Investigate Earth Conspiracy Podcast - Murdaugh Murders Podcast | Alex Murdaugh New Trial? | True Crime

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

New developments have emerged suggesting that Alex Murdaugh might secure a new trial, spurred by allegations of witness tampering by Betty Hill, the Colleton County Clerk of Court. The question of whether Alex Murdaugh is responsible for the tragic deaths of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, has gripped the nation's attention. The Murdaugh Murders trial garnered widespread viewership, and these latest revelations have the potential to reshape the legal landscape. In this episode of Murdaugh Murders Podcast | Alex Murdaugh New Trial? | True Crime we delve into these crucial elements and more.

Hello and welcome to Investigator Earth podcast. I'm your host Chad alongside my beautiful wife, Sherry. How's it going tonight, Sherry? Tonight is going fabulous. Ask me Friday night, it was fabulous until I woke up Saturday morning. Yeah, I agree. We did have a great time with our friends Friday night, and then we kind of chilled the rest of the weekend.

So, yeah, it's been a really nice weekend, and I hope all of you are having a nice weekend or having a great start to your week. Absolutely. It is September 10, 2023, Sunday night, 8.09. PM here on the East Coast of United States in South Carolina. And obviously, as we mentioned just now, we do reside in South Ghana. So for those of you that are new to our podcast, welcome. We do live in the state of South Ghana.

We have covered the Murdoch trial extensively, not just the trial, but when the murders happen. Everything is kind of leading up to the Murdoch trial itself with Alica Murdoch Murdoch being accused and found guilty of murdering his wife and son. We also talked about a little bit about kind of what happened before that Mallory Beach, boating accidents, so on and so forth. But guys, welcome to the show. We are so glad you guys are here.

On this episode, we're going to be kind of rehashing a couple of little things that we had talked about on some of our other episodes in the past. As far as just speculation and some of the conspiracy around, if Alec Murdoch is not guilty, who is? And is that even possible? Do actual people out there believe that he is not guilty? Because I know they do. I know there's a lot of you out there that says Alec Murdoch is not guilty.

We're also going to just briefly go over for those that have no idea who Alec Murdoch is, what the Murdoch murders are. Any of that stuff will briefly touch on that. And then like I said, we will give our speculation, our conspiracy a little bit around, you know, what actually could have happened that day that, you know, they were really trying to avoid them trials. And the main reason we are going to actually do this episode for obvious reasons is the possibility of a new trial. Right. And mistrial. Yeah, based on what the clerk of court in Colleton County did during the trial. This has been all over the news. Everyone's talking about it. Is that a possibility? What does that mean? Does it even matter? Obviously, we know Alec Murdoch

is a, seems to be a very bad person with all of the financial crimes that he was. stealing from all these people that were, in a large part, were, you know, badly injured, mutilated, maimed, or maimed, I guess you can call it. And he stole from these people, right? And so that was what the prosecution did so well in court is they proved how big of a piece of shit this guy was, but they didn't necessarily prove that he was a murder. And so, you know, and beyond that, right, beyond the fact that the defense absolutely could, you know, potentially win in an appeal.

taking it to the appeals court and went in on many different scenarios. Number one, the scenario being the fact that the prosecution has brought in so much evidence that literally had nothing to do with the murders whatsoever, although they say that they had to do with the murders. But then you have this clerk of court that came in and sounds like she was persuading and doing a lot of things.

She was doing the prosecution's work behind the scenes, it sounds like. And it sounds like she was doing this for her book deal to make money off this whole trial is what it sounds like to me. But I am so glad that we are getting to do another podcast about this whole saga because we never got to talk about the trial afterwards or our thoughts or, you know, what we were thinking during the trial because we did watch every second of the trial. I think it was during the summer, but it was very interesting. And there were some things that I liked what the prosecution did. There were some things I like what the defense did, but there was also a lot of things that I felt like it should have been a mistrial in the beginning just from what the prosecution was bringing into the whole trial. So, you know, hopefully we'll build to discuss that.

