Major Twist in Alex Murdaugh Case: South Carolina Supreme Court Grants Retrial

Major Twist in Alex Murdaugh Case

The South Car­oli­na Supreme Court has made a bomb­shell rul­ing in the Alex Mur­daugh case. 

Judges have agreed to con­sid­er whether inter­fer­ence from a Col­leton Coun­ty court clerk swung the jury that con­vict­ed Mur­daugh of mur­der­ing his wife and youngest son.

Mur­daugh, a for­mer lawyer, was sen­tenced to two life terms with­out parole last year for gun­ning down his wife Mag­gie and their son Paul at the fam­i­ly’s sprawl­ing hunt­ing estate in June 2021. 

How­ev­er, his lawyers have now accused court clerk Becky Hill of telling jurors “not to be fooled by him” in a bid to secure his con­vic­tion so she could make mon­ey from a book about the case.

Allegations of Jury Tampering

Mur­daugh­’s lawyers claim that Hill would improp­er­ly enter the jury room on a reg­u­lar basis, ask jurors about their opin­ions on Mur­daugh­’s guilt or inno­cence, and hold pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions with them about the evidence. 

They argue that Hill’s actions amount­ed to “unprece­dent­ed jury tam­per­ing” and that “com­mon sense says that when an elect­ed state offi­cial goes into the jury room dur­ing a mur­der tri­al to advo­cate for a guilty ver­dict because she wants to make mon­ey sell­ing books about the guilty ver­dict, the result should be a mistrial.”

The Murdaugh Family Dynasty

The Mur­daugh fam­i­ly were well known as a polit­i­cal and legal dynasty in South Car­oli­na, with mem­bers serv­ing as solic­i­tor and dis­trict attor­ney for the Low Coun­try region for 85 con­sec­u­tive years.

The mur­ders of Mag­gie and Paul Mur­daugh shocked the state, and the case has been marked by a series of rev­e­la­tions about the fam­i­ly’s alleged cor­rup­tion and wrongdoings.

Mur­daugh has main­tained his inno­cence, even though a record­ing played dur­ing the tri­al showed him say­ing “I did him so bad” three days after the killings. 

His lawyers have now been grant­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to argue that the jury’s deci­sion was taint­ed by the court clerk’s alleged inter­fer­ence, poten­tial­ly lead­ing to a retri­al in the high-pro­file case.