Last Podcast On The Left - Side Stories: Dig Me A Grave w/ Dick Harpootlian

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Henry & Eddie bring you a very special episode this week as Eddie sits down with attorney, author, and former Senator, Dick Harpootlian to discuss his new book, "Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South" & his time working as the prosecuting attorney against notorious serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins, as well as his views on Capital Punishment, and complex relationship with the infamous Murdaugh family. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free, plus get Friday episodes a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's no place to escape to this is the last podcast on the left side stories that's when the cannibalism started side stories yes oh shit D-C-D-E-F-J-H-J K L-M-O-N-O-P Q R-S T-U-V-E W-X N-Y and Z It's really, really good stuff. A-B-T-D, A-J, H-I-J-K, and I'm out of pay. Henry, is that the alphabet? Yeah, you know what it is. And you know what I do, and this is true, this is a little helpful tip for everybody out there,

is I practice doing it backwards. Oh, really? For when you get arrested eventually for DUI. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I practice it. Because I can give you DUI for weed. I pray. Do you find, like, a half joint in your car. I practice the walk

I practice holding my leg up Yeah I practice I'm so good A drunk test Yeah You'd have no fucking idea How drunk I was Until obviously I was like

Fighting the officer That's the thing is like You just see you get you pass all the tests And then you take a swing And you're fucked Your problem is like cuts to the SUV On the A cat motherfucker

The SUV just seesaw And on the divider I mean like I'm walking fine It's the driving That's the problem officer. You know, like, maybe the problem is I shouldn't be in a car officer. I'm joking. I don't drunk and drive anymore.

Anymore is the real key there. Yeah, I don't do it anymore. Yeah, and when I used to do it, I used to do it in Henry's car. Yep. When I would steal it from him. And that's called sharing. It's called community. And the Zoomers are losing it. Welcome to Side Stories. My name is Henry. I'm sitting here with Ed Larson. Yeah, the Zoomers are losing and the gooners are winning, maybe. Oh, yeah, they are. Now, you would say, oh, Henry and Ed, what a wonderful bunch of stories that are coming out this week. Aren't you so excited to do a show?

And we were like, let's save it all for next week. Yeah. It's Thanksgiving. Because we know we were tired. We still got together to talk. We did. But we're like, we're not working? Technically, we are, but we're not.

Well, it'll be fun, though. We have a good thing. There's two things that I would. Well, next week we're going to come back hardcore with these amazing topics. Number one, the DeForgad story is about two. absolutely explode. They believe that there is a person that helped him. Of course there is. He's an idiot. He got away with it for too long. Very much so. She was frozen. She was frozen, so they don't know if they can find out

a way of dying, like how she died. This thing is going to fuck up when she, finding out when she died. So that's going to be very, like, that's why the ice man used to freeze him. Oh, okay. Because it fucks up the time of death. Interesting, interesting. So, all right, but they don't know how she died? No, we don't know yet. No, like, strangling. Nothing like that? Well, it certainly wasn't of old age in a nursing home. Certainly not.

No, so that is, it was bad. Whatever it was, it was before her time. And also, we missed the- Do you think could have froze her in the bin? Who knows? Put her in a deep freezer? I don't know. I don't think DeFord's forward-thinking enough to buy a deep freezer.

There's a weird part of me that thinks that the four of it doesn't have a Queens-French like I do. Yeah. Like, I have the meat freezer in the other room. Nothing made me feel like I had made it until that second. refrigerator came into my life. I don't care. I keep it on and I warm like I cool like four beers in there and I don't care. I have a drink fridge. Yeah. Because it's trash and that is my right. Yes it is. As trash. Yeah,

I don't need much more than that. No, it's all I ever wanted was the second one. And also possibly a television outside. Whoa. That's the other big sign of true trash with money. Really? Is putting a television outside of your home. Yeah. Are you ready for that? I mean, you got the screen? You put the... Natalie says she wants me to watch her more outside. Oh, so you're going to put a TV and ignore her? She can physically be there? Yeah. But you're not actually watching it. No, I'm watching both. What do you mean? She wants you to watch her because she's scared she's going to fall? No, she's just like, oh, we should spend more time outside together. We have a backyard. And I was like, yes. I agree with that, by the way. Same. You and Julie talked about this

recently as well. But I like watching movies so we can be outside together while I'm watching a movie. That makes sense. That makes sense. You know what it is? It's like whenever I'm out of town or I like get an Airbnb, I spend the whole time in the backyard. And then I come home and I never enjoy my own backyard. You got to put time. But you have that's why you got Julie working like she's a human backhoe back there.

