Latest news with #AlexMurdaugh
Fox News
6 days ago
- Fox News
Alex Murdaugh appeal challenging murder convictions faces state pushback over jury influence claims
The South Carolina Attorney General's Office has officially submitted its response to Alex Murdaugh's appeal challenging his convictions for the murders of his wife and son. In a 182-page brief filed before the Aug. 8 deadline, Attorney General Alan Wilson's office dismantles Murdaugh's December appeal, which claims that Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill swayed jurors to boost sales of her forthcoming book. The filing is the State's first full rebuttal to Murdaugh's bid for a new trial. In the filing, obtained by Greenville News, prosecutors argued that the jury found Murdaugh guilty based on the "overwhelming" evidence, not because of Hill's brief and "foolish" comments about his testimony. Prosecutors also said Murdaugh forfeited the right to challenge the financial crimes evidence by not appealing the trial court's decision to admit it. Wilson's team had initially requested more time to reply, citing the complexity and size of the case, including a 6,000-page trial transcript and significant evidence that needed review. Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia attorney and former state senator who led Murdaugh's defense, previously told Fox News Digital that Hill's conduct compromised the trial. According to Harpootlian, Hill's actions potentially cost Murdaugh a fair verdict. "If she had left the jury alone, clearly the worst we would have done was a mistrial," Harpootlian said, adding that two jurors would have voted differently if not for Hill's influence. The defense also disputed that the jury should not have heard evidence related to Murdaugh's financial misconduct. The disgraced attorney was convicted in March 2023 of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, who were fatally shot on June 7, 2021, at the family's hunting property in Colleton County. He was also found guilty of two weapons charges related to the killings. Murdaugh's team has 30 days to answer the attorney general's brief. Once both sides finish, the state Supreme Court will set oral arguments, likely later this fall, with a decision expected next spring. Murdaugh, 56, who continues to maintain his innocence, is serving two consecutive life terms in state prison. Fox News Digital reached out to Wilson's office, but did not receive a response. Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to
Fox News
18-07-2025
- Fox News
Murdaugh lead attorney says jury fix and hidden texts could blow up conviction, force new trial
The defense attorney for convicted killer Alex Murdaugh said newly uncovered evidence of jury tampering may be enough to overturn the disgraced South Carolina lawyer's murder conviction. Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia attorney and former state senator who led Murdaugh's defense, told Fox News Digital that Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill's actions during the 2023 double murder trial tainted the jury and should result in a new trial. "If she had left the jury alone, clearly the worst we would have done was a mistrial," Harpootlian said. "There were two jurors—two—who would not have voted guilty had it not been for Becky Hill's influence." Murdaugh was found guilty of the murders of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh, who were shot to death on June 7, 2021 at the family's hunting estate in Colleton County, South Carolina. He was convicted on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in March 2023. Harpootlian said one juror, dubbed the "egg lady," was vocal in the jury room about her doubts and was dismissed just days before the verdict based on information provided by Hill. A second juror allegedly told the defense she was pressured into voting guilty by Hill and other jurors. The defense alleges that Hill attempted to sway the jury to sell more copies of a book she was writing about the high-profile trial. "She told several of her coworkers that a guilty verdict would be good for book sales," Harpootlian said. "She