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by JENN WOOD
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In the days surrounding the brutal murders of his wife and son, disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was in frequent contact with Curtis “Eddie” Smith — his alleged drug dealer, money mule and longtime associate.
On the evening of June 7, 2021, Murdaugh’s wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and the couple’s younger son – 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh – were found savagely slain near the dog kennels at the family’s 1,700-acre hunting property in Colleton County, S.C. Paul was killed with a shotgun; Maggie with a high-powered rifle. Within hours, Murdaugh became the central figure in what would become arguably the most sensational criminal investigation in the history of the Palmetto State.
Yet in the timeline of events presented to the jury during Murdaugh’s internationally watched double homicide trial, there is no mention of any communication between Alex and Eddie Smith — before or after the murders.
FITSNews has reviewed preserved text and call data from Murdaugh’s phone showing at least five exchanges with Smith between June 3-6, 2021. Four more texts were sent by Smith on June 8, 2021 – the day after the murders – including a cryptic message that read: “At fishing hole.”
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Not a single one of these messages appears in the 88-page timeline (.pdf) compiled by S.C. Law Enforcement Division (SLED) special agent Peter Rudofski — a document described by prosecutors as a comprehensive log of Murdaugh’s phone activity in the days surrounding the crimes.
Murdaugh was convicted of both murders on March 2, 2023 after a six-week trial. The jury deliberated for less than three hours before returning guilty verdicts. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. At the heart of the prosecution’s case was a video recorded by Paul Murdaugh moments before his death which placed Murdaugh at the scene of the murders – contradicting his alibi. But much of the state’s case also relied on digital data: cell phone records, GPS tracking, and call logs.
That data, as it turns out, may not have told the full story.
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RELATED | ‘MURDAUGH MURDERS’: PROSECUTION CLOSES WITH A BANG
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‘YOU PUT STUFF IN THE REPORT THAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU’
The Murdaugh investigation conducted by SLED has come under intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the trial – as questionable conduct in other cases has contributed to an erosion of faith in the agency and its findings. Compounding the problem? SLED’s failure to recuse itself from an investigation into jury tampering (and alleged jury rigging) during the Murdaugh trial.
In a stunning turn in the Michael Colucci case – another Lowcountry murder investigation led by SLED – circuit court judge Roger M. Young recently quashed Colucci’s indictment for the 2015 murder of his wife. According to Young, lead SLED investigator David Owen — who also led the Murdaugh inquiry — withheld critical exculpatory evidence from the grand jury and the defense, violating Colucci’s rights.
The withheld material included a statement from Colucci’s mother indicating her daughter, shortly before her death in May 2015, expressed an intent to hang herself — evidence defense attorneys say Owen knew and failed to report for nearly a decade.
The defense argued — and judge Young agreed — that key, potentially exculpatory evidence was deliberately withheld, triggering a legal remedy only rarely used: dismissal of the murder indictment. Young quashed the indictment without prejudice, meaning the state may re-present the case – but only with full transparency – to a newly empaneled grand jury.
Consider Owen’s own words during the hearing to quash the Colucci indictment:
Defense attorney: “You don’t highlight every text message, correct?”
David Owen: “Correct… you put stuff in the report that’s important to you.”
Owen also faced tough questions during the Murdaugh trial. Specifically, defense attorney Jim Griffin exposed several investigative flaws during his questioning of Owen.
Among them:
- Delayed search of a key property — SLED didn’t search the Murdaugh family’s Varnville, S.C. home, where missing murder weapons were later suspected to be, until three months after the killings, despite having permission to enter the residence.
- Overstated blood spatter evidence — Owen was challenged over presenting dramatic descriptions to the grand jury that never made it into court due to unreliable (and some say manipulated) blood spatter analysis.
These exchanges, brief as they were, marked rare moments when defense counsel pierced what many saw as the impenetrable facade of SLED’s investigation — shining a light on decisions made by its lead agent.
With these revelations in mind, it’s worth asking: When SLED chose which messages, searches and evidence to include, what was deemed “important?” And every bit as critically, what wasn’t?
***
RELATED | MICHAEL COLUCCI BOMBSHELL: DEFENSE MOVES FOR DISMISSAL OF MURDER CHARGE
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THE EDDIE SMITH MESSAGES
Preserved data from Alex Murdaugh’s phone included the following exchanges with Smith:
June 3, 2021 — Four days before the murders
- 10:26 a.m. — Smith: “Hey Brother i need to come get the chech (sic) you got one with you or are you going to be around later”
- 11:02 a.m. — Murdaugh: “Ok. I will be back this afternoon. I’ve had to deal with some bulls**t this morning.”
- 11:03 a.m. — Smith: “Ok Brother just give me a holler”
- 5:18 p.m. — Smith: “Leaving the house now”
June 6, 2021 — The day before the murders
- 11:23 a.m. — Murdaugh: “Call me back”
June 8, 2021 — The day after the murders
- 7:48 a.m. — Smith: “Tell me what I heard is not true”
- 7:50 a.m. — Smith: “Call me please”
- 6:24 p.m. — Smith: “At fishing hole”
- 7:21 p.m. — Smith: “803 *** **13 it will not go through on my phone”
This previously undisclosed text chain raises several questions: Why were Smith and Murdaugh trying to reach each other on the day before the murders? What was behind Smith’s message from a remote “fishing hole” the evening after the murders (a location which does not appear in the official record)? Why were these messages not included in the timeline provided to the jury?
