Shocking moment Buster Murdaugh appears to flip the bird at a witness in father’s murder trial

Buster Murdaugh was ejected to the back of the courthouse after reportedly giving the middle finger at a witness in his father’s double murder trial.

The 26-year-old law graduate is said to have kicked over a water bottle when security asked him to leave the front row behind his father.

Alex’s sister, Lynn, was also reportedly seen passing a note to her lawyer and the couple were warned that they will be barred from trial if there are any further violations.

The alleged killer’s brothers, Randy and John Marvin, have received no warning.

Buster’s alleged obscene gesture may even have been caught on camera, and the legal heir was seen biting his middle finger as Mark Tinsley, the Mallory Beach family’s attorney, testified Monday.

Tinsley told the court that Alex tried to “bully and harass” him because he was suing him over his son Paul’s drunken boating accident that left 19-year-old Mallory dead in February 2019.

Buster has been attending the trial every day, usually accompanied by his girlfriend Brooklynn White.

Alex’s sister Lynn and brothers Randy and John Marvin also attended most days.

The family has taken seats directly behind the defense table where Murdaugh is sitting, appearing to show their support for the alleged killer.

Murdaugh, 54, is accused of fatally shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and their youngest son Paul, 22, on the family’s sprawling hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7. of 2021.

Buster was staying near Charlotte with his girlfriend at the time of the murders.

Despite telling DailyMail.com in November that she does not want to see it written anywhere that she is supporting her father, she has dutifully sat behind him throughout the trial.

After proceedings Monday, he was seen nodding to Alex as the pair made eye contact and exchanged a few brief words before the legal scion was taken back to the Colleton County Jail for the night.

Buster is scheduled as a witness for the defense along with his uncles Randy and John Marvin and his aunt Lynn.

The prosecution is still presenting its case in the trial that began three weeks ago.

On Monday, Tinsley testified in absentia about how Murdaugh claimed he was broke while chasing him for money for the de Beach family from the shipwreck.

A hearing for the disclosure of Murdaugh’s finances was scheduled for three days after the deaths of Maggie and Paul. But as a result of their deaths it never took place.

The prosecution argued that Tinsley’s evidence was essential to proving how Murdaugh’s financial crimes had come to a head like “a gathering storm”.

The judge granted the prosecution’s motion to allow Tinsley to testify before jurors. He began giving that evidence Thursday afternoon.

In his earlier testimony, during which Buster is alleged to have made the obscene gesture, Tinsley recounted how Murdaugh had tried to “intimidate” him into dropping the lawsuit.

He said he met the presumed dead at a fundraiser for State Senator Dick Harpootlian or US Senator Lindsey Graham in 2019. Harpootlian is also Murdaugh’s defense attorney in the murder trial.

“He comes up and he comes up to my face and he’s like, ‘Hey, what’s this I’m hearing about what you’re saying? I thought we were friends,'” Tinsley told the court.

Tinsley said that he interpreted this as an attempt to “bully and intimidate me into backing down”.

Then, in November 2020, Tinsley was told that Murdaugh was broke. The lawyer said he knew that Murdaugh’s firm made a lot of money and that his family had generational wealth.

“There was no way he could be broke, he’s actively solving cases, big cases,” he said.

When asked about the sum he was seeking, Tinsley said it became a matter of professional integrity for him to try to get as much money as possible for the Beach family.

He said the evidence against Murdaugh was damning, that he had been negligent in allowing his underage son to drive his boat under the influence of alcohol. She told the court that Paul had purchased alcoholic beverages using the identification of his older brother, Buster.

If he simply took the insurance money without personally going after Murdaugh, it would appear that there was ‘a deal’.

“I think for a long time Alex thought there was a solution,” Tinsley added.

The lawyer said he was greeted with ‘shock [in the legal community] that he was going to find Murdaugh personally responsible.

He filed a motion to compel Murdaugh’s lawyers to provide evidence to support his claim that he was broke.

Tinsley said he initially had “stone walls” and then Murdaugh’s lawyers filed an objection to his motion.

A hearing to compel Murdaugh to reveal his finances was scheduled for June 10, three days before Maggie and Paul were shot dead.

As a result, the hearing was postponed and never rescheduled.

Tinsley said: “Pretty quickly, I recognized that the case against Alex, if he was in fact the victim of some vigilante, would be over.”