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The trial of a prominent US lawyer for the murder of his wife and son has prompted the reopening of investigations into other deaths.

Alex Murdaugh, 54, is accused of shooting dead his wife Margaret, 52, and their youngest son Paul, 22, on their estate in South Carolina.

Prosecutors say the lawyer carried out the killings after he was caught stealing from the family firm.

A jury’s verdict is expected soon.

The Murdaughs feature in a Netflix documentary series called Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal. In it, residents in their hometown of Hampton County question the family’s influence, historically, over local law enforcement.

Following the murder charges against Murdaugh, police have begun reinvestigating the death of the family’s housekeeper.

Fresh inquiries are also being made into the 2015 death of a former classmate of Murdaugh’s oldest son.

The Murdaugh story is one anchored among South Carolina’s wealthy and well-heeled.

Before he was disbarred, Murdaugh was a personal injury lawyer – distinguished and high-earning in a powerful legal dynasty founded by his forebears in the Low Country region of South Carolina.

But now the dynasty, and he, will forever be associated with the horrific events of the evening of 7 June 2021.

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Alex Murdaugh in a police mugshot
Image:
Alex Murdaugh in a police mugshot. Pic: AP

Murdaugh shot wife five times and son twice, prosecutors say

On the family’s hunting estate, prosecutors say Murdaugh shot his wife five times with an automatic rifle.

His son was shot twice with a different weapon, a shotgun, in the head and chest.

The prosecution claims Murdaugh changed the guns used to create the appearance of an ambush.

It was Murdaugh who made a 911 call, sobbing as he told the dispatcher “my wife and child have been shot badly”.

Subsequently, he told police he had been to visit his mother and had returned to find his wife and son dead by the kennels on the estate.

Alex Murdaugh (far right) with wife Maggie and son Paul. Pic: Facebook
Image:
Alex Murdaugh with wife Maggie and son Paul. Pic: Facebook

The boating tragedy

Officers who first attended the scene found Murdaugh in distress. Upon their arrival, he quickly provided a theory behind the killings, suggesting it was a reaction to a boating tragedy that took place in February 2019.

Murdaugh’s son Paul, then 19, had crashed the family boat whilst three times the legal alcohol limit.

A number of people were thrown overboard, including Mallory Beach, 19, who was killed.

Murdaugh might have been promoting the boating incident as part of his legal defence – in the event, it featured in the prosecution case.

The family of Ms Beach are suing Murdaugh as the owner of the boat involved in their daughter’s death.

The brother of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, Buster,  receives a hug at their funeral service on June 11, 2021. Pic: AP
Image:
Buster Murdaugh receives a hug at the funeral service for his mother and brother on 11 June, 2021. Pic: AP

Murdaugh was defrauding law firm, chief financial officer says

The murder trial has heard from his law firm’s chief financial officer, who gave evidence that Murdaugh had been defrauding the company and putting the money in his wife’s bank account to shield it from the lawsuit brought by the dead girl’s family.

She told the court that she had confronted him about a missing $792,000 (£655,000) on the day of the double shooting.

It plays into the prosecutor’s argument that Murdaugh was driven to murder by a fear that his financial crimes were about to be exposed, and that his wife and son were shot to elicit sympathy and stymie investigations.

Snapchat recording casts doubt over alibi

A Snapchat video recorded by Murdaugh’s son, Paul, has also been played in court to bolster the prosecution case.

It shows footage of a brown labrador at the kennels where the shooting took place.

Paul filmed it approximately five minutes before he was shot dead and witnesses have said one of the voices heard on the video is that of Murdaugh. Prosecutors point out that doesn’t square with his initial alibi that he hadn’t seen his wife or son for 90 minutes before coming across their dead bodies.

In addressing the contradiction in court, Murdaugh admitted in evidence that he had lied. His explanation was that he had an opioid addiction stretching back 20 years which made him paranoid and distrustful of police.

Investigations into other deaths

As the murder trial progresses, so do new investigations into other deaths in Murdaugh’s orbit.

Gloria Satterfield was their long-term housekeeper until her death in 2018. Its cause was originally thought to have been an accidental fall on steps at the front of the Murdaugh home. Suspicion of a different explanation has been given traction by Murdaugh’s subsequent financial dealings.

Following Ms Satterfield’s death, he secured an insurance payout on her sons’ behalf worth more than $4m (£3.3m) but pocketed the cash himself.

Only when they pursued him through the courts, did he agree to a $4.3m (£3.6m) settlement.

