Lying double-murder suspect Alex Murdaugh admitted Friday that he would sometimes pop greater than 60 pills a day — while also looking his family members in the attention as he lied to and stole thousands and thousands from them.
The 54-year-old disgraced South Carolina legal scion told his trial that “opiates gave me energy” — and that some days he would take around 2,000 milligrams of oxycodone mixed with Oxycontin, with each pill being about 30 milligrams.
Asked if that meant he took 60 pills a day, the disbarred lawyer admitted, “There have been days where I took greater than that.”
“Very first thing I might do would take pills,” he admitted. “Whatever I used to be doing, it made it more interesting.”
Still, the addiction made him “physically, physically sick,” including “intestinal issues” where he couldn’t “control” himself from “diarrhea like throw up.”
He said he’d tried to self-detox “dozens, dozens, if not tons of” of times. “It’s so many, I cannot let you know,” he said.
Even so, he denied saying yesterday that it made him “paranoid,” which was one in every of his justifications for lying in regards to the night his wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were shot dead.
He said his immediate family knew in regards to the addiction — including his slain wife and son, the latter of whom was nicknamed the “little detective” for not letting up on his dad.
His wife found a bag of pills the month before the murders, he admitted, with Paul texting him about it.
Nonetheless, he denied that it was anything unusual ahead of the slayings — since it had happened “numerous times” through the years.
“This battle that I had with addiction, it had been happening for years — years — and so that they had been watching me like a hawk for years,” he said.
The May text from his son was “only one occurrence where I allow them to down,” he said, saying his surviving son, Buster, 26, had also found his stash of medicine before.
“It was just an ongoing battle for me.”
Murdaugh said his addiction was not the one thing he hid from clients — admitting again to stealing thousands and thousands from “people I cared about, still care about rather a lot, that I loved, and still love.”
“I might have had loads of conversations where I did look them in the attention,” he said of his many victims.
“Each client, I looked them in the attention, and I feel that the folks that I stole money from for all those years trusted me,” he said on his second day of cross-examination.
“Good people, wonderful people, upstanding people. They trusted me, each one in every of them,” he said.
He admitted it was “correct” that in 2019 — the 12 months his now-deceased son was accused of a drunken boat crash that killed teen Mallory Beach — he stole $3.7 million from clients and his family firm.
That continued for years despite him earning tons of of hundreds of dollars every year in bonuses on top of his base salary of $125,000.
“I believe I used to be selfish, and I believe I just took the cash,” he said, blaming it on his addiction.
“They’re all real people. They’re all good people. They’re all folks that I care about. And rather a lot were folks that I really like.
“And I did fallacious by them,” he said.
“Once you’re doing the things fallacious I used to be doing, you discover all forms of ways of justifying it,” Murdaugh said.
His latest confession got here the day after he admitted in court to lying to everyone about being within the dog kennels along with his wife and son just moments before they were gunned down on June 7, 2021.
State prosecutor Creighton Waters said it was just the newest example of how Murdaugh lies when “confronted with facts” he “can’t deny.”
“So we will agree that law enforcement, the prosecution and so a lot of your mates and family heard for the primary time your story in regards to the kennels yesterday in any case these weeks of testimony?” Waters asked.
“Yes, I agree with that,” Murdaugh said.
Still, Murdaugh had tearfully testified Thursday that although he lied about his movements that day he “didn’t shoot my wife or my son any time. Ever.”
“Once you’re doing the things fallacious I used to be doing, you discover all forms of ways of justifying it,” Murdaugh said.
He as a substitute broke down on the stand, with snot rolling down his face, as he recalled the sight of his wife and son dead when he supposedly found the bodies later that night.
“Paul was so bad,” he said of seeing his son’s face down after being “done the way in which he’s done.”
“His head the way in which his head was … I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk,” he said in gripping testimony.
Murdaugh faces 30 years to life if convicted of the murders, which he has all the time denied.
Even when he’s cleared, he is predicted to spend a long time in prison for roughly 100 other crimes he’s been charged with, including stealing from clients and attempting to arrange his own murder in an insurance scam.