SC woman’s crocheted dolls of Murdaugh judge, prosecutor go viral. Check them out

Over this past holiday weekend, as Stephanie Truesdale watched recordings of the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, she grabbed her hooks and needles and started crocheting dolls in the likeness of Judge Clifton Newman and prosecutor Creighton Waters.

She’s a music teacher in Chester County and her husband Chris is a school resource officer in Fort Mill. They spend nights and weekends catching up on what they miss during each court day.

Truesdale said she has been particularly taken with the way in which Newman and Waters have conducted themselves during the trial.

She described them as gentlemen with tons of patience.

“I would have already flipped my chair,” she said.

When the dolls were done, Truesdale uploaded photos of them to her Twitter page.

The response was swift.

Amazing was an oft-heard response. Then, “you are so talented,” “best thing ever” and “this is too stinking cute.”

“I need a sleepy Poot AKA grumpy cat,” another tweeted, referring to defense attorney Dick Harpootlian.

The Newman doll has had 184,000 views; 158,000 for Waters.

She said she never imagined people would respond as they have.

Truesdale also crocheted Bubba, the Murdaugh’s yellow lab, and the chicken he caught. The dog and chicken factor into the crime because Murdaugh told law enforcement he was not at the scene before his wife Maggie and son Paul were shot to death.

But Murdaugh is clearly heard exclaiming “Bubba” when he sees the dog with the chicken in his mouth on a video Paul took shortly before the murders.

Truesdale said her mother taught her to crochet during high school. It relaxes her. She’s never made a human figure.

“Too scary,” she said.

But she took a book of patterns of human figures, written by Allison Hoffman, as a guide and adapted them.

Truesdale considers herself a generally crafty person — cake baking and decorating, sewing, decals on shirts.

A knit cap she made about five years ago was also a Twitter hit, causing lots of people she knew to want one. She said she made about 50 and decided that was the end of her crochet shop.

“The stress relaxer became a stressor,” she said.

She remembers that as the judge and “Little Creighton” continue their viral moment.

She doesn’t intend to sell any, although University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley tweeted that she wanted one of Newman.

“As a diehard Gamecock, I’ll probably make one for her,” Truesdale said.