Alex Murdaugh Will Be Innocent in 10 Years

Söring and Murdaugh: So many similarities. Will Murdaugh also walk free one day?

Similar Crimes, Similar Defendants

Alex Murdaugh, scion of a dynasty of influential local lawyers, was just convicted of murdering his son Paul and wife Maggie on June 7, 2021. I’ve always been a true-crime fan, even back when I was truly doing criminal law, so naturally I followed the case. There are a number of interesting parallels with Söring’s case:

• Both defendants had no criminal record or history of violence.

• Both were tried in rural southern counties.

• Both came from upper-middle class backgrounds and were of above-average intelligence.

• Both killed two victims, one male, one female, at close range in a particularly brutal fashion. (Paul Murdaugh’s brains were literally blown out by a shotgun blast)

• The motive in both cases wasn’t a straightforward, conventional one.

• Both gave police interviews before ultimately deciding to stop co-operating.

• Both now admit they lied to the police, and that this was what got them in trouble.

• Both constructed alibis which were successful at first, but eventually broke down.

• Both cases relied on circumstantial evidence, since there was no conclusive physical evidence or eyewitnesses to the actual killings.

• Both had two experienced privately-retained lawyers by their side at trial.

• Both insisted they were completely innocent of the murders.

• Both testified at their trials.

• Juries disbelieved both of them.

I don’t want to overplay the similarities, so of course we should observe that Söring blamed a specific other person for the killings (at first), and Söring had given confessions, which Alex Murdaugh never did. Nevertheless, the overall defense strategy was similar:

“This defendant is an educated man with no criminal record and no history of serious violence against others. What on earth could have motivated someone like this to commit such a horrible, depraved, bloody crime? These kinds of people simply don’t do those kinds of things!”

Söring could also point to his youth: How could an 18-year-old conceive of such a horrible, vicious crime? As we see, Söring’s “Do I look like the kind of person who could butcher two people with a kitchen knife? Me?” defense is still convincing people, even the alarmingly gullible German judge Dr. Ralph Guise-Rübe, who said he couldn’t believe someone from such a “premium” home (his words) could have killed the Haysoms.

Yet the facts spoke for themselves. Juries don’t answer the question of “how someone like that could have committed” such a horrible crime, they answer the question of whether this person sitting at the defense table in fact did commit that crime. As the prosecutors pointed out at both trials, they don’t have to prove motive.

The motive in both cases wasn’t a straightforward one like money or jealousy. Söring killed the Haysoms because he believed they had mistreated his girlfriend Elizabeth, and that they were trying to pry Jens and Elizabeth apart. Söring considered a threat to his identity, since he was obsessed with Elizabeth and considered them “one person”. Alex killed his family because his entire professional career was dissolving in a maelstrom of fraud and deception, and he wanted to distract people and cultivate sympathy (which worked in the short term). So in a sense, both killers operated out of a desire to preserve the core of their identity, either as one of two brilliant soulmates in an extraordinary, potentially world-changing relationship (Söring) or successful lawyer, patriarch, family man, and upholder of a century-old tradition (Murdaugh).

Self-Serving Testimony Goes South in the South

In both cases, the defendant took the witness stand, and in both cases it was a desperate, Hail-Mary tactic which the defendants’ lawyers probably felt hugely ambivalent about. On the one hand, the lawyers knew that defendants rarely do themselves any favors on the witness stand. On the other, though, when a jury is presented with strong evidence the defendant committed a horrible crime which will destroy his reputation forever, jury members will be desperate to hear the defendant’s side of the story. In both cases, there was a lot the defendants had to explain: Alex Murdaugh why he had lied to police about being at the crime scene just minutes before his wife and son were murdered. Söring had to explain why he was now claiming innocence of a crime he had confessed to repeatedly.

Like many defendants — the rare few who are innocent, and the many who think they can show their innocence — Alex and Jens were almost certainly desperate to testify as well. Their lawyers said what lawyers always say in these situations: “Franky, Alex/Jens, you’re damned if you, and damned if you don’t. If you don’t testify, the jury will distrust you and may even be angry at you for not clearing things up by taking the stand. If you do testify, the prosecution will tear apart your flimsy story on cross-examination. Which is worse? It’s impossible to predict. There’s great danger both ways. However, if you don’t testify, we are faced with a familiar problem (disappointed/frustrated jury) which we can cope with. If you do testify, you may add a whole new set of problems to the case. I’ve been involved in many trials in which the jurors were undecided until the defendant took the witness stand and did a terrible job. It’s ultimately your choice.”

