The Murdaugh Murders: The Defense’s DNA Gambit

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] Hi everybody, I'm Anya and today we're going to be talking about the latest hearing in the Murdaugh Murders case. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder. So Kevin, today is Monday, June 29th and there was just a hearing this morning in the Murdaugh Murders case. That is, of course, the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdoch, their respective father and husband, Alec Murdoch,

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_01] a once prominent attorney in South Carolina, was convicted of their murders. But there's been a lot of, I guess, consternation and legal wrangling since. And his conviction was overturned. We've covered that in some of our more recent coverage of this case.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_01] And so now we're in a place where it's like, what's going on? So I guess this pretrial conference is partly to get into that. What's next? So I watched it. We're going to get into it now and talk about some of the legal ramifications of all of this. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01] And this is The Murdaugh Murders, the defense's DNA gambit.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01] All right, Kevin. So do you want to start off by just telling us why we're here? You know, Alec Murdoch was convicted of these murders. Why are we having a new trial again?

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_00] Well, we're having a new trial because the Supreme Court of South Carolina found that the actions of Miss Hill robbed him of his right to a fair trial. That she made some comments to certain members of the jury that may perhaps have ultimately influenced the verdict against him in a way that was unfair.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01] Who is this Miss Hill you speak of? Is this some random Internet sleuth crank who stole in through the window of the jury room?

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00] No, she was a court employee and she should have known.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01] She was a clerk of court. So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a big mess. But that's why we're here. And there's a judge on it. This is South Carolina Circuit Judge Deborah R. McCaseland. I'm sorry if I'm saying anyone's name right. Wrong, by the way. I kind of just we wanted to get this episode out to you because this is all happening today. But if I say anyone's name wrong, I deeply regret it and tell me and I'll fix it in the future. So she was on this. She was presiding over the hearing today.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_01] The I watched the footage from East Idaho News, which has the footage kind of streaming. And we kind of jump in in media race, as they say, to a Dick Harpoulian talking. Dick Harpoulian, again, I'm sorry if I'm saying his name wrong. He is one of the defense attorneys in this case.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01] So I've heard from some of our listeners, some people, you know, find him somewhat of a controversial figure in terms of his courtroom presentation. And I could kind of see why watching this hearing, but we'll talk about it. He's talking. And at first I'm like, what are they talking about? But what it becomes clear what they're talking about is the defense wants Alec Murdoch to have a laptop.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01] For the reason of looking over his case, looking over Discovery, looking, helping his attorneys with the poll, you know, presenting his case for the second time. And that, you know, that makes sense from their perspective. They want him to have that access. They want him to participate. But the thing is, that's not allowed. And so you had Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Creighton Waters, who's the prosecutor on this case.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01] He's saying, you know, basically this is potentially a problem. You know, the grand jury information is sensitive. And also the South Carolina Department of Corrections has a problem with an inmate having a laptop. Kevin, in your understanding of crime, why might it be problematic from a prison organization's perspective, you know, this carceral setting for an inmate to possess a laptop?

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00] There could be a variety of reasons for that. My mind immediately goes to another case we have covered. This is the case of Mr. Temujin Kensu. He used Internet access from behind bars to reach out and harass those he perceived as his enemies. There really is a pretty big potential for that sort of thing when an inmate has unfettered Internet access.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00] And I would imagine if he is using the laptop to access the Internet to communicate with his lawyers, there's an even greater chance of him potentially misusing it. Because if the prison system believes he's interacting with his lawyers, they're not allowed to, you know, snoop and observe that communication.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So there's that problem. And what his defense attorneys in fairness are saying is, hey, we, you know, SLED can look at this. SLED is like the law enforcement agency. You know, the Department of Correction can look at it and everyone can look at it to make sure there's no Internet access. We don't want, you know, we're not saying we want him to have Internet access. We just want him to be able to access his discovery.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, what ultimately this comes down to, though, is there can be safety issues in prison. Inmates can make weapons out of a variety of items that you wouldn't really think anyone could make a weapon of. Right, Kevin?

