Lawyers for the disgraced attorney accused of gunning down his wife and younger son presented their closing argument in the case on Friday, and now all that is left is for the jury to deliberate Murdaugh's fate.
The murder trial of Alex Murdaugh is coming to a close, but not before yet another unexpected development in the case.
Lawyers for the disgraced attorney accused of gunning down his wife and younger son presented their closing argument in the case on Friday, and now all that is left is for the jury to deliberate Murdaugh's fate.
There is one juror who will not be joining those deliberations however, with the judge dismissing a juror on Thursday just hours before oral arguments came to a close.
Judge Clifton Newman announced the news in front of the full courtroom, and provided some context for his decision.
"Intentionally or unintentionally, you've had some discussions with some folks not on the jury which was going to require me to remove you from the jury," Newman told the jury.
The juror was instructed to leave immediately with all of her personal belongings, including a dozen hard-boiled eggs she had left behind in the jury room.
One of the two alternate jurors was then selected at random to fill that spot.
That means that seven men and five women will be deciding if Murdaugh is guilty of murder.
Jury consultant Alan Turkheimer tells Inside Edition that deliberations will likely be "exhausting" for these jurors.
"It's not easy ... after having not talked about it for six weeks — it's very cathartic — they're going to talk about what they liked and didn't like," Turkheimer says. "It's burdensome psychologically, and these jurors are going to go through a lot."
Meanwhile, the country's most infamously acquitted person weighed in on Murdaugh's prospects ahead of jury deliberations.
"It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this guy beats this case," Orenthal James Simpson tweeted of Murdaugh's chances of walking free.
Simpson also believes that Murdaugh's decision to testify will pay off in the end.
"He was just trying to relate to one or two of those jurors that he was a good old boy, he was one of them," Simpson wrote. "And I'm not sure he didn't succeed."
The judge told the jury while deliberating they are forbidden from using any kind of devices or watching coverage of the case. If more than one juror violates those instructions, it could result in a mistrial as there is now only one alternate juror.
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