to improve, you probably shouldn't be doing that. i love cookies. >> but maybe you should reward yourself. >> it takes 11 minutes for insomnia to deliver cookies to my house sometimes. >> perhaps you're a fan of the 1970s show welcome back cotter. john sebastian wrote the theme song for that. i'm a big fan of that. it was ha number one hit in america. you can listen to that about four times in a row and that gets you to about 11 minutes. or maybe you're a little bit more hip, right, and you want to watch a youtube video. the top trending video, which is about watching video gamers is about 11 minutes at this point. >> harry enten, i prappreciate . >> let's go for an exercise walk together. inside the murdaugh muds trial hosted by laura coates starts now.

is. >> i can promise you i would hurt myself before i would hurt one of them. >> the alex murdaugh trial in the deep south captivating the nation. >> there are a lot of conversations i had where i misled my clients and i stole their money. >> reporter: a case of weltd, po wealth, power, privilege, and murder. >> once i lied i continued to lie. >> reporter: but is there enough evidence to convict the man at the center of it all. >> i didn't shoot my wife or my son anytime ever. >> reporter: tonight we lay out the facts, the mysterious clues, and the trial's stunning turns in this cnn prime time special. ♪

>> good evening, everyone, i'm laura coates and closing arguments today in the double murder trial, and they will resume tomorrow and come after five weeks of tense, emotional, and graphic moments. as the jury of 12 in walterboro, south carolina, will soon decide alex murdaugh's fate. for the very first time today, they visited the scene of the murders of maggie and paul murdaugh traveling to the family's hunting property, and for the first time we also got to look at the crime scene up close via video released today. now, here's how tonight is going to work. we have assembled some of the nation's most prominent trial and jury veterans to analyze the key pieces of evidence and which sides may have presented the very best arguments. on the defense table, mark o'mara who defended george

zimmermann, on the prosecution table, lonnie kooms, a former los angeles criminal prosecutor, and anna sega mick la zee, a veteran former homicide prosecutor in brooklyn. now, in our makeshift jury box, the neutral voices at least for tonight, richard gabriel, a jury consultant in many high profile cases including the o.j. simpson and casey anthony trials. judge glenda hatchett who was the first african american chief judge of a stiate court in georgia and ken turkell, everyone from hulk hogan to sa sarah palin. if you have not been following this trial, we're going to give you the quick overview of just how we get here. let's go live to randi kaye who's been following every twist and turn. randi. >> reporter: laura, this all started nearly two years ago with that double murder not far from this courthouse at a

property known as moselle, and ever since then it has turned into a twisted tale of greed, lies and more lies, and the state says there is only one man orchestrating all of it, and that is alex murdaugh. >> i need the police, my wife and child -- >> reporter: june 7th, 2021, alex murdaugh says he called 911 after finding his wife and youngest son dead at their hunting property known as moselle. >> did you touch maggie at all? >> i did, i touched them both. i tried to take -- i mean, i tried to do it as limited as possible, but i tried to take their pulse on both of them. >> reporter: 52-year-old maggie murdaugh had been shot four or five times with a 300 blackout rifle. paul murdaugh just 22 has been shot twice with a shotgun. >> she fell to the ground and that's when the first fatal wound was drielivered.

his brain exploded out of his head, hit the ceiling in the shed and dropped to his feet. horr horrendous, horrible, butchering. >> reporter: both were murdered near the dog kennels on the family's property not far from the main house where alex murdaugh said he'd been napping at the time. that was a lie. >> is that you on the kennel video at 8:44 p.m. on june 7th the night maggie and paul were murdered? >> it is. >> reporter: murdaugh was backed into a corner. investigators had found this video on paul murdaugh's cell phone after his death. he was recorded at 8:44 p.m. just a few minutes before prosecutors say the murders occurred. alex murdaugh can be heard talking in the background. >> i was nowhere near paul and maggie when they got shot. >> reporter: despite his denials, prosecutors say murdaugh killed them to distract from his alleged financial schemes that were coming to light. he'd been confronted about missing funds at his law firm