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00] Right.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01] A laptop has plenty of moving parts, moving pieces. I think what ultimately came out was that Judge McCaslin said, or McCaslin, I'm sorry, I should figure that out. But basically she's saying, I talked to the warden and he says no laptop in his cell. The reason being it's a safety issue.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01] It's not just a safety issue for other inmates or guards or correctional officers, but it could be used by Mr. Murdoch to hurt himself. So that was sort of the implication. And there's this back and forth with them. And you can kind of understand, though. I mean, you could understand both sides of it, in my opinion. You know, I mean, I can what the defense is saying, what Harpoulian is saying is essentially like he's two and a half hours away from us.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_01] So we have to schlep two and a half hours, talk to him for three hours, maybe. And then two and a half hours back. This is going to just take forever. We'd just rather have a laptop so we can kind of communicate with us that way. And, you know, but from the perspective of like making sure people don't die or making sure, you know, that justice isn't harmed by this guy having a laptop. You know, you could see it from their perspective, too. Things got kind of weird at this point in the beginning. And then I feel like things calmed down.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01] But so Mr. Waters, Deputy Attorney General Waters came out and said, you know, this guy's been had his tablet taken away from misuse against the shades of the Timogen Kenzu case. Right, Kevin? Right. There's you know, he's been convicted of a decade of fraud. You know, he's been convicted of like lying and cheating and stealing. So we know he's not a rule follower.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01] And he has been caught receiving contraband. So all of these things make it even worse that like, yeah, like and what he basically said is like prisoners are very resourceful. You know, you can have SLED look at this. You can have everybody look at this and say, yeah, I can't get on the Internet. And then they'll find a way, you know, or they'll find a way to do something they're not supposed to do with it. So. At some point, it zooms in on Alec Murdoch.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I'm not trying to be prejudiced or anything. I think I've made it pretty clear on the show that I think he was convicted based on that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I think he is guilty. I think he killed his wife and son. I certainly, you know, understand why the verdict was overturned. That being said. But like this camera, they zoom in on him and he's like death glaring waters. It's really creepy. Like he looked like he like, I don't know.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01] Again, people have faces. Sometimes your face is doing stuff. I'm not reading that much into it. But I will note that that did happen. There's just like this death glare going on across the table. And it's I don't know. It was creepy. But, you know, one thing I saw that a lot of people were commenting on was just like, this is such a waste of time and money. And it really is. I mean, goodness. You know, they're going to have to do this whole thing again. It's just I think it's a bitter pill for the taxpayers of South Carolina to swallow.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01] And the blame really doesn't lie with anyone except for Becky Hill. But anyways, so Harpoonians are saying, well, I don't see the Department of Corrections here today objecting. You know, like basically implying the warden doesn't have those objections and and more on that later. But he starts complaining about a couple of other issues.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01] He says, you know, the idea of bringing him in here chained up, the idea of not letting him have a laptop, quote, the idea of opposing everything we're trying to do to expedite this process. I understand it is Mr. Waters job to legally prejudice the defendant. But this is beyond the pale. And then he says something that I thought was really like wild. And I mean, it was just like, oh, my goodness. Quote, I ask you to remind Mr. Waters that he has an ethical duty to see that justice is done, not get a conviction.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01] It was just like, are you like, are you auditioning for some bad Lifetime movie about a defense attorney? Is that what all these people are doing? Like, I don't know. I just I don't know. Maybe that stuff's effective for some people. I find myself very jaded about hysterics from defense attorneys in the courtroom. And frankly, I feel the same way about prosecutors. You know, I mean, like, keep it cool and keep it professional. That's my that's my take. I mean, I think I see it more from defense attorneys, if I'm being honest.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01] And maybe there's more of an incentive to do it. Right. But I mean, I don't know. What do you think of that? Yeah, I think you're asking the judge to tell the prosecutor how to do his job. It's very performative. It's performative. I hate I hate performative ness, you know, and that's something that is unfortunately a wash in true crime. True crime is a wash in performativeness. And certainly certain cases are a wash in performative legal antics.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_01] But yeah, I think I just wrote I think I just I wrote like basically OMG. Waters kind of says something snippily back. I couldn't really hear him. The audio on this was at times not great. And to her credit, the judge is like, OK, we're not going to go there. Like basically like break it up. And and the judge at some point assured Waters the court doesn't take it that way.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01] Like as in like prejudicing him is like my goal and I want to deprive him of a fair trial. You know, I mean, it was a pretty ridiculous accusation, frankly, because it sounded like Waters had pretty good reason on both counts to oppose the defense's motions. Now, the defense is certainly free to disagree with those or make their arguments. But making it into a personal attack on the prosecutor just seemed to me beyond the pale to use his words.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_01] So from there, the judge actually kind of does a little plot twist and basically is like, well, I actually called the warden. It's like, oh, OK, she's getting in on it. She called the warden and she said they talked about the laptop situation. She says, because I, too, used to practice law and, you know, hauling around all those terabytes can be very cumbersome process. And I imagine that this discovery is a lot. And Mr. Waters clarified that the discovery is half a terabyte.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01] And she was very emphatic. She's like, the warden is very clear that he will not allow a laptop to be given to this inmate for safety reasons, purely for safety reasons. What he is willing to do is make a conference room available in the prison and allow him to allow Murdoch to meet with somebody, whether it's attorneys or a law clerk or somebody on the team.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01] But somebody has to be with him while he's accessing this. Someone has to be with him with the laptop. And and that's it. There's no laptop in his cell. That's never going to happen. No inmate gets a laptop in their cell. They do have access to iPads with Westlaw. She says she'll look into whether that can somehow be used to download what he needs. Maybe the iPad is a solution, but there's no laptops. And that is for his safety. That is for the safety of other inmates.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_01] That's for the safety of the correctional officers. And that is out of the judge's control. And Harpootlian says, well, we're not trying to have him have a laptop in his cell. We just want the warden to have it and then give it to him when he goes in a conference room. And the judge is like, I'll ask the warden, but basically, like, he wants somebody with him. And she even refers to an email Harpootlian sent where it referred to keeping the laptop in his cell. So it sort of seems like that is what they were asking for at some point.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01] But she's like, the warden's not going to go for that.

