Alex Murdaugh yesterday patted his son Buster on the backside in the middle of his testimony as the alleged double murderer was escorted out by a sheriff.
The disgraced attorney, 54, was seen beaming with pride as his son was sworn in to recount how his father called him on the night of June 7, 2021, to inform him his mother Maggie, 52, and younger brother Paul, 22, had been shot dead.
Then during a break in the 26-year-old’s emotional testimony, Alex was seen patting his sole surviving son on the buttock. Buster was facing away from his father with his hands in his pockets as his father filed past, escorted by a sheriff.
Buster and Alex’s sister Lynn were earlier booted to the back of court after allegedly passing notes to the accused. Communication from defendants and witnesses is generally forbidden.
During a break in the 26-year-old’s emotional testimony, Alex was seen patting his sole surviving son on the buttock. Buster was facing away from his father with his hands in his pockets as his father filed past, escorted by a sheriff
Buster and his father Alex exchange a look as he walks up to the witness stand Tuesday at Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro
Lori Murray, a former South Carolina prosecutor, told DailyMail.com: ‘Most defendants who pose a danger or are facing these types of charges are cuffed and escorted out of the court when the jury is out of the room.
‘Judge Clifton Newman has allowed Alex Murdaugh more freedom than most defendants which is fully in his discretion. It’s also within the Court’s discretion to remind him that he is to have no physical contact with family members (or anyone else for that matter) or risk losing the freedoms he has been granted.’
Describing the night he learned of the murders, Buster said his girlfriend Brooklynn White, also 26, had overheard the phone call with his father.
‘She just started packing stuff and I kind of sat there for a minute and I was kind of in shock,’ he said.
Buster said they drove to Moselle and arrived in the early hours of the morning.
He described his father as ‘destroyed … he was heartbroken, I walked in the door and gave him a hug and he was broken down.’
Buster added that his father was so distraught he was unable to talk.
He said Alex was wearing a t-shirt and shorts when he arrived. The State suggests the legal scion changed after shooting his wife and son at close range.
Buster said his father took a shower and he helped him to pack. This an apparent reference by the defense to the testimony of the family’s housekeeper who said she found a puddle in the bathroom the following day.
After they packed up, Alex, Buster, Brooklynn and Alex’s brother John Marvin drove to his parents’ house in Almeda where they stayed the night.
The legal scion’s eldest son has been attending the trial everyday accompanied by girlfriend Brooklynn. Alex’s brothers John Marvin and Randy and his sister Lynn are also expected to testify for the defense.
Buster, Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh at the Moselle estate in a picture uploaded on Maggie’s Facebook to mark Father’s Day 2020
Alex’s lawyers are expected to take a week laying out their case before the jury are sent out to consider their verdict at the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro.
Buster began his testimony talking about his childhood, saying that his father and mother avidly attended his baseball games.
‘My father coached every little league team I played in up until I started playing for the schools that had a coach,’ he told jurors.
Buster described a seemingly idyllic family life, split between their mansion in Hampton, their sprawling hunting estate at Moselle and their beach house on Edisto Island.
He said he spent a lot of time with Alex’s side of the family, grandfather Randolph ‘Handsome’ Murdaugh and grandmother Libby, known as ‘M’, his uncles Randy, John Marvin and aunt Lynn Murdaugh Goette. They rented lavish houses for vacations and spent time at the family’s river house at Chechessee near Okatie.
Buster also said that Alex was close with his in-laws and that he and Maggie’s father Terry ‘Papa T’ Branstetter went on camping trips and played golf together.
Buster looks on from the witness stand as his father returns to the courtroom following a break in his testimony
Alex and his attorney Dick Harpootlian look up at Buster Murdaugh as he heads to the witness stand on Tuesday
Buster, 26, stated his full name, Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr., as father Alex, 54, looked on smiling. He was supported in court by his girlfriend Brooklynn White
Buster Murdaugh, right, the son of Alex Murdaugh, listens to a question from defense attorney Jim Griffin while testifying during his father’s trial
Murdaugh smiles as he listens to Buster’s testimony Tuesday
Alex wipes his eyes while listening to his son Buster describing the night his father informed him his mother and younger brother had been shot dead
Describing his younger brother, Buster said: ‘Paul’s interests were outdoors mostly, hunting and playing around in the woods.’
He testified that his brother was ‘not good about storing guns.’
‘Paul left guns around the property more than anyone else,’ Buster said, noting how his own rifle would go missing after his younger brother shot with it.
Maggie was shot five times with a high-powered assault rifle, while Paul was shot twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. No murder weapon has ever been recovered.
But the prosecution say that guns bought for the Murdaugh boys had gone missing from the property. Only one .300 Blackout AR was seized by police, but Alex had bought two guns for them for Christmas in 2016.
A third rifle was bought two years later after Paul lost his firearm.
The evidence regarding the shotguns seized from the estate was inconclusive. The weapons can neither be included or excluded as the gun that killed Paul.
Buster Murdaugh fought back tears today as he recalled his father phoning him to tell him his mother and younger brother had been brutally murdered.
Buster arrives at the Colleton County court in Walterboro Tuesday with his girlfriend Brooklynn White who has supported him most days
Murdaugh arrives at court Tuesday with his blazer draped over his handcuffs
The State contests that ‘family weapons’ were used to kill Maggie and Paul.
Buster told how Paul’s drunken boat crash, in which a 19-year-old girl was killed, ‘consumed’ his mother.
At the time of Maggie and Paul’s deaths, Alex and Buster were being sued over the 22-year-old’s boat wreck in which Mallory Beach was killed.
The boat belonged to his father and he had used his older brother’s ID to buy alcohol.
Buster told how his brother was ‘bullied’ after the wreck, with people harassing him on social media and in public.
‘He would go out to a bar and there would be people who would make a scuff about it,’ he told jurors.
Referring to his mother, Buster said: ‘It kind of consumed her. She’s big on reading all of it. It made her feel upset and it eventually caused her to distance herself from Hampton.’
‘She just felt that there was a kind of a bad vibe in Hampton,’ he told the court.
At the time of the killings Maggie was living at Edisto Beach.
Buster said Maggie was particularly distressed about seeing on TV the attorney for the Beach family, Mark Tinsley, saying he was seeking $40million in the wrongful death lawsuit.
‘That made her anxious’, Buster said.
John Marvin Murdaugh, Alex’s brother, arrives at court Tuesday
Murdaugh is escorted by a sheriff Tuesday after making the short journey from the local jail
Randy Murdaugh arrives at court on Tuesday with two unidentified women
Earlier in the trial, Buster was booted to the back of court after allegedly throwing his middle finger up at Tinsley, who appeared as a prosecution witness.
His alleged obscene gesture may have even been caught on camera, with the legal heir seen biting on his middle finger while Mark Tinsley, the attorney for Mallory Beach’s family, was giving evidence on Monday.
At the time of Paul and Maggie’s deaths, Alex was facing a $30million lawsuit over his younger son’s drunken boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory.
Paul was driving his father’s boat and Buster had lent him his ID to buy alcohol.
Ahead of the trial, Buster and several other unnamed defendants reached a ‘significant’ settlement with Beach’s family and three other surviving passengers.
Prosecutors in Alex’s murder trial rested their case Friday after weeks of complicated evidence from more than 60 witnesses.