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Alex Murdaugh Cross-Examined in His Murder Trial; Murdaugh Denies Killing Wife and Son But Admits He Lied to Police; Ukraine Marks One Year Since Putin's Unprovoked Invasion. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 24, 2023 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, addressing the jury, we'll have break until 2:15. You will go to the jury room and please to not discuss the case.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: All right. They are taking a break now in the courtroom in South Carolina, where Alex Murdaugh is back on the stand today. He faced cross-examination from prosecutors who say he murdered his wife and his son.

We have CNN's Dianne Gallagher who is outside that courthouse. Dianne, another long day of testimony here from Alex Murdaugh, and some real focus on the timeline here, what he was doing at the particular moments. What more have we learned today in this trial?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Abby, we're just now really getting into the thick of discussing what happened the night of the murders June 7th, 2021. So much of the cross-examination had been focused on those financial crimes and allegations against Alex Murdaugh dating back about a dozen years.

But what we're watching the prosecutor, Creighton Waters, do at this point is go minute-by-minute, at some points, second-by-second, on what Alex Murdaugh was actually doing on the night of the murders. And, of course, so much of it was hinges on the fact of that really bombshell revelation from Murdaugh yesterday on the stand where he admitted that a major part of his alibi that he was never down there at the kennels just minutes before the states say Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were murdered was not true, that he had lied to law enforcement.

And Creighton Waters has continued to push him on that, continuing to talk about the fact that this is a story that keeps changing. He has in each question of Alex Murdoch pointed to the fact this is your new story, the story you're now telling.

A lot of this dripping with snark sarcasm and at some points disdain for Alex Murdaugh who has tried to answer some of these. He still has not come up with exact answers for certain periods of time. And we've seen a back and forth between the prosecutor and the defendant as he enters -- look, he told us, Creighton Waters, about three to four hours of cross-examination, we're roughly at that three-and-a-half- hour mark today already. And we're just into the night of the murders. This is going to continue. We're watching, Abby, this prosecutor essentially paint Alex Murdaugh as somebody who has essentially woven this web of deceit for decades now.

But he's saying, look, this is Alex Murdaugh. He has admitted on the stand that he has lied to investigators, he has lied to his family, he has lied to his friends, and up until literally yesterday, he lied to everybody about where he was at the scene of the crime on the night of the murders. Why would you believe him now? Murdaugh has admitted to quite a bit on the stand especially with those financial crimes.

But if I'm looking at things like his phone activity, and that was a moment between Murdaugh and Creighton Waters talking about steps that were recorded during a four-minute period of time, which the state alleges is when he was cleaning up after the murders. Alex Murdaugh says he was simply getting ready to go to his mother's house.

And Murdaugh has had, in some cases, to quote the prosecution, a photographic memory about moments that happened during that night. But -- and other points, when he seemingly doesn't know what he was doing, he says, I was just getting ready. It's vaguer when he speaks, a little more vague about that, Abby, the prosecution hinging on that.

Now, look, there are some rare moments here that we are in just before we broke for lunch, talking about what he did when he found the bodies of his wife and his son. And the prosecution seemingly trying to hinge on what we have known about for roughly a week now, this 20-second time period of when the GPS says that his suburban arrived there at the kennels and that 911 call was made and how Alex Murdaugh may have had the time to check on his wife, check on his son, call 911, find their bodies at that exact time, and just that 17 to 20-second period.

Murdaugh, again, it is quite contentious, Abby, as we see them going back and forth. Additional revelation that we're looking at here is Murdaugh discussing his addiction to opioids. And, look, some of these numbers were absolutely astounding that we were talking. Murdaugh says that he took roughly 30 -- he took roughly sometimes 60 pills a day, 30 milligrams of Oxycodone instant release, sometimes also taking OxyContin time release pills.

The prosecutor kind of questioned him, saying, are you saying you took roughly -- at some times, were you taking 3,000 milligrams of opioids a day?

[13:05:07]

And he said, yes, talking about even when he did that interview with law enforcement after the murders, that he had them in his pocket, and had been dealing with that at this time.

