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The group of jurors who will resolve Alex Murdaugh’s destiny visited on Wednesday the sprawling Islandton, South Carolina, property the place the defendant’s spouse and son had been discovered fatally shot in 2021.
The large property, referred to as Moselle, has been on the coronary heart of the trial – and performed a giant position within the Murdaugh household’s life earlier than the grisly killings.
The 1,700-something acre property contains the home the household lived in for a number of years, in addition to canine kennels, a cabin, and stretches of swamp lands, plotted fields and forests through which Murdaugh would go looking for deer and different sport along with his two sons.
Murdaugh, who has pleaded not responsible to 2 counts of homicide, maintains he discovered his spouse, Maggie, and youthful son, Paul, fatally shot when he returned to Moselle from a go to to his sick mom on the evening of June 7, 2021. Their our bodies had been discovered close to the property’s kennels, the place the Murdaughs stored their looking canines.
The decide agreed this week to let jurors view the property, regardless of opposition from prosecutors who stated it has modified for the reason that killings, together with that bushes have grown taller and thicker than what they had been in the summertime of 2021. Testimony within the homicide trial ended on Tuesday, and shutting arguments are anticipated later Wednesday.
According to a pool report, the 12 jurors and two alternates assembled on the Colleton County courthouse at 9 a.m. Wednesday, loaded into three transport vans and left for Moselle at 9:10 a.m. They had been adopted by safety automobiles and different court docket personnel. The jury arrived at about 9:40 a.m.
The jury can have half-hour to view the property, the pool report stated. “They will spend the bulk of their time at the kennels and the shed where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed. Towards the end of the visit, the jury will be taken to the main house for a view of the exterior. They will not go inside,” the report stated.
Here’s a detailed take a look at what we all know concerning the Moselle property.
The Murdaughs bought the Moselle property round 2012, Buster Murdaugh, the defendant’s surviving son, testified in February.
The household had been dwelling in Hampton, South Carolina – a roughly 20-minute drive from Islandton – however after that home sustained harm throughout a hurricane, they relocated to the Moselle dwelling, Buster Murdaugh instructed the court docket.
Much of the Moselle property was “really not even accessible,” the 26-year-old testified, as some areas are swamps and lots of elements don’t have street techniques to navigate the land on.
“It’s a big property,” he stated, stuffed with dove fields, duck ponds and deer stands throughout. The Murdaugh males often went looking for deer, duck, quail, doves and hogs on the land and would typically invite mates to hitch them.
The property had an enormous inhabitants of hogs, Buster Murdaugh testified, which might typically destroy the household’s dove fields, so the Murdaughs would frequently hunt the animals to “try to cut the numbers down a little bit.”
The property went up on the market final yr, a number of months after the killings, based on Act Daily News affiliate WJCL.
The itemizing cited by the affiliate says the Moselle Farm, listed for $3.9 million, is below contract.
The land “boasts over 2.5 miles of river frontage, offering freshwater fishing, kayaking, and abundant deer, turkey, and waterfowl populations,” based on the itemizing. “To complement the natural amenities there are two man-made waterfowl impoundments capable of being planted with corn and flooded to attract wintering waterfowl. In addition, there is a 20-acre dove field complete with a dead wire and parameter fencing to minimize crop damage.”
At the top of a protracted street sits a 5,275-square-foot dwelling, in-built 2011, based on the itemizing – shortly earlier than Buster Murdaugh estimates his household purchased the property.
There’s additionally a cottage on the property, which Buster Murdaugh referred to in his testimony as a “cabin,” saying he had stayed there for a while with two mates.
Nathan Tuten, a longtime good friend of Paul Murdaugh, additionally testified in court docket he had stayed on the cabin with Paul for a while.
The property additionally features a “rifle shooting range,” based on the itemizing.
“The location, ecosystem, and water features make this an ideal candidate for a conservation easement. The next owner may be the beneficiary of considerable tax advantages that may be available through the donation of an easement,” it notes.
(A conservation easement is, typically, part of a property that’s preserved and never developed. Making a donation permits the donor to take a tax deduction based mostly on the appraised worth of the property.)
There was one other deadly incident tied to the household’s Moselle property.
Gloria Satterfield, a longtime housekeeper for the Murdaughs, died in a hospital in February 2018, three weeks after what was described as a “trip and fall accident” on the Murdaugh dwelling, an legal professional representing her property beforehand stated.
“Certainly there were questions by my clients because after she unfortunately fell, she was airlifted to a hospital and she had a traumatic brain injury, she never was able to communicate with them for the next three weeks until she died,” legal professional Eric Bland beforehand instructed Act Daily News.
In a February 2, 2018, recording of a 911 name posted on-line by Act Daily News affiliate WHNS, a caller who seems to be Maggie Murdaugh studies Satterfield fell and provides the Moselle dwelling’s tackle.
“My housekeeper has fallen and her head is bleeding, I cannot get her up,” the caller says, including Satterfield fell whereas going up the house’s out of doors, brick steps.
In 2021, greater than three years after her loss of life, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division introduced it was opening a felony investigation into Satterfield’s loss of life after a request from the Hampton County coroner that highlighted inconsistencies within the ruling of her method of loss of life.
“The decedent’s death was not reported to the Coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed. On the death certificate the manner of death was ruled ‘Natural,’ which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident,” the coroner’s request to SLED stated.
Source: www.cnn.com