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by WILL FOLKS
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Last week, our media outlet aired an extended interview with Alex Murdaugh’s lead attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin following the South Carolina supreme court’s unanimous – and emphatic – reversal of Murdaugh’s double homicide convictions.
This week, on yet another special edition of our Week in Review, it was the prosecutors’ turn to weigh in…
In their first joint interview since the supreme court’s ruling was handed down, S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson and statewide grand jury chief Creighton Waters sat down with me, offering an insightful – and often impassioned – defense of their office’s handling of the initial Murdaugh prosecution.
They also directly addressed the tampering of former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill – which the supreme court justices cited as their primary reason for overturning the verdicts entered against Murdaugh.
“This idea that after six weeks of trial, all those witnesses, all that evidence, judge Newman, the prosecution, law enforcement, the defense team – the idea that Becky makes a couple of untoward comments and some juror is like ‘I didn’t know what to do because Becky said something,’ it’s absurd,” Waters said. “It’s absolutely absurd.”
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Wilson, meanwhile, punched back at criticism of his recent decision to put the death penalty back on the table in this case (after his office declined to seek it ahead of Murdaugh’s 2023 trial).
“Obviously, in 2022, the death penalty wasn’t a functioning method at the time,” Wilson said, referring to the fact the Palmetto State hadn’t executed an inmate in more than a decade owning to various legal issues which have since been resolved.
“We would be remiss as lawyers – because we are back at square one – if we didn’t rethink all of these decisions,” Waters added.
During our conversation, I asked Wilson and Waters multiple pointed questions – including whether they believed evidence against Murdaugh was fabricated ahead of the first trial by the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and whether they were aware of an alleged conspiracy to remove a juror believed to be disposed toward acquitting Murdaugh.
Those questions – and others – yielded some pointed answers.
As our media outlet continues to drive the coverage of this saga, continued thanks to everyone who watches us and subscribes to us. Your support drives everything we do here at FITSNews. The (new and improved) lights, cameras, and accountability… all of it comes from your views and your subscriptions.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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10 comments
Waters showed his elitist arrogance by pretending to know what goes on in someone else’s mind. He has no idea what Hills comments caused another individual to feel. Thank goodness he may not be in a position of authority in the near future. He’s not much different than Jack Smith
Even if I were figuratively tooting my own horn, I earned the right to do so.
Look at what I wrote two years ago, and of which I was just reminded by another commenter’s question to me yesterday:
“@marieassaad-faltas1299
2 years ago
In reference to pages 59-60 of Becky Hill’s book, am I the ONLY one left in this world with any sense of decency?
FIRST, this means THAT MALE JUROR (not the female egg juror) was discussing the case with at least three friends and talking about how long the case will take.
SECOND, nothing BUT NOTHING compelled that juror to stay on the case and make just $20/day (NOT $10 because I read Becky Hill’s ENTIRE book VERY CAREFULLY). All that juror had to do is tell the judge about the work needs. The judge would have replaced that juror with an alternate (remember? six alternates had been chosen) and no outside money would have changed hands.
THIRD, how do we know there was no explicit or tacit understanding about what that juror was to do in return for those “thousands of dollars” from his three friends? After all, that jury, ACCORDING TO BECKY HILL, communicated with their eyes. Perhaps those friends winked and nodded as the money changed hands.
FOURTH AND FOREMOST, we need to know IMMEDIATELY if that money was the three friends’ own money or whether they were funneling it from someone else.
There may have been money laundering going on if the amount exceeded $10K. Banks are supposed to report those AND it is, according to MY understanding (and I am NOT a lawyer), money laundering to break a $10K transaction into smaller ones to evade the bank’s reporting requirement.
Frankly, I think Dick and Jim are not that brilliant after all. They don’t know where it is REALLY at.
It is no longer “the trial of the century” but “the mistrial of the decade.””
And then tell me why that male, guilty-voting, juror’s receipt of outside money is as ignored as Cousin Eddie Smith’s indicted alleged crimes.
I earned the right to figuratively toot my own horn.
Look at what I wrote two years ago, and of which I was just reminded by another commenter’s question to me yesterday:
“@marieassaad-faltas1299
2 years ago
In reference to pages 59-60 of Becky Hill’s book, am I the ONLY one left in this world with any sense of decency?
FIRST, this means THAT MALE JUROR (not the female egg juror) was discussing the case with at least three friends and talking about how long the case will take.
SECOND, nothing BUT NOTHING compelled that juror to stay on the case and make just $20/day (NOT $10 because I read Becky Hill’s ENTIRE book VERY CAREFULLY). All that juror had to do is tell the judge about the work needs. The judge would have replaced that juror with an alternate (remember? six alternates had been chosen) and no outside money would have changed hands.
THIRD, how do we know there was no explicit or tacit understanding about what that juror was to do in return for those “thousands of dollars” from his three friends? After all, that jury, ACCORDING TO BECKY HILL, communicated with their eyes. Perhaps those friends winked and nodded as the money changed hands.
FOURTH AND FOREMOST, we need to know IMMEDIATELY if that money was the three friends’ own money or whether they were funneling it from someone else.
