Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOMBSHELL: Forensic Evidence Links Legal Heir Alex Murdaugh to Double Murder?

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

News reports out of South Carolina indicate there is physical evidence tying Alex Murdaugh to the murder of his wife and son. Fitsnews.com reports their insider sources as saying law enforcement is making progress in the Murdaugh murders and an arrest could be coming. The 53-year-old attorney is currently facing seven active criminal investigations.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Slaten Lawyers, APC, Twitter @TroySlaten  Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect" Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Dave Mack - Investigative Reporter, Crime Online Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, breaking news in the murders of a mother and son in South Carolina. The mom, Maggie Murdoch, and her son seemingly stirring the pot with his dad's legal dynasty. But why were both found dead outside the family hunting lodge? Of course, we're talking about Alec Murdoch. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Let's kick it off with CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Dave Mack. The unsolved murder of Alex Murdaugh's wife Maggie and son Paul is getting closer to being solved. Fitz News is reporting sources close to the investigation say that physical forensic evidence directly ties Alex Murdaugh to the double homicide. Fitz News, citing sources close to the investigation, claims Alex Murdaugh is the

only person identified as a person of interest. On June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh called 911 around 10.07 p.m. to report that he had found the bodies of his 52-year-old wife Maggie and 22-year-old son Paul. Now, according to Paul Murdaugh's death certificate, he was killed by death certificate has been obtained for Maggie Murdaugh yet, but Fitz News claims she was shot and killed by a semi-automatic rifle around the same time as her son was killed. With us, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, high-profile lawyer out of LA, Troy Slayton, forensic psychologist, author of Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of a new hit series, Body Bags, with Joseph Scott Morgan

joining us. But straight out to Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Dave, I mean, I don't know that i need a forensics expert to tell me there's going to be evidence linking alec murdoch to the dead bodies of his wife and his son and i'll tell you why dave we've talked about it several times off air you have him Alec Murdoch, then arranging a hit on himself. Remember that? When he's found bleeding from the head out on a rural road, nothing he said made any sense about changing his tire. And then he said some guys came along and took a shot at him.

Turns out his dope dealer was paid to shoot him in the head. Now, think about it. Think about it, Dave Mack. This is just weeks after his wife and son are shot in the head execution style. Wow. I wonder who orchestrated that. So you're telling me, Dave Mack, that there are reports, not of just deductions, such as what I just did, two and two equals four, but actual physical forensic evidence linking Alec Murdoch to the double murder? Absolutely, Nancy. Here's what we've got. At least one of the weapons used in the double homicide of Maggie and Paul Murdoch

belonged to the Murdoch family. We've got deputies finding shell casings at the scene that they're obviously matching to at least one of the guns, but two different guns were supposedly used. One was a semi-automatic rifle. We've got agents on the scene that are searching a river the salcahatchee river uh swampy area uh approximately two miles south of moselle that are getting more evidence and we've got again this evidence that ties all of this together maggie murdoch's cell phone is found along the rural south carolina road just outside the family's 1700 acre hunting lodge the day after the murder. All of that put together is what we're dealing with in terms of physical evidence.

So you're saying that from those items and whatever they've dredged up out of the Sakahachi, you're saying that it's your belief that on those items is the physical evidence they're talking about. And not only that, not only that, wait, what about a potential gunshot residue test they may have done on Alex Murdoch at the time he found his dead wife and son? And did you mention that they towed the company vehicle that night and processed it? Did you say that, Dave Mack? I am now. They actually did impound. It was a 2021 Chevy Suburban that was registered to the Murdaw Law Firm. And all of this is being reported through Fitz News. That's where we're getting this information, Nancy. Law enforcement on the scene that night collected all of this evidence that we know how this works out from a ballistic

standpoint to the residue test. The police are playing this so close to the vest, but we're getting enough information to be able to tie it listen to Alex Murdoch's 911 call. Hour cut 25. 41 47 Moselle Road. I think the police just passed us immediately. My wife and child got badly. Okay, you said 41 47 Moselle Road in Arlington? Sir? You said 41 47 Moselle Road in Arlington? Yes, sir. 41 47 Moselle Road. Stay on the line with me, okay? Collin County Communications. Collin, I have an Alex Murdo Stay on the line with me. Okay. Okay.

