(Washington) Double murder, insurance scam, drug trafficking and serial fraud: the trial of a dark case with drawers opened Monday in the United States, where an influential lawyer is accused of having killed his wife and son before staging – unsuccessfully – his own death.
Detained for months, Alex Murdaugh, 54, was transferred in the morning to the court in Walterboro, a city in South Carolina, where the parties began the selection of the jury.
He is accused of killing his wife Maggie with a gun, and his son Paul with a handgun, on June 7, 2021, which he denies.
That day, he had called the emergency services, explaining that he had found the bodies of his wife, 52, and his son, a 22-year-old student, riddled with bullets in front of the family pavilion. Member of a family of very rich and influential local notables, he had not been officially implicated.
Three months later, however, the spotlight fell on him when he attempted to stage his own death as part of an insurance scam.
Confused by the police, he admitted to having asked a former client to shoot him so that his last son still alive would receive $ 10 million in life insurance. The shooter shot him in the head on September 4, but Alex Murdaugh survived.
The investigators then took a closer look at his belongings and discovered numerous embezzlements.
Since then he has been charged with fraud – he is suspected of having embezzled more than 8.5 million dollars from clients of his law firm – and money laundering in the context of trafficking in opiates.
But it took more than a year before he was charged with the murder of his son and his wife. According to US media, he was confused by suspicious bloodstains on his clothes and phone calls inconsistent with his alibi.
The family heritage of Alex Murdaugh, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as prosecutors for a total of 87 years, has fueled suspicions of possible complacency by law enforcement order in the file.
In Walterboro court, a portrait of her grandfather had to be taken down before the trial began. This should last several weeks. Alex Murdaugh faces life imprisonment.