Omissions regarding Smith are particularly relevant given he was advanced by Murdaugh’s defense attorneys in pre-trial motions as the man ultimately responsible for the killings.
Smith was subpoenaed to testify in Murdaugh’s murder trial but was never called to the stand. Had he testified, he was widely expected to claim that Murdaugh confessed to committing the murders to him during the roadside shooting.
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RELATED | CURTIS EDDIE SMITH’S FAILED POLYGRAPH
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OTHER ODD MESSAGES ABOUT MEETINGS, MONEY
In addition to the excluded messages involving Curtis “Eddie” Smith, Murdaugh exchanged a number of notable texts with other individuals in the days before and after the murders of his wife and son. While none of these messages explicitly referenced the killings, their content — and omission from the state’s official timeline — raises important questions about what investigators chose to share with the jury … and what they chose to leave out.
One of the more cryptic exchanges occurred with an individual who appeared to be coordinating an in-person meeting with Murdaugh immediately following the murders.
On June 8, 2021 that person texted:
- 5:50 p.m. — “I’m ready”
- 7:09 p.m. — “Give me the # again. I cannot get through”
- 7:16 p.m. — “Don’t know what is going on with phones. I’m setting in parking lot across from where you told e (sic) to go”
- 7:17 p.m. — “803 *** **13 don’t work”
- 7:34 p.m. — “OK I’m headed home. I seen her and she has changed # but I have new ones. If you need anything you let me know. I know timing sucks but get me some soon”
- 7:34 p.m. — “As soon as you can\ Love you Brother you know I’m just a phone call away”
Another noteworthy exchange involved Kenneth Singleton, an associate of Murdaugh’s whose phone calls were documented in the official SLED timeline — but not his text messages.
On June 4, 2021 — three days before the murders — Murdaugh sent Singleton a message saying:
- “I’m in a deposition. Call u later.”
Singleton responded:
- “Okay.”
On June 6, 2021 – the day of the murders:
- 11:49 a.m. — Singleton: “Call me please.”
- 1:12 p.m. — Murdaugh: “Come to my office. I have you a loan for 1750.”
The SLED timeline acknowledged multiple phone interactions between Murdaugh and Singleton on June 7 — but did not disclose the content of these text messages, including the loan reference, which could carry implications given the financial pressure Murdaugh was under at the time. Was the $1,750 intended for something specific? Was it drug-related? Or simply a personal favor? The record doesn’t say.
Still, the timing — a few hours before the murders — makes the omission of these details all the more perplexing.
Certainly, these texts do not implicate the contacts involved (including Smith) in the double homicide or any other crime, but they do provide important context about Murdaugh’s state of mind and his movements leading up to — and following — the murders.
Yet despite being preserved in his digital records, none of these messages were included in the 88-page timeline presented to the jury special agent Rudofski.
In a case in which timing and digital communications were central to the state’s theory – including innocuous messages unrelated to the crimes at hand – the omission of these texts is puzzling and potentially telling.
***
RELATED | ‘MURDAUGH MURDERS’: NETFLIX ZEROES IN ON DRUG CONNECTIONS
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‘YOUR MEDS … IN THE CUP ON THE TABLE’
Among the preserved messages recovered from Alex Murdaugh’s phone is a brief — but notable — exchange with Blanca Simpson, the Murdaugh family’s longtime housekeeper.
On the morning of June 4, 2021 — just three days before the murders — Simpson sent Murdaugh the following message:
“Hey Alex, I forgot to send this text earlier. Just wanted to let you know that I put your meds that were in your pants in the cup on the table on your side of the bed. Have a good weekend.”
Murdaugh responded less than a minute later:
“Thanks b! Hope u feeling better and hope u have a great weekend.”
The exchange may appear routine, but the timing – and context – raise deeper questions. At trial, Simpson testified about her concerns regarding Murdaugh’s drug use – including instances where she found pills and noticed changes in his behavior. She also described moments where she believed something was “off” about him – including when she found clothes laid out for him on the morning after the murders.
These details would later prove significant in the prosecution’s timeline.
While Simpson did not testify to seeing Murdaugh physically hide pills, this message — referencing medication retrieved from his pants and discreetly placed beside his bed — adds to the documented pattern of his alleged opioid dependency. At the time, Murdaugh was allegedly taking dozens of pills per day, and his purported addiction became a central component of the narrative surrounding the killings.
Surprisingly, this message was not included in the state’s official 88-page timeline, despite its proximity to the murders and its relevance to Murdaugh’s state of mind in the days leading up to June 7, 2021.
Its omission may not have changed the verdict, but it represents one more example of the many threads — some seemingly small, some more disturbing — quietly excluded from the jury’s view.
***
RELATED | ‘MURDAUGH MURDERS’ TRIAL: BLANCA SIMPSON BRINGS THE HEAT
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WHY IT MATTERS — AND WHAT’S STILL MISSING
The state built its double homicide case against Alex Murdaugh on a foundation of digital data — cell phone records, GPS tracking and carefully reconstructed timelines. Prosecutors told jurors the evidence painted a clear picture: a disgraced attorney desperate to escape financial collapse who murdered his wife and son in a calculated act of self-preservation.
