Murdaugh’s best friend Chris Wilson describes casual call night of Paul, Maggie’s murders

Bamberg attorney Chris Wilson had a casual phone conversation with Alex Murdaugh the night prosecutors allege Murdaugh murdered his wife and son at their rural Colleton County home.

Wilson said he was working on a broken pool pump while he and his wife watched “The Bachelor” on their porch, when Murdaugh called at 9:11 p.m. on June 7, 2021. Wilson asked if he could call him back later.

Murdaugh next texted Wilson at 9:52 p.m., simply saying “call me if you up.” Wilson called immediately and Murdaugh didn’t answer, which Wilson said was not unusual for him. When Wilson called again a minute later, Murdaugh told Wilson about his recent visit with his mother, and the two discussed an ongoing legal case they were working on. Murdaugh said he was almost home and asked to talk to him again tomorrow.

Wilson was woken up from bed a short time later by his “hysterical” wife and several missed phone calls and texts about the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh that evening. He said he called his children before he “grabbed some clothes” and headed to the Murdaugh house at Moselle around 11 p.m., and stayed there with Murdaugh until early the next morning.

Wilson shared the details at Murdaugh’s murder trial Thursday.

Wilson testified earlier away from the jury as Judge Clifton Newman weighed whether to allow testimony about Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes. Thursday was the first time his testimony was heard by the jury.

Murdaugh’s former friend was ostensibly called to testify to Murdaugh’s alleged financial misdeeds, including Wilson’s accusation the defendant stole almost $200,000 from him. At the defense table, Murdaugh appeared emotional as Wilson described the evening his wife and son were killed.

“I was worried he was going to kill himself, as I think several people were,” Wilson testified. “We talked regularly about being there for him.”

Wilson told jurors he worked with Murdaugh to win a $5.5 million award in a personal injury case in early 2021.

But instead of sending Murdaugh’s cut of $792,000 to be sent to Murdaugh’s Hampton-based law firm as would be normal, Wilson said Murdaugh instructed him to make out the checks directly to him as part of what Murdaugh said was a structured annuity.

Wilson believed the change was because Murdaugh wanted to avoid liability in a lawsuit over a fatal 2019 boat crash his son, Paul, was involved in. He said he trusted Murdaugh, Wilson’s law school roommate, because the two had been close for years.

“He was not just my best friend. Our wives were close, our kids were close,” Wilson testified, at times getting emotional on the stand.

But Murdaugh later wired the money back to Wilson saying he had “messed up” the fee structure and requested Wilson send the full amount to the law firm, even though Murdaugh told him he could not recover $192,000. Wilson said he sent the missing money to Murdaugh’s firm from his own personal account.

Prosecutors believe the whole procedure was meant to throw suspicion off of Murdaugh for allegedly stealing funds from his law partners.

Newman ultimately allowed Wilson and others to testify to potential financial motives for the murders of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on June 7, 2021. Prosecutors contend growing pressure that threatened exposure of Murdaugh’s financial schemes led him to commit the murders as a distraction.

Ex-law partner says Murdaugh said he ‘knew he was going to get caught’ on alleged thefts

The defense, which continually objected to Wilson’s testimony and the admission of evidence Thursday, say the charges Murdaugh faces of stealing money from this clients and law firm are irrelevant to the murder charges, and that Murdaugh would not have felt enough financial pressure to kill his own family.

Wilson testified Thursday that he eventually became worried about recovering the money he had given Murdaugh, and said he had a frank conversation with him about getting his money back.

“I think I said to him, ‘If you get hit by a car, I won’t get repaid from your estate, unless I have something in writing,’” Wilson said.

Murdaugh quickly wrote down “three sentences” for Wilson attesting to the debt, he testified.

At his earlier testimony, Wilson said Murdaugh confessed to him, after Murdaugh had been fired from his firm, about a lengthy opioid addiction and that Murdaugh had been stealing money because of it. Briefly, away from the jury, Newman listened back to some of that testimony to determine how much Wilson would be able to say in front of jurors. He sustained an objection from the defense to exclude Wilson from testifying to “hearsay” evidence about an alleged suicide attempt by Murdaugh the day of their conversation.

Wilson did testify that he spoke to Murdaugh after Wilson was informed by Murdaugh’s law partner that Murdaugh was being fired from the firm for theft. He said he was “shocked, betrayed, mad” about the news, and spoke to Murdaugh in person the next day, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021.

“He broke down crying,” Wilson said, “He said, ‘I have drug problem, I’m addicted to opioids.’ There were parts where it was heated and parts where it was silent.”

Wilson said Murdaugh said he had been stealing money from the firm and clients “for a long time,” and he had been good at covering it up.

Wilson describes Murdaugh’s behavior after the murders

Under questioning from defense attorney Jim Griffin, Wilson said he never suspected something was wrong with the annuity payments either before or long after the June 7, 2021, murders. Griffin also got him to testify to how close a family the Murdaughs were, and that Murdaugh did not have life insurance on his wife and son.