You can kind of see people coming out now for this lunch break. This morning, to show the interest that there has been in this trial, because of the prestige that the Murdaugh family had here, the prominence they had, and the privilege that Prosecutor Creighton Waters has tried to paint Alex Murdaugh as pointing that he has always been bending the law, he says. We have lines of people waiting at 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning so they can sit in the courtroom and perhaps catch a glimpse of him testifying on the stand.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, this is riveting and really a pivotal moment in this trial.

Dianne, stay with us. I'm going to join into this conversation Criminal Trial Attorney Sara Azari. You can catch Sara's true crime show, Death by Fame, on our sister network, Investigation Discovery, on Mondays at 9:00 P.M. Eastern Time. But also with us is Body Language Expert Janine Drivers. She has served as a lie detection expert for the FBI, the CIA and for the ATF. She's also the author of You Can't Lie to Me.

Sara, so, I want to start with you first, though. A lot has unfolded in this questioning today. I want to start with one of the things that Dianne talked about, because I think this is really critical to the case the prosecutors have to make. They spent a lot of time on this four-minute period of time, right, where he made 283 steps asking Alex Murdaugh to explain what he was doing in that time. What do you make of what you heard from Murdaugh but also that amount of time is a very short period of time. Do the prosecutors make their case that he was doing something nefarious at that time, perhaps cleaning up after the murders?

SARA AZARI, CRIMINAL TRIAL ATTORNEY: Right, Abby, good to be with you. Yes, cleaning up, rushing over to get in his car to drive off. But remember that he also very skillful, because he is -- maybe he's a liar but he's also a lawyer, he condensed the time that he spent at the kennel, which is key. You know, I think that the prosecutor at some point it looked like Murdaugh is cross-examining the prosecutor as opposed to vice versa.

And the prosecutor was trying to get these sound bites from him. He has been doing this for hours since yesterday, and he is not getting them. He is trying to -- the prosecutor is trying to prolong how long Alex was at the kennels, Alex did a good job at saying, I didn't want to be down there, it's gross and sweaty, I had just taken a shower, I just wanted to go down and took the bird out of the Bubba's mouth and came right back and left.

So, yes, he couldn't really explain the steps, but, again, it's going to come down to -- I've had a lot of clients who have lied. Most of my clients lie. It's about whether the jury believes you now despite having lied before, and I think Janine can speak to that.

PHILLIP: I mean, and, critically, the defense really only needs reasonable doubt here in order to prevail in this case, but, Janine, let's just talk about that. I mean, one of the features of Alex Murdaugh's testimony up until this point, you can't miss it, he talks a lot. He provides a lot of information, including information that he is not asked about. What did you make of how he approached that?

JANINE DRIVER, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Abby, and thanks for the shout out, Sara, a lot was happening here with his words. There is something called statement analysis. There are words that have hidden meaning behind them. And if we can start with this one, the strongest denial is always a no. So, if I said to you, Abby and Sara, are you on heroin right now, and you respond, absolutely not, what kind of person do you think I'd be, I knew you were going to ask me these kinds of questions. Truthful people convey. Liars try to convince. And we hear that with him constantly, absolutely not.

PHILLIP: Sara, can I play a little bit of that just so that our audience can see.

AZARI: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM GRIFFIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Mr. Murdaugh, did you take this gun or any and blow your son's brains out on June 7th or any day, or any time?

ALEX MURDAUGH, MURDER DEFENDANT: No, I did not.

GRIFFIN: Did you shoot a .300 Blackout into her head causing her death?

MURDAUGH: Mr. Griffin, I didn't shoot my wife or son anytime, ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Sara, I interrupted you, but please continue.

DRIVER: So, the biggest thing, just been saying, no, first of all, but he's like, no, I did not, and I've never done this, and he goes on to this like I call it smoke screening, saying a whole bunch of stuff. The clip -- what I really wanted to pull, if you listen closely, he says things like unequivocally, absolutely not. This is overselling. Again, truthful people convey, liars try to convince. So, we have some hot spots here.

[13:10:00]

He also said something later, and I don't know if he pulled the clip or not, but he says, what I can tell you is this, with regard to the wife, did he call the wife to have her come home or did she come home on her own accord, he says, I can tell you this.