But messages uncovered by FITSNews — and recent revelations about investigative omissions by SLED — raise questions of whether this picture was complete.
The omissions aren’t minor. They involve Smith – a man prosecutors have described as a central figure in Murdaugh’s alleged drug and money laundering operation. They include cryptic messages sent just hours after the murders, references to off-the-grid locations, urgent requests, last-minute loans and clandestine meetups. They also include overlooked texts between Murdaugh and Simpson which directly referenced pills retrieved from his pants and placed by his bed just days before the murders.
To be clear: There is no indication any information was withheld from Murdaugh’s defense team. Still, its absence from the state’s timeline raises questions — especially seeing as the state relied so heavily on digital data to inform jurors as to Murdaugh’s motive, movements and mindset.
All of this matters even more in light of Murdaugh’s appeal. His attorneys have alleged multiple constitutional violations — including the improper admission of financial crime evidence and prosecutorial overreach. If a retrial is granted, one of the most pressing questions will be whether this previously unexamined digital evidence would finally be put before a jury.
Also, the parallels between the Murdaugh case and the Colucci investigation are difficult to ignore. In both instances, potentially pivotal information was left out of formal reports. In both cases, lives and liberty were at stake. And in both cases, the credibility of the lead investigator — and the system that relied on his judgment — is under renewed scrutiny.
So far, we don’t know why these messages weren’t included in the official trial record. Were they deemed irrelevant? Inconvenient? Or were they simply missed? We also don’t know whether the defense saw them and made a tactical decision to keep them out — or never saw them at all.
This much is clear: The timeline presented to the jury was not the full story. And in a case this explosive — with implications that reach far beyond one man’s guilt or innocence — the public deserves nothing less than the whole truth.
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THE MESSAGES…
(Provided)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
***
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11 comments
SLED is dirty.
They sure are!
The state’s timeline had so many datapoints that it was dangerously close to losing the jury’s ability to process it all. The inclusion of additional text messages in the midst of all of that would only make that worse.
These messages give me the impression that there are voice calls being made (or attempted) in between. When you’re in an area with spotty cell service, sometimes it’s a lot easier to shoot a quick text that will eventually go through.
I can’t discern anything about these texts that would be exculpatory for the defense. And that is the critical issue. Noteworthy that FITS didn’t appear to present these texts to a seasoned defense attorney for their commentary.
I have comments on the timeline; but I also have a valuable comment on Callie Lyons’ totally useless story on Stephen Smith.
As usual, FITS agonizes before letting my comments through; so, here it is again:
Callie Lyons, have you forgotten how many REAL journalists died and still do in war zones to report accurately?
Have you forgotten how many REAL journalists were courageously incarcerated instead of revealing their sources?
Callie Lyons, your shameless play on words to insinuate FALSEHOODS make you are no longer a journalist in my opinion free from false humility.
Callie Lyons, you are a washed-up has been who does no more than pander to Will Folk’s weird menage-a-trois with Mark Tinsley on one arm and Ever-Bluffing Eric Bland (“EBEB”) on the other.
What “blood, sweat and tears” did anyone in Hampton County “invest” in Stephen Smith’s story? All people did, INCLUDING Sanctimonious Sandi Smith (“SSS”) did was sit on their butts and repeat unfounded accusations.
That Thomas Moore, who has a clear grudge against everyone Murdaugh, is one of the most incompetent and unethical so-called law enforcement officers (“LEOs”) the world has ever known. He went and shamelessly harassed the wonderful, and PROVEN-CORRECT Dr. Erin Presnell to make her change her diagnosis of the death resulting from a vehicle-pedestrian collision.
The second autopsy CONFIRMED that diagnosis 100%. EBEB’s hand-selected Dr. Michelle Duprey said so on many shows including Court TV and Nancy Grace.
It was a “homicide” only to the extent that hit-and-run and suicide ARE forms of homicide, meaning ONLY not natural causes such as aging or disease.
The vehicle accident which killed Stephen Smith has been investigated more extensively than that which killed Princess Diana; yet, SSS and EBEB refuse to accept the obvious: Stephen Smith died by suicide by intentionally walking in the middle of the road into on-coming traffic because he was a broke, school-failing, teenage prostitute whose mother did not even want him living in her home but was very happy to launch a Go-Fund-Me page after his death and never disclose what she did with the money raised from that scam.
That killed-somewhere-else-and-staged-in-the-middle-of-the-road fiction is STRAIGHT OUT of the Oscar-winning movie “In the Heat of the Night.” Watch it.
Remember? At the beginning, SSS insisted that Stephen’s much older “boyfriend” did it. Then SSS realized there was no money in it and turned on the Murdaughs hoping for some money there. None came. So, SSS went to Go-Fund-Me.
You, Callie Lyons, owe to those who “invested” in that scam, and to SC’s taxpayers, to request an investigation of what was done with the G0-Fund-Me money and who authorized a second autopsy at taxpayers’ expense when there was NO REASON other than that idiotic LEO Thomas Moore and SSS’s and EBEB”s (supported by Malicious Mandy Matney [“MMM”]) to doubt Dr. Presnell’s diagnosis.