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[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01] The warden simply wants, is willing to do all this stuff with the conference room. They want the name of the person who's going to be coming down to see Murdoch. And they're not going to limit the defense team to just three hours with him. They'll make it open for eight hours if they have to. Like it doesn't have to be a lawyer on the team. And it really sounded like that was a big problem for the defense where it's like, if the lawyers themselves have to schlep down there, it's going to be a whole thing. If they only have three hours, it may not be worth it.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01] But so in this respect, it sounded like that at least appeased the defense team to a point. Creighton Waters piped in at this point and said, you know, he talked to the director, I assume, of the correctional department and they said the same thing. And the judge was like, I want him to have all his discovery. But, you know, we have to abide by the correctional department's rules for safety.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01] And Harpoulian said, you know, they extended time and not having it to have to be a lawyer is a good thing. So what do you think about all this debate?

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00] I think it's pretty clear that nobody wants to rob him of his rights. It's just a question of how can he exercise his right to access these materials without creating a safety hazard that might jeopardize other people and their rights. I believe the next thing they talked about was a shackle.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01] So before we talk about what was said specifically, why is this such a big deal for a pretrial phase about someone appearing in shackles or someone appearing in a prison jumpsuit or a jail jumpsuit?

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I think one reason why it's important goes something you've indirectly mentioned to yourself. You said you watch this on a screen. Other people are watching this sort of thing on streams. And when you watch this on a stream, a pretrial hearing on a stream, and you see someone shackled or in a prison jumpsuit, it arguably sends a message, a subtle message, but a message nonetheless,

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00] this is a person who is dangerous. This is a person that needs to be in shackles where they might cause harm to other people. And if you're a defense attorney, that's not a message you want people to be getting about your client. You would be worried about potential jurors seeing this and being influenced by it, even if they're not consciously aware of that influence.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01] And traditionally, this may have not been such a problem because maybe the local press would come and write an article. And guess what? When you write an article, no one's seeing the shackles, no one's seeing the jumpsuit. It doesn't have the visceral effect that it would. But we live in an image-based media market now. We live in a world of streaming, of all of this stuff being very visual. And that has a different impact.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01] And so I feel that I can understand their concern. I don't know. This is not my own personal take, so I'd be curious if any listeners feel this. Or send me an email or comment in our Facebook group, the Murder Sheet Discussion group. But I feel maybe I'm weird, but when I see someone shackled and in a jumpsuit in court, my initial response is sympathy. I feel like I have an initial, like, oh, man, that would suck.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01] I would hate to be in that person's shoes. I don't have a fear response of, like, this guy's going to come kill us. I remember with Richard Allen at first, you know, when we covered the Delphi murders case, we went to pretty much, I think, all but one pretrial hearings. And when I saw him, I'd be like, wow, he's kind of small and he's in his little shackles. That's, you know, that's sad. Like, I would have that reaction. Sometimes he'd do stuff that was creepy.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01] Like, he'd be going and death-glaring the victim's families behind him. And that was, like, a separate thing. But it wasn't, if anything, it made me more sympathetic to him, the getup. I mean, what, like, is that your thing? Or do you kind of have the more of, like, ooh, that guy might be dangerous kind of initial reptile brain reaction?

