WALTERBORO, S.C. >> The longest criminal trial in South Carolina history finally ended Friday, marking the end, too, of the nearly 100-year legal reign of the Murdaugh family in the state’s 14th Circuit and, according to generations of locals, their selectively applied rule of law.

Alex Murdaugh, once a “friendly, outgoing” trial lawyer, in the words of the judge who sentenced him to two consecutive life terms, left the courtroom in prison garb and shackles, his head hanging low, as the jurors watched this time from the public gallery.

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters made his case for sentencing Murdaugh to the full extent of the law, referring to his “cunning” manipulation of people and his placing himself “above all others, including his family.” He repeated testimonial descriptions of Murdaugh’s late son, Paul, as fun-loving and a loyal friend, and his murdered wife, Maggie, as a sweet girls’ girl who adored her sons.

Waters told presiding Judge Clifton Newman how Murdaugh liked to stare at the prosecutor when he walked by. Looking into his eyes, Waters said, “I saw who he really is.”

Murdaugh’s only words to the court were: “I’m innocent. I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my son Paul.”

Newman was having none of it. In an extended rebuke, he reminded Murdaugh that he had betrayed his “respected” family’s legacy. It was personally “heartbreaking,” he said, to watch Murdaugh, who previously had appeared before him as a lawyer in court, go from a grieving father to the person indicted and convicted for being the person who killed them. The judge asked Murdaugh what he had meant when he said on the witness stand, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave.” Newman must know the phrase that follows in Sir Walter Scott’s poem: “When first we practice to deceive.”

Murdaugh said he was referring to his lies, whereupon Newman said, “The question is, when will it end?” He said 99% of the people in the room probably thought Murdaugh was lying still. Chillingly, Newman said he was sure that Maggie and Paul now visit their husband and father often and that “they will continue to.” In this, he was reflecting prosecutor John Meadors’s dramatic rebuttal to the defense’s closing argument.

The so-called trial of the century, having riveted the world, left lawyers, family members, victims, jurors and the media spent. For many who visited the courtroom as spectators, justice was served.

Things might have gone very differently, however, had one of the jurors not been dismissed the very morning of closing arguments. A woman was reported and dismissed for talking about the trial outside the courtroom.

What she said to someone who turned her in was: “He’s not guilty.”

Thus, “what if,” the poltergeist of history, becomes the unavoidable, unanswerable question. What if the woman had remained on the jury and stood her ground? There might have been a hung jury. What if Paul had never made that kennel video? What if Cash hadn’t been staying at the Murdaughs’ kennels? What if Alex hadn’t called out to Bubba so he could extract a chicken from the dog’s jaws? What if Alex had kept his mouth shut?

Here’s what: Murder charges probably would not have been brought against him, and this trial would not have happened. Without the voice on the video, Alex Murdaugh could have stuck to the lie that he never went to the kennels that night, and people probably would have believed him.