Alex Murdaugh’s Wife Maggie Found Drugs Before Murder

Prosecutors also used the timeline document to again emphasize what appears to be their most crucial piece of evidence: a video that was eventually recovered from Paul’s phone by investigators. The 50 seconds of footage, which Paul had started filming just before 8:45 p.m. with the intention of sending to a friend, showed the young man trying to corral a chocolate Labrador retriever in its kennel. Three distinct voices can be heard as Paul films, and more than a half dozen witnesses who were close to the Murdaughs have testified that they belong to Paul, Maggie, and Alex.

Again and again, Alex told investigators that he didn’t see his wife and son prior to waking up from a nap in the main house shortly before 9 p.m. and driving to his mother’s house. But this crucial video showed that he appeared to be with the pair just four minutes before data showed Paul and Maggie’s phones would be locked for the final time. 

Alex’s defense team conceded the state had proven that he was with his wife and son at 8:44 p.m., but said that his mere presence at the scene did not indicate guilt. They also denied he was present when the pair were killed, arguing that the state couldn’t even definitively say when that was. 

“The state has proven at most that he was at the kennels at 8:44 p.m.,” defense attorney Jim Griffin said. “The state does not have proof of time of death. The state only has proof of the last time Paul and Maggie used their phones.”

Griffin’s comments came as prosecutors formally rested their case against Alex. Without the jury present, Griffin asked the judge to toss the case out for lack of evidence, which the judge denied. 

Beginning their case, defense attorneys called Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey, who testified that when he arrived at the scene that night shortly after 11 p.m. he put his hands in the armpits of Maggie and Paul to test for their warmth. He also said he observed no signs of rigor mortis setting in. 

Unable to pinpoint an exact time of death beyond a two-hour span between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., Harvey said he recorded down times of death for the pair as 9 p.m. as a middle ground. 

In a bid to portray the Murdaughs as compassionate about Alex’s drug addiction, Barber introduced another new text message for the jury to see, this time from Alex himself. On the morning of May 7, after Paul told Alex that Maggie had discovered the bags of pills, Alex sent his wife a text message. 

“I am very sorry that I do this to all of you,” he wrote. “I love you.”

While Maggie would text Alex again, Rudofski noted that she never responded to his apology.