Alex Murdaugh’s brother John says at murder trial he wiped his nephew Paul’s brain
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Alex Murdaugh’s brother broke down today as he described wiping Paul’s brains the day after the murders because he “felt it was the right thing to do, he felt he owed it.”
John Marvin Murdaugh, the younger brother of the alleged killer, said he returned to the hunting estate after arriving to be at Alex’s side the night his wife and son were shot to death on June 7, 2021.
He said the grass where Maggie’s blood-soaked body had lain was covered in dirt “so there was really nothing to do.” But the feeding room in the kennels where Paul was shot twice with a shotgun was still covered in blood and brain matter.
John Marvin sobbed as he described the scene, telling jurors: “I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull, I saw tissue, and I don’t know, it was terrible.”
And for some reason I thought it was something I had to do to get Paul to clean it up. I felt it was the right thing to do, I felt I owed him and I started cleaning up.
John Marvin sobbed as he described making his way to the feeding room. He told the jury: “I saw blood, I saw brains, I saw pieces of skull, I saw tissue, and I don’t know, it was terrible.” And for some reason I thought it was something he had to do to get Paul to clean it up. I felt it was the right thing to do, I felt I owed him and I started cleaning up’
Murdaugh wept at the defense table as his brother described how he had cleaned up his dead son’s brains that were still scattered around the kennels’ feeding room the day after the murders.
Buster, Paul, Maggie, and Alex Murdaugh on a family vacation to Lake Keowee in May 2021, a month before the murders.
‘I can promise you that no mother or father or aunt or uncle should have to do and see what I did that day.
“I don’t blame anyone, but I was overwhelmed and did everything I could and I would have moments where I would stop crying for a moment, just out of disbelief.”
Murdaugh wept at the defense table as his brother described the ordeal.
“At one point I called my brother Randy and told him what I was doing and he told me to stop and told me I couldn’t be there,” John Marvin said.
And I couldn’t stop. I had to do it for Paul. It’s just what I had to do.
He added: “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”
He previously described his brother’s relationship with his children, saying that “the children always came first” and that Maggie and Alex had a “good marriage.”
John Marvin apologized to the jury as he began to cry: “Excuse me, I’m going to have a hard time talking about Paul because we had a very special relationship.”
He said ‘Little Rooster’, as he was nicknamed, worked at his construction vehicle rental company in the summers.
“That boy would work and do anything he was asked to do… He was an excellent worker,” John Marvin said as Murdaugh emotionally heard testimony about his late son.
John Marvin told the court that Paul and his older brother, Buster, “always came first” to Alex.
“It was a great relationship, everything the boys were doing, Alex wanted to do, and the boys always came first for him,” she said.
‘To this day, I think he has never come hunting with me without his boys, since they have been old enough to hunt.’
Describing Alex’s relationship with Maggie, John Marvin said that they had a “great relationship”. All marriages have hiccups here and there, but I tell you, it was a good marriage.
Maggie’s body was found a few meters to the right of a kennel, while Paul’s was by the door at the end of the kennels. Dr. Ellen Riemer described how a shotgun blew out Paul’s brain through the back of the neck, and that the organ arrived at the morgue “in a separate bucket”.
Paul’s body was found dumped in the doorway of the feeding room at the end of the row of dog crates at the kennels.
Maggie’s blood-soaked body lies under a sheet at a crime scene on the night of June 7, 2021. She was shot five times with an assault rifle, while Paul was shot twice with a shotgun a few feet away. away in the kennels of the farm.
MURDER SCENE: Paul’s body lies outside the storage room, while Maggie lies just outside the kennels by the doghouse.
He recalled attending a Darius Rucker concert with his wife Liz, Maggie and Alex and how he looked down and they were ‘holding hands and swaying together and [Liz] He said, “Why don’t you take me by the hand?” So they left me the beer.
John Marvin said his brother called him the night Maggie and Paul were shot.
Alex called me absolutely hysterical. As soon as I heard her voice, I knew something was wrong,” said John Marvin. “I think he said that Maggie and Paul had been hurt very badly and he said that you could come here as fast as possible.”
He said that when he got to the hunting ground in Moselle, South Carolina, he ran to his brother.
“I was just broken, I was distraught. All we did was hug each other and cry. I don’t even know if we talked,” John Marvin said.
Prosecutors have called 61 witnesses, compared to 14 for the defense. Murdaugh’s lawyers plan to rest their case on Monday.
State Attorney Creighton Waters said that he then planned to call “a couple” of response witnesses with the intention of rebutting the defense evidence, indicating that their testimony would not take long.
John Marvin Murdaugh and his wife Liz outside the Colleton County courthouse on Monday
Buster Murdaugh, center, arrives with his girlfriend Brooklynn White, Alex’s sister Lynn (left) and brother John Marvin (right).
That would be followed by closing arguments and the judge would instruct the jury, which could happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, Murdaugh’s defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, said in court Friday. The judge did not set a strict schedule.
During the trial, Murdaugh put forward his own theory about who committed the murders and testified Friday that he believed someone angry about a deadly boating accident involving Paul had done it.
He acknowledged that he lacked evidence to support that theory.
During his testimony, he also said that he had cheated legal partners and clients out of huge sums of money to feed his drug addiction, which could undermine his credibility before the jury.
During cross-examination, Waters tried to portray Murdaugh as a serial liar who was under duress due to mounting financial problems in the months leading up to the murders.
Murdaugh arrives surrounded by bailiffs at the courthouse on Monday
Buster, Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh in a photo the mother posted for Father’s Day in 2020
Murdaugh admitted to lying to investigators after the murders by telling them that he was not at the pound on the night of the murders.
He changed his account after jurors viewed cellphone video containing audio of Murdaugh’s voice that placed him at the scene minutes before investigators said his wife and son were killed.
Murdaugh, a scion of an influential South Carolina legal family, was indicted by a grand jury in July and pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon.
The case has attracted intense media coverage given the political influence of the Murdaugh family in South Carolina.
Murdaugh’s only surviving son, Buster, 26, has been in court every day and testified last week. He was staying with his girlfriend near Charlotte at the time of the murders.
The disbarred attorney’s brothers, John Marvin and Randy, and his sister Lynn have also attended the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro most days.