was working them to influence them to convict." Hill has been charged with misconduct in office, obstruction of justice, and perjury for allegedly influencing the Murdaugh jury, leaking sealed evidence and lying under oath during a 2024 hearing. During a 2024 evidentiary hearing, a retired South Carolina Supreme Court chief justice ruled that Hill was not credible and found she had attempted to influence the jury's deliberations. Murdaugh is currently appealing his conviction before the South Carolina Supreme Court. The state's brief is due Aug. 8, and Harpootlian said a ruling could come by the end of the year or early 2026. "We have an appeal based on judicial errors and jury tampering," Harpootlian said. Many believe we have a substantial chance of getting a new trial. If the appeal fails, the defense plans to pursue a federal habeas petition. "If we don't get a new trial, then there's something called habeas or post-conviction relief. And if you find that police or prosecutors have hidden evidence that would have been made a difference, you can appeal on that basis," Harpootlian said. In addition to the jury-tampering allegations, Harpootlian also pointed to newly uncovered text messages between Murdaugh and Curtis "Eddie" Smith, Murdaugh's alleged drug dealer, that may have changed the trajectory of the defense's strategy if they had been disclosed. The messages, revealed by FITSNews, show Smith and Murdaugh communicating in the days leading up to the June 7, 2021 murders of Murdaugh's wife and son. Harpootlian said his team was unaware of the texts during the trial and might have called Smith as a witness had they known. "Those texts—some from the very week of the murder—give us more of the timeline around those drug distributions," he said. "It might have made the difference in us calling him to the stand or not calling him to the stand." The text messages show that Smith and Murdaugh conversed in the days leading up to Murdaugh's murder of his wife and son on their family's hunting estate in Colleton County, South Carolina. "Hey Brother i need to come get the chech (sic) you got one with you or are you going to be around later," Smith texted to Murdaugh on June 3, four days before the slayings. Murdaugh replied that he would be back that afternoon and that he "had to deal with some bulls--- this morning." "Ok Brother just give me a holler," Smith texted, later adding, "Leaving the house now." The day before the murders, Murdaugh texted Smith, "Call me back." Within a span of two minutes the morning after the murder, Smith texted Murdaugh, "Tell me what I heard is not true," and, "Call me please." Those texts went unreturned, and around 6:30 p.m., and Smith cryptically texted Murdaugh, "At fishing hole." After that message was also met with silence, he texted, "803 *** **13 it will not go through on my phone." Harpootlian also questioned why Smith had not been prosecuted, calling it "perplexing" and "unjust." "Eddie Smith, according to the attorney general, is probably the largest distributor of OxyContin in the state's history—and he has not been prosecuted," he said. "Everybody else who was indicted pleaded guilty—except Eddie Smith." The defense attorney also criticized South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who he claims referred to Hill as "Becky Boo" during the trial. Harpootlian said Wilson's relationship with Hill is a conflict of interest and urged him to recuse himself from any future investigation into her conduct. Fox News Digital has reached out to Wilson's office for comment. "There should be a grand jury investigation into Becky Hill's conduct," he said. "But the AG hasn't opened one. Maybe he's waiting to see what the Supreme Court does." If the court grants a new trial, Harpootlian said it will be "a very different case." Since Murdaugh has already pleaded guilty to financial crimes, the prosecution will no longer be able to present weeks of financial evidence. "All that will be left is the forensic evidence and the facts," he said. "And the forensic evidence, I believe, overwhelmingly proves that Alec Murdaugh did not kill Paul and Maggie."
