Jurors in Alex Murdaugh’s recently completed double murder trial were surprised that he took the stand in his own defense but not swayed a bit by his tearful testimony.
Jurors Gwen Generette, Amie Williams, and James McDowell — who previously spoke with Law and Crime — traveled to New York on Monday to speak with NBC’s Today show.
Three people on the jury for Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial, James McDowell, Gwen Generette and Amie Williams, open up to @craigmelvin about the proceedings and the deliberations that led to a guilty verdict. pic.twitter.com/LCrgIODPsj
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) March 6, 2023
Murdaugh, the 54-year-old disgraced South Carolina lawyer, was found guilty of gunning down his wife Maggie and son Paul and sentenced to consecutive life terms last week, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Speaking with Today, Williams said the jury came to a quick decision — less than three hours after an initial and anonymous 9 guilty, 2 not guilty, 1 unsure vote — “because the questions were answered.”
“Everybody had questions,” she said, “but we were able to explain everything.”
All three agreed that the key evidence was the video Paul Murdaugh recorded but never sent just minutes before he and his mother were killed. That video — he was recording a dog he was taking care of for a friend — included the voices of both his mother and his father in the background, identified by multiple witnesses in trial who knew them well.
“I think it probably would have been a hung jury had it not been for that video,” Generette said. “It’s like it came from the grave.”
After prosecutors played the video, Murdaugh took the stand and admitted he’d like for nearly two years, insisting that he hadn’t been down at the dog kennels, where the murders took place, at all on the day of the killings.
“If he didn’t do it, how did he know what time to lie about being there?” McDowells said.
Williams said that Murdaugh’s admission that he lied was damning, but neither she nor the others believed his changed alibi despite the tears and show of emotion he displayed on the stand.
“He’s able to flip that switch” to play a role for the jury, McDowell said.
The jurors also explained the mystery of the eggs. When a juror was dismissed on Thursday before deliberations began, she asked a bailiff to retrieve her eggs. Williams said that another juror had brought in about three dozen eggs to hand out to his fellow panelists, and the dismissed juror wanted to take her share home.
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[Featured image: FILE – Alex Murdaugh’s testimony during his double murder trial didn’t persuade jurors. (Grace Beahm Alford/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool, File)]
