Alex Murdaugh’s Sister-In-Law Testifies He Was More Concerned About Son’s Reputation Than Finding Who Killed Him

 Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh’s sister-in-law testified Tuesday that her sister’s husband acted strangely in the days and weeks following the murders of his wife and son.

Marian Proctor, sister of Alex’s wife Maggie, said her sister didn’t want to return to the family’s hunting lodge on the day of the murders because she believed the community had turned against her family following a series of scandals involving Alex, BuzzFeed News reported. In addition, Alex’s parents were in poor health and he wanted to visit them, but Maggie didn’t want to see them suffer. Proctor encouraged her sister to go anyway, because Alex “needs you.”

It was the last time Proctor ever spoke to her sister.

Alex is on trial for allegedly killing Maggie and the couple’s youngest son, Paul, who had been indicted for manslaughter following a boat crash that killed a teenage girl.

Proctor testified that she witnessed some odd behavior from Alex following the murder of his family, including the fact that Alex had gone to see his parents alone the night of the murders when “the whole reason [Maggie] went home that night” was to go with Alex. Proctor also said Alex’s response to her question about whether he knew who might have killed Maggie and Paul was strange.

“He said that he did not know who it was, but he felt like whoever did it had thought about it for a really long time,” she testified.

She added that she and Alex never discussed finding the killer.

“We never talked about finding the person who could have done it,” she testified, according to The New York Times. “It was just odd.”

In fact, Proctor said, Alex seemed more concerned with proving that Paul hadn’t been driving the boat the night of the crash in 2019 that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach.

“He said that his number one goal was to clear Paul’s name, and I thought that was strange because my number one goal was to find out who killed my sister and Paul,” Proctor said, according to BuzzFeed. “I don’t know how he could have thought about anything else.”

Proctor is the latest person close to the Murdaugh family to testify about Alex’s odd behavior following the murder of his wife and son. On Friday, the family’s housekeeper, Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson, who had worked for the family for more than 10 years, testified that she was asked to clean the home the morning after the murders, The Daily Wire previously reported.

Turrubiate-Simpson said she noticed several things that seemed strange as she moved throughout the house, such as the pots from the dinner she had prepared the night before being put away when they were usually left for her the next morning.

“It was kind of unusual,” she told jurors.

She also found Maggie’s pajamas laid out neatly on the floor of the doorway leading to the laundry room, something the housekeeper said wouldn’t normally happen.

“That was very unusual. She wouldn’t leave her clothes out like that. Not in the middle of the door like that,” Turrubiate-Simpson testified. “It just didn’t look right to me.”

It also appeared as though someone had showered in the home since she found a puddle of water on the floor next to the shower, a damp towel, a pair of khaki pants, and a white T-shirt.

The housekeeper also spoke about Alex’s attire changing on the day his wife and son were murdered. She testified that he had been wearing khaki pants and a seafoam green polo shirt, which was captured on a Snapchat post filmed by Paul earlier in the day. Alex was wearing a clean white shirt and shorts when he was interviewed by police after the murders. Turrubiate-Simpson said she washed a pair of khakis but never saw the polo shirt or the shoes Alex wore.

A couple of months after the murders, Turrubiate-Simpson testified that Alex seemingly tried to tell her he was wearing something different on the day of the murders rather than the polo she remembered.

“It didn’t feel like he was inquiring,” Turrubiate-Simpson testified. “It felt more like he was trying to convince me of the shirt that he was wearing.”