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Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers seek dismissal of murder charges ahead of 2027 retrial
Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers asked a judge to throw out his murder indictments, saying the lead investigator gave false information to the grand jury.
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Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers are seeking to have his murder charges dismissed, accusing the lead investigator of misleading the grand jury with false evidence. The hearing comes ahead of his planned retrial for the 2021 killings of his wife and son.
What Murdaugh’s lawyers argued in court
Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers went to court on Friday and asked a judge to throw out his original murder indictments. The charges are for killing his wife, Maggie, and his younger son, Paul. According to NewsNation, the defense said the grand jury was shown false evidence.
The lawyers say David Owen, the chief investigator from the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), misled the grand jury. They allege Owen said blood spatter was found on the T-shirt Murdaugh wore on the night of the killings. An earlier report from state agents said there were no blood stains, and no such evidence was shown at trial, as per AP.
As per reports, the defense also said SLED lab tests had not confirmed human blood. They also said some key lab findings were not shared in the normal way.
“What we have here is an unusual set of circumstances. We have information about what was actually presented to the Colleton County grand jury, and we’re going to show you that that information was false,” one of Murdaugh’s lawyers said.
“The grand jury was misled greatly when they returned this indictment,” the lawyer said.
As per AP, the defense also says Owen told grand jurors that the same type of ammunition used to kill Paul was found in weapons all over the Murdaugh property. The defense says this was not the case.
According to NewsNation, Murdaugh’s lawyers also pointed to another murder case involving Owen that was dismissed last year. In that case, the victim’s mother had told Owen that her daughter had threatened suicide days before her death. However, Owen did not share this information with prosecutors or defense lawyers. A judge later dismissed the case after the information came to light.
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What prosecutors said
Prosecutors said there was no deliberate wrongdoing, as per AP. They wrote that “a single mistake is not bad faith.”
Prosecutor Creighton Waters said Owen had not seen the lab report with the negative blood-test results when he spoke to the grand jury, according to NewsNation. Waters also told the judge that the blood-spatter expert stood by his conclusions even after reviewing the disputed findings.
“There’s no instance here of a discovery violation or something of significance that was hidden from the defense,” Waters said.
Waters said Owen made mistakes when describing the shotgun ammunition on the property. But he said investigators did find weapons with mixed ammunition loads, which backed the main point of Owen’s testimony.
“This was not overtly false. This was what the agent understood at the time,” Waters said.
Waters also said the blood-spatter evidence was not central to the case. He said other evidence, including the kennel video that placed Murdaugh with his wife and son shortly before their deaths, and vehicle data, helped build a timeline of where Murdaugh was.
Owen also told the grand jury about a video recorded by Paul in which Alex Murdaugh's voice could be heard at the scene. This contradicted Murdaugh's earlier claims that he was not there
Owen has admitted making mistakes in the Murdaugh investigation but denied deliberately misleading the grand jury, as per CBS News.
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What happens next
Judge Debra McCaslin said she will give her ruling at a later date, according to NewsNation.
Even if she sides with the defense, the April retrial may not be stopped or delayed. Prosecutors can seek new grand jury indictments as soon as next month, and the defense said they won’t stop them.
His retrial is set for April next year.
Murdaugh, 58, remains in prison either way. He is serving a 40-year federal sentence for stealing millions of dollars from clients. The outcome of the murder case will not decide when he could be released.
According to AP, prosecutors earlier argued that Murdaugh killed his wife and son because he thought the sympathy from the killings would buy him time to cover up his thefts. He has admitted in court that he is a thief, insurance cheat, bad lawyer and longtime opioid addict, but he denies being a killer.
