Court treated mystery of blue raincoat ‘covered with gun residue’ prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh left at his mother’s home days after double murder

Prosecution say the blue coat was spotted by his mother’s carer Shelley Smith when he arrived at the house

The raincoat the prosecution say Smith saw Murdaugh with nine days after the killing, was found to be covered in gun residue 

Defense disputed testimony by Smith, that she saw defendant with the blue jacket on the day, instead what she saw was a tarp

Under cross-examination, Smith confirmed she had mistaken the tarp for a jacket

Murdaugh defense unsuccessful trying to keep Alex Murdaughs financial records from the jury, arguing that there is ‘no logical connection’ between the financial impropriety and the killings

Judge Clifton Newman granted the prosecution motion that Murdaugh’s financial crimes are admissible, because the ‘financial crimes are so intimately connected and explanatory, it’s vital for context and essential for telling the complete story’

Furthermore Jeanne Seckinger CFO of Murdaugh’s law firm said she confronted him after he ‘stole’ $792,000 from the firm

Seckinger said she confronted defendant as he was attempting to shield stolen funds from a lawsuit over the boat crash in his wife Maggie’s personal account on the day she was killed

Alex Murdaugh and his son Paul were being sued by Mallory Beach’s family, the 19-year-old girl killed in the boat wreck, at the time of the murders in June 2021

Seckinger told jurors Murdaugh was a successful lawyer because he had the ‘gift of the gab’, a skill which he deployed to mastermind massive fraud 

The state introduced into evidence the ‘mystery blue raincoat’ prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh took over to his parents’ home days after the double-murder of his wife and son, on Monday.
Prosecutors claim the coat later discovered to be covered in gun residue, was spotted by the caregiver to the defendant’s elderly mother, when he arrived at the house in Almeda at 6.30am a few days after his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were killed at the family’s hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina.
The defense countered that Muschelle ‘Shelley’ Smith actually saw a blue tarp and, under cross-examination, she confirmed she could never have mistaken a tarp for a jacket.
She initially told jurors she saw Murdaugh, 54, carrying a ‘blue something’ and later told the court that she saw a tarp laid out on a chair the following day.
Although Smith failed to state emphatically what she saw, the State asserts that a blue jacket found coated in gunshot residue bundled up in a closet at Murdaugh’s parents’ house is relevant to their case.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin holding up a blue tarp to jurors disputed that Murdaugh’s mother’s carer, Shelley Smith, who claimed she Murdaugh with the blue jacket which had tape markings applied by investigators. Instead he said, what Smith saw was a a similarly colored tarp.
Smith yesterday described seeing Murdaugh on the night of the killings and how he appeared ‘fidgety’ as he lay with his mother, who is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s.
Murdaugh stayed about 20 minutes, laying beside his mother and holding her hand, Smith said. She also noted that he was periodically checking his phone that night, June 7, 2021.
He arrived at his mother’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Smith testified, adding that she saw no blood on him and that he left no blood in his mother’s room.

When cops arrived at the murder scene later that night he was also wearing a clean T-shirt and shorts.
Smith testified that nine days after the slayings, Murdaugh visited his parents’ house at 6.30am, which she said was ‘unusually’ early.
She said Murdaugh was carrying a ‘blue something’ in his hand that looked like a tarp or jacket. A blue jacket was later found at Murdaugh’s parents’ home coated with gun residue.
The caregiver wept as she described how he pointedly told her that he was with his mother for 30 to 40 minutes on the night of the killings.
Smith said this made her ‘nervous’ because she recalled he had only been there for 15 or 20 minutes. She was so concerned by the contradiction that she later told her police officer brother about the conversation.
During the visit, Murdaugh asked her about her upcoming wedding and mentioned that he could help her with the bill.

The defense grilled Smith over whether she had seen a tarp or a jacket.
Defense Attorney Jim Griffin picked up the blue tarp seized from Murdaugh’s parents’ home and asked whether this was what she had seen.
Smith confirmed it was and also agreed with him that she could not confuse it with a rain jacket.
Griffin spent several minutes getting Smith to say the item was big, like a tarp, not a raincoat.
Establishing whether it was a tarp or rain jacket is crucial because the latter was covered in gun residue.