Michael Tony Satterfield, son of Gloria Satterfield, points out Alex Murdaugh during the lawyer's double murder trial. Pic: AP
Image:
Michael Tony Satterfield, son of Gloria Satterfield, points out Alex Murdaugh during the lawyer’s double murder trial. Pic: AP

Fresh investigation launched

The murder charges against Murdaugh have also coincided with a fresh investigation into the death of Stephen Smith, 19, who was found dead on a road around 10 miles from Murdaugh home. He had suffered a head injury and, at the time, it was deemed to have been a hit-and-run incident.

The teenager was a classmate of the Murdaughs’ oldest son, Buster. Whilst enquiries are ongoing, law enforcement officials haven’t publicly acknowledged any connection to the Murdaugh family.

99 other charges

As well as putting Mr Murdaugh on trial for murder, the South Carolina Attorney General has laid 99 other charges against him for financial crimes dating back several years. He’s accused of swindling more than $8m (£6.6m) from unsuspecting clients.

Curtis Edward Smith was charged with assisted suicide, insurance fraud and several other counts in the Sept. 4 shooting of Alex Murdaugh. Pic:  Colleton County Detention Center via AP
Image:
Curtis Edward Smith was charged with assisted suicide, insurance fraud and several other counts. Pic: Colleton County Detention Center via AP

The jury at Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, has also heard of a bizarre ‘suicide attempt’ by Murdaugh three months after the death of his wife and son.

Having been picked up by an ambulance crew from the side of the road with a head injury, he told them he had been changing a tyre when someone stopped to help him and then shot him in the head.

He later admitted to investigators that he concocted the episode with a drug dealer in an effort to secure a $10m (£8.3m) life insurance payout for his son Buster. The dealer in question, Curtis Edward Smith, was subsequently charged with a number of offences, including assisting suicide, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.

If convicted of the double murder, Murdaugh could face 30 years to life in jail. Prosecutors in South Carolina chose not to pursue the death penalty.

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UK and US announce trade deal to save thousands of British jobs, Starmer says

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UK and US announce trade deal to save thousands of British jobs, Starmer says

The UK and US have agreed a trade deal, with Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump confirming the announcement during a live televised phone call.

It is the first trade deal agreed after Mr Trump began his second presidential term in January, and after he imposed strict tariffs on countries around the world in April.

Sir Keir said the “first-of-a-kind” deal with the US will save thousands of jobs across the UK, boost British business and protect British industry.

Politics latest: Trump and Starmer say trade deal just the start

The deal includes:

• Lowering 27.5% tariff on British car exports to the US to 10%, affecting 100,000 vehicles each year

• UK steel and aluminium industries will no longer face any tariffs after they had 25% duties placed on them

• Beef exports allowed both ways

• UK to have “preferential treatment whatever happens in the future” on pharmaceuticals, the president said.

However, there is a still a 10% tariff on most UK goods imported into the US after Mr Trump imposed that duty on most countries’ exports last month.

Mr Trump said the “final details” of the agreement were still being “written up”.

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Watch full call with Trump and Starmer

Trade minister Douglas Alexander told parliament the UK has “committed to further negotiations on tariff reductions”.

MPs will be able to debate the deal and any legislation needed to implement it, he added.

Sir Keir said “this is a really fantastic, historic day” that will “boost trade between and across our countries”, while Mr Trump said the agreement would be a “great deal for both countries”.

The president said the deal will make both the UK and the US “much bigger in terms of trade” as he thanked Sir Keir, who he said has been “terrific for his partnership in this matter…we have a great relationship”.

Sir Keir said it was achieved by not playing politics, and insisted the UK can have good trade relations with both the US and the EU.

Red lines on beef and chicken

The PM said the UK had “red lines” on standards written into the agreement, particularly on agriculture.

Mr Alexander told the Commons: “Let me be clear that the imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal.

“The deal we’ve signed today will protect British farmers and uphold our high animal welfare and environmental standards.”

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Sky challenges Trump on trade deal

‘American beef is the safest’

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal will “exponentially increase our beef exports”, and added: “To be very clear, American beef is the safest, the best quality, and the crown jewel of American agriculture for the world.”

On whether the UK will have to accept all US beef and chicken, Mr Trump said: “They’ll take what they want, we have plenty of it, we have every type, we have every classification you can have.”

Hinting the US will move towards higher welfare practices, he said US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr “is doing a tremendous job and he’s probably heading toward your system with no chemical, no this, no that”.

