Back to Square One: Alex Murdaugh’s murder case ta...

Back to Square One: Alex Murdaugh’s murder case takes a dramatic step backward ahead of the next high-stakes courtroom battle in South Carolina’s Lowcountry

DNA from an unknown male was found under Maggie Murdaugh’s nails, and Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers want to test it to find out whose it is

Alex Murdaugh was in court on Monday, June 29, for a status conference ahead of the retrial in the 2021 murders of his wife and son.Credit : COURT TV/Youtube

Alex Murdaugh returned to court Monday for a status conference ahead of his murder retrial, where his attorneys asked to retest DNA from an unknown male found under Maggie Murdaugh’s nails.

On May 13, the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Murdaugh in the 2021 deaths of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and son Paul Murdaugh, 22, after unanimously finding that former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill improperly influenced jurors during Murdaugh’s original 2023 trial.

All eyes were on Murdaugh, 58, as he walked into the Lexington County Courthouse in Lexington in his orange prison jumpsuit with his hands, waist and feet chained, looking serious as he sat between his attorneys listening to the proceedings.

At the start of the hearing before Judge Debra McCaslin, Murdaugh attorney Dick Harpootlian said he and his team needed time to review leads that may not have been fully investigated before the first trial.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Harpootlian said.

Harpootlian claimed that OnStar data from Murdaugh’s SUV, for example, was not provided until halfway through the first trial. “I can’t tell you today that we have everything because I don’t know,” he said.

Another Murdaugh attorney, Jim Griffin, said the defense wants to investigate whether someone else killed Maggie and Paul Murdaugh near the dog kennels at the family’s hunting estate in Islandton.

Buster, Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh in 2019.

Since the murders, advances have been made in DNA technology and genetic genealogy that he and his team want to apply to Murdaugh’s case, Griffin said.

Griffin said he wanted to have DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s left fingernails retested by Othram, Inc., the independent laboratory that helped convict Idaho Four murderer Brian Kohberger.

Griffin said the DNA had previously been tested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division using STR analysis and was found not to belong to Alex Murdaugh, but instead to an unknown male.

While investigators said they found no evidence of a struggle that would account for the DNA under Maggie Murdaugh’s nails, Griffin said a shell casing found under her body from the gun that killed her suggested otherwise.

State prosecutor Creighton Waters said yes to the request, but called it “a bit of a red herring.”

Griffin said, “It’s worth looking into.”

Trial Date Set

The judge, who kept the status conference to an hour and ticked off bullet points she wanted to address, set the pretrial hearing for Aug. 14 of this year.

She also suggested a trial date of April 5, 2027, but that it could change by “a couple of weeks” if DNA analysis requested by the defense takes longer than anticipated.

When prosecutors and the defense return to court in August, they will discuss a potential change of venue after Murdaugh’s attorneys said they want to move the trial from Colleton County, where the murders took place.

The judge also said no to letting Murdaugh have a laptop in his cell, saying she called the warden, who said, “no other inmate has that” and that it would become a safety issue for other inmates and Murdaugh.

In May, when the justices overturned Murdaugh’s conviction and ordered a new trial, they referenced comments by Hill, the former Colleton County clerk, saying, “Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the jury toward a biased verdict.”

Hill pleaded guilty in December 2025 to perjury and related charges tied to separate allegations that she improperly shared sealed exhibits with the press, receiving three years of probation, CNN reported.

Before the mistrial, Murdaugh received two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and youngest son.

Though there were no eyewitnesses to the murders, a Snapchat video Paul sent to a friend placed Murdaugh at the crime scene just moments before he and his mother were fatally shot.

Murdaugh remains behind bars, where he is serving concurrent federal and state sentences totaling decades for financial crimes committed around the time of the killings.