Kind of kind of communication. I have an Alex Murdoch on the line caller from 41 47 Mosel Road. He's advising that his wife and child was shot. Okay. And sir, give me the address again. It's 41 47 Mosel Road. I've been up to it now. It's bad. Okay. Okay, and are they breathing? No, ma'am. Okay, and you said it's your wife and your son? My wife and my son. Are they in a vehicle?

No, ma'am. They're on the ground out at my kennel. Mm-hmm. Jackie, do they have the death penalty in South Carolina? I'm pretty sure that they do. Okay. Troy Slayton, high profile lawyer joining me out of LA. Hey, how was it out there on Rodeo Drive? It's a beautiful day out here in sunny Southern California, Nancy. Okay. We tried to give Alex Murdoch the benefit of the doubt. Well, okay, you tried. But now that I know, as I suspected, long suspected, he is the one that finds the dead bodies.

He is the one that owns the residence where they're found. He's the one looking at a big, fat, juicy divorce from a wife who is likely to uncover during her discovery process, her legal discovery process, that he has been embezzling money from all of his clients and sniffing it up his nose for years. It's all going to come out in her divorce. And they are Murdoch guns. We learned that on day one.

A source told us day one that at least one of the guns was a Murdoch gun. All right. So what more do I need to know for Pete's sake? Then he stages his own suicide botched, I might add, and lies through his teeth about it until we find out his doper friend is the one that grazed his head. I mean, he's lied about everything. Remember, even his lawyer came out and actually said he had brain damage. He showed up in court the next week. He didn't even have on, did he have on a Band-Aid? That's some brain injury, Troy Slayton.

I mean, what more do you need to know? This man has lied about everything. And he's the one that faces a pecuniary gain, money gain, with the death of his wife and son. And now we have Dave Mack telling us that reports are Alex Murdoch is linked forensically, physical evidence, I'm talking about fingerprints, DNA,

to the double murders. And now when I listen to that 911 call, I mean, I'm taking that with a box of salt, Troy Slayton. Well, we're being told that the evidence is substantial, that it's serious, but we don't know exactly what that physical evidence connection is yet to Alex Murdoch. What's interesting is that a different gun was used in each one of the murders at the time of that double homicide that happened at the same time. Why would somebody, why would one individual use two different guns on two people at the same time? It doesn't make sense. Well, it may not make sense, but does it make sense to murder your wife and son? Does that make sense to you, Troy Slayton?

Criminals do all sorts of crazy things. It's not up to a prosecutor to lurk around inside a killer's mind and figure out why. But things have to make sense. And the problem that the prosecutors have here is they could just confuse the jury. They're charging him right now with 51 counts. That means 51 separate crimes and 51 sets of elements that a jury would have to go through to try and convict. Wait, don't cut it yet. Troy Slayton, the current charges relate to what? The 51 counts you're referring to? to possible embezzlement and misappropriation of funds from his grandfather and great-grandfather and father's law firm that was set up for 100 years in South Carolina. And clients. And clients who are now finding out that he apparently... Dave Mack, isn't

there a report that he embezzled funds from a client that was paraplegic and brain damaged? Actually, he was a young man who was deaf, who was in a car accident with his mother and another friend who he the accident left him as a paraplegic and in a home. And Murdaugh is alleged to have taken all of the money, over three hundred thousand dollars that was due for the deaf paraplegic man's family, as well as the money from his the man's mother and the other person in the car. Hundreds of thousands of dollars intended to go to this family. That was a little TMI, but I'll take it.