I think we will. We'll discuss all those things with you. And I'm glad we have a chance to do that because it really, before the trial even started, guys, I thought he was completely guilty to even begin with. I was like, oh, he's definitely guilty. They're going to find him guilty. How easy is this trial going to be? But then it lasted, what, six weeks? Yeah, over, right?

And watching the trial, my mind started to switch over to, well, I think he's guilty, but are they proving he's guilty? So there was a whole lot of things going through my mind as they were presenting the case. Yeah. No, you're right. I mean, because look, the reality of the whole entire situation here is that the justice system relies on due process. It relies on being able to prove someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or beyond the shadow of doubt, but, you know, beyond reasonable doubt. And I don't think necessarily the prosecution did that in this case. You know, and listen, the reality of this whole situation is defense did a really good job in the trial by presenting, I'm not necessarily going to say evidence, but also presenting doubt to the jury about seeing integrity and how not just sleds.

but law enforcement, fire department, whoever that was on that scene was just kind of trampling over the entire scene for a large part before sled ever even got there. There was a lot of questions that were asked to sled of things that should have been done to process the scene and secure the scene that was not done. So there were so many things that seemed like that law enforcement, both state and local law enforcement, shot themselves in the foot with. And let's just be honest, guys. I mean, what our podcast does and what we, what we, what we,

we've always, you know, aimed to do. And the entire reason we have this episode, or sorry, this episode, this podcast is to expose corruption. And that is mostly on federal level, world level, the whole deal, right? And that is what we try our best to do. And that's what we try to talk about. Now, where corruption oftentimes starts is at the very local levels, the state levels, and don't think just because you see all this news and this crazy headlines in the federal government, say CIA and these conspiracies, although many of them are true, a lot of those conspiracies which don't get the publicity that the big time things do, that also does happen in state levels.

And so there's always been this question during this case, number one, Alec Murdoch and his family were very prominent attorneys in South Carolina. They controlled 11 or 12 plus counties. There are prosecutors in these counties for multiple years, 100 plus years. And so there was always a question on. you know, with the Mallory Beach boat case, you know, was it going to be fairly prosecuted? Was it ever going to be prosecuted? Was there going to actually be a fair, shake at justice with this? And then also look into the murder investigations. You know, was this done correctly? Was it not?

And there's so much to speculate around this. But we do, and we're going to talk about it, kind of our thoughts on it. But in many cases, when you think about corruption at the top, a lot of times the corruption from the top sprinkles down. to the local areas. Now, I'm not sure in this case, but I do feel like before this case even started, and when the boat accident happened with Paul, that there was special treatment given to the Murdox. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, the police department down there gave him special treatment.

They let him on the scene where they didn't even let Mallory's mother on the scene. Just even at the hospital, you know, just because he was a prominent person in this community, He did get special treatment from the police agencies, but it was so funny how after Maggie and Paul got murdered and he went to trial, how they pretty much were traitors of him, they went against him totally. And we're looking for this conviction where before they're always trying to get him out of crap, you know? Well, and you say that too, because, like, you know, if they can shut them up, put him in jail, whatever,

you know, we don't want any of our corruption that may have been connected to the Murdox to ever get out. And the reality of the situation is, guys, there's no way that you are prosecutors, your lawyers, you're this, and you're corrupt for this many years. Like, obviously he was. And he didn't have help along the way somewhere, whether it be law enforcement to look the other way, whatever the case is. There's just no way, even, because look, he's obviously not that good of a liar. He's not that good of an attorney. Yes, he is decently well-spoken, although he can't pronounce his own name. And I'm sorry, because every time when we do.

did the original podcast and I would look at a name and I would say Alex Murdaugh or whatever and then people give us shit over that. I was like, they're the ones that can't pronounce their name. If it's Alec, it'd be A-L-E-C Murdoch, M-U-R-D-O-C- Yeah, it's just weird. But it's

Alec, Murdoch is the way he pronounces his name. So we have to go with the way he pronounces his name. I mean, he also calls Paul. Paul. And Maggie Mags. And by the way, that's probably spelled P-A-W-W-A-W. Yes, absolutely. But anyways, let's just briefly go through the history of this situation.