“Did he expect any money to come in after Maggie’s death?” Griffin said. “He wasn’t out spending lavishly with newfound money?”

Wilson said he did not.

Griffin pressed him about the phone calls he had with Murdaugh, at a time prosecutors say he had already killed Paul and Maggie.

“All conversations with Alex are a bit scattered, but he didn’t sound out of the ordinary to me,” Wilson said.

Later, when Wilson visited Murdaugh after the bodies of Maggie and Paul had been discovered, Wilson described Murdaugh as upset and crying. He agreed with others there that night that Murdaugh should not speak to investigators alone.

“Because he was so distraught and destroyed by the deaths of his wife and son?” Griffin asked.

“He was not in a good state of mind,” Wilson said.

Asked if he knew Murdaugh had not been back to Moselle since the killings, Wilson said he did not, “but every time I talked to him, he was either staying at his brother’s or his in-laws’.”

Regarding Murdaugh’s drug use, Griffin asked if Murdaugh ever displayed erratic behavior. “He was able to function in high-stress situations?” he asked.

While Murdaugh could often seem distracted, “when he was focused, he was extremely able to get it done,” Wilson said.

Griffin asked if Murdaugh was “fidgety,” as another witness had described him the night of the murders.

“Sometimes he was not as focused as you would like him to be,” Wilson answered.

Murdaugh’s paralegal says she saw suspicious activity in the firm before family’s murders

Murdaugh’s financial activity scrutinized

Later Thursday, the jury heard more testimony about Murdaugh’s alleged financial irregularities, from witnesses who had previously testified away from the jury before Newman admitted their testimony.

Michael “Tony” Satterfield is the son of the late Murdaugh housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who worked for the family for more than 20 years before she died after a fall at the Moselle property in February 2018.

Murdaugh told Gloria Satterfield’s two sons that he would take care of them, and a $3.5 million insurance payout was ultimately issued in the case. But Satterfield said he and his brother were never told about the money, which they allege was instead misappropriated by Murdaugh.

Satterfield testified that he contacted Murdaugh in June 2021 after seeing reporting on his mother’s death that indicated a settlement had been reached. But defense attorney Dick Harpootlian made much of the fact Satterfield said he couldn’t recall if that conversation came before or after the murders on June 7, 2021, and Harpootlian questioned if the case was relevant to Murdaugh’s state of mind before the killings.

Jurors also heard from Palmetto State Bank CEO Jan Malinowski, who testified about questionable financial transactions into Murdaugh’s Palmetto State Bank account around the same time, approved by the bank’s then-CEO and Murdaugh’s childhood friend, Russell Laffitte.

Bank documents previously introduced indicate Murdaugh was $4.2 million in debt to Palmetto State Bank by August of 2021. Nevertheless, that month Laffitte approved a transfer of $400,000 into Murdaugh’s checking account, despite the fact Murdaugh was almost $350,000 overdrawn.

Laffitte’s handling of Murdaugh’s finances, often taking actions without approval of the bank’s board, later led to this firing from the small-town bank. In November 2022, Laffitte was convicted in federal court on bank fraud and conspiracy charges for assisting Murdaugh in stealing millions of dollars from his own clients, many of them children injured in accidents who had settlement money stored in Laffitte’s bank.

Court goes forward after disruptions

At the end of the day Wednesday, FBI automotive forensics expert Dwight Falkofske testified to data he recovered from Murdaugh’s car, showing how investigators were able to identify times the car may have been in drive the night of the murder.

He testified after the trial was halted for more than two hours when the Colleton County Courthouse was evacuated because of a bomb threat.

Testimony eventually resumed Wednesday afternoon after law enforcement cleared the building, and Newman — who calmly dismissed the jury and told the public to evacuate after being notified of the threat — resumed proceedings without ever mentioning the reason for the sudden disruption and lengthy delay.

In his testimony after court resumed Wednesday, Falkofske shared a timeline of activity recovered from computers in Murdaugh’s car for the night of June 7, 2021:

▪ 9:06:49 p.m. — Data shows the vehicle turned on and is taken out of park

▪ 9:22:45 p.m. — The car is put into park. It was out of park for about 16 minutes

▪ 9:44:54 p.m. — Murdaugh’s car taken out of park

▪ 10:00:30 p.m. — Car put in park again

▪ 10:01:17 p.m. — Car is taken out of park

▪ 10:01:29 p.m. — Car is parked again

▪ 10:01:30 p.m. — Car is out of park

▪ 10:01:43 p.m. — The vehicle is parked again before shutting down

▪ 10:04:49 p.m. — Vehicle is back on, taken out of park

▪ 10:05:55 p.m. — The car is parked once more

▪ 10:06:18 p.m. — Murdaugh calls 911 with Bluetooth connected to his car

▪ 10:13:39 p.m. — The car is taken out of park. Investigators did not find a message indicating it was parked again. Falkofske said occasionally, the system will miss such messages

Island Packet reporter Blake Douglas contributed to this report.

This story may be updated.