and his personal finances were about to be exposed at an upcoming court hearing. >> there were plenty of times where i took money that i s shouldn't have taken. >> reporter: murdaugh's defense team has pushed back on the alleged motive, and this devs witness told the jury after analyzing the jury's trajectory, he determined someone much shorter than alex murdaugh who was about 6'5" likely was responsible for killing his wife. >> it puts the shooter or whoever fired the well, if they were that tall, it puts them in an unrealistic shooting position. >> now you're up to speed. let's slow down for a second. i want to go right to the evidence. you know, it comes down to two things that every single prosecutor has to contend with. i'm talking motive and opportunity. and without direct evidence or eyewitnesses or even weapons themselves, the prosecution's going to have to prove the latter, opportunity, better known as time. so let's focus first on the time line.

the prosecution has laid out and the big question, did murdaugh have time to commit murder, get rid of the guns, clean himself up, leave, and return in about an hour and 17 minutes? or is there reasonable doubt? let's drill down on that key kennel video that randi just mentioned. i want to turn to the prosecution first because, listen, he's admitting now that he is at the scene of the crime moments before the murders. is that enough? >> with everything else, yes, it is that cell phone that is the corner stone of the prosecution's case. paul gave investigators and the prosecution the exact tools they needed to figure out who it was that killed maggie and paul and it was his father, his wife, and he can't get away from it when you put all the other pieces together. >> but he can get away in the sense of this and playing devil's advocate which i have you here as well for the position. look, it shows the kennel,

right? i don't see direct evidence of the murder yet, what do you think? >> there's no direct evidence of the murder whatsoever. this case is a substantial evidence case. it means the prosecution to get their conviction has got to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence, not that the martians came down but there's someone else who may have done it. without that type of direct evidence, i think it is a very questionable case that 12 people are going to say without question we have no doubt that he did it. >> but he did himself a disservice here, which is your point too. why'd he lie? he could have said at any time, any time over the last two years, yep, i was at the kennels. now when it comes in witness after witness after witness, suddenly he's -- yeah, i was there. >> absolutely. i think this kennel video is the most important piece of evidence in this case for the prosecution because it explodes the big lie. i'm not talking about the hundreds of lies he told in the past. i'm talking about the big lie of his alibi where he said i was not there at the crime scene, i

was at the house taking a nap. he told this from the first moment he called 911 to the first responder to the first interview with law enforcement that night to two more interviews to all of his family members, to friends, everyone he has told that lie to until, as you said, this video came up and in court witness after witness came in and said that's him on that video. that's him. so that explains, it blows that up and now he has to explain it. why did he tell that lie? if his family has just been murdered and he wants to help law enforcement find the real killer, he knows that telling them the last time he saw them is a critical piece of evidence. he lied. why? because he knows when the time of death is because he was there. that's why he went to so much lengths to make his alibi to say he was not there at that time. >> the lie is the crown jewel of the prosecution. however, it does not provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt because people lie in circumstances like this all the

time. i have represented plenty of people factually innocent who have told dumb lies because in the moment the stress, the how does this look. do i look like i might be guilty, i know i'm not guilty and you tell a distinctive lie. it is true it creates a problem because there are so many lies that have to flow from it. i think the video also raises some interesting questions yli, like with what happened in those few minutes. you have this kennel video, there doesn't seem to be anyone in distress, anyone yelling, anything unusual, and then all of a sudden this horrendous crime happened, what happened? as much as the prosecution wants to say this is some mastermind, this was not a very well thought out crime if, in fact, you are saying he calculated this. this was some big scheme to deflect from all of these financial crimes. so i think the defense can use the video to their advantage, although i agree it started out as a big problem. what do you think? >> laura, to go to mark's earlier point, this is not a