Now, Lance Armstrong, to sidebar here on branch, Lance Armstrong came clean that he took steroids when on Oprah, said he took steroids. But when he made a statement to the A.P. press, he said, I told Oprah to go wherever she wants and I'll be open, honest and candid. That is all I can tell you. When someone says something like, that is all I can tell you or I can tell you this, I'm going to tell you 100 percent of the time what it means, it means there is something they are not telling you.

So, this right here, to me, is a smoking gun, that there is more to the story he is not sharing.

PHILLIP: And, Janine, I apologize, I called Sara earlier.

DRIVER: It's okay. PHILLIP: I mean, to call you Janine.

But, Sara, to you now, I mean, this issue of his addiction is so critical here. It is the explanation that he has given for his lies. You've said you would only put someone like Alex Murdaugh on the stand if the objective here was to humanize himself. Do you think that he has done that with his discussion of his addiction with even the emotion that he has shown on the stand?

AZARI: Abby, yesterday, I was hungry for more about his addiction. I thought that he said, well, I lied because I was paranoid and the paranoia comes from the addiction, because it wasn't really digestible to me.

And today, because Waters chose to go there, and I thought that was a big mistake, you cannot go down the road of addiction because it is not the same for everybody. The number of pills you take, the amount of money you spend, the withdrawals you experience, the functionality -- I'm around a lot of attorneys who are just like Alex Murdaugh, who are functional, who are winning trial, but absolutely strung out on drugs, whatever the drug choice might be.

So, it is a mistake to try to question somebody's addiction especially because it is not just him self-diagnosing himself, we have text messages with his family, we have text messages with the victims, we have other testimony that he was always fidgety, and that could have been when he was withdrawing.

So, it was a big mistake to go down that rabbit hole by the prosecution. I think he did humanize himself. I don't know if the jury is going to make the connection between addiction and the cornerstone of addiction, which is conning, lying, covering up, living a double life. Those are things that are common to someone who is an addict and they become programmed to do that. Now, that is just a fact. I just know because I've been around it personally and professionally.

But, you know, I think that it was a mistake to go there because I think that he explained himself very well. I think he humanized himself with the second part of why I put a client up on the stand is to explain facts. I think there are many instances where Waters doesn't really know what he is even wanting from Alex Murdaugh. And then he is surprised by the answer and then he gets really annoyed and really frustrated. And I'm told that jurors, some are rolling their eyes, which is to me a death knell.

PHILLIP: I want to go back to Dianne, who is still outside of the courtroom. Dianne, this issue of Alex Murdaugh's lies, there are so many of them, and he admitted to quite a lot of them, the lies about what he told to police, the lies about being at the kennel, the lies about stealing money. What do you make of all of that?

GALLAGHER: That is obviously what the prosecution is doing here, trying to establish that this is an established liar, and so why would you trust him now? But there were some interesting testimony today actually right before the break, where that lie about his alibi, that he was never at the kennels. When did Alex Murdaugh say he decided to lie about that?

And he claims that the reason why he lied was because during the initial interview that night with state law enforcement, with that lead agent, David Owen, he said that Owen freaked him out. And that is when because he says due to his addiction to opioids, he had these paranoid thoughts, he lied at that point because Owen asked him about his relationship with Maggie and Paul.

And according to Murdaugh, and this is the line of questioning we were dealing with right before we broke for lunch, that is when this lie took hold. Yesterday, he testified that he kept the lie up because he had already told people and that is when he did that, quote, oh, what a tangled web we weave. Creighton Waters has hit him hard on the fact that he never bothered to tell law enforcement or anybody else this was a lie, he says, until yesterday.

But I anticipate after lunch we're going to get more into that, because that is the meat that the prosecution has to continue reminding the jury that up until yesterday, everybody who testified, no matter how close they were with him, what great relationship or nickname they had, Alex Murdaugh had told him them that he was not at the kennels.

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PHILLIP: Yes, it's a really important point.

Janine, I want to go back to you before we wrap up here. Look, there's a lot about Alex Murdaugh that makes him really quite a character on the stand. But you do have to put it into the context, as Sara was saying, that he is an admitted addict. So, when you look at things like the licking of the lips and the poking out his tongue, his mouth is dry, what does that signal to you from a body language perspective, and do you think jurors will attribute that perhaps to either lies or his addiction?

