Alex Murdaugh trial live updates: Chilling text to wife after murders revealed as cousin testifies against him

The interrogation now moves on to the “event log” of Paul’s phone – a much more complete record than Maggie’s, as Paul used more location services than his mother.

Every few seconds, data about its location is collected.

Among the recorded events is Paul’s use of Snapchat.

Judge Newman announces a 10-minute break.

The prosecution determined that the last text Paul read was at 20:48:59 and the last text Maggie read was at 20:49:27.

The message from Rogan to Paul was received eight seconds later, but was never read.

Let’s move on to Paul’s text messages on the night of June 7, 2021.

At 8:48 pm, an incoming message from Megan Kimbrell reads: “I don’t like watching sad movies.”

It was read a second later. Another text says “No, I need something happy.” This has also been read.

At 20:49 a message arrives from Rogan Gibson (after 36 seconds). It’s unread.

At 21:58 another message arrives from Rogan, also unread.

At that time, Paul’s battery level dropped to 2-3 percent. Lieutenant Dove says it wouldn’t have stopped him from reading Rogan’s message at 8:49 pm and it would have been recorded in the phone log as read.

Even with heavy use, the phone will last up to 15 minutes. The phone switched off at 22:34 – 1 hour 45 minutes after the last text message arrived.

First, prosecutors are investigating Paul’s June 7, 2021 phone calls.

At 8:32 pm, an incoming call from either Robert Boyle or Lucille Boyle was rejected.

At 8:40 pm, an outgoing call came in to Rogan Gibson. It was answered and lasted 4 minutes 14 seconds.

At 20:44, Rogan Gibson received another outgoing call over FaceTime. It was answered and ended in 11 seconds.

This was the last call made or received from Paul’s phone.

The interrogation now shifts to Paul Murdo’s iPhone.

This phone was kept as evidence and was only unlocked by Jonathan VanHouten in early 2022 using a new Secret Service feature. A complete extraction of the phone’s data was completed and returned to Lieutenant Dove.

Paul’s phone and the SSD containing its contents are brought forward as evidence.

The prosecution now alleges that Alex’s usual habit was to read texts quickly from 5 to 40 minutes with some outliers.

For almost an hour without step tracking on his phone, Alex didn’t read messages from the family group chat that he was going to visit his father in the hospital.

He didn’t read them until the next day, but texted Maggie at 9:08 pm that evening saying he was going to see his mother, two minutes after his phone registered 283 steps in four minutes.

Data from Alex Murdo’s phone showing steps and movements is now entered as evidence.

The phone recorded 49 steps from 18:02 to 18:07 on June 7, 2021.

Another 173 steps were recorded between 18:14 and 18:23.

Lieutenant Dove reminds the court that it’s not the most accurate tracker, but it does indicate movement. They were either walking or running, and the phone was with them. For example, if it was in a cup holder in a car, it wouldn’t track steps.

42 steps were recorded between 18:42 and 18:43.

283 steps recorded from 18:52 to 19:02.

165 steps recorded from 19:03 to 19:11.

200 steps from 19:15 to 19:21.

47 steps from 19:28 to 19:37.

270 steps from 19:55 to 20:05.

29 steps from 19:41 to 19:48.

The chronological order of the tracker in the report is a little off, as was the case with Maggie’s phone.

Another 74 steps were tracked from 20:05 to 20:09.

Another 283 steps were recorded between 21:02 and 21:06.

At 9:08 pm, Alex Murdo texted Maggie that he was going to visit his mother.

Witness testimony now transitions to Alex’s text message history.

Looking at the family group text we previously saw on Maggie’s phone, the text from John Marvin and the reply from Lynn G were not read on Alex’s phone until 13:00 on June 8th. They were sent around 20:30 June 7th.

An earlier message in this thread about visiting a seriously ill father was sent at 4:30 pm on June 7 and was read shortly after. Another text was read in a similar way some time after it was sent.

Moving on to the messages sent by Alex, they match what was sent to Maggie’s phone – it said that he was going to visit his mother shortly after 9 p.m. on the night of the murders, and then the same hour later, when he said frighteningly: “Call me baby” after she was killed.

At 10:24 pm after the murders, he wrote to Paul’s friend Rogan Gibson, “Call me.”