direct evidence case. this is a sirj r circumstantial evidence case. people lie for innocent reasons, that does not prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. when you couple it with the small pieces of evidence, all the different things that happened, all the lies. this is a tsunami about to hit this man, to rip apart this legacy that his family that has been the meaning of their being in that area for years and you look at the fact you have motive, means, opportunity, and every small piece, large piece in this case those lies coupled together with the other pieces, i think if the jury sees what the prosecution has been putting together, can overcome that extremely high burden as it should be, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. >> it san is an enormous stretch to say that i steal from people, but to cover up i stole from people or my opiate habit or

whatever, i'm going to kill my son and i'm going to kill my wife. that is such a stretch. if the state's case was so strong, circumstantial as it is, why the big focus on the finances? why the big focus on the fraud? why try and convict him for that which he is not being prosecuted for in front of this jury. it's because they don't have a strong case on the actual murders. >> i want to hear your point, but i also want to hear from and see how this is landing. this has been a really big question for so many. not only the idea of motive, opportunity, but the idea of that big lie. let's hear from our fact finders. you all are not here to decide guilt or innocence. you're not the actual jurors in this case, but i want to lean on your neutrality nonetheless. tell me who do you think has the stronger argument? is it a justifiable lie, or is it he lied, therefore he killed? >> can i just say two things because we are all lawyers, and i just want to make sure that we remember that the people who are viewing this typically are not, and so i want to do two things quickly. one is the point about

reasonable doubt. it doesn't mean that you have to prove beyond any doubt, it means that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. and secondly, the prosecution under the law is not required to outline and prove a motive. so i just want to frame that as you're talking about that. having said that, i think the fact that he waited until there was testimony in this courtroom from multiple people and then said, oh, yes, i was there and i was paranoid, really, i think creates a credibility gap and once you have that credibility gap, i think that it also can taint your other testimony. whether you're credible or not, and so think about that as you're having this conversation. >> how does it play to the jury to you? >> well, i think, you know you've hit on an important point here. the truth is that juries make decisions in a different parkway

than -- way than what lawyers and judges do. for them really it's about the story, what are they putting together. they may think he's got the means, he's got the opportunity. it's really the why, it's how they construct what is going through his head, and a lot of times i think all the attorneys here now that trials sometimes are about rational explanations for irrational behavior, so they're trying to figure out how can we create an explanation of this. jurors can construct either their own reasonable doubt. the real issue for the jury is what do they want to believe. do they want to believe he's guilty? that actually happens much earlier in the case. it sometimes happens as early as jury selection are where they go, look at this guy and go i know about the murdaughs, and i don't like them. >> which by the way, i'm going to get you in a second, i want to put on one more piece of evidence because you talked about the idea of constructing, constructing alibis, what do i

want to believe. and mind you, this is a team that did not move for a change of venue. they want this jury in front of the people who might say i know murdaugh. i want to point out the idea of what's been happening in terms of what the prosecution is saying about the movements, right? we know he was at the scene of the crime because he said it, he admitted to t.it. the question is what was he doing in between the time he was at the kennel and then called the police? listen to this. >> cell phone data filling the gaps in a case with dramatically little physical evidence. state investigators piece together a detailed time line of events using cellar and gps data. >> there are 4,820 data points that make up these lines here. >> reporter: prosecutors pointed out alex murdaugh was more active at the time of the murders than at any point that night. >> 283 steps. >> he was a busy guy right then,

wasn't he? >> reporter: and tried to indicate murdaugh disposed of his wife's phone using data to show he drove by slowly where it was later found. >> after passing that location does the defendant's vehicle start to accelerate? >> it does. >> reporter: the defense used the same data to show alex and maggie's phone were never together that night, and her phone appeared to be motion activated at the time the state suggested alex murdaugh tossed it out of his moving car. >> at the time alex murdaugh's car was passing, the screen never came on. >> that's correct. indicated it was off. >> they talked about 4,000 data points, how about nine for a second, everyone, right? the idea of the points in time they're following murdaugh's phone records and what it means. will you distill it, ken, and think about the volume of information that a jury, as judge hatchet points out, they don't live, eat, and breathe the case. how is it playing to have so many different points and it coming down to the cell phone time line?

