Disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh rejected killing his spouse and kid however admitted lying to private investigators about when he last saw them alive as he took the stand in his own defense Thursday.

Murdaugh, 54, is charged with murder in the fatal shootings of his partner, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old child, Paul, who were eliminated near kennels on their residential or commercial property on June 7, 2021. In his testament, Murdaugh continued to staunchly reject any function in the killings.

" I would never ever intentionally do anything to harm either among them," Murdaugh stated, tears diminishing his cheeks.

District attorneys invested four weeks of the trial painting Murdaugh as a liar who took money from customers and decided to kill his partner and child since he desired compassion to buy time to cover up his financial criminal activities that will be discovered. They have detailed what they called lie after lie, saying Murdaugh reacts violently when the truth will emerge, like trying to arrange his own death after his law firm fired him three months after the killings.

Murdaugh lied about being at the kennels with his partner and child quickly before their killings for 20 months before taking the stand Thursday, day 23 of his trial. Murdaugh blamed the lie-- first informed to a state law enforcement representative hours after the killings-- on his addiction to opioids, which he stated clouded his thinking and produced a suspect of authorities.

" As my dependency progressed over time, I would get in these scenarios, these circumstances where I would get paranoid thinking," Murdaugh said.

The once-prominent attorney had told cops that he was napping and did not go to the kennels prior to leaving the house to visit his ailing mom in another town. Several witnesses affirmed that they thought they heard Murdaugh's voice along with his boy and other half on cellular phone video taken at the kennels about 5 minutes before the shootings. It took private investigators more than a year to hack into Paul Murdaugh's iPhone and discover the video.

Once Alex Murdaugh began lying about being at the kennels, he stated he felt he had to continue: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave. As soon as I informed a lie-- I told my household-- I needed to keep lying."

For district attorneys, that lie underpins a case where private investigators haven't provided the weapons used to eliminate the victims, a confession, surveillance video or clothes covered in blood. If convicted, Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison

Murdaugh testified that his partner asked him to go to the kennels the evening of the killings, so he rode down in a golf cart and wrestled a chicken away from a pet dog before going back to the house and deciding to go visit his ailing mother.

He stated that, after returning home from visiting his mom, neither his partner nor his son remained in your home. After a number of minutes, Murdaugh stated, he drove his SUV to the kennels where he stated he last saw them.

Murdaugh described showing up to find the grisly scene of the killings, pausing his testament for a number of seconds as he sobbed. "It was so bad," he said.

After his dramatic opening questions about whether Murdaugh eliminated his son and spouse, defense attorney Jim Griffin led his customer though numerous key points of the case.

Murdaugh stated he never ever saw a blue rain jacket that district attorneys discovered at his mother's house with gunshot residue on the lining. He said his mom's caretaker was mistaken when she said he visited suddenly at 6:30 a.m. acting strangely.

He informed Griffin several times that he advised investigators to get GPS information from his SUV or his spouse's phone that would exonerate him. Earlier defense testimony suggested state agents waited too long to get that details from Maggie Murdaugh's device and it was overwritten for the night of the killings.

Throughout his testimony, Murdaugh called his child "Paul Paul" and his spouse "Mags," though he didn't utilize those labels in 3 interviews with authorities.

Defense lawyer told the judge that Murdaugh may not have actually testified at all if district attorneys hadn't been allowed to introduce proof of monetary criminal offenses.

Murdaugh confessed in court that he stole cash from clients and blamed an addiction to pain relievers from the sticking around results of a college football injury that became worse nearly 20 years back.

" I'm not rather sure how I let myself get where I got. I fought that addiction for a lot of years. I was spending a lot cash on tablets," Murdaugh said.

Murdaugh is charged with about 100 other crimes, ranging from taking from customers to tax evasion. He is being held without bail on those charges, so even if he is discovered not guilty of the killings, he will not leave of court a complimentary male. If founded guilty of most or all of those monetary criminal offenses, Murdaugh would likely invest years in prison.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters didn't question Murdaugh about the murders at the start of his cross-examination, focusing rather on clients Murdaugh stole money from.

" We heard about it in a really academic, documentation way. However in every one of these, you needed to sit down and look someone in the eye and encourage them you were on their side when you were not," Waters said.

Murdaugh said he could not remember all the information of the thefts that occurred over at least 13 years and used a blanket statement that he was wrong, which Waters declined before hammering on the personal nature of the thefts.

" There were a lot of discussions where I looked individuals in the eye and lied to them," Murdaugh eventually conceded.

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