You can never know enough facts, Dave Mack, but what you told me actually just made me feel a little nauseous. So, Troy Slayton, my point point is before I drag Dave Mack into this, is that all the counts he's got right now, or as many of my defendants would say, Ms. Grace, I caught a little felony. Like it just happened. Somebody threw it at you. The 51 counts he's facing right now are all of a white collar crime nature, such as embezzlement. Those are not going to be tried with a potential murder charge. As you well know, Troy Slayton, they will be severed, just like in the recent Ghislaine Maxwell case. The perjury counts in her indictment were not brought in front of the jury. They were only looking at counts regarding child molestation. The perjury counts are severed and they will be tried separately. And that is what would happen here if Alex Murdoch is ever tried for murder.

Do you disagree with that? It's possible unless there's no other co-defendants. If it's only Alex Murdoch who is the defendant, if he's the only one charged with all the crimes, then there may not be separate crimes. Well, they're going to sever. You know what? I'm not a betting person. Alex Murdoch has not yet been charged with the double homicide of his wife and child. Okay, you know what?

We know that. We know that. We know he hasn't been charged yet. So let's don't waste the little bit of time we all have together telling us something we already know. He hasn't been charged yet. All we have right now is reports that there is direct forensic evidence linking him to the double murders of Maggie and Paul, his wife and son. And I'm not a betting person, but I will publicly bet you a dollar that if this case moves forward with murder charges, the other embezzlement and financial charges will be severed and tried on another day.

You willing to take that on? Are you tough enough, Slayton? I'm willing for one dollar. Absolutely, Nancy. OK, well, you saw it backfired in trading places, so I got to be careful. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to circle back. Now, listen to more of this 911 call. You just heard from Dave

Mack that there are now reports, the direct physical evidence. What that means is direct and there's circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence is like an eyewitness DNA fingerprint. Okay. Circumstantial evidence is, uh, you were at the scene of the crime. You're the one that reported the murders. You're the one that has a motive. Your, your glove was found there on the scene. That doesn't a murder make. So that's what we know right now. And with that as a backdrop, Joe Scott Morgan and Dr. Sherry Schwartz, I want you to take a listen to more of Alex Murdoch's 911 call when he seemingly found his wife and son Paul dead, shot dead behind his hunting lodge with a Murdoch gun. Take a listen to our cut 26. Did you see anyone?

Okay, is he breathing at all? No, no. Is she? Okay, do you see anything? Do you see anyone in the area? No, ma'am. No, ma'am. What color is your house on the outside?

What color is your house on the outside? What color is your house on the outside? It's white. You can't see it from the road. Okay. Is it a house or a mobile home? It's a house. Okay. And what is your name?

My name is Alex Murdoch. Okay. And did you hear anything or did you come home and find them? No, ma'am. I've been gone. I just came back. Okay, and was anyone else supposed to be at your house? No, ma'am. Please hurry. We're getting somebody out there to you okay when you listen to that knowing what we now know what what i'd like to know and i asked this

on day one to you joseph scott morgan death, forensics expert. How could they, what time, what's my time window for the time of death? And that's so important because Alex Murdoch said that he was at the hospital seeing his sick father who passed away a few days later. I need to know what time he was there, the drive time between the hospital and the hunting lodge, and the time of death. How do I know Maggie and Paul weren't shot three hours before he went to the hospital? How do I know they weren't shot just before he called 911, placing him virtually at the scene of the crime at the

time the murders occurred. The time of death is crucial. It's critical. What about it, Joe Scott? Yeah, you might not know, we might not know, but SLED does. When they showed up at that scene, Nancy, one of the things that they did was- South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Go ahead. Yeah, they began to do a postmortem assessment of the bodies. And simply what that means is they're going to check for all those things we look for, Nancy, the rigidity of the body, how stiff it is relative to rigor mortis, postmortem lividity, which is the settling of blood. And also, also, they're going to check the body temperature. Now, the reason those things are important is that we can kind of theoretically timestamp each one of those events.