>> it's a terribly difficult for me to be neutral, i'm hearing so many things here that i like. and when you piece them all together, i don't think jurors sit there and concentrate on 283 steps. i think they concentrate on a story, and that story's got to be authentic, i'm going to write a book one day when i stop doing this and i want to give the secrets away, authentic means the facts with the bad ones and the good ones. being able to own those is and tell a story that's going to make sense to people in a way you can win your case. if you can't win your case, you shouldn't try your case. that's my theory. when i hear an authentic story, i don't think of the grid lines, 283 steps, they'll get lost on that. there's a million ways. these phones and how they track your steps, who even knows. i don't think that's where this breaks down. i don't think they put him on the stand until that tape comes up and they know he's there. and now he's got to explain this

waech away. when i first started looking at this and what they don't know out there in tv land, we don't coordinate these thoughts. we've all looked at this independently. when i first looked at it, the motive jumped out at me. it does not make sense that a guy's going to murder his wife and his son to distract from a financial crimes investigation? i mean, this guy's a lawyer he'd take the hit on the financial crimes. it's a much more defensive scenario in a white collar case. >> as you're talking about it. >> i haven't even gotten to the point yet, the real point. >> i want to tell you something as the prosecution team and the defense, talk to me about this. what's jumping out to this jury is the motive issue. what's jumping out is the financial fraud trial that was in the middle of all of this and the idea of minutia, the devil being in the details. is the devil in the details helpful to this case? >> and i think it is because this is someone, all the experts have told us that is a true narcissists, that puts his

interests above everyone's. that includes his son, his wife, look who he was stealing from. his housekeeper's family, people that had almost nothing he was willing to take it all away from them for his own personal gain. what ken's saying about the steps i absolutely agree. look at that, i wish i could do 283 steps every few minutes of my day. we'd all be in a lot better shape. this is a man who said he had taken a nap and had just seen his ailing mother. 283 steps becomes part of the cohesive story, which is that this is someone who has thought this out, who has decided in his warped mind that this is the way to hope to get out from under and so he is putting his plan in action. i agree with jennifer, it's not a great plan, but the most masterminds -- >> it makes no sense. >> which is why people are convicted. at the end of the day, i think it becomes part of the story. >> i've always wanted to be called your honor. i want to hear what you have to say about this issue. look, it's hard not to get riled

up when you hear these arguments, what's going on. she's saying this is all a concocted alibi. the motive evidence is so lousy. the prosecution doesn't have to prove motive, but it is the one thing that juries really want to hear. they want to know why. and this motive makes no sense. let me get this straight. i have this house of cards ready to tumble down, all these financial crimes, let me throw a double homicide on the heap so -- >> like that will fix things. >> that will fix everything. >> it makes zero sense, and why two? you can kill one person and have the same effect if you really want to just distract. it does not make sense. i think it's the weakest point and yet still the most important point, notwithstanding the prosecution doesn't have to prove it. >> lonnie. >> i agree, and even as the trial unfolded just from the opening statements when he laid out the motivation for murders, double murder of your wife and son was to distract? nobody's going to buy that. you don't do such a horrific violent murder, and that's why

the defense just got up and described, you know, the brain going up and hitting the ground and immediately you're like, no, there's no way he would have done that for that reason. however, as this case unfolded, i agree the prosecution spent way too much taime on the financial crimes. i think the details were so important because they could talk about how he was so cold stealing from friends who were dying and taking their money and telling them i'm sorry you're doing so poorly. in the closing argument he expanded the motive, he said it was the family legacy. that's one thing that came out clear. his leg stha goes back 100 years in this lowcountry is the most important thing to him. all of this was tied in with what was going on on the financial side. it was all going to be exposed. it was going to tear down his family legacy. the reason we don't have to prove motive is because there's no rational motive for murder. okay? we're never going to understand the person's motive for murder. >> we're also told that there was a rocky patch in their