Fox News
15-07-2025
- Fox News
New text messages fuel Alex Murdaugh's push for new trial
Newly uncovered text messages between disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh and his alleged drug dealer could have dramatically altered the defense's trial strategy and possibly prevented a conviction, according to lead defense attorney Dick Harpootlian. Harpootlian, a veteran South Carolina defense attorney and former state senator, told Fox News Digital that the texts between Murdaugh and Curtis "Eddie" Smith, revealed recently by FITSNews, were not provided to the defense during the trial. Their absence, he said, may have contributed to a key decision not to call Smith to the stand. "One of the big decisions in any trial like this is who you call as witnesses," Harpootlian explained. "We were not aware of these texts. Had we been, it may have made a difference in our decision. These messages offer new insight into the timeline of drug distributions, some of them happening the very week of the murders." Smith, alleged to have been Murdaugh's primary drug supplier, has not been prosecuted, despite what Harpootlian described as evidence suggesting he may have been one of the largest OxyContin distributors in the Palmetto state. "Everybody else who was indicted pleaded guilty — except Eddie Smith," he said. The text messages show that Smith and Murdaugh conversed in the days leading up to Murdaugh's murder of his wife Maggie and his youngest son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, on their family's hunting estate in Colleton County, South Carolina. "Hey Brother i need to come get the chech (sic) you got one with you or are you going to be around later," Smith texted Murdaugh on June 3, four days before the slayings. Murdaugh replied that he would be back that afternoon and that he "had to deal with some bulls**t this morning." "Ok Brother just give me a holler," Smith texted, later adding, "Leaving the house now." The day before the murders, Murdaugh texted Smith, "Call me back." Within a span of two minutes the morning after the murder, Smith texted Murdaugh, "Tell me what I heard is not true," and, "Call me please." Those texts went unreturned, and around 6:30 p.m., and Smith cryptically texted Murdaugh, "At fishing hole." After that message also went unreturned, he texted, "803 *** **13 it will not go through on my phone." "Those texts, the ones we don't have, indicate a little more of the timeline of those distributions, and some of them are the week of the murder," Harpootlian said. "And we were not aware of those. Had we been aware of these, it may have made a difference in our decision not to call Eddie Smith to the stand." He also expressed concern that Smith had not been prosecuted for his alleged role in selling drugs to Murdaugh. "And he has not been prosecuted. [He's] wandering the streets, I heard maybe out of the state, and we're perplexed why Eddie Smith has been given this preferential treatment when once Alex was convicted, there was no reason not to go ahead and prosecute him," said Harpootlian. "Everybody else has pleaded guilty. Everybody else that was indicted has pleaded guilty except Eddie Smith. Now these texts would have given us additional information we believe, and I've talked to [co-counsel] Jim Griffin. It might have made the difference in us calling him to the stand or not calling him to the stand. So yes, they're important." Murdaugh is already appealing his conviction, based in large part on accusations of jury tampering by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill. She was arrested and charged with obstructing justice and misconduct in that incident. She was also charged with perjury in Richland County in relation to the case, after allegedly lying to State Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal during 2024 appellate proceedings. "We have an appeal based on errors made by the judge during the trial, and of course, the attempt by — or maybe she did — the efforts by the Clerk of Court, Becky Smith, to fix the jury. And that's a huge issue," said Harpootlian. "Many of the people we've had look at the appeal believe we have a substantial chance of getting a new trial, just based on the jury tampering." He said if they do not win a new trial, there is a possibility that they will file a habeas petition seeking to have the conviction vacated on the same grounds. "The state's brief on the underlying appeal is due Aug. 8," he said. "We have up to 30 days to reply. Then the Supreme Court decides whether to have argument, whether to grant it, whether deny it, and that could take months," he said, adding that if the appeal is granted Murdaugh will get a new trial. Harpootlian says he expects the state's high court to have a ruling on the appeal by early next year at the latest. "And again, there are all kinds of debates about the evidence and how it was allowed in by the trial judge and whether it should have been excluded or allowed in. And those certainly are important. And we think there's several of them, individually, would give us a new trail," he said. "But more important is a judge, former Chief Justice of Supreme Court, had an evidentiary hearing on Becky Hill's conduct in which she found: A) Becky Hill was not credible, and B) that Becky Hill did attempt to influence jurors to convict Alex Murdoch. She told several of her coworkers that she was writing a book, and it would be better for book sales if Alex was convicted. So we think that, and there is no clear state precedent on whether that's enough, but there's a clear federal precedent that we should get a new trial. So again, I think we should hear something before the end of the year or early next year." A retrial would likely look very different, Harpootlian said. With Murdaugh having already pleaded guilty to financial crimes, that aspect would be excluded, narrowing the scope to forensic and factual evidence. The lead attorney believes Murdaugh has a strong defense. "We had a six-week trial last time because of the financial misconduct. That won't happen again," Harpootlian said. "And when you look solely at the forensic evidence, I believe it overwhelmingly proves Alex did not kill Paul and Maggie." The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which led the investigation, and Prosecutor Creighton Waters did not return comment requests.