Just briefly, we're not going to bore you with it. But for those that are new, that do not remember or don't know or have never heard of this, I want to tell you what it means. Alex Murdoch, Alex Murdoch, once a prominent lawyer, was found guilty of killing his wife and son as his finances and legal career fell into ruin and was sentenced to life in prison. Now, this all happened in Colleton County, Walterboro, South Carolina. where he killed a mother and his son and his wife, millions of dollars in stolen funds,

fresh investigations into the fatal boat crash and a housekeeper's deadly fall. Now, the tragic circumstances swirling around a lawyer and his family in South Carolina became only more perplexing over time, leading to several arrests, stunning twist, and one of the most closely watched trials in this country. Now, at its center is Alec Murdoch, 54, whose family dominated a legal landscape in the southern part of the state for over 100 years.

In March, a jury convicted him of murdering his wife and son in a failed attempt to conceal his own financial crimes, according to New York Times, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison. Now, the saga began on the night of June 7, 2021, when Alec Murdoch, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all served as the top prosecutors across a wide area of the state. He called Nama One to report that his wife and one of their two sons had been shot to death. A sense of mystery enveloped these killings as more than a year passed without a suspect or a motive identified until July of 2022, Mr. Murdoch was indicted. Mr. Murdoch also had been charged with a wave of financial crimes in which prosecutors said he stole from clients, many of whom had been severely injured in car crashes and other accidents and stipend money from his law firm. In total, state prosecutors have charged him with stealing about $8.8 million from a range of victims.

In May, federal prosecutors unveiled a new indictment charging Mr. Murdoch was stealing from his clients and law firm. Mr. Murdoch's lawyer said he had been cooperating with federal prosecutors and expected that the charges would be quickly resolved without a trial. While on the witness stand, in his murder trial, Mr. Murdoch admitted stealing money and lying to friends, saying an addiction to painkillers fueled his behavior. He is adamantly denied killing his family, and his lawyers have said they plan to appeal his conviction. Mr. Murdoch has been in custody since October 2021 when he was first charged with Stilling from a former client. The scrutiny in Mr. Murdoch has spawned several more investigations into three previous deaths in proximity to the family, and Mr. Murdoch has also been charged with concocting a bizarre scheme to stages on suicide to look like a murder after being pushed out of his law firm.

So that's kind of the background of what happened with the Murdoch saga. You know, it is a low country mystery. It is a low country conspiracy at the very least. And I can promise all of you this, no matter how good of detectives you are on social media, no matter how good of detectives you are on anything else, there are things that you 100% do not know that are probably connected to this case. Because there's something that we have found out over the past five years of doing. doing this, investigating things, talking to people's sources, whistleblowers, you name it. When you think you know everything, you don't.

And that's just the way it is. The reality is that recently there's been new reporting about, you know, other, I guess, corruption that has been going on in state, I guess, state law enforcement, the state justice system in South Carolina. It's kind of been, you know, that's happened quite a bit. there's a lot of corruption reporting going on in South Carolina. We're not going to get in all of that. But there was also a lot of speculation when all this Murdoch stuff happened.

You know, who was connected, who could go down with Murdoch? And so a lot of people were speculating, well, they want to make sure they fry this dude, especially considering he was a very prominent, very powerful attorney down in the low country. And, you know, a lot of people across the country, when they heard low country of South Carolina, you automatically think, well, these people are nobody. These people are just stupid, you know, country hicks, whatever. Well, they're not. These people are very wealthy.

They have, you know, ranches and farms that stretch over thousands of acres. They have tons of money. They have tons of power. They have tons of influence. And I think in large part, potentially this stretches to state law enforcement, local law enforcement, you name it. Yeah. And a lot of times these type of people are above the law.