Both testified, and it didn’t go well for either of them. Jens came off as arrogant and supercilious, and couldn’t find convincing explanations for why he had supposedly volunteered to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. Alex Murdaugh came off as insincere and faux-folksy, and couldn’t come up with a convincing reason for lying to the cops. Both juries concluded the defendants were lying, and once the jury thinks the defendant lied to them, chances of acquittal drop to basically zero.

Murdaugh’s Upcoming Innocence Campaign

What will happen now? The similarities in the personalities of Söring and Murdaugh make me believe that Murdaugh will never admit to his guilt. There’s no indication he’s confessed to anyone, even his lawyers. Murdaugh, like Söring, seems to have already achieved psychological compartmentalization: He has convinced himself — at least the conscious, above-ground part of his mind — that he really is innocent of this crime. I predict that Murdaugh, like Söring, will dedicate the rest of his life to trying to prove his innocence. He cannot envision himself as the kind of man who could murder his own family; therefore he cannot be that kind of man. His conviction was therefore a terrible injustice; the real killers are still out there somewhere. Murdaugh is an expert storyteller and knows this Fugitive-type narrative is catnip to millions of not-very-sophisticated true-crime fans. Murdaugh is clever and an expert self-promoter, so at some point he will start giving interviews and writing letters to build a core of supporters (preferably lawyers or journalists or people with influence). Those interviews and letters will be entertaining. One thing you can say about Murdaugh is he’s not boring.

Murdaugh will need to wait a few years, of course, for the memories of the trial to fade and his initial appeals to be heard and likely rejected. But after memories have faded, he’ll launch the Alex Murdaugh Innocence Campaign using his charm and eloquence and friendly folksiness: “Jimmy, I’m gonna look ya right in the eyes — look at me now, you hear? — I want the world to know one thing: [Tears up slightly, pounds table] I. Did. Not. Kill. Mags. And. Paul-Paul. Never. No way. It just eats me up inside knowing people think I did. Every day I gotta live with that [sniffle]. And every day I gotta live with the fact that because I lied to the police, the real killer is out there. Just tears me up, it does.” That routine has worked for millennia, and it will continue working until we come up with foolproof lie detectors — and maybe even after that, too. Certain kinds of people just want to believe, and in the age of the Internet, they can find each other instantly and start building conspiracy theories together.

Those outside supporters will start combing through the files of the case. They will find puzzling inconsistencies in the records. They will find leads the police never followed up. They will find witnesses whose statements clash with one another. They will find forensic reports which have “mysteriously disappeared”. They will find a witness who has never come forward before but has decided to do so X years after the conviction because their conscience won’t let them keep silent. They will find that some of the police involved in the investigation of Alex Murdaugh have been accused of misconduct in other cases. They will listen to prison hearsay about an inmate admitting he killed the Murdaughs.

Why will they find these things? Because these gaps and inconsistencies exist in every criminal case involving circumstantial evidence. If you look hard enough, you will them. Always, in every case, period.

Murdaugh’s future supporters are out there, right now, beginning to sow doubts. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times has already started, the very same day of the conviction:

In about ten years, HBO or Netflix will release a documentary called something like “Framed for Murdaugh?” or “Murdaugh Most Foul — Or Was It?” Over drone shots of the South Carolina lowlands the gravelly-voiced narrator will intone: “When he was convicted in 2023, everyone assumed Alex Murdagh killed his family. He has always steadfastly maintained his innocence. And now a fresh investigation of his case has revealed troubling inconsistencies and explosive revelations about the evidence used to convict him and the motives and conduct of police. Was this a case of wrongful conviction? Has justice really been done? Coming this summer on....” The documentary will treat the trial — now 10 or 15 years in the past — as a footnote. It will show only 10- or 20-second clips designed to highlight supposed weaknesses in the state’s case. Murdaugh will give the directors a 57-hour interview in which he has a fresh go at explaining away all the evidence against him, subtly changing his previous story in ways the documentary directors will not point out, (assuming they’re even aware of them).

You know it’s coming. I know it’s coming. HBO or Netflix is probably setting aside funds for it right now. Well, at least it’ll probably be entertaining…