There may have been money laundering going on if the amount exceeded $10K. Banks are supposed to report those AND it is, according to MY understanding (and I am NOT a lawyer), money laundering to break a $10K transaction into smaller ones to evade the bank’s reporting requirement.
Frankly, I think Dick and Jim are not that brilliant after all. They don’t know where it is REALLY at.
It is no longer “the trial of the century” but “the mistrial of the decade.””
And then tell me why that male, guilty-voting, juror’s receipt of outside money is as ignored as Cousin Eddie Smith’s indicted alleged crimes.
And I also earned the right to challenge Alan Wilson’s pretenses of taking prosecutorial seriously.
Really Alan Wilson at minute 23:57 your “bar licenses are on the line”?
Well! Let me, God willing, file TODAY against you an ODC complaint for your failure to investigate and discipline your Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (Sarah Heather Savitz Weiss), daughter of one of you campaign donors, and your Creighton Waters’ “number 2” David Amadeo Fernandez for subornation of perjury, forging documents, fabricating stories, and lying to the courts.
You know that one of your ethical duties is to report misconduct of your subordinate lawyers.
And you know that I emailed and later “looked you in the eye” and informed you of that terrible OBJECTIVELY-DOCUMENTED misconduct by those two subordinate lawyers of yours.
And in case you want to play dumb about it, Hatchet-for-Hire Heather, who was then receiving from the City of Columbia $70K/year IN ADDITION TO her assistant-solicitor’s salary to, among other things, do hatchet jobs on the City’s opponents in civil litigation, had me falsely arrested and falsely prosecuted for “harassi[ng] in the first degree” one Teresa Felecia Ingram Jackson and one Dinah Gail Steele, pretending ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE FALSE CHARGES AGAINST ME to be married to one Larry Wayne Mason.
Just so no one accuses me of being a disgruntled loser, the jury presided over by none other than Judge Clifton Newman refused to convict me forcing him to declare a mistrial; and I continued, thank God and without a lawyer, to prove my actual innocence until the charges were dismissed WITH PREJUDICE 30 months after the mistrial.
And what were the “facts” Hatchet-for-Hire Heather and CACA Fernandez presented to pretend my guilt?
(1) That I supposedly “blocked” that Teresa Ingram from going to work in the mornings. The problem? That Teresa Ingram was UNEMPLOYED throughout the period I supposedly “blocked her” from going to work. And Hatchet-for-Hire Heather KNEW IT and prevented me from discovering it before and during my trial but I discovered it after the mistrial.
How did Hatchet-for-Hire Heather know that Teresa Ingram was unemployed during the relevant period?
It turns out Teresa Ingram had hit one Marjorie Triffon with her car but had the audacity to sue same Marjorie Triffon. That jury returned a verdict for Triffon and Ingram did not appeal. But the transcripts of the depositions and jury trial of that case, which I obtained after my mistrial, show Ingram to have been fired in June 2009 and to have remained unemployed since and throughout my trial and thereafter.
Hatchet-for-Hire Heather put Ingram on the witness stand and REPEATEDLY suborned her to perjure herself by insisting she was fully employed during the period it was pretended that I would harass her by blocking her from going to work, which was physically impossible any way even if she had been employed and even if I had wanted to “block her” from going to work.
(2) That I would not let that Teresa Ingram receive her “guests” in peace by calling the police on them. Who were Teresa Ingram’s “guests” I supposedly harassed? One Corey/Cory Lamont Curry, a convicted PWID-crack cocaine dealer and burglar convicted by none other than Heather Weiss herself.
Hatchet-for-Hire Heather LIED to Judge Clifton Newman about that Curry’s criminal record and relied on the misspellings of Curry’s first name to prevent me from finding out his criminal record before and during my trial; but, thank God and always without a lawyer, I discovered it after my mistrial. That Curry continued his life of crime and has a long-pending indictment for failure to stop for a blue light as his most recent “feat.”
Just so you know the horror of what Hatchet-for-Hire Heather did to me, that Curry threatened to rape me and stood in my parking lot masturbating at me. I photographed him in the act. Heather Weiss claimed that my photographing that Curry was harassment of him and by extension harassment of his “hostess” Teresa Ingram.
After my jury refused to convict me, Hatchet-for-Hire Heather advised Dinah Steele and Larry Mason to kidnap me and charge me with trespass, of which I was later acquitted.
She also interfered with my right to self-representation by moving the court to declare ME too mentally incompetent to represent myself.
Your John Meadors knew all that and much more; but he encouraged and abetted Weiss and Fernandez.
Let’s see if anyone is held to account.
Maybe ask Wilson why he worked out a deal with admitted pedophile Bradley Post so that Post had to spend no time in State Prison.
Also what a joke threatening the death penalty, he and his office has never tried any death penalty case in all his time as AG.
Also, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibits vindictive increase in punishment after a second conviction when the first conviction got reversed on appeal UNLESS new facts RELATED TO THE CRIME ITSELF are discovered in the second trial.
All Alan Wilson says is that South Carolina is now able to carry out executions which were previously delayed by unavailability of the lethal drug combinations or whatever.
