Alex Murdaugh's lawyers want key DNA, ballistics evidence from prosecutors

John Monk, The State on Sep 22, 2026

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Attorneys for accused double-murder defendant Alex Murdaugh are asking a state judge to require prosecutors to release key evidence in the case.

The evidence they seek concerns DNA, ballistics and other material and information from prosecutors in the case.

The reason defense attorneys seek such evidence is to bolster their theory that someone else could have committed the killings that Murdaugh is accused of, they have said.

The attorneys’ request was contained in a lengthy motion filed Friday afternoon in Colleton County.

The motion asks state Judge Debra McCaslin to compel prosecutors with the state attorney general’s office to turn over the evidence to the defense team so Murdaugh’s attorneys can inspect it and, in the case of DNA evidence, have their own private lab run tests.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office said late Friday the office will file a response to the defense motion with the court and has no immediate comment.

Once McCaslin gets the prosecutors’ reply, she could rule on the basis of the written filings or schedule a hearing.

“The State has had continuous and exclusive custody of every item of physical evidence in this case, including the biological material that is the subject of ... this motion, for more than five years,” the defense filing said. “It (the State) has tested what it wished to test, in the sequence it wished to test it, without notice to the defense and without the defense’s consent. It now proposes that the defense may not do the same.”

Murdaugh, 58, is charged with two counts of murder in the 2021 fatal shootings of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. He was tried and found guilty in March 2023 of killing them after a six-week trial in Colleton County and given life sentences. In May, the S.C. Supreme Court overturned the verdict and convictions and ordered a new trial.

The high court said jury tampering by former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill was the reason for vacating Murdaugh’s conviction.

The new trial is set to begin April 5 at the Sumter County courthouse.

In Friday’s filing, defense attorneys wrote they seek fingernail clippings from Maggie Murdaugh, swabs from her cell phone, which was found in a roadside grassy area half a mile from the crime scene, as well as .300 Blackout rifle cartridges found where the bodies of Maggie and Paul were found. The bodies were at a dog kennel compound at the Murdaugh 1,700-acre family estate in a rural area of western Colleton County.

Another type of evidence sought by defense attorneys comes from a device called a FARO scanner, which uses lasers to construct a detailed geometric virtual representation of the crime scene.

Defense attorneys who filed Friday’s motion are Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin, Phil Barber, Andrew Hand and Maggie Fox.

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