond a reasonable doubt- I take that as more likely than the keyboard attorneys here.

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Both of you have serious reading comprehension skills then. Plenty of people here, in fact the great majority that say they would have decided not guilty, but are not shocked at the verdict at all. I really can't find anyone aghast at the verdict.

And maybe you could care a little less.

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I think they've read the thread(s) just fine. Folks may not be "aghast" but they're certainly arguing this was a huge conspiratorial miscarriage of justice.

At the end of the day, he had to explain away a lot in order to create reasonable doubt and he couldn't do that. And his long time explanation turned out to be a lie.

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Fair enough. I wasn't convinced beyond reasonable doubt but figured it would take a little longer for the guilty verdict that was ultimately coming.

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I was convinced. Should have stayed off the stand and used the Some Other Dude Did It defense from the long list of people the Defendant F'd over.

My dad had a similar experience to yours. The trial took less than a day and the jury deliberated for seven hours because one guy kept trying to ask for definitions of every word in the jury instructions.

Hundred percent in agreement with you that whatever doubt has to be reasonable. Don't need camera footage.

What gives me the most doubt here is that a really fat guy with bad knees allegedly shot his son with a shotgun twice in close quarters in an enclosed room, chased down his wife and shot her with a completely different gun, then managed to hide the guns, hide his clothes, clean absolutely everything off of himself, get back to the house to change clothes, then get in his car without leaving trace evidence and drive away in a span of about 15 minutes. I just find that to be an incredibly tight timeline.

I don't think there's any way he pulled the trigger on Paul. The level of planning it would take to not get blood and body tissue all over you in that scenario would be extreme. He would've had to come prepared with some sort of full body rubber suit. Goggles, everything. If he commits that murder in regular clothes I'm not sure it would be possible to get everything off of him, out of his hair, etc. in that short span of time. He was also on the phone for part of that alleged clean up. No evidence of trace blood in the house, in the drains, etc.

But that level of planning doesn't coincide with the very tight timeline he put himself on. If he did it, it had to have been a spur of the moment decision in my opinion. If he had planned this from the beginning, he would have done it in a way where he could stretch out the time.

I am strongly leaning toward him being at the least involved, or possibly doing it, but I have so many unanswered questions and the investigation was so shoddy I don't know that I would be able to determine him guilty in 45 minutes of deliberation.

redcrayon said:

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Hope your week ends better!

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I sincerely thank you.

Here's a video to catch you up.



The investigation of his death was re-opened two weeks after Maggie and Paul's murder.

redcrayon said:

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Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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1939 said:

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Question:

Why is it universally accepted that the murders occured at exactly 8:55 pm or whatever time they are claiming. We are looking at such a tight window, they could easily be off by 15-30 minutes.

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Because the coroner measured the armpit temp and came up with his estimate on time of death along with no more activity on their phones.

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The coroner used his fingers to measure the armpit temp. This is one of the many investigative shortcomings IMO. He could have taken a rectal temp and gotten a much more precise time of death. The investigation was just so sloppy. One witness tossed his own cell phone around and then was called to testify about it. I just expect better if you're going to put someone away for life.

I won't lose any sleep over AM living out his days in prison.

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Technically it wasn't his phone, but one like Maggie's, although not the exact same update on the operating system. And his theory worked most of the time. But not recorded or no documented notes about his tossing or aggressive pick up or all that technical sciency stuff. Like buying a similar surburban and hacking a program instead of getting data from OnStar.

Press conference:

Q "Do you regret putting Alex on stand."

A "No. Next question."

Not a Bot said:

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Press conference:

Q "Do you regret putting Alex on stand."

A "No. Next question."

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I thought Alex testified against the advice of his attorneys

Because of the kennel video, he had pretty much no choice

Thanks!

I've seen that video and the HBO doc. IMO it just seems like small town gossip and innuendo without any concrete evidence. Maybe investigators are keeping it close to the vest.

Poot says judge dismissing juror yesterday was proper decision. He says she gave no opinion one way or the other.

Asked about whether he would use his position as senator to try to reform SLED. He said he didn't think that would be proper in his position.

Says not surprised they didn't go for death penalty because it was circumstantial and 99 times out of 100 the jury will not find the death penalty in that sort of case.

Now talking about how they messed up the investigation and didn't process Maggie's phone for GPS data.

Biggest point of appeal will be financial crimes evidence. Griffin saying the financial crime evidence was ludacris and illogical. Also saying he thinks the judge was misled about them introducing it for motive evidence. The state told the jury to ignore the financial crimes motive in their rebuttal closing.

Says options about him taking the stand were limited once the financial crimes evidence was allowed in. Basically had no choice because he had to explain. His credibility had been stripped away by the financial crimes stuff that shouldn't have been admitted.

Defense attorneys knew he was getting a double life sentence no matter what. That's why they didn't put buster up there to talk. Says it could've been mother Theresa and the judge was going to give double life. They knew the judge and exactly what is mindset would be going into sentencing. Didn't want to put buster through that.

Defense saying there's a lot of effort by the state trying to convince family that Alex did it. Family per defense came into trial with an open mind and are staying that they are more convinced than ever he was innocent.

Asked about special security measures for him in prison. Defense says they don't know. Not up to them.

They said Alex was very pessimistic going into the trial. They said he was in a better mood after the states case and was hopeful.

Asked if they were outmatched. Poot says no. He says they lost the case the second and the judge allowed all the extraneous testimony and when they started putting orphans and other people on the stand testify about money he stole. Didn't matter what the forensics or physical evidence shows at that point. It was over.