Now Will Folks is in love with Valerie Bauerlein, who should be sued by Dr. Presnell because Bauerlein FALSELY wrote in her book that “the doctor who did [Stephen Smith’s] autopsy was subsequently fired.” In fact, Dr. Presnell was NOT “subsequently fired” but promoted.
I have no confidence that FITS will run this comment of mine because he acts as if I did not exist while he copies my views and even my brilliant phrases: I have been telling him to “go coercive-control [him]self” since he started giving oxygen to that STUPID proposed coercive-control legislation. Lo and behold, he titles one of his recent posts “SCOTUS to Planned Parenthood: Go Fund Yourself” as if Will Folks were capable of that original title without being inspired by me.
You, too, Callie Lyons, go coercive-control yourself instead of shedding crocodile tears over SSS and her cohorts, MMM and EBEB.
I still have very valuable comments on the time line; but, for the readers’ ready access and because the narrow daily window of my vision blurriness being at its mildest is closing, I also post here my reaction to discovering the sincere by naive Susanne Andrews’ X-page on which Jen Wood commented.
Here again is my most recent comment on Callie Lyons’ most recent and useless “update” on Stephen Smith’s story:
In the narrow window of the day when my vision blurriness is at its mildest, I managed to visit Susanne Andrews’ X-page and read a score of her posts.
This, God willing and FITS permitting, is a LOVING invitation for her to tell the world and ME the basis on which Susanne Andrews ASSUMED that (1) Stephen Smith was murdered, (2) was murdered because he is gay, and (3) someone other than the supposed murderer(s) knows who did it and why, but is not talking.
Though she also founded something she called #StandingforStephen AND received donations to that foundation, Susanne Andrews seems to be sincere, to the point of naivety. That is why I am extending to her this invitation to engage in a FACT-based dialogue on the basis of her beliefs.
First, I give ZERO credence to Hampton County (or anyone in South Carolina except for the few Catholic priests and nuns, Coptic Orthodox faithful, and NON-reform Jewish adherents) being Bible-followers.
The same God who forbade homosexuality also forbade adultery, extra-marital (including pre-marital) sex, and even sex during menstruation AND during pregnancy.
BTW, the latter is one of the main causes of premature births, low birth weights, and early infant mortality. But it is not spoken about just as very few speak of breast-feeding being one of the best preventers of breast cancer. But these are topics for another post.
My point is that “conservative” in South Carolina (and most of America) means hating foreigners, nothing more nothing less.
Second, why does Susanne Andrews think Stephen Smith was the only gay in Hampton County? And if so, why would someone who wanted to kill him (supposedly to eradicate gayness in Hampton County) wait for Stephen Smith to be walking in the middle of the road into on-coming traffic to hit Stephen Smith in the head with a blunt object from a speeding car with such accuracy that trained polo players cannot master?
I have previously used my narrow windows of vision blurriness being at its mildest to read COVER-TO-COVER among other books, three I found very telling of why Paul and Maggie were killed and why Stephen Smith was SUICIDALLY walking into on-coming traffic in the middle of the road on a country night.
Those three books are Malicious Mandy Matney’s (“MMM”) “Blood on Their Hands,” Valerie Bauerlein’s “The Devil at His Elbow,” and Eric Bland’s (“EBEB”) “Anything but Bland.”
MMM’s most offensive hypocrisy (among the multitude that abound in her book) is pretending that her supposed Catholicism made her feel guilty after her many one-night stands. TRUE Catholicism makes you NOT engage in one-night stands in the first place, not feel guilt afterwards.
Also, TRUE Judaism makes you ABSTAIN from pre-marital sex, NOT force a WASP girl you met “at a bar after synagogue” to convert to Judaism to please your mother then sow permanent division between that girl and her brother (the seventh abomination to God’s heart according to Proverbs) then co-habit with her pre-maritally, all according to EBEB’s own book.
And TRUE journalism should have made Valerie Bauerlein NOT lie about Dr. Erin Presnell, who had made the unquestionably correct diagnosis of Stephen Smith’s cause of death. That was NO MORE “QUICK” than autopsies are done “quickly” after death and no more “questionable” than in the mouths of that idiot Thomas Moore and Sanctimonious Sandy Smith (“SSS”).
Valerie Bauerlein is NOT about REAL journalism but about selling her book and now about doing a PR job for Mark Tinsley in his new civil lawsuit against the Spivey shooters.
Really, Susanne Andrews, read those three books and tell me how am I wrong in concluding that MMM pushed for the murders of Paul and Maggie (if not orchestrated them herself) to bring renewed attention to Stephen Smith’s case, help Gloria Satterfield’s heirs snatch form Richard Alex Murdaugh (“RAM”) insurance-fraud loot to which neither RAM nor the Satterfield estate was entitled (because no dogs were involved in Gloria Satterfield’s death), and help Mark Tinsley settle the boat crash case.
LOOK AT THE RESULTS.
They pretend RAM killed Paul and Maggie to get “sympathy” for the boat crash case. BULL. The result is the opposite: The Beach estate got $20 million even though, according to Valerie Bauerlein’s book, it was Mallory Beach who pushed for more drinks and THE boat ride that night-into-day.