So, for instance, with alga mortis or the body temperature changes, for the first hour after death, our bodies generally lose 1.5 to 2 degrees of our total core body temperature in that first hour. After that, it bleeds off one degree, one degree for 12 hours. All right. So if you think that the body may have been down for, I don't know, we're looking, maybe the body when they do the body core temperature is maybe at 90 degrees, then we could suppose that perhaps these bodies had been down anywhere from seven to eight hours at that point in time. And Joe Scott, wouldn't the algorithm you're using vary based on the ambient temperature,

the temperature at a time? It does. It does. And, you know, the way I explained it is that after that 12th hour, Nancy, we become an inanimate object. All of the energy we generated has burned off at that point in time. So we're completely and totally subject to the environmental or the ambient environment in which we're in. And that's going to dictate what the temperature of the body is. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What they need to look at, God willing, they did, is the rigor mortis, which means the stiffening of the limbs. The liver mortis, which is the settling of the blood. And what I mean by that is if you die on your back, your blood is no longer pumping through your body. And it will all settle down to the lowest common denominator, like a glass of water. It all goes to the bottom of the glass.

Same thing. So liver mortis, rigor mortis, body temperature. And what else? Well, when we, you know, obviously when they get back to the morgue to do the autopsy, they're going to look at stomach content too. And that's a measurable, that moves at a measurable rate from our, you know, relative to our digestion. So if they ate at 6 o'clock that night and depended upon what they ate, you can expect, you know, perhaps

the stomach to have been full. All right. Because at that at that point in time, peristalsis is going to stop. The food's going to stop moving through the body. You mean digestion? Yeah. And so it's going to be frozen. Quit using medical terms.

Nobody else on this panel is a medical doctor. Please talk and regular people talk. Yeah. Well, if we've already impressed me. OK, you don't have to. I'm not trying to impress you. What I do want to impress, though, is this this idea of the settling of the blood, Nancy, because if somebody monkeyed around with those bodies and move the bodies around during the

night. Oh, I got to write that down. Troy Slayton. I'm going to circle back to you with that. If the scene was staged, if the bodies had been moved, he's dead in the water. I'm telling you, because a random killer would not think to drag the bodies around or pose them in a certain way. That has to be a known killer.

OK, hold on. Got that. Was it staged? Go ahead. Sorry, Joe Scott. That's all right. So, you know, postmortem lividity actually starts sooner than any, or is appreciable sooner than any of these other things. So if, say for instance, the young Mardal was laying face down, okay, postmortem lividity would have begun to be appreciable within 20 minutes of death.

Nancy, the question is, is that after you get outside of that four hour window and you've moved the body, it no longer migrates at that time. What about coagulation of blood? If the blood had already dried or not dried on the wounds, what would that tell you, Joe Scott Morgan? Well, yeah, because that, again, that's going to be environmentally dependent, barometric, the relative humidity and all that sort of thing. It's different being outdoors. So you would have to have all of that information in order to computate that. So that's going to be less reliable than, say, gravitational dependence. So you're thinking that the physical evidence they're now saying they've got linking him. And what I don't really get is if they've got physical evidence linking them, why haven't they charged him?

What do you think the physical evidence is? Could there be a fingerprint on the shell casing? Could there be fingerprints on the guns? You know what I think it is? Here's my big reveal on this. I think this might have something to do with bloodstains. And the reason I think that is that remember what Dave said. The young one, he took two shotgun wounds, Nancy.

So if you've got an individual, the perpetrator, who is in a dominant position with a 12-gauge shotgun, I don't know if that's the gauge or not, and they're standing over this individual, shot in the chest and the head, guess what happens? You get a dynamic event with blood staining, the higher, the velocity, the tinier, the blood stain. Okay. We're talking about, um, very fine. All right. And that's going to happen with a high velocity gunshot wound. So just suppose, just suppose for instance, he's kneeling over the body and he clutches his dear son to his chest. That's going to be transfer blood. That's going to look different to the people from the people with SLED when they