That is NOT a reason related to the crime itself, if indeed Alex Murdaugh had committed the shootings.
Those darn kennels.
Here is another brilliant reply of mine that I really hope people start thinking about:
? @rn2rbon , the kennels are not in another planet, another continent, another country, another state, another city, or even another street. They are only 100 or so yards from the house where Alex and Maggie lived together lovingly as empty-nesters after their two boys graduated high school and one was off to work and the other to college.
Alex did NOT lie about being in the house with Paul and Maggie throughout the dinner which ended at 8:30 pm (that is just as the sun was beginning to set) on 7 June 2021.
I do not know why he omitted that detail and do not concern myself with it because it has no importance.
The only important question is when did the shootings REALLY happen.
If you believe people die as soon as the battery on their cell phone does, then please don’t ever stray away from your charger to protect your life. Thanks!
Because Creighton Waters and his “number 2” former-CACA Fernandez succeeded in getting the public to buy an insane motive theory and an insane idea of death by phone-battery-death, the public is now making its own insane ideas that Becky Hill was really out to help Alex because they were kin and secret lovers.
Here again is my latest brilliant reply which deserves to be read and re-read until people come to their senses:
? @MickeeAdams , if Becky Hill had been out to do Alex Murdaugh a favor, she would have pushed the jury to return a NOT GUILTY verdict and been done with it.
How many times do I have to try to counter the insane idea that Becky Hill was out to help Alex Murdaugh?
Creighton Waters’ and Alan Wilson’s ideas of “justice” keep getting weirder and weirder.
“Justice,” according to Alan Wilson, for Paul and Maggie Murdaugh is spending “whatever it takes” for a SECOND WRONGFUL conviction of the man who loved them most, while the real shooter(s) roam free and perhaps are plotting to kill Alex Murdaugh himself in prison to end the inquiry.
Not one word from Alan Wilson about re-investigating the matter with an open mind.
We already know, from Becky Hill’s now-withdrawn book, that some spent thousands of dollars to keep a conviction-prone juror on the jury instead of his having to return to work and earn money to pay his baby-mama overdue child support.
Isn’t funneling money to sitting juror a very serious crime?
Why isn’t Alan Wilson investigating that?
Perhaps the source of that money to that juror is also a campaign contributor to Alan Wilson.
Isn’t that the REAL reason Alan Wilson never investigated Hatchet-for-Hire Heather’s (Sarah Heather Savitz Weiss) crimes of fabrication and subornation of perjury in a failed scheme to frame Dr. Marie Faltas for supposed “harassment in the first degree”?
Didn’t Alan Wilson rescue Hatchet-for-Hire Heather from the tumult of her then-colleagues at the Fifth Circuit’s solicitor’s office by hiring her (and later hiring John Meadors, too) after John Meadors lost his campaign for solicitor but Stephen Savitz, Heather’s father had made sizeable contributions to both the John Meadors and Alan Wilson 2010 campaigns?
Doesn’t Alan Wilson continue to promote Hatchet-for-Hire Heather within his office even though her reputation among lawyers is so bad that she withdrew her second candidacy for a judgeship after the secret bar surveys came back heavily negatively against her?
Heck! The woman even had her own son cheat on his Bar Mitzvah exam instead of doing the necessary work to learn Hebrew and become a true-before-God eligible for a Minyan!
And let’s talk about two other people, a wife and a son, each shot in the head by the gun of one man, in his sole presence, in his home, and to his ultimate financial gain.
Two difference, though: (1) that man’s second wife was shot in May 1993 and his first-bort son was shot in April 2016; (2) that man, Larry Wayne Mason, passed his shooting of Ella Faye Kaizer Mason and of Richard Wayne Mason off as suicides, even though the ballistics were against that and even though Richard Wayne Mason was hastily cremated WITHOUT an autopsy on this highly suspicious death.
And one more suspicious detail: Larry Wayne Mason’s second son, Ella’s only son, got reported dead in the middle of civil lawsuits and criminal drug and other charges against him, all without a death certificate for Christopher James Mason appearing anywhere.
Was it a fake death? Who knows other than Larry Wayne Mason, who remains able to blackmail officers and officials alike?
Where is Alan Wilson’s pursuit of Justice for Ella and Richard? Heck! Where is the concern for Christopher James’ children who are either lied to about their father’s fake death or are know the truth but are forced to join, and grow up in, lies?
Where is the justice for Dr. Marie Faltas’ family who got bankrupted financially supporting her through years of her 24/7 necessary and able pro se work to exonerate herself from the Larry-Wayne-Mason-ordered and Hatchet-for-Hire-Heather- executed, but thank God failed, scheme to railroad Dr. Marie Faltas into a false 36-year (yes, thirty-six years) incarceration for that Larry Wayne Mason could overtake Dr. Faltas’ tiny lot of land which Larry coveted just as Mark coveted Moselle?
I want Alan Wilson to answer to his own conscience before trying to answer to the voters.
Some day or another, we all have to answer to God; and if you don’t believe in God, at least believe in History coming back to interrogate you when you are no longer in power.