marriage, if we can listen to accounts and that both paul and maggie were starting to give him a hard time about the opioids. addiction does a lot of bad things to people, unfortunately we have seen that. so it's like it doesn't make sense to us, hopefully because most of us don't go around murdering other people, but i think that it goes towards his guilt when you put it in the context of all the other pieces. >> look, if you're talking about how you dress up the idea of the context and the motive and we still don't have direct evidence essentially, but we do actually have conversations and testimony about what he was wearing, and i'm going to talk to you about why that has been part of it. teasing about discussions about blue jacket, was it a tarp, was it not, the change of clothes. why was that significant? we're going to hear from our jury box and our prosecution and dae defense teams next. lvy quickly stops migraine in its tracks within 2 hours. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitorsrs. mostst common side effects were nausea and tiredness.

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i heard about the payroll tax refund, it allowed us to keep the amount of people that we needed and the people that have been here taking care of us. see if your business may qualify. go to getrefunds.com. i think his hands are dirty. i'm not sure if he pulled the trigger. but i think his hands are dirty. >> i don't think he'll be proven guilty of the murders itself. of course, you know, the financial part, but as far as the murders itself, there's -- you know, without a shadow of a doubt, i don't think he's going to be convicted of that. >> once they see that this guy is capable of stealing from the most vulnerable people in society, if he can do that, he can do anything. >> well, it's anyone's guess at this point how the jury will

actually come down when the closing arguments are over, but there's a lot more that the jurors have to weigh, including what was found on one, well, blue raincoat. >> this blue rain jacket, one of the only pieces of physical evidence, gunshot residue discovered on it held up time and time again for the jury. its very inclusion the subject of intense back and forth. >> did alex murdaugh have that rain jacket with him, she says no. this appears to be the same thing you saw the defendant holding. it looks so, yes. >> reporter: the amount of residue found noteworthy, 52 particles of gunshot primer residue found on the jacket. >> it was a significant amount of particles. >> reporter: but the residue's location may matter most. 38 of those particles were on the inside, and just 14 on the outside. >> typically people wear their clothing right side out, and so if they're in the vicinity to the discharge of a shooting, that's where the particles are going to land.

>> reporter: the prosecution suggesting the jacket was used to wrap up and dispose of the murder weapons. and a forensic scientist testified that could explain it. but like so much in this trial, location and timing raise the potential for doubt. the jacket was found several months after the murders at alex murdaugh's mother's home. with hunting and shooting so integral to the family lifestyle, the residue could be from a day of shooting years ago the forensic scientist said. >> if the shotgun was not cleaned, there is the potential for the transfer off of that shotgun, yes. >> there's a potential, right? well, back with our expert guests right now, and keep in mind, everyone, while they're focusing on only that blue rain jacket, there's also been conversations about what he had on the day of the murders, what he had had on earlier in the day. this is before the taime the prosecution says it actually happened, he's in a different outfit, a blue polo shirt, the brown loafers. then it's when he talks to the police officers, a change of

clothing, and then of course found later information about that, that blue jacket. i'm going to go to my jury right now. i bet when you're thinking about what he had on and how this weighs in, i bet jurors are still thinking to themselves, yeah, the clothing is one thing, but are you trying to dress up the motive? what do you think? >> well, i mean, i'll tell you this. jurors spend about a quarter to a third of the time just talking about their own personal experience, so what ends up happening is they go, yeah, when i go hunting, here's what i do, and here's how i see. so they're going to be using in the jury room their personal experience to talk about discharge of weapons, the spatial relationship, the dogs, the space and the timing and how loud these gunshots might have been. so they're going to be filtering all this through their personal experience, and that's why jury selection, quite frankly, is really important. >> and that's why you want a jury of your peers, right, who might say things like, well, that could be me and would i do that and does that make sense, and the time line, judge, you're