Fast Company
26-06-2025
- Fast Company
How the Internet of Things impacts everyone's privacy
Some unusual witnesses helped convict Alex Murdaugh of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. The first was Bubba, Maggie's yellow Labrador retriever. Prosecutors used a recording of Bubba to place Alex at the site of the murders. Given Alex's presence at the crime scene, other witnesses then revealed his movements, tracked his speed and explained what he had in his hands. Those other witnesses were a 2021 Chevy Suburban and Maggie, Paul and Alex's cellphones, which all provided data. They're all part of the Internet of Things, also known as IoT. The privacy implications of devices connected to the internet are not often the most important consideration in solving a murder case. But outside of criminal prosecution, they affect people's privacy in ways that should give everyone pause. The Internet of Things The Internet of Things includes any object or device that automatically sends and receives data via the internet. When you use your phone to message someone or social media to post something, the sharing is deliberate. But the automatic nature of connected devices effectively cuts humans out of the loop. The data from these devices can reveal a lot about the people who interact with them—and about other people around the devices. As an assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina, I have watched as new kinds of connected devices have entered the market. New devices mean new ways to collect data about people. Connected devices collect information from different contexts. Take your refrigerator. As a non-IoT device, your fridge generated no data about your kitchen, your food, or how often you peeked inside. Your relationship with the fridge was effectively private. Only you knew about that midnight snack or whether you ogled a coworker's lunch. Now, smart refrigerators can respond to voice commands, show images of the items in your fridge, track who opens it, suggest recipes, generate grocery lists and even contact your car to let you know the milk has expired. All these functions require continuous streams of data. Device data and your privacy Connected devices generate lots of data in contexts that have typically produced little data to make those situations 'legible' to whoever can access the data. In the past, if you wanted to monitor your heart rate, blood oxygenation, sleep patterns, and stress levels, you might have undergone a battery of tests at a hospital. Specialized equipment in a controlled setting would have measured your body and make these parts of you visible to highly trained, licensed professionals. But now, devices such as the Oura Ring track and analyze all that information continuously, in non-health care contexts. Even if you don't mind sharing data with an Internet of Things company, there are privacy risks to using a device like this. In the health care context, a series of rules enforced by several groups make sure that connected equipment and the data the equipment generates have adequate cybersecurity protections. Away from that context, connected devices that perform similar functions don't have to meet the same cybersecurity standards. The U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, is developing cybersecurity standards for Internet of Things devices. But the program is voluntary. In some states, such as Washington, state laws set standards for protecting health data from connected devices. But these laws don't cover all data from all devices in all contexts. This leaves the devices, and the data they generate, particularly vulnerable to unwanted access by hackers. Your inability to control who sees the data that connected devices gather is another privacy risk. It can give advertisers insights about potential customers. Absent a mandated opt-out, each device provider can decide what it does with customer data. Amazon, for example, recently removed the 'Do Not Send Voice Recordings' option from the privacy settings of its popular smart speaker, Alexa. Some connected-device providers participate in data markets, selling your data to the highest bidder. Sometimes those purchasers include government agencies. So, instead of needing a warrant to track your whereabouts or learn about activity in your home, they can purchase or access Internet of Things records. A connected device can also compromise the data privacy of someone who just happens to be nearby. Connected cars Cars have joined the ranks of the Internet of Things. The 2021 Chevy Suburban that helped convict Alex Murdaugh simply tracked information about the vehicle. This included the vehicle's speed, the turning radius of the steering wheel, and time stamps. Most modern vehicles also incorporate data from external sources. GPS data and infotainment systems that connect to cellphones also track the vehicle's movements. All of this data can also be used to track the