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00] I think I might have that reaction.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01] Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'd be curious. But, you know, I think—

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00] Certainly with Richard Allen, it didn't take long after seeing him in those shackles for him to be—start behaving in very odd ways.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01] But if he had been normal, that's a different thing. You know, I mean, if he had been acting—or not normal, but, like, just not be trying to death-glare people, you know, to me, that's a separate issue. If he was doing that at times in the trial and he was in street clothes and he was still extremely creepy at that point. But to me, it had nothing to do—it was more about his behavior than his getup. But, so this is what they talk about here. So, and I think this was a situation in the Tyler Robinson case, too, right, Kevin? Yeah.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01] But they were asking for something similar. I'll be curious to see if different practices take hold now that streaming has become more of a thing. Or if judges start, like, shutting down streaming to not have to deal with it. So the judge says, okay, let's go through this defense motion on the shackles on the jumpsuit. And, you know, the state has objected to them asking for it to not be a thing here.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01] And then in response to the state objecting to it, Harpootlian withdrew the motion. So Harpootlian gets up and says, well, we may renew the motion. Potential jurors are watching this stream right now. And we're parading him around like a jumpsuit, in a jumpsuit shackled like an animal. And he's only been convicted of stealing money. It's like, well, I mean, he was also convicted of murder. It was overturned. But, yeah, okay.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, he says Waters is just trying to get every advantage he can. And then, you know, the judge kind of chimes in laughing like, are you renewing your motion now? And he's like, sure. So Harpoulian has Murdoch stand up to show that he's, like, chained. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit. He's got a belly chain, ankle chains, all this stuff. And he says, this guy's not a serial killer. He's not Ted Bundy.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I don't know. I don't think there's, like, a murderer Olympics, right? He's accused of doing something really heinous, you know, and killing people who he knew and loved, seemingly, or who loved him or people in his family. So, I mean, that's pretty bad. He said that Judge Newman always let him come to pretrial, you know, things shackled, unshackled, in street clothes.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_01] Waters says, basically, in response, like, this isn't our policy, but it is SCDC's policy. You know, the basic policy and procedure for inmates in situations like this for them to remain shackled. It's a safety issue. And, you know, and that's it. So the judge is going to take it under advisement and issue an order later. But, yeah.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01] Do you think that we'll see him moving away from shackles and jumpsuits in pretrial settings or in certain pretrial settings or in instances like this as a result of streaming?

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_00] I think so. I think the more we see of streaming, the more we're going to see defense attorneys being more aware of and more cognizant of issues caused by potential jurors seeing their defendants in pretrial hearings that are streamed.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. That's my feeling, too. Next. DNA. DNA. This is the hot ticket item, I guess, right? Right. So DNA. And this is where I think perhaps the most one of the most important things as far as going forward. You know, what happened is the judge says she read the state's response and is going to save that for the next pretrial. Well, her big question for today and James Griffin, one of the other defense attorneys for Murdoch, was the one primarily handling this.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01] She asked Griffin, how long is it going to take to analyze, basically to do what you want to do with DNA? And in responding, he kind of outlines what they want to do with DNA. They're trying to do something with genetic genealogy, investigative genetic genealogy.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01] They seemingly are working or seeking to work with Othram and discussed being in touch with the CEO of Othram, the VP of law enforcement division for Othram, and a client intake person that they've been talking to. Othram, of course, is known for doing investigative genetic genealogy. They've been, you know, tied to different cases where they've helped solve cold cases based on doing some analysis.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_01] And Griffin was clear that they're going to be paying for it, the defense team. The judge jokes, I'm going to let you pay for it, and everyone laughed at that. And, you know, what Griffin kind of follows up with saying these murders occurred in 2021. In 2026, we're already significantly improved in our DNA technology abilities in terms of how we can use those for cases.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01] And he said Othram is a leading lab performing this kind of analysis. In 2024, he claimed they cleared 200 cold cases. He actually references—I mean, it's odd to see this. Not odd. It's not odd that he said this. It's just kind of weird when you cover a lot of these high-profile cases. He references one of them. He references the University of Idaho murders. Of course, the murders of Xander Cronodal, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogan, and Kaylee Gonsalves.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_01] And by a person I'm not going to name because he doesn't deserve to be remembered. But he talks about how the first week of their trial, you know, of the Murdoch trial, the University of Idaho murders was all going down. These college kids were massacred. They got a DNA sample. There was nothing for that DNA sample in CODIS, which is, of course, the kind of national database of DNA. CODIS relies on STR DNA, which requires 20 data points.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_01] And what Authram was able to do in that case is rely more on the SNP DNA, SMP, which is half a million data points. And they did genetic genealogy, and it came back to a family member of the perpetrator who would put their DNA in, you know, one of these databases. And so they were able to find that perpetrator. And that's what they're asking to do here. And so what DNA are we talking about here?