nodding along. >> i also think it boils down to a person actually wondering, i think, from the jury's perspective, well, why'd he change clothes? if he had on clothes here, why did he have on different clothes by the time the police got there. as a juror, i would be wondering why did he change clothes, and how did this jacket end up a week later? there's some plausible explanations as we just heard, and that raises reasonable doubt. but as a juror, i'm thinking he's dressed this way. he says he has a nap. he does this. he does this, he does this. and one other footnote, this technology has been very interesting in this case because the thing that he thought would exonerate him has been the thing that has really come back to haunt him, the steps, nobody thought, you know, that they would go back and track the steps. nobody thought that they would go back and really look at the phone, the overlay of the phone, and he certainly didn't think he was on that video with his son

that night. and so the technology interestingly enough is going to weigh i think very heavily in this case. >> ken, the moment you have been pointing out when he's with the son in the kennel, that's stickist sticking in your craw, why? >> i think i mentioned earlier i don't think they put him on if they don't have to explain that lie away. i don't think anybody picked up on this, i am obsessed with this. he gets on the stand and he starts saying i'm sorry and he goes down a succession of everybody he knows -- i apologized to my family, to the other families to his dad, just this litany, he names everyone in his life, and when he gets to the end, he's supposed to be apologizing for the lie, for telling the lie about the kennel. it's in that part of his testimony, i think it was on cross, and then he says i apologize to mags and pau-pau, i

would never intentionally do anything to hurt them. i wasn't thinking clearly that night. i was incapable of reason. so i'm sorry i told the lie about the kennel. that testimony i watched about eight times today over and over. it makes no sense. >> i'd like to add one other thing too, that people, i don't think, zeroed in on rk when he asked if the dogs were barking, and he said, no, because nobody else was there. and if a stranger had been at that kennel that night, those dogs would have been going absolutely wild. he in his own testimony said no, because there was no one else there. >> you know what's funny about this, we're hearing all the things from the mind of the jurors, areas that we're talking about motive and everything else that's going on, but really what was so impactful to the jury box and what even non-lawyers were thinking about, and let me tell you, we have the kennel video. we've got the jacket, the change

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look, this is a double homicide trial. he's also charged with two counts of possessing a weapon. interesting, of course, because we don't actually have the murder weapons. back with our experts right now, i want to hear from you guys.

what is the impact that they do not have any of the guns for the evidence, what do you say? >> i don't think it should be any because in most homicides they don't have the murder weapon. you know it happened skand here they have great evidence. they have the fact that the rifle, the casings that were found nearby, they said conclusively match, even though they don't have the gun. they know that paul had a gun like that that was replaced the year before that is lo and behold, missing. then you now go to the shotgun and they talk about while they could not conclusively match anything, there are certain guns from that home that could have caused those exact injuries from what they recovered from maggie. again, missing. so for someone that likes to talk and explain things because his favorite line should be i look at him is admit what you have to and deny what you can. he talks about things he's comfortable with, and then they k confront him with something and he switches gears. it is quite powerful for the prosecution what they had when they talked about the gunts that were used were owned by this family and they're now missing. >> i think it's important too, the defense is going to say

these are not family guns, you can't prove it. the defense went to great lengths to talk about how paul would leave his guns everywhere, apparently the argument is this viny vigilante who showed up moments before the death, when they showed up they happened upon these guns, these family guns that paul left at the truck and happened to use those. how lucky was it this person that was coming in to kill found these guns laying there and used them to kill. >> oh, but again, the prosecution does a good job of explaining away evidence they don't have because they don't have it. but the harsh reality is you should have found those guns. they could have found the guns. they worked this case for a year and a half to get ready for it. they have all of the resources they could have gotten. they've gotten everything from the cell phones, everything from the cars, everything else, but yet what they don't have are two of the most significant pieces of evidence to convince jury there are fingerprints, that there is anything that would suggest it was actually him, and the fact that they don't have it leaves a gaping hole through which reasonable doubt is going