see him and they take those pictures of him at the at the at the lockup or wherever they took him afterwards and they take his clothes, which they did, you're going to have that fine blood stain. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist. How often have we seen the killer state that I tried to resuscitate them? I clutched them. I held them to my chest. I hugged them. That's how I got the blood transfer. Yes, exactly. That would probably be the natural place for him to go. Something else that he says not once but twice on that 911 call that's very

striking to me is I've been up to it now it's bad. To me that sounds like a confession. That's really interesting I had not noticed that and Dr. Sherry, let me ask you a question. I mean, you're the forensic psychologist. You're the one that wrote Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect. What do you make of a little noticed fact that Maggie Murdoch's phone was taken from the scene and discarded out on the street? It's a good, it's a good ways. I've been there from the home. There's a really long driveway out to the road and you can't see the Murdoch hunting lodge, as they call it, from the street. What do you make of the fact that the killer took her phone, number one, and then threw it away out on the street. I find that to be very significant, behaviorally speaking. I agree. That is significant, behaviorally speaking. Now,

he may try to say, or the defense may try to say, well, that was somebody running away from the crime scene with this particular evidence, but then why not take other things? Really what it suggests is possibly what Joe Scott Morgan is saying, that it might be somewhat of a staged crime scene or, you know, happened hours earlier. And so somebody took the time to try to discard some of this evidence. That was actually me that said that. And I'm wondering if wondering if to me it would make more sense if in fact he murdered his wife and son that he did it before the hospital visit because how could he orchestrate them both being there unless he planned it and what would be the significance of taking maggie's cell phone unless he wanted to erase something off the cell phone. Exactly, because this guy, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, is so messed up on drugs.

I mean, he's now, as you heard, defense attorney Troy Slayton State, he's got 51 embezzlement type counts against him right now. He's being investigated regarding the deaths of multiple people, including a young man that lived nearby, Stephen Smith, a housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. His son, Paul, was involved in the death of a young girl, Mallory Beach, on the family boat. Who knows if this guy had the wherewithal to remove fingerprints. And when you're talking about blood transfer, a blood transfer could be explained away by the defendant saying, I held them. I hugged them. I tried to perform CPR. But as Joe Scott Morgan was talking about

blood evidence, blood spatter means you were near the body at the time of the murder. That fine spray of blood that is invisible to the naked eye shows up on clothing if Sled got his clothing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, I just have to listen to more of the 911 call with the knowledge now it has just been released reports that alex murdoch is connected to the double murders of his wife and son with direct physical forensic evidence but what is it now listen to him on this 911 call our cut 27. Okay. What is her name? Maggie and Paul. Maggie is her name? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And please hurry. We're getting somebody out there to you. Me asking you these questions. Don't slow them down, okay? Are you sure they're not breathing?

Is he moving at all, your son? I know you said that she was shot, but what about your son? Nobody's, they're not, Neither one of them is moving. What is your telephone number? Ma'am, I... Not particularly, really. No, ma'am. Okay. Okay, to Troy Slayton we have to take into account as we listen to this 911 call

that Alex Murdoch didn't he also call 911 after he was shot in the head and put up much the same story that an unknown assailant had driven by him and out of nowhere shot him in the head, and whoops, he lived. What about that? Is anybody making that parallel? Are you trying to say that this is an Academy Award-winning performance, Nancy?

I'm saying it was rehearsed, okay, because didn't he call 911 when he was shot on the side of the road, Joe Scott? Yes, he did. Nancy, he sure did. And so this to me as an investigator, I'm looking at a pattern developing. He got away with the first time potentially. And now he thinks he's going to get away with it again when he's feigning this gunshot wound to the head. It's some unknown perpetrator. I mean, Troy Slayton, can't you just see a prosecutor playing all these 911 calls, especially the one on the side of the road where the dope dealer confesses,

reportedly, that Murdoch hired him to shoot him, and you hear Murdoch crying and carrying on on the phone just like he's doing here? And as a defense attorney, we would say there is no playbook for the horror that a person would... Oh, please come up with something new. Oh, I want to beat my head against the wall. You say that every time. ...would express once they find some sort of horrific situation like his wife and child being killed. But he sounds the same way in his own 911 call

when he staged a shooting on himself. Same thing. All that breathing and the gulping and the whining. Same exact thing. Let's go back to the staging of the scene. Oh, you're going to lie. It's something you want to talk about. Go ahead.

