Murdaugh Fights To Toss Homicide Indictments Before 2027 Retrial

A Friday hearing in Lexington County

Alex Murdaugh was back in a South Carolina courtroom on Friday, November 13, 2026, five months before he is set to stand trial a second time for killing his wife and son. He sat unshackled at the defense table in a dark suit, according to the Daily Mail, rocking back and forth as his lawyers argued the state's entire case against him should be thrown out before it ever reaches a jury again.

The motion asks Judge Debra McCaslin to dismiss the 2022 murder indictments outright. Defense attorney Jim Griffin told the court that State Law Enforcement Division agent David Owen, the case's lead investigator, gave a grand jury false testimony that helped secure those indictments in July 2022 — testimony Griffin says never should have existed.

Two claims are at the center of it. First, that Owen told grand jurors blood spatter from Paul Murdaugh was found on the white T-shirt Alex Murdaugh wore the night of the killings. Second, that Owen said the same mixed load of buckshot and birdshot used to kill Paul was found loaded into guns all over the family's Moselle property. Both CBS News and WPTZ report that neither claim held up — SLED's own lab found no human blood on the shirt, and no gun on the property was loaded the way the murder weapon was.

McCaslin did not rule from the bench. She told both sides to expect a written decision within the week, and asked Waters directly whether the state could return to a new grand jury and still be ready for the April 5, 2027 trial date — a question WPTZ and CBS News both noted may hint at how she's leaning.

The killings that started it all

Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were shot to death on June 7, 2021, at the dog kennels on the family's 1,700-acre Moselle estate in Islandton, South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh called 911 that night, saying he had come home from visiting his mother to find their bodies.

Prosecutors say two guns were used — a shotgun to kill Paul and an AR-style rifle to kill Maggie — and that neither weapon has ever been recovered. Murdaugh was convicted of both murders in 2023 and sentenced to life, in a trial prosecutors argued was driven by a motive: that the killings would buy him sympathy and time while he scrambled to hide a financial fraud scheme at his family's law firm from coming apart.

That conviction did not survive. In May 2026, the South Carolina Supreme Court threw it out, ruling that then-Colleton County court clerk Becky Hill had improperly tampered with the jury during the first trial. A retrial was set for April 5, 2027, moved to Sumter County after the original trial venue in Colleton County was scrapped.

"The blood from his murdered son sprang through the air — it's raining back on him — puts him there." — Jim Griffin, Alex Murdaugh's defense attorney, quoted by CBS News and WPTZ

What's actually in the record

Murdaugh has never been charged with a crime related to the blood-spatter or ammunition claims themselves — those are allegations about how prosecutors got the indictment, not new charges. He remains charged with the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh from the original 2022 indictment, the same charges a jury convicted him on in 2023 before that verdict was vacated.

Separately, and not at issue in Friday's hearing, Murdaugh has already pleaded guilty to a string of state and federal financial crimes — stealing millions of dollars from clients and his own law firm — and is serving 27-year and 40-year sentences on those convictions. Those sentences stand regardless of what happens with the murder case.

David Owen, the agent accused of misleading the grand jury in Murdaugh's case, retired abruptly in 2024, shortly after being named State Law Enforcement Officer of the Year. CBS News and WPTZ report that a judge last year threw out an unrelated murder case Owen worked, after finding he failed to tell prosecutors and the defense that the victim's mother had warned him her daughter threatened suicide — in the same manner she was later found dead.

The defense is also waiting on new forensic results. Investigative genetic genealogy lab Othram — the company that helped identify Bryan Kohberger as the suspect in the Idaho student killings — has received DNA evidence from under Maggie Murdaugh's fingernails and from her cell phone for retesting, with results expected within roughly 90 days, according to the Daily Mail. Prosecutors have called that unidentified male DNA a 'red herring'; the defense says it could point to someone else.

What each side told the court

Griffin, for the defense, argued the false blood claim was the only piece of evidence that placed Murdaugh at the exact place and moment of the killing. 'A phone call doesn't put him there. The video doesn't put him there,' Griffin said, according to CBS News and WPTZ. 'The blood from his murdered son sprang through the air — it's raining back on him — puts him there.'

Griffin told the judge the false testimony 'reverberated' through the community and 'spread like wildfire,' and asked her to let the state start over. 'What we're asking, your honor, is to reboot — go back to square one,' he said, per CBS News.

Waters, for the prosecution, called the blood spatter testimony a 'side issue' and said the indictment rested on stronger ground: a video recovered from Paul Murdaugh's phone that placed Alex Murdaugh's voice at the dog kennels around the time of the murders, directly contradicting his alibi. 'This is what the agent understood at the time,' Waters said of Owen's testimony, according to CBS News. 'And it's ultimately not something that would cause a substantial effect on the grand jury or cast grave doubt when we look at all the other evidence that was presented.'

In court filings, prosecutors conceded errors occurred but drew a legal line: 'a single mistake is not bad faith.' Outside the courtroom, legal analysts were split on the odds. Attorney Aaron Parnas told NewsNation's 'Prime' the defense faces 'a very high bar' but may be laying groundwork for a future appeal if Murdaugh is convicted again. Trial attorney Randolph Rice told NewsNation that even a partial win for the defense — a judicial finding of misconduct short of outright dismissal — would hand Murdaugh's team ammunition to tell a future jury that investigators did sloppy, dishonest work.

What happens next

Judge Debra McCaslin did not rule from the bench Friday. She told the parties to expect a written decision within the week, and at the hearing's close asked prosecutor Creighton Waters whether the state could re-present the case to a new grand jury and be "ready to go" in time for the April 5, 2027 retrial date in Sumter County — a question both CBS News and WPTZ flagged as a possible signal of where she is headed. Separately, the DNA testing lab Othram has now received evidence from under Maggie Murdaugh's fingernails and from her cell phone for new analysis, with results expected within 90 days, according to the Daily Mail.