DRIVER: Well, first of all, the drugs can, in fact, do that. But you are really looking at when do these moments happen, when do these tongue protrusions come out. We see something very interesting when he pushes his tongue inside his mouth, they are called the pacifiers. The higher the pacifier, the more stress and anxiety. And this high level pacifier, pushing the tongue inside his cheek, you see it often. They even do this, actors, in movies. And it indicates usually the smugness, this contemptuous (ph), where it is demonstrating like this is a joke, like I'm being contemptuous.

But this is interesting. He is very charming. Yesterday in the courtroom, they had a couple of jurors crying at the same time. We have mirror neurons. If he cries and we cry, that makes us like him because we experience it. I think the prosecuting attorney is going to have his hands full here with the jury.

I would say the best way to detect deception is to not have the effect (ph) of the person you're looking at and analyzing if they're crying, if they're screaming, if they're mad, if they're screaming, if they're mad, if they're contemptuous, if they're disgusted. You have no effect (ph). You will make a better decision on if this person is telling the truth. The fact that two jurors were crying yesterday, two female jurors, this is not good for the prosecuting attorney, because it is going to be very hard to turn the tide on those two women to say, oh, no, you just were duped, my dear, because we have this innate -- I said do you want to be right or do you want to be effective. Most of us want to be right.

And the body language, he leaks a lot of disgust, and this is disgust. This disgust is repelling contaminated objects. It doesn't belong here. If anything, we should have sadness here, authentic sadness, we should maybe have fear. Hey, who did it? If it wasn't him, who did it? Where is that? Where is that part of him? It's just not showing up.

PHILLIP: I'm going to let Sara get in real quick before we go. Go ahead, Sara.

AZARI: Yes. Just to Dianne's point, there was -- and I was saying, there are moments where it looks like Murdaugh is cross-examining the prosecutor. With respect to why you have never mentioned in all of these months that this was a lie and clear up your lie about being at the kennels, it was terrible when he said, you -- I've been trying to get a meeting with you and you have refused to meet with me and my lawyers.

It doesn't matter whether at that meeting he would actually come clean about this lie. It matters and it goes to the whole sloppy investigation, the totality of this, that they really singled him out, they decided he killed his wife and son, and it was like we're not interested in talking to you anymore, you know? So, that was a bad moment for the prosecution, in my opinion.

PHILLIP: Really fascinating analysis from both of you. Sara Azari and Janine Driver, thank you both for joining us on this one.

AZARI: Thank you.

DRIVER: Thanks, Abby.

PHILLIP: And today marks the one year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, one year of fighting, one year of bloodshed and of brutal attacks. We are live in Washington, Ukraine and in Moscow, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:00]

PHILLIP: It has been one year of devastation, a year of atrocities and fear and 12 months of resilience and courage. One year ago today, Russian tanks rolled in to Ukraine unleashing brutal fighting that has not stopped. But today, Kyiv miraculously still stands and Ukraine's president is confident that Vladimir Putin's forces will be defeated perhaps even by the two-year mark.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: If we all do our homework, victory will be inevitable. I am certain that there will be victory. I don't think, I want it this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: U.N. figures show that at least 8,000 civilians have been killed in Russia's unprovoked war, and among those, nearly 500 children. That number is actually likely to be much higher. Some 8 million people have fled Ukraine, and of those who stayed, roughly 18 million are in dire need of assistance. That is nearly 40 percent of the country's entire population.

But the world has rallied behind the besieged Ukrainian people symbolically and materially. All over the world, you see those symbols down accepting millions of refugees and providing tens of billions of dollars and counting in humanitarian aid and military aide. As we speak as well, western tanks are being sent over to Ukraine.

Putin expected that these alliances would splinter with his forces on NATO's doorstep, but, in fact, the opposite has happened. And the way that the U.S. sees it, global security for the entire world will depend on that unity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: Nations around the world continue to stand with Ukraine, because we all recognize that we abandon Ukraine, we abandon the U.N. Charter itself and the principles and rules that make all countries safer and more secure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: CNN's Jeremy Diamond is over at the White House for us. So, Jeremy, a really important day for this Biden administration, really starting about a week ago as the plans are being put in motion for President Biden to go to Kyiv, and now today, a flurry of activity on the diplomatic front. What are they up to today from the White House to mark this anniversary?

