COLLETON COUNTY, SC (WSAV) – Alex Murdaugh says he was not present at the time, place, and date of his wife and son’s murders and because he wasn’t present, he doesn’t know the time they were committed.
That’s the base of a statement released in Colleton County court documents late Thursday. A statement that also gives names of possible witnesses who could support his story.
The “Alibi defense” was filed in response to prosecutors’ request Alex reveal any possible alibi he might have for where he was at the time of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s killing.
The pair were shot and killed on the night of June 7, 2021.
The one-page filing continues to say that Alex was at the Moselle home where the pair were killed until “a few minutes after 9 pm” when he left to visit his sick mother in Varnville.
During that drive Alex says he had cell phone conversations with his son Buster Murdaugh, his brother John Marvin Murdaugh, his sister-in-law Liz Murdaugh, a friend and fellow attorney Chris Wilson, and a man named C.B. Rowe.
He claims to have arrived at the Varnville property at approximately 9:20 pm and visited with his mother Elizabeth “Libby” Murdaugh and a nurse’s aide, Muschelle “Shelly” Smith until about 9:45 pm.
On his return trip to Moselle, Murdaugh “spoke with Chris Wilson via cell phone”.
Then the document says Alex “discovered Maggie and Paul’s bodies at approximately 10:05 p.m.
Prosecutors previously asked for any alibis Murdaugh might have if he “intends to rely on the defense of alibi”. Those would include “insanity, mental illness, entrapment, or duress”.
Also requesting Murdaugh’s lawyers give them “the specific place or places the Defendant claims to have been at the time of the alleged offense and the names and addresses of the witnesses upon he intends to rely on to establish a such alibi.”
Prosecutors had revealed that Alex’s wife Maggie and son Paul were killed after 8:30 pm and before 10:06 on June 7, 2021, at the family’s property on Moselle road.
He is currently charged with both their murders as well as two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. A trial date for the case is set for January 23, 2023.