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01] Where is this DNA coming from? Well, what Griffin claimed is that the DNA would be coming from Maggie Murdoch's left hand, specifically her fingernails. And that had been previously tested by SLED with STR analysis. It's called DNA sample 70. It was positively said to not be Alec Murdoch. And it didn't match anyone who gave a buccal swab in the case. It was an unknown male.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01] And maybe it kind of like one person, it said it was 11 times more an unknown male than it was that person. So, I mean, this is a situation where what's your take on on this kind of use of DNA or how important this may be, Kevin?

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I think ultimately it comes down to whether or not this particular DNA could be traced to the crime itself. Because that's something that's very difficult. Because through the course of our lives, we touch, we come into contact with a large number of people. And so can this DNA, first of all, be traced definitively to the crime itself?

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, that's the question, right? I mean, and I don't know. My feeling is no. Because the state is calling this a red herring. And one notable thing, I mean, okay. When is an instance, Kevin, where like DNA under fingernails would be a really good clue?

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_00] If we know for a fact that during the course of the killing, there was a struggle and that perhaps the victim was like clawing or scratching at their table.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01] What would you expect to see in a situation like that?

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_00] You mean in terms of DNA under fingernails?

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01] No, I mean in terms of everything else. You'd expect to see defensive wounds.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, defensive wounds.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_01] Defensive wounds, you'd expect to see bruising, contusions, lacerations. You'd expect to see maybe a broken fingernail. If you're clawing at someone fighting for your life, it's messy. It's painful. There's going to be some evidence of a fight, I would imagine.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_00] I would also wonder if in this particular case, if this DNA is tested and it is found to belong to Mr. Murdoch, would that necessarily prove anything that a wife has some of her husband's DNA?

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_01] Well, they're saying that it is, I mean, as I said, they're saying that it's not traced back to Murdoch, that it's basically unknown male DNA. So, I mean, it sounds like it's not his.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01] But, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is that unless it's tied to a fight with the perpetrator, which, again, the state is saying there's no defensive wounds, there's no signs of a struggle, then I don't, it just, it seems like it could very well be very irrelevant.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_01] From a defense strategy perspective, I don't decry them going for it because it's strategically, the CSI effect has its grip on the throat of the American public, you know. And if it sounds good enough, I think a jury could, you know, be tantalized by that. Well, the DNA under the fingernails doesn't match. So, I mean, from their perspective, they have nothing to lose.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_01] And I certainly don't blame them for that. From my concern of getting at the truth of what happened, it's not something that I find particularly compelling or interesting. So, yeah, I mean, that's my take, but I certainly don't blame them for going for it. I would just encourage our listeners, as we try to be informed people and critical thinkers about true crime, let's never fall for the siren song of DNA. Okay, DNA is incredibly important.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01] We've had on wonderful investigative genetic genealogists on our program. I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I'm just saying that DNA is ultimately circumstantial evidence, you know, and you can have the presence of DNA that is innocuous and you have the presence of DNA that is not innocuous. And you really need to look at the context of everything in order to effectively analyze that DNA.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01] So, I don't believe that it's a good thing that people are so wrapped up on DNA, especially juries. I don't think it's a good thing that, you know, people are saying, well, if there's no DNA, we can't convict. Yes, you can. You know, if there's enough evidence, if there's enough other evidence, you know, you should convict or not convict or make a decision. I don't like it when you have high profile cases where people are like, well, we got to test this DNA. And it's like, you know, and it's like the victim's shoes. It's like, well, who cares what's on their shoes?

