Prosecutors started the day by calling Sgt. Daniel Greene to the stand. Sgt. Greene was on duty the night of June 7, 2021 when the call came in to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office about two victims who had been shot.
Emotions ran high in a South Carolina courtroom on Thursday as the first witness took the stand in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial.
Prosecutors started the day by calling Sgt. Daniel Greene to the stand.
Sgt. Greene was on duty the night of June 7, 2021 when the call came in to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office about two victims who had been shoot, court records show.
Murdaugh placed that call, and the two victims were his wife, Maggie, and son Paul.
Upon arriving at the scene, Sgt. Greene testified that he saw "no blood" on Murdaugh, as well as "no tears."
Murdaugh did shed tears, however, throughout the proceedings on Thursday.
"Alex Murdaugh was very emotional today, more so than yesterday during opening statements," reported Chanley Shay Painter, a legal correspondent for Court TV. "At one point he seemed to hang his head and sob uncontrollably."
Murdaugh's surviving son, Buster, sat in the courtroom as well, and could be seen being comforted by his uncle John Marvin.
Painter reports that Marvin "had his arm around Buster" and would ocasionally "rub his shoulders" throughout the day.
Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh’s motives were financial, claiming he had been defrauding clients out of millions of dollars, embezzling funds from the family firm, and facing a potentially pricey lawsuit in the wake of a fatal boat crash involving son Paul.
ALEX MURDAUGH MURDER TRIAL WITNESS LIST
In court documents obtained by Inside Edition Digital, prosecutors describe Murdaugh as “an allegedly crooked lawyer and drug user who borrowed and stole wherever he could to stay afloat and one step ahead of detection.”
Prosecutors claim that Murdaugh had been asked to account for missing funds at the family firm on the day of the murders.
At the same time, he was also being asked to turn over a detailed accounting of his finances in a wrongful death lawsuit against his son Paul, who had been accused of drunkenly crashing a boat resulting in the death of a young woman.
The defense claims that these murders were pinned on their client from the start and accuse law enforcement of failing to properly investigate the crime or consider other possible suspects.
Murdaugh claims that he had been visiting his mother at the time of the murders and returned to find the bodies of his wife and son.