Why? Because after RAM’s conviction, EVERY lawyer who dares oppose Mark Tinsley or EBEB knows that said opposing lawyer’s wife and/or son COULD be killed and have the murder pinned on that opposing lawyer.
So, the supposed civil defense lawyers pay with abandon. After all, that money does not come from the civil defense lawyer’s PERSONAL pocket but from the pockets of insurance companies. And where does the insurance companies’ money from? From us the law-abiding policy buyers who see our insurance premiums rise and rise under false pretexts that such rises are due to the California fires and the Texas floods.
Again, BULL.
The insurance premium rises are due to the scams of the insurance defense lawyers and the complacency of judges who approve outrageous fraud-based insurance settlements to make BOTH plaintiffs’ lawyers and civil-defense lawyers love those judges and hire them after those judges retire from the bench.
Again, Susanne Andrews, give me FACTS to tell me how I am wrong OR join me in exposing the real scams going on.
And advocate for breast-feeding and abstinence, at least during pregnancy.
God bless
Because FITS kindly let me post here, too, my previous comment on Callie Lyons’ related (if useless) supposed “update” on Stephen Smith’s story, I paste here and hope FITS runs it, my follow up to my Callie Lyons comment after visiting Susanne Andrews’ X-page:
In the narrow window of the day when my vision blurriness is at its mildest, I managed to visit Susanne Andrews’ X-page and read a score of her posts.
This, God willing and FITS permitting, is a LOVING invitation for her to tell the world and ME the basis on which Susanne Andrews ASSUMED that (1) Stephen Smith was murdered, (2) was murdered because he is gay, and (3) someone other than the supposed murderer(s) knows who did it and why, but is not talking.
Though she also founded something she called #StandingforStephen AND received donations to that foundation, Susanne Andrews seems to be sincere, to the point of naivety. That is why I am extending to her this invitation to engage in a FACT-based dialogue on the basis of her beliefs.
First, I give ZERO credence to Hampton County (or anyone in South Carolina except for the few Catholic priests and nuns, Coptic Orthodox faithful, and NON-reform Jewish adherents) being Bible-followers.
The same God who forbade homosexuality also forbade adultery, extra-marital (including pre-marital) sex, and even sex during menstruation AND during pregnancy.
BTW, the latter is one of the main causes of premature births, low birth weights, and early infant mortality. But it is not spoken about just as very few speak of breast-feeding being one of the best preventers of breast cancer. But these are topics for another post.
My point is that “conservative” in South Carolina (and most of America) means hating foreigners, nothing more nothing less.
Second, why does Susanne Andrews think Stephen Smith was the only gay in Hampton County? And if so, why would someone who wanted to kill him (supposedly to eradicate gayness in Hampton County) wait for Stephen Smith to be walking in the middle of the road into on-coming traffic to hit Stephen Smith in the head with a blunt object from a speeding car with such accuracy that trained polo players cannot master?
I have previously used my narrow windows of vision blurriness being at its mildest to read COVER-TO-COVER among other books, three I found very telling of why Paul and Maggie were killed and why Stephen Smith was SUICIDALLY walking into on-coming traffic in the middle of the road on a country night.
Those three books are Malicious Mandy Matney’s (“MMM”) “Blood on Their Hands,” Valerie Bauerlein’s “The Devil at His Elbow,” and Eric Bland’s (“EBEB”) “Anything but Bland.”
MMM’s most offensive hypocrisy (among the multitude that abound in her book) is pretending that her supposed Catholicism made her feel guilty after her many one-night stands. TRUE Catholicism makes you NOT engage in one-night stands in the first place, not feel guilt afterwards.
Also, TRUE Judaism makes you ABSTAIN from pre-marital sex, NOT force a WASP girl you met “at a bar after synagogue” to convert to Judaism to please your mother then sow permanent division between that girl and her brother (the seventh abomination to God’s heart according to Proverbs) then co-habit with her pre-maritally, all according to EBEB’s own book.
And TRUE journalism should have made Valerie Bauerlein NOT lie about Dr. Erin Presnell, who had made the unquestionably correct diagnosis of Stephen Smith’s cause of death. That was NO MORE “QUICK” than autopsies are done “quickly” after death and no more “questionable” than in the mouths of that idiot Thomas Moore and Sanctimonious Sandy Smith (“SSS”).
Valerie Bauerlein is NOT about REAL journalism but about selling her book and now about doing a PR job for Mark Tinsley in his new civil lawsuit against the Spivey shooters.
Really, Susanne Andrews, read those three books and tell me how am I wrong in concluding that MMM pushed for the murders of Paul and Maggie (if not orchestrated them herself) to bring renewed attention to Stephen Smith’s case, help Gloria Satterfield’s heirs snatch form Richard Alex Murdaugh (“RAM”) insurance-fraud loot to which neither RAM nor the Satterfield estate was entitled (because no dogs were involved in Gloria Satterfield’s death), and help Mark Tinsley settle the boat crash case.
LOOK AT THE RESULTS.
They pretend RAM killed Paul and Maggie to get “sympathy” for the boat crash case. BULL. The result is the opposite: The Beach estate got $20 million even though, according to Valerie Bauerlein’s book, it was Mallory Beach who pushed for more drinks and THE boat ride that night-into-day.
