The last conversation Marian Proctor had with her sister, Maggie Murdaugh, was when Proctor encouraged her to go to the family’s Colleton County estate, what would ultimately be the scene of her death.

Maggie was at her Edisto Beach house June 7, 2021, when her husband, Alex Murdaugh, learned his father was being sent into hospice care. Although Maggie preferred Edisto to the family’s Colleton County “hunting” property at Moselle, Proctor said she encouraged her sister to travel to be with her husband and his family during such a difficult time.

On Tuesday, Proctor testified at her brother-in-law’s murder trial, where Murdaugh is accused of shooting Maggie and their son, Paul, to death at the Moselle property later that night. If convicted, if he faces life in prison without parole.

Tuesday’s testimony was the first time Proctor has spoken so publicly about the murders of her sister and nephew.It was the 17th day of the trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in a case that has garnered national and international attention far beyond the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Proctor said she remembers Murdaugh’s brother, Randy, calling her to tell her a “tragedy” had occurred at Moselle on June 7, 2021.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Proctor said Tuesday. “I said, ‘There has to be a mistake. There has to be some explanation. It can’t be them.’”

Proctor had to break the news to her parents, traveling to stay with them at their home in Summerville.

“It was the worst,” Proctor said.

The next day they traveled to the family’s rural estate, called Moselle, and Proctor said they spent nearly every day there leading up to her sister and nephew’s funerals.

A couple moments struck Proctor as odd about her brother-in-law after the killings.

When she asked Murdaugh if he knew who could have killed her sister and nephew, Murdaugh said he didn’t know, “but felt like whoever did it had thought about it for a really long time,” Proctor said.

“I didn’t know what that meant,” she testified.

She also remembers Murdaugh saying, in reference to a fatal 2019 boat crash Paul was involved in, that his No. 1 goal was to clear Paul’s name.

“My No. 1 goal was to find who killed my sister,” Proctor said. “I know he must have wanted that too, but I don’t know how he could have thought about anything else.”

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Jim Griffin, Proctor said she didn’t begrudge Murdaugh for focusing on the boat cash, saying she knew he wanted to “honor” his son’s memory.

“I just think his priority should have been on finding who killed Maggie and Paul,” she said. “He never talked about it. He never focused on it. It was odd. We were all living in fear thinking this awful person was out there.”

“We thought that up until September, and then things started to change a bit,” Proctor said.

She testified that she also was confused to learn Murdaugh had gone to visit his mother that night without Maggie.

“That was the only reason she had gone (there) that night,” Proctor said.

Griffin emphasized that Proctor remembers the Murdaughs as a happy family, even showing the jury a photo of Murdaugh, Maggie and Paul with their other son, Buster, which Proctor said she had taken.

“It was good,” Proctor testified of her sister’s life. “It wasn’t perfect, but Maggie was happy.”

Proctor also said she was concerned about the guns Paul and Buster used at Moselle, one of which prosecutors alleged was used as the murder weapon that killed Maggie.

“I asked her, ‘Why did you get those boys those guns?’” Proctor said. “She said they loved to shoot hogs. And I knew hogs were tearing up the property, but it scared me the boys would have such dangerous weapons.”

This is a developing story. It will be updated.