to be found. >> and i think we have to ask, you know, again, the prosecution's theory is that this was a mastermind. he had this all crumbling down, and at the same time, he is committing the messiest crime really all in having this hastily put together alibi, he's using his family guns. you know, this isn't someone if he did it who really has planned this out in any way. so again, that doesn't fit with the prosecution's theory either. like why use your own guns. there's guns everywhere. so i think the jury's going to have a lot of questions about why would he use his own family guns to carry out these crimes on which clearly could be more easily connected to access. >> how about the family -- >> but if the family -- >> it's a family that has a lot of guns. >> he's planned this out like a sociopathic would plan it out. why not get it done with a gun the family doesn't own. >> he plans of getting rid of

the guns. they're not going to ever -- >> no, ak-47 that they don't own. >> i heard access. i heard opioids. i heard why, i heard questions. i hear room for a jury to contemplate all of this. up nenxt, we're going to talk about an area that i think you mentioned loni, and that's the idea of maybe another witness in this particular trial, maybe the opioid addiction. murdaugh testified he had a severe one. i want to know what role does that play in the prosecution's case and how about the defense's case, dr. sanjay gupta is next.

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>> i'm not quite sure how i let myself get where i got, but it came from, you know, i battled that addiction for so many years, i was spending so much money on pills. >> so you're taking 60 a day or something like that? i mean -- >> there were days when i took more than that. there were days that i took less than that. >> alex murdaugh laying bare his opioid adidiction that spanned two decades, up to 60 pills. what does that do to your body? what does it do to your mind? cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta is with us to break this all down.

dr. gupta, i'm so glad you're here because for so many people who were looking a t this trial and there are many looking at it, they're wondering what happened. i want to start with that huge dosage in particular because the amount we're talking about that he says he was taking almost daily, obviously you don't know the specifics and the details have not been -- you're not treating him specifically, but just for any human being, what would be the physiological impact on that very high dosage? >> well, it could be a pretty significant impact, but i can tell you this, depending over what period of time, and you said over a couple of decades perhaps in his case, people can gradually build up increasing tolerance to these drugs, these opioids. this was not unheard of, even though, you know, you're talking maybe 2,000 milligrams a day. i think if you do the math on this, it's a lot.

typically a dose would start as 10, 20 milligrams maybe a few times a day, maybe even less than that if someone has taken these medications after an operation, for example. but over time people can increasingly escalate the dose, and you know, we talked to anesthesiologists today who have heard of patients taking even more than that. a couple of things unusual. one is that over the last 20 years, laura, the landscape has changed. you heard about people taking this many pills in the past when pills were being overprescribed. they're still being prescribed too much, but they've also been replaced by things like heroin and fentanyl, for example, so that's where people often transition if they're taking that much opioids. but you know, even within a short time, people can start to develop significant tolerance to the point where they're no longer taking the medication to get high, to develop euphoria, but rather just to feel normal and not have withdrawal. let me just show you this real quick, laura.

the tolerance and the withdrawal that symptoms that people might have can happen very quickly. even if you're taking this for a few days only, if you stop taking it, within hours you could start to have withdrawal symptoms, 6 to 12 hours. within a few days, three days after you stop taking it, you could have all the symptoms you see in the middle of the screen. you feel terrible. you feel miserable. that's the acute withdrawal, and that's what sort of prompts people to start taking pills again. your question specifically about the impact physiologically, you're name it in terms of what it can do to the body. people can feel very nauseated, they can feel very constipated. they can have brain fog. they may not have their faculties, you name it when someone's in the throes of opioid abuse. as soon as you stop taking the opioids, you start to have pain. you're taking this thing for pain, you stop taking it, you actually have more pain than you

did before so lots going on there, laura. >> of course we're in the midst of a murder trial with alex murdaugh and the idea of the impact it could have on your brain pretty significant in what you're touching on, and interestingly enough, when you talk about the tolerance, one, dr. gupta, does that mean that you could hide what is happening and the impact on your body if you've built up the tolerance? and two, could it be a circumstance where it could very well impact your judgment, impact your ability to perceive things in realtime or heighten paranoia? because that seems to be part of this defense. >> well, i think the answer to the first part of your question, could you hide it, and i think the answer is yes. if you basically are taking enough opioids to overcome the withdrawal that you could have, you know, again, within hours of stopping taking it, you could hide it. and at some point you're taking it to achieve some sense of normalcy, as opposed to acting