Why? Because after RAM’s conviction, EVERY lawyer who dares oppose Mark Tinsley or EBEB knows that said opposing lawyer’s wife and/or son COULD be killed and have the murder pinned on that opposing lawyer.
So, the supposed civil defense lawyers pay with abandon. After all, that money does not come from the civil defense lawyer’s PERSONAL pocket but from the pockets of insurance companies. And where does the insurance companies’ money from? From us the law-abiding policy buyers who see our insurance premiums rise and rise under false pretexts that such rises are due to the California fires and the Texas floods.
Again, BULL.
The insurance premium rises are due to the scams of the insurance defense lawyers and the complacency of judges who approve outrageous fraud-based insurance settlements to make BOTH plaintiffs’ lawyers and civil-defense lawyers love those judges and hire them after those judges retire from the bench.
Again, Susanne Andrews, give me FACTS to tell me how I am wrong OR join me in exposing the real scams going on.
And advocate for breast-feeding and abstinence, at least during pregnancy.
God bless
Even though this story stopped trending while the related story “It might have made a difference” keeps trending, I post here (and hope FITS lets it through) my most recent comments on Andy Fancher’s most recent appearance on YouTube. I hope all journalists, old, young, and middle aged, return – and remain faithful to – the rules of true journalism, including doing one’s homework, accuracy, and avoiding hyperboles which make the journalist lose credibility.
So, here it is:
So no one thinks I picked only on female journalists or fake journalists, here are my comments on Andy Fancher’s report on FITSNews’ Week in Review of Saturday, 6 September 2025:
@marieassaad-faltas1299:
At 3:12 and after, Andy, it is “Dayne,” NOT “Dwayne” Phillips. I even double-checked on the SC lawyers directory. That is homework the journalist, not the reader, should have done. Next time, do your homework before mispronouncing lawyers’ names. It affects your credibility.
At 5:30, Andy, Andy, Andy, there is no “of course” about it. Although it is a pet peeve for South Carolina’s STATE courts, hybrid representation is allowed in BOTH civil and criminal cases in FEDERAL courts at the judge’s guided discretion.
Several published cases show a federal judge allowing hybrid representation; others show a federal judge denying it. But it would have been abuse of discretion for a federal judge to deny hybrid representation SOLELY BECAUSE the judge thought it unusual or knew that Andy Fancher would be surprised by it.
I believe Judge Currie knows better and is aware of the U.S. Supreme Court case: McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 US 168, 104 S. Ct. 944, 79 L. Ed. 2d 122 (1984).
At 13:44, No, Andy, no, no, no. Do your homework. There are EXCELLENT statistics on criminal defendants’ self-representation in federal courts.
The leader is Professor Erica Hashimoto, earlier of the University of Georgia School of Law and now (or the last I knew) of Georgetown Law School.
Read Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008). It cites Professor Hashimoto’s study and statistics.
And SURPRISE! Pro se criminal defendants in federal courts have a slightly higher ACQUITTAL RATE than represented ones. So, R.J. May’s decision is statistics-based.
And, of course, in South Carolina, there is the indelible story of the great Dr. Marie Faltas, who, thank God, did for herself WITHOUT A LAWYER, and in Judge Clifton Newman’s court no less, what Messers. Harpootlian, Griffin, and Barber, COMBINED could not do for Alex Murdaugh: prevent a jury from coming back with a wrongful conviction.
Andy Fancher, are you a journalist reporting true facts? Or are you a fiction writer pandering for lawyers to advertise on FITSNews?
Hopefully, YouTube does not delete my comments there and Will Folks lets them through here.
May be comments on the timeline itself, posted under the other story that is still trending, will cause this story to trend again as it should.
So, here is my analysis of the timeline:
With the 7 June 2021 cell phone records as printed by FITSNews about two years ago and presented to the jury, I took the pain of color coding them and would ask Jenn Wood or Will Folks to make it possible for me to post the color-coded version.
Till then, here are my conclusions on which you have to trust me until you see my color-coded version or you color-code them for yourselves.
(1) About 20-30 entries are clearly designated as NOT in Rudolfsky’s downloaded data. Why?
(2) There is no doubt about the time of Maggie’s arrival to Moselle OR the time of the dinner: 8:00 – 8:30 pm. Her phone LOCKED during that time.
(3) Maggie’s cell phone batteries were borderline because she (apparently inadvertently) did NOT hook her cell phone to her car charger on her 7 June 2024 drives from, and back to, Moselle.
(4) The conclusion is: the phone locks when the battery is low, or when the owner does not want to be disturbed (as when having dinner), not when the owner dies.
We also need to know from the autopsy report what Maggie was wearing when she was killed. Did her garments have pockets large enough for her cell phone?
It is more plausible that, with so many dogs to let out then back in, Maggie needed both her hands free; and, if not wearing pockets, laid her cell phone on the side-by-side or her bike’s basket or wherever THE REAL KILLERS found it and had to deprive Maggie of it lest she call for help or lest the phone record what really happened.
(5) If Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) were the killer and had disposed of Maggie’s phone on the drive from or to Almeda, he would not have, the next morning, given SLED information and assistance on finding that phone.
(6) Also, if RAM were the killer, he would have spent the night at his mother’s home and left one of the Moselle hands to find the bodies in the morning and be the prime suspect.
I have previously detailed all the above here and elsewhere.