whereabouts and behavior of drivers and other people in the vehicles. And as vehicles become increasingly automated, they need to make driving decisions in increasingly complex situations. To make safe driving decisions, they need data about the world around them. They need to know the size, speed, and behavior of all the nearby vehicles on the roadway, moment to moment. They need to instantly identify the best way to avoid a pedestrian, cyclist or other object entering the roadway. If you and I are driving in separate cars on the same roadway, it means my car is collecting information about you. And if my vehicle is connected, then data about you is being shared with other cars and car companies. In other words, if a Tesla had been present at the scene of the Murdaugh murders, its outward facing cameras could have captured footage. Bubba's testimony might not have been necessary. Spillover data collection Internet of Things devices generate data from similar situations in a highly structured way. Therefore, what data collectors learn about me from my connected device may also give them insights about someone else in a similar situation. Take smart meters that share information with the water utility every 15 minutes. Imagine a subdivision with a narrow range of house and yard sizes. Water usage should be relatively comparable for each household. Data from even just a couple of houses can give a good sense of what water use should be for everyone in the neighborhood. Without actually collecting data from each house, data from connected devices reveals potentially private information about similarly situated people. Data from IoT devices can also fuel insights into people who never use or make contact with these devices. Aggregated data from Oura Rings, for instance, could contribute to decisions a health insurer makes about you. Connected devices are also changing. In addition to collecting data about the person using the device, a growing number of sensors collect information about the environment around that person. Some of my research has examined what privacy means for people observed by vehicle sensor systems such as radar, lidar, and sonar. These technologies capture potentially very revealing information about people and their property. Even the most comprehensive privacy laws in the United States offer people little recourse for the impact to their privacy. Civilian drones are capable of gathering data about other people. But people observed by drones would have a tough time learning that data about them exists and an even harder time controlling how that information might be used. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence systems are expanding the ways Internet of Things data can affect the privacy of other people by automating the process of training IoT systems. AI chipmaker Nvidia has created a digital environment, or model, where people can upload their connected device data. This environment can help train IoT devices to ' predict the outcomes of the device's interactions with other people,' according to Nvidia. Models like this make it easy for AI devices that you don't own to collect data or reach conclusions about you. In other words, IoT data processed by AI can make inferences about you, rendering you legible to the AI system even before you interact with an IoT device. Looking forward Internet of Things devices and the data they generate are here to stay. As the world becomes increasingly automated, I believe it's important to be more aware of the way connected devices may be affecting people's privacy. The story of how vehicle data combined with cell data in the Murdaugh trial is a case in point. At the start of the trial, prosecutors came ready to show 'phone call logs and texts, steps recorded, apps asking for information, GPS locations, changes when the phone went from vertical portrait mode to horizontal landscape mode and back, and—key to the prosecution's case—when the camera was activated.' But that was probably not enough to merit a conviction. During the trial, GM called and said something like ' oh wait, we found something,' according to the prosecution. That vehicle data, combined with the cellphone data, told a story that Alex Murdaugh could not deny. There are at least two lessons from this story. First, not even GM fully realized all the data it had collected in its vehicles. It's important to be aware of just how much information IoT devices are collecting. Second, combining data from different IoT devices revealed incontestable details of Alex Murdaugh's activities. Away from criminal court, combining data from multiple IoT devices can have a profound effect on people's privacy. If people's data privacy matters, how do we address this reality? One way of potentially protecting people's privacy is to make sure people and communities observed by connected devices have a direct say in what data the devices collect and how the data is used.
