Alex Murdaugh judge says he 'felt sorry' for convicted murderer.
The judge in Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial said he empathized with the
convicted killer whom he sentenced to two terms of life in prison, according to a new report.
"I felt sorry for him,"
South Carolina Circuit Judge Clifton Newman told the "Today" show in an interview that aired Wednesday. "I felt that he was just in a position where he could not, where if there’s a hole that he could go into, he would dive in that hole and keep going to the lowest depths."
It took a Colleton County jury just three hours to convict Murdaugh, 55, on all counts for fatally shooting his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and their son, Paul Murdaugh, on June 7, 2021.
Newman presided over the six-week trial and told the disgraced patriarch at his March 3 sentencing that his son and wife would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The judge, who plans to retire in the fall, echoed that sentiment in his latest interview.
"I cannot imagine him having a peaceful night, knowing what he did," he
told "Today," sitting alongside one of his daughters, who is also a judge. "I’m sure if he had an opportunity to do it over again, he’d never do it."
Hundreds of journalists and tourists descended on the small town of Walterboro for the legal spectacle, and
Netflix dropped a docuseries on the sordid Murdaugh dynasty in the middle of the trial.
Newman said he wasn't surprised by the fanfare that accompanied the case, or at least shouldn't have been.
"You know, high-profile lawyer. Death of a wife, death of a child. Accusations of stealing millions of dollars from clients. Allegations of a lawyer hooked on drugs," Newman said. "It had all the ingredients for something of major public interest."
Murdaugh was a prominent personal injury lawyer and part-time prosecutor before he was
disbarred for financial crimes and later charged for the heinous slaying of his wife and son.