[13:25:00]

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is certainly true, Abby. President Biden began his day with a call with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showing that not only is Kyiv standing one year later but also, of course, crucially, that coalition of nations that have really provided Ukraine with economic, financial and military support, as well as impose severe sanctions on Russia to show that that coalition is very much still standing.

And we just got a joint statement from the G7 countries committing in that same statement to intensifying that support on all of those different fronts over the course of the coming months and years, a long as it takes, as we have heard President Biden say, as long as Ukraine continues to fight off this war of aggression being waged by Russia.

What we're also seeing from the United States is additional military support, $2 billion in security assistance coming, bringing the total U.S. security assistance over the last year to $32 billion, and also a string of new sanctions announced today which the Treasury Department is billing as one of the most significant sanctions to date.

Especially what they're doing here, Abby, after a year of trying to cut off Russia from the global economy, what they are focusing on in particular over the next year, and I spoke with the deputy treasury secretary about this over the last week, is focusing on trying to seal the cracks in these sanctions evasion efforts that Russia is doing, specifically to continue to try and bring in revenue to Russia and keep its war machine going.

And so many of these sanctions that were announced today are, in particular, going after companies and countries that have helped Russia evade some of these sanctions to try and limit those efforts. A lot of this is focused in particular on some products, dual use products, as they are known, civilian technologies that can be also used for military purposes.

And so that is where the work is now focused over this next year and something that administration officials are very clear-eyed about, the challenges that lie ahead in terms of continuing to arm Ukraine, increase defense production amid concerns about dwindling ammunition supplies and also focusing on sealing those cracks in the sanctions effort.

But interestingly, if you listen to Jake Sullivan last night on CNN, what he did make very clear is that despite the challenges ahead, the U.S. believes that Russia has already lost this war. In terms of lost this war, failing in its initial objectives to take Kyiv, to subjugate Ukraine and to make it a part of Russia. Abby?

PHILLIP: And, Jeremy, another interesting development today, China presented this 12-point plan, what they're calling a plan for peace between Ukraine and Russia. What has been the White House reaction to that?

DIAMOND: Well, so far, what we've seen the administration say is that they are looking at this plan. But make no doubt that this is a White House that is not pinning any hopes on the fact that this Chinese plan is going to bring about an end to this conflict nor that it is necessarily in good faith.

What the White House is far more concerned about right now as it relates to China is the prospect of China providing lethal weapon support for the first time to Russia. It's something that administration officials have been talking about over the course of the last several days, saying that they do have intelligence indicating that China is considering that possibility and issuing stark warnings of the consequences should China move ahead with that, but, so far, the administration not willing to share that underlying intelligence publicly. Abby?

PHILLIP: Yes. Jeremy Diamond, thank you for all of that reporting.

And now let's go to Moscow, where CNN's Fred Pleitgen is. Fred, this is also a day of great importance for Putin as well. How is the Kremlin marking what they are still, to this day, calling a special military operation in Ukraine?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. There has really been a big run-up, Abby, in the past couple of days to this one-year anniversary. Today, however, there's really very little that we're hearing from the Kremlin at all.

Right now, it's a public holiday here in Moscow. It's Defenders of the Fatherland Day. So, it's really something where the Russians sort of blend that day in, which actually commemorates the war dead of World War II and the Russian Soviet soldiers who fought in World War II, but, of course, now takes on a completely different meaning as Russia is once again at war because of all the casualties that the Russians are suffering in that.

And today, we haven't heard from Vladimir Putin, but it has really been a Vladimir Putin media blitz, if you will, over the past couple of days. He held a massive speech in Russian parliament earlier this week, then he had a big event at a massive stadium here in Central Moscow on Wednesday. And then yesterday, he went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and laid flowers there.

On all of this, the message that Vladimir Putin is sending is that he obviously wants the Russian population to remain on side and he says that Russia will come out victorious out of what, as you've noted, he calls the special military operation.

What he didn't say, however, is how he intends to do that. The only thing that we've heard from him was there was a video message that he put out where he said that he would, quote, inundate Russian forces that are on the frontline with the most modern weapons. But that certainly seems to be a big problem for the Russian forces is getting weapons to their actual troops.

[13:30:03]

What we're hearing is that they've mobilized 300,000 soldiers but they can't actually get them the arms that they need.