Murdaugh Asks Judge to Dismiss Murder Indictments, Alleging Investigator Lied to Grand Jury

Lawyers for Alex Murdaugh asked a judge in Lexington, South Carolina, on Friday to throw out the original indictments charging him with killing his wife and son, arguing the lead investigator lied to the grand jury. Judge Debra McCaslin promised a written ruling next week, and even a defense win may not stop an April retrial, because prosecutors can seek new indictments and the defense said it won't stop them.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin said State Law Enforcement Division agent David Owen falsely told the grand jury that Paul Murdaugh's blood spatter was on the white t-shirt Murdaugh wore the night of the 2021 shootings, and that DNA from Murdaugh, Paul and Maggie was found near it. The grand jury indicted Murdaugh in July 2022. The 58-year-old faces a retrial after the South Carolina Supreme Court threw out his convictions and life sentence, ruling a court clerk improperly influenced jurors at his 2023 trial. Near the end of the hearing, McCaslin asked prosecutor Creighton Waters whether the state could be “ready to go by April 5th” if it had to return to the grand jury.

The Los Angeles Times, on the left, leads with the procedural stakes: a dismissal might not delay the retrial, and the judge's closing question may hint at her thinking. It also adds Owen's record, noting that a judge last year threw out another murder case he worked on because he never passed along a mother's report of a suicide threat. The Daily Mail, on the right, opens with “Hail Mary bid” and “disgraced legal dynasty heir,” describes Murdaugh rocking in his chair, and dwells on the blood-spatter claim, pointing to SLED's own lab testing of the shirt and to a 2022 FITSNews report. The outlets agree on the core allegation and the April retrial; AP's coverage matches the Times.