‘A Diet Coke deal’

Previous UK governments have attempted – and failed – to secure a free trade agreement with the US, but Sir Keir had made it a high priority.

Conservative shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith chastised the deal, saying the UK is still in the same category as Burundi and Bhutan.

“It’s a Diet Coke deal, not the real thing,” he told the Commons.

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Man accused of harassing Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing car through gates of her home

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Man accused of harassing Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing car through gates of her home

A man has been charged after allegedly harassing Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing his car through the front gate of her home, prosecutors have said.

Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, of New Albany, Mississippi, is accused of having repeatedly sent the Friends star unwanted voicemail, email and social media messages since 2023.

The 48-year-old is then alleged to have crashed his grey Chrysler PT Cruiser through the front gate of Aniston’s home in the wealthy Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles early on Monday afternoon.

Prosecutors said the collision caused major damage.

Police have said Aniston was at home at the time.

A security guard stopped Carwyle on her driveway before police arrived and arrested him.

There were no reports of anyone being injured.

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Carwyle has been charged with felony stalking and vandalism, prosecutors said on Thursday.

He also faces an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, Los Angeles County district attorney Nathan Hochman said.

Carwyle, who has been held in jail since his arrest on Monday, is set to appear in court on Thursday.

His bail has been set at $150,000 dollars (£112,742).

He is facing up to three years in prison if he is convicted as charged.

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“My office is committed to aggressively prosecuting those who stalk and terrorise others, ensuring they are held accountable,” Mr Hochman said in a statement.

Aniston bought her mid-century mansion in Bel Air on a 3.4-acre site for about 21 million dollars (£15.78m) in 2012, according to reporting by Architectural Digest.

She became one of the biggest stars on television in her 10 years on NBC’s Friends.

Aniston won an Emmy Award for best lead actress in a comedy for the role, and she has been nominated for nine more.

She has appeared in several Hollywood films and currently stars in The Morning Show on Apple TV+.

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Tyre Nichols death: Ex-police officers found not guilty of murdering motorist in US

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Tyre Nichols death: Ex-police officers found not guilty of murdering motorist in US

Three former police officers in the US have been found not guilty of murder over the death of motorist Tyre Nichols.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were acquitted by jurors following a nine-day trial at Tennessee state court.

The former Memphis officers were also found not guilty of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

Mr Nichols, a father of one, died three days after officers punched, kicked and hit him with a baton in January 2023 as he was just yards from his home.

Former Memphis Police Department officers Demetrius Haley, center, Tadarrius Bean, left, and Justin Smith Jr., right, hug each other after they were acquitted of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop. Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (Chris Day/Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network via AP, Pool)
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The defendants hugged each other after being acquitted of the charges. Pic: Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network/AP

The 29-year-old’s death and a video of the incident – in which he cried out for his mother – sparked outrage in the US including nationwide protests and led to police reform.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, described the verdicts as a “devastating miscarriage of justice”. In a statement, he added: “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he was “surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts” including second-degree murder. He said Mr Nichols’ family “were devastated… I think they were outraged”.

From left Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, three former Memphis officers acquitted of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023. Memphis Police Dept. / via AP file
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Former police officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith were accused of second-degree murder. Pic: Memphis Police Dept/AP


But despite the three defendants being acquitted of state charges during the trial in Memphis, they still face the prospect of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges of witness tampering last year.

Two other former officers previously pleaded guilty in both state and federal court. Desmond Mills Jr. gave evidence as a prosecution witness, while Emmitt Martin was blamed for the majority of the violence.

Sentencing for all five officers is pending.

Protesters march down the street Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn., as authorities release police video depicting five Memphis officers beating Tyre Nichols, whose death resulted in murder charges and provoked outrage at the country's latest instance of police brutality. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
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Tyre Nichols’ death sparked street protests in January 2023 in Memphis and across the US. Pic: AP

Video evidence showed Mr Nichols was stopped in his car, yanked from his vehicle, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. He broke free and ran away before the five police officers caught up with him again, and the beating took place.

Prosecutors argued that the officers used excessive, deadly force in trying to handcuff Mr Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions.

They also said the officers had a duty to intervene and stop the beating and tell medics that Mr Nichols had been hit repeatedly in the head, but they failed to do so.

The trial heard Mr Nichols suffered tears and bleeding in the brain and died from blunt force trauma.

The defence suggested Mr Nichols was on drugs, giving him the strength to fight off five strong officers, and was actively resisting arrest.

In December, the US Justice Department said a 17-month investigation showed the Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.

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