Convicted Killer Murdaugh Looks Unrecognizable in New Mugshot Just Hours After Sentencing
The transformation from successful attorney to convicted killer was completed Friday after Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to two life sentences without parole for murdering his wife and one of his sons.
Gone were the suits and well-cut hair that marked Murdaugh’s appearance during the trial that gripped thousands over the weeks it unfolded. Now the 54-year-old was shown with a shaved head in a prison uniform after South Carolina released his mugshot.
Inmate Richard Alexander Murdaugh has arrived at Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center in Columbia. He will be assessed there before being assigned permanently to a maximum-security prison. https://t.co/tevclBrSqT pic.twitter.com/sreEU1n2VN
— SC Dept. Corrections (@SCDCNews) March 3, 2023
Murdaugh “will be processed into the S.C. Department of Corrections today when he arrives at Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center in Columbia. SCDC processes all male inmates into its system at Kirkland,” the state said in a news release.
There, Murdaugh will be treated like everyone else and subjected to medical tests and assessments of his mental health, the release said.
“This evaluation process takes about 45 days. After the process is complete, he will be sent to one of SCDC’s maximum-security prisons, like all new inmates serving life sentences,” the release said.
Fox News reported that a South Carolina Department of Corrections source said Murdaugh will be in a single cell for now.
The Kirkland Center where Murdaugh will begin his sentence houses the state’s most violent offenders, according to its website, and also the state’s death row.
Murdaugh’s attorneys have said they will appeal his conviction, according to WCSC-TV.
In sentencing Murdaugh Friday, Judge Clifton Newman spoke about the attorney’s fall from counselor to criminal.
“[You are] a person from a respected family who has controlled justice in this community for over a century — a person whose grandfather’s portrait hanging at the back of the courthouse that I had to have ordered removed in order to ensure that a fair trial was held by both the state and the defense,” he said, according to ABC.
“You’ve practiced law before me, and we’ve seen each other at various occasions throughout the years. And that was especially heartbreaking for me to see you go in the media from being a grieving father who lost a wife and a son to being the person indicted and convicted of killing them,” Newman said.
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night when you are attempting to go to sleep. I’m sure they come and visit you,” he said.
After Murdaugh said he was innocent, Newman replied “it might not have been you,” and explained what he meant.
“It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills. Maybe you become another person. I’ve seen that before. The person standing before me was not the person who committed the crime, though it’s the same individual,” he said.
Murdaugh’s legal ordeal is not over. As noted by The New York Times, many various financial and other charges still hang over Murdaugh’s head and will go to trial.
“In all, Murdaugh is accused of stealing about $8.8 million,” according to the Times.
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