I can't wait to hear this. So if there's physical evidence that bodies were moved from the place where the murders happened, so that way they look like something else, then yes. And if somehow Alex Murdoch is connected to that movement of the bodies, that would be really damning evidence for him. That would be a big whoopsie for you to explain the next time we talk about this, wouldn't it? Unless he was moving the body in order to perform some sort of life saving measure. If he was moving the body in order to perform CPR or to try and resuscitate them.

See, that's why you make all that money, because you just spun that out of thin air like Rumpelstiltskin. I mean, you just spun it into gold. Amazing, amazing what you just did right there. Guys, with all the knowledge we now are amassing, I'm really interested in these 911 calls. Take a listen to Alex Murdoch in Our Cut 28. Are they close, ma'am? They've been around with you ever since you got on the phone with me.

I have multiple people coming out there to you. Okay. I don't want you to touch them at all, okay? I don't know if you've already touched them, but I don't want you to touch them just in case they can get any kind of evidence, okay? I've already touched them trying to see if they were breathing. Okay. Well, I just don't want you to move anything just in case they can get any kind of evidence, okay? You're hot, baby. Oh. Ma'am, I'm going to call.

I need to call some of my family. Okay. Well, do me a favor for me. Whenever you see the officer or the medics, because they're all coming to you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. But we have them come and turn on the flashes on your vehicle so they can see you, okay? You got the flashes on for me?

I do. Wow. He sure calms down pretty quickly. Did you hear that? Yeah, I got him on. I'm calling my family. I'm calling my lawyer. I'm calling my dope dealer. So, okay, let me go back to you. Dave Mack joining us, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Tell me again, the report that there is direct physical evidence linking him, Alex Murdoch, to the double murders. At least one of the weapons used in the double homicide belonged to the Murdoch

family. We know that law enforcement impounded a 2021 Chevy Suburban registered to the Murdoch law firm from the scene. We know that deputies found shell casings at the scene. This is a report from Fitz News. SLED agents requested sheriff's's deputy search the area near the crime scene for video surveillance systems on the morning after the murders. We don't know what they found there. On June 16th, SLED agents were collecting evidence in a swampy area near the Sakahachi River, about two miles south of Moselle, and Maggie Murdaugh's cell phone was found along a rural South Carolina road just outside the family's 1, hunting lodge the day after the murder. Straight out to Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist joining us. Dr. Sherry, how do you analyze what you heard on the 911 call?

Well, I mean, there's so many things, right? I mean, he starts off, he's very emotional, he's crying, he's gasping for air. And then as you pointed out at the end, he's very emotional, he's crying, he's gasping for air. And then, as you pointed out at the end, he's very calm, a matter of fact. It's very striking to me that in the midst of this horror and waiting for first responders, he needs to get off the phone to contact family. I mean, you know, have you given up totally? You know, who are you calling? What family do you need to contact? And why at this moment? You know, how are you gathering your thoughts in that way? And he also says, you know, that he did touch them to see if they were

breathing, but he doesn't mention anything about trying to render aid. Guys, as of right now, there is no charge, no formal charge against Alex Murdoch and the death of Maggie and Paul. Take a listen to Hour Cut 22. This is GMA's Eva Pilgrim. The Murdoch property is remote. It spans hundreds of acres and the feeling in the community, whoever killed the Murdaugh's didn't end up here by accident or randomly. 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh and his 56-year-old mother Maggie found shot to death near the dog kennels outside the family's hunting lodge last week. County investigators turning the case over to state law enforcement. So far, there have been no arrests. No suspects have been named.

Law enforcement being very tight-lipped about this investigation. As of right now, again, Alex Murdoch has not been charged. He was named a person of interest way back when, but no formal charges against him. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.