like you're in a euphoric state. people think about opioids affecting pain centers in the brain, which they do. there's these mu receptors in the brain. this is a muagonist. these mu receptors are all over the brain, not just in pain areas but also in emotional areas of the brain. they're also in areas of the brain that are responsible for reward. that's the top screen there. that's where all the mu receptors are, but it overlaps with all these different areas of the brain. so someone who takes opioids gets a really significant response to all these different areas of the brain. i'll just show you on this brain model, if you can see. i talked about the reward centers of the brain, the emotional centers of the brain, but to your question, it can also affect this area, the prefrontal and frontal cortex, and that area of the brain is responsible for judgment, and your ability to determine what is real, what is not real, maybe

that has something to do with par paranoia. perhaps, it depends, but over time, i think it is safe to say that the circuitry in your brain as a result of now being an opioid addict changes. you require higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect, but the receptors in all those areas of the brain that i just outlined, they change. so what is the impact ultimately on how someone behaves, it's a little bit tough to know, but it could be different, obviously, than before they started taking the opioids. >> dr. gupta, fascinating to hear your insight on this and your expertise. thank you so much. and next, the taboo topic from this trial that's not getting talked about enough. old school hard work meets bold, new thinking,

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>> it so of all of the child to cover, why this one. why this trial in walterboro, south carolina home of fewer than 6,000 people in this low county seat. maybe it is what this man alex murdaugh seen sitting there in the courtroom, maybe it is what

he represents. he is charged with double murder but no matter what the verdict in this case is, he has also been charged with 99 financial crimes and other state investigations around them. almost a dozen lawsuits according to the charleston post. look at how long it took this to even get to trial. they were killed june 7, 2021, yet here we are nearly two years later. long enough for multiple filmmakers to pump out multiple high-profile documentaries including two by our own parent company. >> where the murdaugh's goat death follows. what was once a dynasty is reduced to rubble. >> did privilege have anything to do with the delay or the

investigation? we know money and power and connections can equal protection. it seems murdaugh had all three. for more than 85 years a member of the family served in the prosecutor's office. their names synonymous with the law. their bank accounts were filled through a powerful personal injury law firm. it probably resonates in its familiarity. we do know there are two justice systems in this country. one for the rich, and one for the poor. as a former supreme court justice suggested back in 1964, far to often, money or the lack of it can be the deciding factor in the court room. murdaugh had a front row seat to the criminal justice system and knows who is likely to go to prison. it is possible he felt comfortable that the legal system would give him a pass.

but now that the spotlight is on the murdaugh's, it may be shining a light on more unanswered questions. a trail of suspicious deaths now under renewed scrutiny as some area residents wonder, if the murdaugh money and power bought the family the benefit of the doubt for a lot longer than the time since the double murder. like that 2015 death of a classmate of alex murdaugh son who was found dead in the middle of a road and no one was arrested. after the murdaugh killings the state is looking back into that case but hasn't said why, nor named murdaugh as a suspect. and when the family housekeeper died less than three years later, insurance paid out big settlements but none of it went to her survivors. instead, it lined murdaugh's pockets. he later admitted in a settlement he owes them for

$.3 million. the state is also investigating her death. you combined that with a boat crash that killed a teenage girl , malory beach. and that paul was charged in that case before his death, alex murdaugh is facing multiple lawsuits with that case as well. 's attorney say he is not at fault for his son's alleged drinking and boating and says someone else was driving. that brings me back to the double murder trial we see playing out. twelve jurors, two murders. one burden of proof, one alex murdaugh. thank you for watching tonight, allison picks up coverage next. ♪ ♪

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