Murdaugh was found guilty in the 2021 murders of his wife and youngest son.
Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was sentenced Friday to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.
Margaret "Maggie" Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family's estate in June 2021, authorities said.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was found guilty Thursday on all charges -- two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the commitment of a violent crime.
"Murdaugh Family Murders," a deep dive into the trial, featuring new interviews, airs Friday at 9 ET/8 CT on ABC's "20/20."
Alex Murdaugh gave a brief statement to the judge before sentencing, saying, “I’m innocent. I would never hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never hurt my son, Paw-Paw.”
Alex Murdaugh to court before sentencing: ‘I’m innocent'
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he hopes no one forgets the victims at the center of Alex Murdaugh's trial, even as the case became "sensational" and "grabbed the attention of the world."
"At the end of the day, two people were brutally murdered, they lost their lives, a family was destroyed, a legacy was torn asunder and there’s been a wake of victims going back decades, and we want to put the attention on them and let them know that their voice can be heard," Wilson told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on "Good Morning America."
Wilson said the disgraced lawyer has "been weaving a tangled web of lies for decades," which the South Carolina attorney general said was evident when Murdaugh took the stand to testify in his own trial, after cellphone video had placed him at the scene minutes before the crime occurred.
"For so long, he's been able to manipulate people and bend them to his will because he's so good at what he does," Wilson said. "He was a master at manipulating and communicating with juries and I believe when he took the stand, that was his last closing argument. He had done this for so long, he believed that he could get what he wanted out of this jury. And I think when he took the stand, he confirmed for many of those jurors what they had heard in that video -- that he was a liar."
Wilson said he was "pleasantly surprised" when he learned that the jury had returned a verdict in less than three hours and hoped it was a good sign.
"I didn't know what to think," he recalled. "I respect the process too much to be that confident, but I was guardedly optimistic when they came back as quickly as they did."
Wilson said the guilty verdict sends a message to those "who question the criminal justice system" and who think "it doesn’t apply fairly and equally to all people."
"We are here to say that it does, that no one is above the law in South Carolina and when you brutally murder your wife and son, you will be held accountable no matter who you are," he added.
The South Carolina attorney general thanked the authorities, investigators and prosecutors behind the case, saying: "They made this conviction possible."
South Carolina attorney general speaks out ahead of Alex Murdaugh sentencing
ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams said he expects Alex Murdaugh will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, since prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty.
"I'm not expecting there to be much debate," Abrams said Friday on "Good Morning America."
"He's now in a tough spot, because he can't really now accept responsibility just after testifying for all these days and talking about how he didn't do it," Abrams noted. "What he could say is similar to what he said on the stand, which is: I regret, I did bad things to people, I'm sorry about that, I hurt people that I cared about, with sort of these broad allusions to the financial crimes without actually admitting anything with regard to the murders."
Abrams said he thinks it was a mistake on the defense team's part for Murdaugh to testify.
"To some degree, you could argue he had to take the stand," he explained. "Suddenly, there's evidence that he's there at the crime scene despite the fact that he's saying he wasn't there."
"So now it doesn't have to be him per se, but somebody's got to explain what he was doing there minutes before the crime occurs," he continued. "In retrospect, was it a mistake? Sure, because if he hadn't taken the stand, he might've been better off. I said at the time I thought it was a mistake for him to take the stand. But they did have to do something to explain why his voice was clearly there at the crime scene minutes before Maggie and Paul were killed."
Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison for double murder
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said he believes Alex Murdaugh's lie about being at the scene of the crime just minutes before his wife and son were murdered was part of what made such a "compelling" case against him.
"It's not just being a liar. In this case, it was him being a liar about being at the scene with the victims just minutes before their cellphones went silent forever," Waters told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on "Good Morning America."
"I made the argument to the jury and the team did -- this was obviously a team effort -- that, you know, what kind of reasonable father or husband would lie to law enforcement about such a crucial fact in that moment, and only one who really knew what had happened?" he said. "When you lie about being at the scene with the victims just minutes before the crime happened, that's pretty compelling evidence."
Waters said he thinks the cellphone video placing Murdaugh at the scene minutes before the crime "absolutely" made a difference in guilty verdict.
"That was something that the defendant could never account for and I think, though, he was still hoping that that evidence wouldn't be as strong as it was," Waters noted. "He initially claimed -- because there was one young man who thought he heard him on the phone and he said, well, he's got to be mistaken. I think he thought he could get around that."
"But as we continued to put up family and friends, people who were very close to him, none of whom knew who he really was, it became very compelling," Waters said. "And I think that’s what motivated him to try to take the stand and see if he could give one last closing argument to these jurors."
The lead prosecutor said he was not surprised when Murdaugh decided to testify.
"I thought that he would do it all along," he added. "In this community, he's been able to talk his way out of accountability his entire life and people like that are convinced in their own ability to do so."
When cross-examining Murdaugh, the prosecution team's strategy was to "establish who he was," according to Waters.
"I thought it was very interesting that he would not even concede to these jurors that he was wealthy," Waters said. "And that was sort of the idea, was to get him talking about himself and about his life but then to, first of all, hammer home the financial aspects of this case and the many lies that he had told to people that trusted him and then move into the specifics of his new story that he was now telling the world for the first time, at least publicly. And I think that's very compelling and ultimately was convincing to the jury."
When asked about the jury only taking three hours to reach a verdict, Waters said: "We presented a very compelling and strong case, and I think that it didn't take them long to figure this out."
"They looked him in his eyes, as much as I've had the chance to do, and realized who this person really was." he added. “And I think that really was the final thing that led this jury to come to the right conclusion."
Waters said he hopes to see a "just sentence from the judge" on Friday morning.
"I do think that, in the end, we will have a just result for Maggie and Paul, who again we cannot forget in all of this," he said. "That's what this is really about and, thankfully, they had a voice yesterday when the jurors spoke."
Juror speaks out after Alex Murdaugh found guilty in murder of wife, son
