by WILL FOLKS
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Late last Friday (October 30, 2026), attorneys for accused killer Alex Murdaugh filed their most aggressive motion yet ahead of South Carolina’s upcoming ‘Retrial of the Century.’
The filing – which we reported on exclusively – accused investigators of manufacturing forensic evidence, presenting false testimony to grand jurors and leaking a discredited blood-spatter claim to the press prior to the confessed fraudster being charged with murdering his wife and younger son.
Murdaugh was convicted of the June 7, 2021 murders of his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, and sentenced to life in prison following a six-week trial in Walterboro, S.C. in early 2023. Those convictions were reversed, however, after the S.C. supreme court found numerous issues with the conduct of the trial – including allegations of jury tampering and potential jury rigging.
Now, attorneys Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin, Phil Barber and Maggie Fox want S.C. circuit court judge Debra McCaslin to throw out the 2022 indictments of Murdaugh and start the case from scratch.
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“(Prosecutors) procured the indictments by presenting forensic evidence that the state fabricated; that an expert had found the victims’ blood spatter on the shirt Mr. Murdaugh was wearing when he found the bodies of his wife and son, even though the State’s laboratory had confirmed, eleven months before the agent testified, that there was no human blood on the shirt,” the motion (.pdf) noted.
“This misconduct is compounded by the fact that this fabricated evidence was leaked to the press before Mr. Murdaugh was indicted in order to prejudice the public against him,” the filing continued.
Our intrepidly amazing researcher Jenn Wood covered this motion in extensive detail last week – a report you can read for yourself by clicking here.
Prosecutors in the office of S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson have until Friday (November 6, 2026) to submit their response to the motion, with McCaslin hearing oral arguments on the motions the following Friday (November 13, 2026).
As always, keep it tuned to FITSNews for the latest on everything related to the Murdaugh saga…
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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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