Let’s say the quiet part out loud, because the headlines have been busy saying the loud part. Yes, Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions are gone. The South Carolina Supreme Court, voting unanimously, threw them out and ordered a new trial. The reason wasn’t some dramatic new piece of evidence. It was a court clerk — the one who later wrote a book about the trial — who the justices found had improperly leaned on the jury, in their words placing her fingers on the scales of justice.
Here’s what that ruling does not say. It does not say Alex Murdaugh is innocent. The man is, by his own admission, a thief who stole millions from his own clients, and he is still sitting in prison serving decades for it. That part isn’t in question and isn’t going anywhere. What’s in question — again — is whether he killed his wife and his son.
So strip the famous name off the file and look at what’s actually there. Two people shot to death at a set of dog kennels on a remote hunting property. Two different weapons: a shotgun and a rifle, used close together. Neither gun was ever found. And after six weeks of the state pointing at one man, there was no blood on him.
The defense always danced right up to a theory without ever finishing it: that more than one person was at those kennels, that no single shooter could have done it the way the prosecution described, that police locked onto Alex on day one and never seriously looked anywhere else. The rifle reportedly traces to a Murdaugh family gun. The shotgun traces to nothing. Paul had enemies — there was a boat crash that killed a young woman, and the lawsuits and grudges that came with it.
So here’s the thought experiment I want to run, now that the verdict is wiped and a retrial is coming. If it wasn’t Alex who pulled the trigger, who was it? And the question I keep coming back to: in all these years, why has his own defense never once named another suspect? Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer built cases like this for a living.
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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
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