To recap here what I previously explained on FITSNews and elsewhere as OBJECTIVE SCIENTIFIC proof of RAM’s innocence:
(1) Paul and Maggie did NOT die as early as 8:49 pm on 7 June 2021 because the food is their stomachs, AS SEEN and MEASURED by the pathologist who performed the autopsies, was TOO LITTLE and TOO DIGESTED for the death to have occurred only 22 minutes after Paul and Maggie’s KNOWN, relatively large and fatty, last meal.
(2) Paul did not send the video of Cash’s tail, NOT because Paul was shot by RAM immediately after making that video, BUT BECAUSE that video shows NOTHING WRONG with Cash’s tail. Paul’s having previously imagined, and reported to Rogan Gibson, that there was “a pone” on Cash’s tail was AN OPTICAL ILLUSION which was dispelled by Paul sleeving Cash’s tail though Paul’s palm then looking into that palm and finding nothing in it OR ON THE TAIL. Whatever “pone” Paul thought he saw earlier must have been an insect of a piece of caked mud that fell off with Cash’s furious wagging of its own tail. Tail wagging is NATURE’s way of ridding dogs of dirt and/or parasites. So, no need to bother the friend of a friend who is a veterinarian.
(3) RAM was wearing that while T-shirt into the kennels and later into his mother’s home. The spatter on it was NOT human blood but avian blood from the chicken RAM had extracted from the jaws of Bubba the dog.
(4) If Paul and/or Maggie were REALLY shot with guns which once belonged to the Murdaughs, they must have been Paul’s very expensive once-established stolen guns which were never recovered but of which the first one only was replaced. So, on 7 June 2021, someone had possession of at least two guns stolen from Paul Murdaugh.
(5) The REAL shooters are likely females with training in shooting game animals but not humans because, due to muscle memory, they aimed for the height of a game animal head, not a human head.
AND (6) The ideas of RAM shooting his beloved wife and younger son to gain sympathy is a total inventions of Ever-Bluffing Eric Bland (“EBEB”) from which he takes great CONTINUING sinful pleasure.
As a third-year law student in the then-and-now middling USC law school, EBEB’s self-importance and rabid ambition demanded employment in the more prestigious and lucrative Philadelphia, Pa, market which was out of USC’s circle of connections.
So, EBEB helped himself into calling Philadelphia, Pa, law firms and FALSELY pretending he ALREADY had scheduled interviews with competing Philadelphia, Pa, law firms. Then he would AGAIN FALSELY pretend to one firm that a competitor firm had offered him a job at a huge salary.
Parenthetically, I wondered how good were those supposedly elite law firms if they did not know to check whether their competitors had REALLY offered interviews and later well-paid jobs to a middling graduate of a middling southern law school.
Be that as it may, EBEB did get a job with a Philadelphia law firm but in their Florida branch, which soon closed.
So, EBEB returned to Philly where he spent three years jumping from on law firm to another without actually doing the work that would have qualified him for promotion from associate to partner.
So EBEB returns to South Carolina where he gets his WASP father-in-law to open a law office for EBEB and a partner.
For a while EBEB does well by destroying the competitors of one wealthy client; but soon that wealthy client himself goes into bankruptcy or something; and EBEB was, in his own words, “staring into the abyss.”
That is when EBEB gets the idea of destroying other lawyers for a living.
Full disclosure: I once thought EBEB a hero for standing up to Nexsen-Pruett. Truth is: each is worse than the other.
What is new to me is my fuller understanding of Ever-Bluffing Eric Bland’s (“EBEB”) personality and why and how he is obsessed, addicted even, with making others believe his fabrications. That is what makes EBEB happy and what started his career: fabrications (of interviews and job offers) which he calls “little white lies” and what continues his success. He wants to punch in the face a junior high classmate who was then taller and more muscular than EBEB. And now, he wants to literally kill RAM of broken-heartedness because RAM was once a more successful and higher-earning personal injury lawyer than EBEB.
EBEB may also have the Laius complex, so afraid that Oedipus will kill Laius and marry Jocasta that EBEB admits to BASICALLY verbally abusing his only son and never letting him win in golf.
Good parents, like caring fledging a brood, are patient with their young ones, laugh at the little ones’ jokes which are not funny to adults, pretend not to see them at peek-a-boo, pretend to fall for their facile April fool’s real “little white lies,” etc. But not EBEB. He is addicted to making people think what he tells them to think, even if the price is getting an innocent man convicted of two murders and of getting one black lawyer after another suspended and disbarred.
I pray that EBEB repents. But whether he does or not, YOU don’t let him mislead you.
Yes, I said it elsewhere; but it is also worth posting here:
A statistically-proven FACT is: pro se criminal defendants (at least in federal courts) have a BETTER ACQUITTAL rate than represented ones. That is in part because they do not worship the law, the legal rules of legal evidence, and lawyers.
Lawyers claim they are trained to think critically and go to law school to learn to think like a lawyer.
In fact, they go to law school to learn to not think at all but to copy by rote what someone else wrote or said earlier; and they learn the cowardice of not challenging judges but pandering to them.
Take for example the hand-of-one-is-the-hand-of-all rule whereby the unwitting driver of the get-away car might get the death penalty while the actual shooter of the victim gets 30 years.
