Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son
Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for the murders of his wife and grown son.
Another chapter in the downfall of the disgraced attorney whose dynastic family had significant legal reach for decades in parts of South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
“Amazingly to have you come and testify that it was just another ordinary day. ‘My wife and son and I were out just enjoying life.’ Not credible. Not believable.
“You can convince yourself about it but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else about that,” Judge Clifton Newman said moments before the sentencing.
After more than a month and dozens of witnesses, jurors took less than three hours Thursday to convict Murdaugh of two counts of murder in the June 2021 killings, as well as two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
The sentencing hearing took place in South Carolina’s Colleton County. Prosecutors asked for life in prison without the possibility of parole, sparing Murdaugh the death penalty.
“Justice was done today,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said in a Thursday night news conference. “It doesn’t matter who your family is. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or people think you have. It doesn’t matter … how prominent you are.
“If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina.”