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01] You know, how is that relevant to this case? You know, I think sometimes DNA is very much misused. So, you know, you can have a you can have DNA point to a consensual sexual encounter or a rape. You don't know. I mean, like that's where you have to look at all the other. I feel like people allow DNA to like turn off their brain. Like, oh, yeah, now he's guilty or now he's not guilty. And it's like, let's look at everything. OK, that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's not important.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_01] I'm saying we got to we got to not just like isolate the DNA from everything else. So. Griffin did acknowledge that the DNA might be innocuous, might be worth looking into. He had like he's he had like, OK, well, there was a shell casing under Maggie Murdoch's body. So the gun had to be in close proximity. But again, if there's no signs of a struggle, then. What I mean, then who cares? And that her cell phone was missing. So maybe the DNA transfer happened there. I don't I don't really get that.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_01] But again, again, they're shooting their shot and they should. So the judge asked, how long is this going to take? And is there even a viable sample for them to use? So Waters was basically like in my response, I gave them names of people at SLED that they should be kind of in contact with. And, you know, we can have our experts talk to each other and figure it out. Basically, it's how they left it.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01] Now, the next portion concerned change of venue. So what does change of venue mean, Kevin?

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_00] So a change of venue means. Typically, of course, when you are accused of a crime and put on trial, you're entitled to a jury by made up of your peers, people who live in the same community that you're in.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_00] Sometimes, though, for one reason or another, the defense attorneys representing you might be concerned that, oh, there is so much publicity about this crime in this particular area. The people are going to be prejudiced against my client.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_00] So even though my client is entitled to have the trial right here where it happened, it would be better for his interest and his rights for it to be moved somewhere else. So change of venue basically means the trial is going to take place somewhere else. In other words, perhaps a crime happens in Columbus, Indiana. People in Columbus, Indiana have very strong opinions about the crime.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_00] Let's move it to Indianapolis, something like that. To get an unbiased jury.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_01] And so the defense has filed for a change of venue. The state has not responded yet and needs more time to respond, which the judge is giving. And she's basically saying, like, give me some suggestions if you both agree on a change of venue. Like where? And, you know, it seems like the state has not really come out saying we don't want to change a venue.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01] And Dick Harpoolian said, quote, even despite the acrimony here today, he and Waters have talked about it and are continuing discussions. Which, again, like, holy performativeness, you know, like, like, oh, like beyond the pale. But like, hey, let's talk about change of venue. It's just I hate phony stuff like that, honestly. But, you know, it's good that they're talking about it. Waters says without taking a position, if we agree to it, great. And if not, you know, we'll figure it out. It's up in the air.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_01] In other words, there was some discussion of a protective order, maybe two separate protective orders. I didn't really I had a hard time hearing a lot of that. But after that, the judge asked the judge asked our classic closing question in an interview, Kevin. Is there is there something we didn't is there something I didn't ask about that you wanted to add?

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, they talked a little bit about, you know, the judge, Judge McCaslin praised the work done. So they were at the Lexington County Courthouse in Lexington, South Carolina. And she was like, they did a great job with this. This is my home county. And they had good security. They did a good job with the media. She was kind of asking maybe we could just do pretrial here. Said it was big courtroom fit a lot of people.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_01] Won't disrupt holding court in Lexington because there's other courtrooms. And it sounded like people agreed with that. But again, it was a little bit hard to hear the responses. They talked about scheduling what's next, right? Like that's when is the trial going to be? And we kind of found out that. So scheduling what's next. The next pretrial is going to be on August 14th of this year.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_01] And what she was very firm about was like, if you want me to rule on something, the deadline for motions is August 7th. Like I am not going to do not file something at 10 p.m. at night and expect me to rule on it. At that point, Creighton Waters seemed to think that she was subtweeting him for doing that at this recent thing or subtweeting him verbally. And so we apologize for that stuff coming in. She's like, no, you're fine. She's like, you know, I wasn't planning on ruling on what you were filing anyway.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01] Had I been planning on that, I might say something different. And everyone laughed. She was very funny. I like this judge. But basically, like, get it in promptly. She's like, if you if you like think of something later, obviously that's fine. But like you don't expect me to rule on it then. Like I want to read stuff and deliberate on it. So from there, they talked about the trial date. And, you know, that's going to be somewhat contingent upon how long the DNA is going to take, at least from the defense's perspective.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01] And the date that the judge threw out there was April 5th, 2027, a very special day. Because that's my birthday. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I saved you on that one, Kevin. And I think it's some of our listeners' birthdays, too. So happy birthday, birthday twins. Well, this is when the judge wants it. And this was her rationale. You know, it's going to get them through Easter. She doesn't want to do it around spring break because that's going to make it hard for a jury to focus.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_01] She also noted that there's a new attorney general coming in. And, you know, that Harpootlian has said that they need six months for experts. So she gives that, you know, they have time for the experts. They have time for the new attorney general to familiarize themselves with the case if they want to come and sit in.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_01] And what she said very firmly, which I thought was interesting, was when Judge McCaslin, like, signs, like, sets up a trial date, she doesn't do continuances. Like, there's not going to be continuances. If there's going to be a continuance, it better be a really good reason. What do you make of that, Kevin?

