Native Lexington County resident and state Attorney General Alan Wilson addressed the crowd at the Lexington Chamber’s monthly Business Over Breakfast on April 11.

And yes, he talked about the recently wrapped murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced Lowcountry attorney who was convicted for killing his wife and son in 2021.

Wilson and his team prosecuted the case that ended with a conviction March 2. Murdaugh was sentenced to two life sentences running consecutively without the possibility of parole.

During his brief remarks as the guest speaker at the chamber breakfast, Wilson frequently joked that the crowd was likely there only to hear about the trial, which became the subject of national interest.

Answering questions about the trial at the end of his remarks, Wilson confirmed the importance of the 2019 boat crash involving Paul, the son Alex murdered, that led to a wrongful death suit from the family of Mallory Beach.

“The compulsion of him to turn over his documents, among other things, contributed to him coming to that critical inflection point where he made that fatal decision to kill his family,” Wilson said. “He was trying to hide the 10 years of theft and fraud that he was committing against everyone in his life.”

Beyond the Murdaugh trial, Wilson spoke about a few points of emphasis for his office, including his Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Human Trafficking Task Force. He particularly emphasized the strides made in the fight against human trafficking,

“When I came into office, there was no human trafficking statute in South Carolina,” he said, saying it’s a problem with a wide scope and an impact that stretches to “literally on Main Street in Lexington.”

“South Carolina sits nestled between two of the top human trafficking hubs in the United States, Atlanta and Charlotte,” Wilson said. “Richland County is a top five county for human trafficking within the state, right across the river. That's not to say that Lexington doesn't have it, that's just the number of reports.”

Wilson also spoke to his push for judicial reform in the state, backed by a litany of solicitors and sheriffs — including Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon and 11th Circuit Solicitor Rick Hubbard. The attorney general is seeking to have the executive branch included in the selection of judges, which is currently overseen by the legislatively driven Judicial Merit Selection Commission. He argued that changing this system is necessary to keep the division of power between the state’s three branches of government balanced.

“It's a perception and optics issue and there's a great imbalance,” Wilson said. “This is not a good, accountable way to elect judges.”