Daily Mail
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Buster Murdaugh gets first victory in defamation case against Warner Bros. over murder documentary
Buster Murdaugh was handed his first win in court as a judge ruled his defamation case against Warner Brothers could proceed. The only surviving son of disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh - who is serving two life sentences for murdering his wife and youngest son in 2021 - claimed the production company implied that he 'murdered a 19-year-old Hampton County man named Stephen Smith.' Details of Smith's death along with rumors of links to the Murdaugh family were broadcast in a documentary detailing the downfall of the once prominent legal dynasty. The 28-year-old has never been accused of, or faced charges relating to, Smith's death. In 2023, he publicly denied involvement in the tragedy and shut down persistent rumors the pair had been romantically linked. Smith was a classmate of Buster and was found dead on a rural road in the summer of 2015. An autopsy determined he was fatally struck in a hit-and-run. Former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon told Fox News that the basis of the lawsuit is 'something called defamation by implication. 'There were rumors … Buster Murdaugh was somehow involved in his death. They would take interviews of people living in that area that would, in effect, repeat these rumors about Buster Murdaugh being involved in this murder. 'The lawsuit claims that they just simply aired these interviews of rumors … and would juxtapose those interviews with actual law enforcement documents and related information.' Condon said he does believe Buster's reputation was 'severely damaged by the reporting that went on.' Warner Brothers had attempted to have the defamation suit dismissed, but a judge ruled it could proceed. In the lawsuit, Buster noted the 'defamatory and false' insinuations made in the documentary were 'published to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of viewers who watched the show, including viewers in South Carolina.' He said by airing details of Smith's death in a documentary about his father's crimes, the showrunners implied he, too, had 'committed a crime or moral turpitude.' In 2016, a year after her son's death, Smith's mother Sandy wrote a letter to the FBI stating that she believed the Murdaughs were somehow involved. 'The first call my family received after the murder was from authorities notifying us of Stephen's death,' she wrote. 'The second came very quickly the same morning from Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh.' Sandy claimed to CBS authorities initially told her her son had been shot, but that within hours they said it was actually a hit-and-run. There was no evidence of vehicle debris, skid marks or injuries consistent with someone being hit by a car and they were convinced that the victim had a gunshot wound above his right eye, according to the original incident report. Sandy feared her son had been the victim of a hate crime. Rumors swirled in the small town that Buster may have been romantically linked to Smith prior to his death, but these claims were never substantiated and Buster himself vehemently denied them. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division launched a homicide investigation into Smith's death almost two weeks after Alex Murdaugh shot his wife Maggie and son, Paul in June 2021. He was convicted over the killings in 2023 and is serving two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole. Smith's family raised more than $60,000 after Alex's conviction to have his body exhumed for a private autopsy. Murdaugh, a high-profile attorney in South Carolina's Low Country, called 911 to report that he had found the bodies of his wife and son on their sprawling Moselle estate in rural Colleton County. Police arrived to find Maggie and Paul shot dead. Investigators determined that two firearms had been used. Although Murdaugh initially denied involvement, officers soon began to unravel a web of financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud and drug abuse. Three months later, Murdaugh - while under suspension for the alleged murders - was shot in the head as he changed a tire on his black Mercedes-Benz SUV. Authorities soon alleged that he had arranged the shooting himself by hiring distant relative Curtis Edward Smith in a failed suicide-for-hire plot so that Buster could receive a $10 million life insurance payout. Murdaugh was ultimately also convicted of dozens of financial crimes ranging from embezzlement to money laundering. In addition to his life sentences, Murdaugh was sentenced in federal court in April 2024 to 40 years for financial crimes involving millions stolen from clients and colleagues - a sentence that was to run concurrently with his state prison terms. A source close to Buster recently told that, though he believes his father to be innocent of the murders, he is 'really angry' at the sweeping financial crimes that Murdaugh was subsequently convicted of. 'He's living his life but he doesn't really have too much going on,' a member of his inner circle said. 'He's pretty directionless, but he's figuring it out.' But last month Buster married his long-term girlfrien d Brooklynn White, 29, in an extravagant ceremony surrounded by family and friends. The couple chose the exclusive Coosaw Point - a luxury riverside community - for their nuptials, where a 50-person wedding will set a couple back around $26,000 for the venue costs alone.