The defense then asked Judge Clifton Newman to prevent any other witnesses from testifying about the raincoat, but Newman initially refused.
A state agent testified that the blue jacket was found in Murdaugh’s mother’s home by agents looking for a blue tarp three months after the killings.
Before a state agent could testify about whether anything was found on the garment, the defense asked again for the judge to prevent the witness from testifying further.
‘They have no evidence connecting Mr. Murdaugh to that rain jacket,’ Griffin said.

Newman on Tuesday ruled against the defense and refused to strike Smith’s evidence from the record. 
‘I find that it is relevant and that it creates, through inference, facts that are in dispute in this case. I deny the motion to strike her testimony, if that’s what the motion is. I deny the motion to declare her testimony as being irrelevant,’ he said.
The judge also denied that the gun residue evidence is prejudicial before going on to state that what Smith said was clearly inconclusive.
‘The witness was so all over the place with her testimony and continued to be confused,’ he said.
The judge added that she was ‘unable to articulate her thoughts’ because of her emotion and the weight of the setting.

Jurors are today hearing evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes after the judge ruled they are admissible – a major blow to the defense.
Judge Newman on Monday granted the prosecution’s motion because the crimes ‘are so intimately connected and explanatory, it’s vital for context and essential for telling the complete story.’  
The State called seven witnesses in the absence of the jury over the last three days of the trial to provide explosive evidence about how Murdaugh’s life was spiraling out of control and ‘Hannibal was at the gate.’
The defense fought to keep that evidence from the jury, arguing that there is ‘no logical connection’ between the financial impropriety and the killings.

Jurors are today hearing evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes after the judge ruled they are admissible – a major blow to the defense.
Judge Newman on Monday granted the prosecution’s motion because the crimes ‘are so intimately connected and explanatory, it’s vital for context and essential for telling the complete story.’  
The State called seven witnesses in the absence of the jury over the last three days of the trial to provide explosive evidence about how Murdaugh’s life was spiraling out of control and ‘Hannibal was at the gate.’
The defense fought to keep that evidence from the jury, arguing that there is ‘no logical connection’ between the financial impropriety and the killings.
But Judge Newman said: ‘I find that the jury is entitled to consider whether the apparent desperation of Mr. Murdaugh because of his dire financial situation, the threat of being exposed for committing the crimes for which he was later charged, resulted in the commission of the alleged crimes.’ 

in her testimony, Jeanne Seckinger the chief financial officer of Alex Murdaugh’s law firm said the disgraced legal scion was gifted in the ‘art of bull****’ and able to manipulate people. 
Jeanne Seckinger told jurors in his double-murder trial Tuesday she confronted Murdaugh over $792,000 in stolen fees on the day his wife Maggie and their younger Paul, 22, assassinated.
She said Murdaugh was attempting to ‘hide assets’ in Maggie’s account to shield money from the lawsuit he was facing over a fatal boat crash in which Paul was driving under the influence.
19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed after she was thrown overboard when an allegedly, inebriated Paul Murdaugh crashed into the stanchions of a bridge.

Murdaugh was equipped with ‘the gift of the gab’ – making him a successful personal injury lawyer – but that he also deployed this skill to mastermind massive fraud against his firm,’ said Seckinger, who has known Murdaugh since their high school days, adding, ‘I think Alec was a successful lawyer more from his ability to establish a relationship and to manipulate people into settlement
‘He did it through the art of bull**** basically.’

Judge Cliff Newman’s decision to allow evidence of Alex Murdaugh’s possible financial crimes came after hearing from a potential witness – Mark Tinsley – on Monday.
Tinsley is the lawyer representing family of Mallory Beach.
The Beach family is suing Murdaugh over a boat crash killed 19-year-old Mallory in 2019.
Alex’s son Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat and faced a felony charge of boating under the influence at the time of his death.
When Alex Murdaugh called 911 and first spoke to investigators after his wife and son were killed, he mentioned people who knew Beach being angry with his son.

Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley said Alex Murdaugh and his lawyer were working hard to keep his financial information out of Tinsley’s hands when the killings happened.
‘Pretty quickly I recognized, the case against Alex, if he was the victim of some vigilante, would in fact be over,’ Tinsley said.
He said Murdaugh’s lawyer told him Alex Murdaugh was broke, but Tinsley didn’t believe it given what appeared to be a successful law practice and his family’s generational wealth. He said justice called for damages from Murdaugh because they could not bring Beach back.
‘The Beach family stood on the causeway for eight days while their daughter’s body was in the water,’ Tinsley said. ‘I don´t know there is any amount of money somebody would willingly take to go through what they went through.’