Oh, absolutely. get away with a lot of things. And the people in the low country that actually went to school with them or lived in the same community were, in a way, afraid of this whole family. They said there was people that wouldn't even talk about it because they were afraid of the backlash that they would get if they would even speak out. Yeah. Well, it kind of reminds me of we did a case, which we're very close with. We're actually hoping to go and report on this case out in Arkansas. the Marquay's murder.

We're very close with the family of the Marquay's situation. And in this town in Arkansas, I mean, you guys can go listen to that story. But in this town in Arkansas, the Marquay's murder, the amount of corruption, it seems, that was in that county, in that city, it was in the Malvern, Arkansas area. It really opened their eyes to, like,

how much corruption can really be on a local and state level, how much law enforcement can even be involved, how much they can protect people, so on and so forth. You know, was that happening with Alec Murdoch for so many years? And then eventually they all kind of got together and said, look, we got to save her own ass because we don't ever want anything that we might have had any play in this to get out.

So we got to prosecute the hell out of him to get whatever we got to do. I don't know. There's a lot of speculation there is all I'm saying. And I just don't think it ends with Alec Murdoch killed his wife and son. And we're going to talk about whether he did or didn't later. And then that's it, right? And the financial crowns, whatever. It's all I like Murdoch.

Nothing else was involved. Nobody else was involved besides his cousin Eddie. Who he hired to supposedly shoot him. Yeah. It's just a whole, like we say, it says, you know, there's movies coming about, coming out everywhere. Yeah, on life time. Yeah, on life. Yeah.

crazy story. Well, it's funny because, you know, in the movie trailer or the picture that they're showing for this movie, it basically portrays Alec Murdoch as an abuser, is what it seems to me, because it has him what appears to

be Paul in this picture, like has his hands on his almost neck, and Paul's got a black eye and all this stuff. So it's already portraying him as an abuser. Someone that was very violent. Someone that was very violent and I can already tell you if that's the way this movie comes out that is absolutely well that's not the way anyone else portrayed their family environment what they you know how much what at least from outside people said how much Alec loved his wife his son his family you know there was a ton of speculation you know before the actual trial that there was a divorce happening and Maggie was moving out she was living in Edisto all this stuff but literally not one single mention of

of this at all in the court. Yeah, in the trial. Not one. There was no friends and they brought in every close friend they possibly could. And there was not one person. Including her sister. Exactly. Maggie's sister. And she never even mentioned it. Right. So it's like, you know, there was this is this is the problem with media and, you know, they convicted Alec Murdoch regardless. And by the way, we're not Alec Murdoch sympathizers. We're not, you know, it's kind of like there's a side on the war in Russia and Ukraine right now. You either, some people side in Russia, some people side in our Ukraine. And, you know, and so it's like very swiftly divided.

We're not sympathizers of Alec Murdoch. What we want is justice to actually prevail. And although we do understand and realize that he is a very bad person, has stolen from a shit ton of people, and he's going to be held accountable regardless, right? He is going to be spending life in prison regardless of whether he gets his murder conviction or not. But the reality is it's just, I think for me is that I think it needs to be broken wide open. This entire case, we need to expose more things. I think there's a lot of stuff that is not being exposed in this case. I think there, if, if Alec did not kill his, his wife and his

son, which I am, I don't know, I'm, I'm like 70, yeah, I'm like 70% he didn't. And there's lot of reasons for that and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But, you know, if he didn't, we need to know who did. And then we need to follow those trails down the rabbit holes and figure out exactly how all that happened. But even if he didn't do it, let's just say, I'm sure he knew of what was going on and what happened and who did do it if it wasn't him. Because he was, you know.

He was there. He was there minutes before it happened. So I don't believe that he went back up to the house and took a nap. Yeah. I think that was a lie. And he already said it was a lie. Now, I'm going to give you a piece that I happen to find, well, someone actually sent this the other day. And I actually even 100% completely forgot to tell you this.

