Who shot Alex Murdaugh? Bandaged photo of attorney's head shown to jurors during trial 

Alex Murdaugh’s defense team reportedly showed a photo of the former attorney’s bandaged head to the jurors during his double-murder trial.

Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of s*icide and murder. Readers discretion is advised.

The image was captured in the aftermath of his botched hitman plot from 2021 and presented in court as part of the defense’s closing remarks.

During the incident, Curtis "Eddie" Smith, Murdaugh’s former law firm client, distant cousin, and alleged drug dealer, shot him on the “side of the road.”

However, it was later revealed that Murdaugh paid the gunman in a murder-for-hire plot to ensure his surviving son Buster received a hefty life insurance payout.

On Thursday, defense lawyer Jim Griffin revisited the incident to claim that Murdaugh was a loving family man who would never hurt others but hurt himself for his family instead:

“Even if the financial day of reckoning was impending, if it was right there, Alex would not have killed people he loved the most in the world. There’s no evidence that he would do that. We do have evidence of what he would do and did do.”

Griffin then shared a gruesome photo of Murdaugh’s injuries to the jurors. In it, the now-disgraced lawyer can be seen wearing a bandage around his head and a brace on his neck with blood dripping down his forehead and chest.

The lawyer then said that Alex Murdaugh tried to end himself rather than kill someone else due to his financial collapse:

“He gets his drug dealer Curtis Eddie Smith to shoot him in the head. He couldn’t go on because it was all gonna come crashing down and he had a big life insurance policy. So when Alex is at financial collapse, he doesn’t go kill somebody else. He tries to end it himself.”

Griffin then dubbed the incident as a “natural response.” He also called the prosecutors’ murder allegations against Murdaugh “outlandish” and “totally illogical” and said:

“People kill themselves from being exposed. They don’t kill their wife they adore, their son, the apple of his eye, as some people have said.”

However, Alex Murdaugh was officially found guilty of fatally shooting his wife Maggie and son Paul following a six-week trial. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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Alex Murdaugh’s hired gunman Curtis Smith opens up on lawyer’s conviction

Curtis ‘Eddie’ Smith's attorney issued a statement following Alex Murdaugh's conviction (Image via Wigwam Quan/Twitter)

In the wake of Alex Murdaugh’s sentencing, Curtis “Eddie” Smith, his hired hitman for the 2021 failed assassination plan, issued an official statement through his attorney saying that the former’s conviction and freed him from the baseless allegations of being involved in Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s murders.

A statement from attorneys T. Jarrett Bouchette and Aimee Zmroczek to FITS News read:

“It should now be clear that our client had nothing to do with the tragic deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.”

It mentioned that despite a year and a half of "speculation, innuendo, half truths and outright falsehoods," there was no evidence, analysis or testimony that hinted towards Smith’s involvement in the slayings of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.

The attorneys also revealed why Smith was never summoned to the court to testify during Alex Murdaugh’s trial and said:

“The reason for not calling Mr. Smith is quite simple: he had no knowledge of anything relating to those horrific deaths.”

They also called out the defense team for not calling Smith to testify in court:

“Furthermore, despite months of filings and courtroom statements seeming to imply that Mr Smith was either the ‘real killer’ or knew who was, when the time came to present evidence, Mr. Murdaugh’s defense team never attempted to call Mr Smith to testify despite the fact that he was available to do so.”

The statement continued:

“In fact, when the issue of his testimony being presented by the state was raised, it was strenuously objected to by the defense. Ultimately the jury determined that Mr Murdaugh was the sole party responsible for the deaths of his wife and son.”

It also mentioned that the initial representations by Murdaugh were eventually proven to be “unsubstantiated.” The statement also claimed that Curtis “Eddie” Smith was a “decent man” who was “manipulated and taken advantage of” by Alex Murdaugh:

“Mr Smith is a good and decent man who was, like so many others, manipulated and taken advantage of by Mr Murdaugh and we look forward to the opportunity to present his story at trial.”

Prior to Murdaugh’s conviction, his defense team shared speculations about Smith’s involvement in the fatal shooting of Maggie and Paul. Back in October, they even claimed that Smith failed a lie detector test asking about his whereabouts on the night of the Murdaugh murders.

However, the defense failed to provide any evidence to show Smith’s involvement in the murders and the jury determined that Alex Murdaugh murdered his wife and son.

On September 4, 2021, three months after the murders of Paul and Maggie and a day after Alex Murdaugh was fired from his law firm for stealing millions of dollars in funds, the latter called 911 claiming that he was the victim of a drive-by shooting while he was changing a tire on his vehicle on the side of the road.

The former attorney was taken to the hospital and treated for what the police referred to as a “superficial gunshot wound to the head.”

Murdaugh continued to share his story for several days and also constructed the image of an imaginary assailant with the help of a police sketch artist.

However, a week later, he admitted to law enforcement officials that he hired Smith and asked the gunman to shoot him to death in an assisted suicide plot so that his surviving son Buster could get a $12M life insurance payout.

Both Alex Murdaugh and Curtis Smith were arrested and formally charged over the incident. In addition to the shooting incident, Smith is also facing charges over a $2.4M drug smuggling ring connected to Murdaugh.