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I think it's good to know that for the defense attorneys, nobody. They just can't come in and file a request at the last moment. This is almost certainly a bad example. But I'm sure we've all been in situations in school or somewhere where we have an assignment coming due and we think, well, I don't need to worry about it because I can get the teacher to give me an extension. And she's saying, no, no extensions.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_01] No extensions.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_00] You've got to be ready. Okay. That's what I expect.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, she's setting those expectations very early on. Waters responded to this with an unequivocal, we'll be ready. And Harpoulian responded, we'll be ready with some contingencies. And he said that those contingencies were mostly around the DNA. They want to be ready with the DNA. And the judge is like, basically like, well, that's why your homework is to get a deadline on the DNA from the author and people and from everybody and tell me how long that's going to be.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_01] So we're not going to be. It's not going to be a problem. She said, quote, please do not think this case is going to be tried a year later because it's not. We are going forward. So very firm on that. And, you know, good for her because, I mean, you don't want to waste the court's time. And I think it's also good that she's making that clear now. So no one is laboring under any sort of false expectation. So after that, Griffin did have one more thing he wanted to weigh in with. He said that he wanted to talk about the financial crimes.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_01] Kevin, can you talk about the financial crimes and sort of how that came up in the Supreme Court in their decision to overturn this case?

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_00] So Mr. Murdoch is someone who not only was charged with and ultimately convicted before that was overturned of murdering members of his family. He was also convicted of some financial crimes, some pretty serious financial crimes. And during his original trial, there was a lot of discussion about those financial crimes.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_00] The prosecution argued we need to explain that he was facing all this pressure because he knew he was about to be called to account for these financial crimes. So it's very, very important that the jury hears this. The defense team felt that, oh, by talking so much about his financial crimes, you're basically implicitly telling the jurors, hey, this is a really bad guy.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_00] And so that might unfairly influence their opinion of him and might make them more inclined to charge him or rather to convict him of the crime of murder. So there's been an ongoing debate, conversation, whatever you want to call it, about how much information about his financial crimes should be included in this fucking time.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_01] Right. And Griffin notes the Supreme Court, of course, overturned the case based on Becky Hill's misconduct. But he also he notes that they also address the financial crimes. And he said that depending on how much of the financial crimes come in, that will determine the length of trial. And he noted that Judge Newman, the previous judge on this, would not rule on the financial crimes pretrial.

[00:44:30] [SPEAKER_01] And in Griffin's opinion, none of the financial crimes should come in. I will note that the Supreme Court did not say none of the financial crimes should come in. They said that they should keep it tighter and more focused on financial crimes as a motive for the murder versus as bad. You know, look at this guy. He's such a jerk. He's ripping people off. So, you know, but basically Griffin and Harpootley want to know of how much they're going to defend against the financial crimes.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01] And the judge indicated that they will determine all that pre, you know, pretrial matters beforehand. And because by April 5th, they're going to be picking a jury in her mind. And that's the end. They adjourned. Murdoch stood up. The volume goes muted and Griffin kind of taps Murdoch's arm and Murdoch is led away by the guards. And that was all for then. But, you know, we got some interesting things about when this is going to be.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_01] Got some interesting insights on tensions between the prosecutor and the defense. And, you know, I think it's kind of just some interesting insights into what we can expect going forward. But hopefully that was interesting for you as well. And we'll certainly be paying attention to this case going forward. But anything else you wanted to add, Kevin? I think that covers it. All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_00] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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