(Reuters) – Richard “Alex” Murdaugh, the disgraced lawyer and member of a powerful South Carolina family, was sentenced to life on Friday for killing his wife and son in what prosecutors said was an attempt to hide his drug addiction and theft of millions of dollars.
Murdaugh, 54, was found guilty on Thursday on two counts of gunning down his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son, Paul, 22, on their family estate on June 7, 2021. The jury took only three hours to reach their decision after a five-week trial.
At a hearing on Friday, Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman sentenced Murdaugh to prison for the remainder of his life, with terms for both murders to run consecutively. It was the sentence requested by prosecutors, who did not seek the death penalty.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said they would appeal his conviction.
The scion of an influential legal family in an area west of Charleston, Murdaugh had faced a minimum of 30 years in prison for each of the two counts of murder under South Carolina law, as well as up to 10 years for two related firearms charges.
The case has drawn intense media coverage given the family’s political power in and around Colleton County, where the trial took place. For decades until 2006, family members served as the leading prosecutor in the area, and Murdaugh was a prominent personal injury attorney in the state.
Newman criticized what he described as Murdaugh’s “duplicitous conduct” throughout the trial, and said his actions were especially troubling given that the Murdaugh family had “controlled justice in this community for over a century.”
The judge said he did not question the state’s decision not to seek the death penalty, but he noted that Murdaugh family members had “been prosecuting people here in this courtroom and many have received the death penalty, probably for lesser conduct.”
The judge also referenced Murdaugh’s addiction to opioids, which his defense attorneys sought to use as an excuse for his behavior, including his lying to investigators about his whereabouts on the night of the killings.
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the nighttime when you attempt to go to sleep,” Newman said. “It might not have been you (who killed them). It might have been the monster you become.”
Murdaugh, dressed in prison garb, professed his innocence again on Friday.
“I’m innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie and I would never hurt my son, Paw Paw,” he said, using a nickname for Paul, minutes before the judge delivered his sentence and he was escorted from the courtroom in handcuffs.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors portrayed Murdaugh as a serial liar and argued that only he had the means and the opportunity to commit the murders. Prosecutors said he fatally shot his wife and son to distract from an array of financial misdeeds, including the theft of millions of dollars from his law partners and clients — money used to feed a years-long addiction to opioids and support an expensive lifestyle.