But it was the same, it was the same officer. I'm not even going to say who it is or anybody else. It was the same officer because I told him we were going to do the Murdoch stuff, right? And he's a sergeant in the law enforcement division somewhere. We're not going to say who. But anyways, he had mentioned. mentioned something about this and it kind of, you know, made me think about this. But with all their triangulating in that area of cell phones, right? The one thing they never mentioned, right? They

never came out and said, well, look, we know, we got your cell phone triangulated here, this cell phone triangulated here. Oh, I know where you're going now. And so one of the things he said was, he said, I found it odd. And he said, one of the things, me and other officers that we were talking about, especially detectives. He said they found it odd that they didn't come out in trial and make it a very apparent thing that said, because look, you can triangulate pretty close now, right? Like it,

like with a very one mile radius, especially. And sometimes you can triangulate right there in that specific area, specific area, depending on where the cell phone towers. But, you know, they didn't really come out and say, well,

see, we can prove that there were no other cell phones on this property during this amount of time. But they didn't do that because. It's crazy. Because, but there's, there's ways that they can do that as well. There are many investigations that prove that there are no other cell phones that were on this property during this time because just based on this. And especially in a very rural area like Colleton County and where this, where, you know, Moselle was, very rural area. It's not like it's going to be hard to disprove that there was someone on this property versus if you're in New York City.

That is such a great point. that they mentioned because no one really... They don't mention it because if they did see other activity there, that completely kind of shoots their case in the foot. Exactly. But they didn't go there and they didn't triangulate the other cell phones in the area at the time and why not? Or if they did, why didn't they say, oh, we did do this research and this is what we found

and we found no one was in the area at the time or whatever. Yeah. Why didn't they do that? That's a great. Great. But we, you know, he had told me. that and I was like, that's a good point. And I just remembered it now. So I'm glad I remembered it.

I want to play, you know, getting back to briefly the whole point of the potential retrial of Alec Murdoch. And will this happen? Should this happen? Well, Dick Arpulian and Jim

Griffin recently went on ABC to talk to whatever this dude's name. I can't remember his name. But anyways, they talked to him in his team about the reasons why that they should have a retrial. And so we're going to play this clip for you guys. And then as soon as the clip's over,

we are going to discuss this. And then we're going to get a little deeper in this. So check this out. They're asking for a new trial. Claiming the clerk of court poisoned the jury against him. We're going to speak with them after this report from Ariel Resheff. Good morning, Ariel. Good morning to you guys.

As you know, Murdoch is serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering his own wife and son. Now his attorneys filing that 65-page motion saying he, was denied a fair trial. The explosive allegations with the potential to cast doubt on his conviction and throw the highly publicized case right back into court. This morning stunning new allegations in the South Carolina murder case that gripped the nation. Attorneys for convicted killer Alec Murdoch alleging in a new court filing that his trial was tainted by bias, now calling for a new one. The clerk of court had improper private communications with the jury. the subject matter of those communications was the credibility of the defense.

Lawyers for Murdoch, who was found guilty of fatally shooting his wife Maggie and son Paul, accusing court clerk Rebecca Hill of engaging in extensive, deliberate, and self-interested jury tampering, claiming she advised jurors not to believe Murdoch's testimony. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them. Murdoch's attorneys alleging Hill pressured the jury to reach a quick and guilty verdict, and that she invented a story about a Facebook post to remove a juror she believed might not vote guilty, all to secure for herself a book deal and media appearances that would not happen in the event of a mistrial. Hill recently publishing that book behind the doors of justice, the Murdoch murders discussing it with Fitz News.

Just by observation, I knew that the verdict was already. Pretty sealed when we went to Moselle. There wasn't going to take much, and I knew it wasn't going to take long for them to come to a decision about a verdict. The jury taking just under three hours to return a guilty verdict, which Hill read aloud in court. Guilty, guilty, guilty. The Attorney General thanking her publicly after Murdoch's conviction. I want to thank the Colleton County Clerk of Court, Becky Hill and her entire team and their staff. I call her Becky Booth. That's her nickname.

