Prosecutors reveal Paul, Maggie Murdaugh’s chilling last texts

Prosecutors trying Alex Murdaugh have revealed the chilling last text messages received by his son and wife before the South Carolina legal scion allegedly killed the pair. 

Murdaugh’s son, Paul Murdaugh, was texting with his friend about a dog just minutes before he was killed over a year and a half ago, the court learned this week.

Paul, 22, was shot dead alongside his mother, Maggie, 52, in the kennels on the prominent family’s Hampton estate on June 7, 2021. Patriarch Alex Murdaugh, 54, is on trial for the slayings.

During the sixth day of testimony Monday, the Daily Beast reported that prosecutors in Colleton County court laid out Paul’s exchanges prior to his death. 

Just moments before the fatal shots, cellphone records show Paul spoke on the phone for four minutes with his friend Rogan Gibson about a dog that the latter had left in the family kennels.

“See if you can get a good picture of [the dog’s tail]. Marion wants to send it to a girl we know that’s a vet. Get him to sit and stay. He shouldn’t move around too much,” Gibson texted Paul around 8:49 p.m.

When Gibson did not hear back from Paul, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division special agent Jeff Croft explained, he texted Maggie Murdaugh at 9:34 p.m. to “tell Paul to call me.” 

Twenty-four minutes later, he texted Paul “yo” and tried to call him five times.

Prosecutors say Gibson could not reach his friend because Alex Murdaugh had already fatally shot both Paul and Maggie at least four times with two different weapons.

According to cell records, Murdaugh tried to call Gibson four times between 10:20 and 10:30 p.m., but the pair never spoke.

Around 8:49 p.m., Maggie received a text from Alex’s sister about Alex’s father’s failing health. The message was left unread, prosecutors said. A text from Alex to Maggie at 9:07 was also left unread. At 9:47 Alex texted his wife “Call me babe.”

Lieutenant Britt Dove, who works with SLED’s computer crimes unit, testified that after Maggie’s phone went silent, the orientation on her phone changed around 8:53 p.m., waking the screen to activate its Face ID security feature, The Daily Mail reported. 

This suggests that someone other than Maggie picked up the phone as the device scanned their faces but did not open up. The phone additionally recorded 59 steps between 8:53 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. 

Maggie’s phone’s orientation shifted again at 9:06 p.m., again indicating that it was in somebody’s hands. Two seconds later, the phone gets an incoming call from Murdaugh.

Call logs revealed Murdaugh tried calling Maggie three times between 9:04 p.m. and 9:06 p.m. She did not pick up.

Alex got into his car to visit his sick mother — who was suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s — around 9:06 p.m, texting Maggie that he would be right back. He returned to the property at 10:01 p.m. He called 911 at 10:06 p.m. after he said he discovered their bodies, prosecutors said.  

Records show that he called her twice at 9:47 p.m. and 10:03 p.m. 

Murdaugh said that the last time he saw his wife and son was when they ate dinner together around 8:15 p.m. He claims he was sleeping on the couch when they were killed and has denied ever being near the dog kennels that night.

Last week, jurors heard the grisly details of how Maggie was discovered face-down with rifle wounds, while Paul had been hit twice with a shotgun powerful enough to detach his brain.

Croft, the prosecution’s 10th witness since the trial began last week, also described some of the evidence discovered at the scene after Alex Murdaugh’s panicked 911 call.

In addition to cellphones, Croft said, officers found a Gucci receipt for the circled $1,021 purchase and shell casings from the two guns. Neither murder weapon has been found.

Croft’s testimony is merely the latest revelation in what media pundits have dubbed the South Carolina Low Country’s “trial of the century.”

A scion of one of the state’s most prominent legal families, Alex Murdaugh faces 30 years behind bars if convicted of the murders of his wife and son. 

While Murdaugh has proclaimed his innocence since his indictment last summer, prosecutors allege that he gunned down his family to cover up his extensive financial crimes.

Cellphone evidence indicates that Murdaugh was in the kennels with Maggie and Paul when the murders took place around 8:50 p.m., and then tried to cover his tracks by visiting his mother and father while placing calls to family and friends.

At the time of his death, Paul was also facing three felony charges stemming from a February 2019 boating accident that killed his friend Mallory Beach, 19.

The University of South Carolina junior was reportedly driving the family’s powerboat on the night of the accident and was found to have a BAC three times the legal limit. The Beach family was also suing him for wrongful death.

“[Paul] got a bunch of threats, mostly from, you know. I mean I have no clue,” Murdaugh was recorded telling police in the aftermath of the shooting, apparently indicating that the killings may have stemmed from the tragic incident.

In addition to his defense team, Murdaugh is supported in court by his surviving son, Buster.