Prosecutors secured an order this week requiring a representative of Snapchat to testify to the provenance of a video that Paul Murdaugh, the younger son of the man accused of killing him and his mother, sent to friends on the night of the murders.
Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is set to go on trial Monday for the June 7, 2021, deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22. The investigation into the murders eventually uncovered Alex Murdaugh’s alleged schemes to defraud clients and his law firm of millions of dollars and cost him his job and law license, as CrimeOnline has reported.
A new document filed this week in court seeks the judge’s order for Snapchat’s Custodian of Records to testify that a video it provided investigators “is a true and accurate record kept in the normal course of business activity.”
Snap Chat by kc wildmoon on Scribd
The video, which prosecutors called “critical to the case,” was sent to Murdaugh’s friends minutes before 8 p.m. on the night he was killed. The document does not say what is in the video, but Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Creighton Waters wrote that “The contents of this video is important to proving the State’s case in chief.”
Investigators and prosecutors have been extremely tightlipped about evidence they have in the case. At an August hearing, they revealed that video and audio taken from Paul Murdaugh’s phone included a conversation among him and his parents at about 8:44 p.m. that night while all three were at Moselle, the family hunting property where the murders took place — between 9 and 9:30 p.m., as CrimeOnline previously reported.
At the August hearing, prosecutors said that Alex Murdaugh left the property at 9:06 p.m. that night and returned about an hour later, when he says he found the bodies of his wife and son and called 911.
Maggie Murdaugh reportedly told a friend that her husband had asked earlier in the day to meet him at Moselle. She initially declined, suggesting instead they meet at the hospital, where Alex Murdaugh’s father was dying. She eventually relented and agreed to meet him at the hunting property, then follow him to the hospital.
On the way to the lodge, she reportedly texted a friend that her husband was acting “fish” and was “up to something.” She did not follow her husband to the hospital as planned.
Paul Murdaugh was shot in the head by a shotgun, and Maggie Murdaugh was shot multiple times with a semi-automatic rifle. Prosecutors accuse Alex Murdaugh of using two different weapons to throw investigators off by making it seem two shooters committed the murders.
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[Featured image: Maggie and Paul Murdaugh/handout]