But Madam Clerk, wherever you are tonight. Murdoch's lawyers say after her book was released this summer, they interviewed several jurors who expressed concerns about Hill's behavior. Hill has not yet responded to the allegations. Talking about a clerk of the court talking to jurors about the case. The question's going to be, is it true? Did she actually do this? And does the court believe it?

It's enough to grant a new trial. Becky's co-author says she followed all the guidelines. Becky will answer any of these allegations truthfully, point by point. She welcomes the opportunity to do so. And the Attorney General has 10 days to respond to this motion and says his office is reviewing it. South Carolina law requires a new trial if jury tampering is proven for cases that end in a conviction. So a lot of eyes on this one, guys. Thanks, Ariel. We are joined now by Alec Murdoch's attorneys Dick Harpoolian and Jim Griffin.

Thank you both for joining us this morning. Mr. Griffin, let me begin with you. You said yesterday you first heard these allegations through a whisper campaign. What does that mean exactly? Well, George, soon after the trial, actually, as soon as the verdict was rendered, we had gotten some indication from folks in the courtroom that there was something untoward that had happened in the jury room. We didn't know exactly what. And we went on, you know, a campaign to try to find out what. And we were met with silence.

And eventually, though, and we think it was the impetus was Becky Hill's book that opened the door for us to get information from the jury that we were able to file in the court here yesterday. So, Mr. Rappellin, walk us through these allegations right now and why you think they require a new trial? Well, the allegations are that the clerk of court, court, we have sworn affidavits and interviews, sworn affidavits from two jurors and interviews with other jurors indicate that the Corka Court went into, for instance, went into the jury room prior to us presenting our case saying, don't be confused, don't be persuaded when

Alec Murdole was testifying, don't believe him. And that, I mean, under just every case you can read is enough to give us a new trial. You don't even have to show. They listened to it or that it made any difference. That kind of intrusion into the sanctity of the jury room is an automatic new trial. Mr. Griffin, is there any reason you didn't reach out directly to Rebecca? Well, we went to the jurors who gave us the information, and we got sworn testimony from the jurors. We, you know, we did not reach out to her.

We knew that she had a lawyer related to other matters, and so, you know, we went forward with the information that we had. to file him in court. What did Alec Murdoch say when you gave him this news? You know, I met with Alec in person, showed him the affidavits, and I can tell you that, you know, he's a lawyer, been a lawyer for a long time. He was startled. He was shaking. He was shocked. And he understood the significance of it. And he thanked Dick and I for, you know, beating the roads of Colleton County to get this information. And Mr. Apollean, why do you think a new trial is going to really make any difference?

Mr. Murdoch admitted on the stand that he lied to the police about his alibi. Why could he get exonerated a second time around? Well, there's many factors, but the first factor is that the jury heard two and a half weeks of the financial fraud before we ever got to the murder trial. And I think it's important to understand that if you look at the forensics, if you look at the government's case, there's no way forensically he could have committed these murders. But, George, I want to say one thing before we move on to that, and that is this. the two jurors that gave us affidavits hired a lawyer Joe McCullough

before they would talk to us and before they gave us the affidavits. The other jurors out there are on a group text, and we are reasonably informed that last week when these allegations began to surface, one of the jurors said, quote, who's talking? I'm concerned that these jurors don't understand the import of what's getting ready to happen. They need to get lawyers. They need to understand they may have some exposure, and they need to be careful before they start talking to the FBI or SLED or even us. I'm not following that exactly.

You think the jurors violated the law? I think there could be, if they could be accused of violating the law, I think that if I were them, I'd want a lawyer, just like the two jurors that we talked to, hired Joe McCullough to be their lawyer, so that he screened what we asked them so there'd be no problem with exposure for them. And you both still believe that Alec Murdoch did not kill his wife and son? Absolutely. 100%. Thank you both for joining us this morning.