Live updates: Alex Murdaugh testifies in murder trial

As Alex Murdaugh testified in his defense on Thursday, he gave details about his movements on the night that his son and wife were murdered.

He stepped out of his house after dinner to attend to the dogs in the kennels, after which he went back inside his house, he said. After that, he laid on the couch, and decided to go visit his mother, an Alzheimer patient, whom his wife, Margaret, didn’t like to visit, he noted later in the testimony.

Murdaugh said he saw his mom in the bedroom, where he said he talked to her for a minute as she was awake.

His wife, Margaret, who he also called Maggie, was not there with him, he said.

“She wasn’t planning to go with me that night. In fact, Maggie didn’t really like to visit my mom. She loved to visit my dad, and she loved to spend time with my dad. And she spent a lot of time with my mom when my mom was healthy. But you know, by this point, my mom, she was a shell of her old self. And I mean, it was kind of sad to go and visit her any time. I mean, she just wasn’t healthy. And Maggie didn’t like to go and just visit my mom,” he told the court. 

Murdaugh told the court that on his way back from his mother’s house, he tried to call his wife twice, but she did not answer. He said he also left her a text. However, he said he did not find that unusual, because she was with their son Paul and because there is sometimes spotty cell service.