Does that rule deter crime or conspiracies to commit crimes? Not at all. It might even promote them by giving the mastermind of a crime conspiracy the hope of pinning the major blame on the most gullible member of the conspiracy.
So what does hand-of-one do? It ONLY allows LAZY investigators and prosecutors to not busy their smug little heads with apportioning culpability to mete out punishment proportionate to the role in the crime. Just put them all in a blender and pour any amounts of the blend into a number of cups equal to the number of criminal defendants.
Take another rule: a prior conviction evidencing dishonesty is allowed against a witness for ten years.
So, a dishonest person remains dishonest until the crime’s tenth birthday but, as soon as the clock strikes midnight on that day, the witness magically becomes an honest person.
Another example is the Goff factors on which SC Associate Justice James has at least twice written that one trial judge could decide to admit evidence and another trial judge looking at IDENTICAL FACTS could decide to exclude; and the SC Supreme Court would have to affirm each trial judge due to limited scope of appellate review.
That is not a reliable scale of justice on which the public can rely. That is a yo-yo, up one minute down the other.
So, the allegoric Lady Justice should be depicted, not blind-folded and holding a scale, but smirking and wielding a yo-yo.
What does this have to do with this story?
I am mid-way through Murdaugh’s reply brief for which Jenn Wood was waiting as if on fire.
Both Dick and Jim are prior prosecutors; and Phil Barber is a prior federal law clerk. None of them did anything to make criminal trials more scientific. To the contrary, Jim Griffin had “pioneered” and effected the inclusion of a polygraph in plea agreements even though polygraphs do NOT detect anything. That came back to bite Griffin’s client, Alex Murdaugh, in the sentencing for his federal crimes.
All this rigmarole, expensive public trials, and heartache for falsely-convicted, would have been avoided if, instead of developing, studying, and worshipping useless and stupid rules, the erstwhile prosecutors had developed SCIENTIFIC checklists to be adhered to before probable cause may even be claimed.
ALL the Murdaugh murders trial story would NOT EVEN HAVE BEGUN if real rules for pinpointing the time of death were in place and there had been a precedent or a law saying: if police did not do all the possible measurements to narrow the time of death, the solicitor cannot prosecute.
No wonder Dick, Jim and Phil, did not even cite my observations about the REAL time of death being much later than what the State claims it to be. They would rather lose their case than give credit to the great Dr. Marie Faltas.
What? Give credit to a doctor who, thank God, represented herself and got herself acquitted? No. no, no, no. Then everyone would want to represent themselves; and how will lawyers and law school professors (full-time and visiting adjunct judges) make a lavish living?
NO, no, no. We cannot, come what may, give such doctor any respect. In fact, we should act as if she did not exist. But if she happens to materialize in any circumstance, we should treat her like a leper, and a demented one at that.
You see: Jesus Christ never attacked Judaism. He decried the Pharisees who had perverted the laws of God for the Pharisees’ own profit and glory.
No one resembles Pharisees more than common-law-jurisdiction lawyers and judges and Salafi Sheikhs.
And both Anglo-American lawyers and Salafi Sheikhs hate Coptic Christians to no end.
Objective proof: SC’s Supreme Court unabashedly wrote in a published opinion that the great Dr. Marie Faltas should be denied her basic human right to speak and advocate for herself because, horror of horrors, she had asked that court (which drowns itself in ceremonial gestures) to make a symbolic gesture (such as lowering the flag) in sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the 2013-2017 spade of church bombings and church burnings in Egypt.
No Justice who signed that opinion should be re-elected or promoted.
And, if FITS does not let this comment through, he should go coercive-control himself.
Meanwhile, regarding the Murdaugh topic at hand: The state didn’t surprise the defense with the timeline of messages and calls. The defense had opportunity to review them. Alex could have said “wait, this is wrong. I don’t see all those suspicious sounding texts that would have further supported the prosecution’s characterization of my state of mind.” Defense lawyers would have demanded those texts be included in the timeline. Also, if they thought it would help their case, they could have called CE Smith to testify. The prosecution needed to submit evidence to prove case beyond a reasonable doubt. The texts hardly seem exculpatory. Possibly they could have been held aside due to relevance to another ongoing investigation. We can say, as popcorn chompers and armchair detectives, even as journalists, that we think they should have been in the timeline, even raise an eyebrow and ask questions – but unless it’s demonstrated that prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, it remains an injustice only to the narrative. I can’t imagine why, if he were innocent, he wouldn’t have been nonstop focused on finding out who really did it. The “bad investigation” came up with a damning video that contradicted a timeline of lies Murdaugh had attested to, dissolving his purported distance from the crime’s place and time. Giving a corrupt lawyer like him another shot at obfuscating the truth would not be a demonstration of how just SC justice can be when the nation is looking. It would be showing how a rich jerk lawyer can get do-overs until he gets the outcome he wants, while everyday people get screwed ‘by the system’ via the hand of guys like him. Jenn Wood, it’s hard to say anything to you after reading the kind of comments that have been coming your way- so I’ll preface this with “as someone who enjoys your reporting” – please don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. I’ve always figured more revealing evidence would further implicate Murdaugh and further solidify the narrative of his guilt. Can you find anything that is actually illuminating- about the prosecutions narrative, or the defense’s?