In 2021, a disgraced and disbarred lawyer in South Carolina made headlines when police accused him of killing his youngest son and his wife.
Richard Murdaugh’s trial will be starting in January 2023, and prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty, according to a statement from the Palmetto State Attorney General.
Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s Attorney General, said after review of the evidence, they decided to pursue life without parole.
The defendant’s legal team breathed a sigh of relief after the announcement that prosecutors would not seek capital punishment against their client in the gruesome murders of his wife, 52-year-old Margaret Murdaugh, and his son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, in the summer of 2021.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said the decision was not surprising, but they were happy that their client would not be facing death row. They said nothing was holding the January 2023 trial from starting, and they look forward to seeing the prosecution’s evidence, which will determine the trial’s outcome.
The disbarred lawyer made the news when police accused him of killing his youngest son and his wife on June 7, 2021. Prosecutors said he shot his son in the head, chest, and arm. He allegedly killed his wife around the same time as his son by firing a series of rounds from his semi-automatic rifle. Prosecutors said he fired the shots on his vast 1,770-acre property near the dog kennels.
Creighton Waters, the State Grand Jury Chief Attorney, who will lead the prosecution on the case, recently filed a document explaining Murdaugh’s alleged motive for murdering his wife and child.
According to the filing, the state prosecution will impress to jurors that Murdaugh appears to be a successful lawyer, but is a crooked attorney, and a drug addict who uses precarious means to make ends meet.
The state plans to tell jurors that addiction and corruption took their toll on him, and he was afraid that his family would tell the world about his financial crimes, so he killed them to keep them quiet.
The defense had a big victory on Monday after a judge ordered prosecutors to turn over all the evidence they have relating to a blood spatter expert who wrote two conflicting reports about blood on the T-shirt that Murdaugh wore the night he allegedly shot his wife and son.
The white T-shirt is an important piece of evidence for the state’s prosecutors, who have suggested that Murdaugh shot his wife and son over his fear that they would expose his corruption schemes.