What you call her? She's a fucking human. A human fucking piece of construction equipment. My yard looks amazing. I love you, Julie. Julie has been hand digging up. that yard like she's my therapist had like i was like having problems like because my manliness came in the question because i'm not helping no because she won't let you i was like no no no no no i

refused to and i was like let me hire somebody to help you i'm not trying to fucking dig up the backyard and she's like no she took that as like a challenge yeah wow that like i'm like me saying you can't do this i'm like i'm not saying you can't do this i'm saying you don't have to do this i'm going to do this natalie be like i bet you can't dig us a pool yeah Bitch, you can't dig us a pool, huh? I mean, I bet a woman can't dig a pool on her own, huh? If that don't work with her and try it on Julie. I will, and then get her over.

It will get her to do it. Oh, I bet a woman wouldn't know how to order the proper shovels in order to dig this pool. But also, you know what a woman can do is help a murderer get out of their care home? Morgan Geyser, that was the other big story of the week. God, to be a woman with the last name. Geyser. The boys come knocking for old geysers in town.

Put on your water shoes. It was a little girl. But so Morgan Geyser, yeah, now it's an adult. Oh, okay. I thought that was the adult. Yeah, I mean, it sort of. So Morgan Geiser and her cohort, I forgot her cohort, but she was actually put into

jail for stabbing a little girl. Now, remember, this is the slender man stabber. Morgan Geyser was put into, she was released from jail. against a lot of our thoughts here at last podcast in the left. We thought maybe she could she, I feel like that she may be should have been in a more controlled environment. And it turns out I was completely right because then she immediately escaped from the halfway home

that she was in with a geolocator tracker on her that was snipped off. Turns out she was helped by some random busybody woman that decided to just help her. She's a quote unquote victim advocate. Yeah. decided to help her escape from the insane asylum. So for a second, we thought that we had Michael Myers on her hands. I was so excited. God, it is, like, I was going to say, is it wrong that this is, like, fun and exciting to me?

Dude, Natalie yelled to me. Because I said, it was like, when the news came out, I was like, This is amazing! And she's like, it's not amazing. She's a vulnerable person. I was like, yes, I know, but she's also a psychopath. She's kind of fucking, you're doing it. She's going.

rogue, you know. Oh, she went too early. That's the problem. She had no idea what she was doing. So she made it up to Madison. She made it pretty far with the help of another dumb person that helped them go. And it's really sad. Morgan Geyser, I think, is going to, there's a lot going on here. I still think that Morgan Geiser is not yet out of the woods. Of course not. I will say, even though they did just go into the woods and come back out of the woods. That other person technically who helped her, if I was Morgan Geiser I'd be like she convinced me to do it

I'm a victim that's sort of is what she's that's basically what she's That's what she should do That is kind of what she's doing That is already saying that she was manipulated By somebody that It's yeah

I know She's a murderer I know she's a murderer Well well yeah She's a child murderer though She's not a murderer You gotta let her out eventually The child never died

The child never died The child never died You know You gotta let these people have to rehabilitate And you got to let them out of it I utterly agree, except for the fact that she was still talking to Slender Man until not that long ago. Oh, really? Yeah, Slender Man.

What did he say? He's saying lots of stuff. Weirdly a lot about bonds. Which I actually thought was interesting. By crypto. He said something about the idea of let your bonds mature and then let them roll over. Did you hear Melania coin yet? Yes.

Yes. I ordered the Trump shoes. Where are they? Where are my Trump? shoes. But yeah, that's the big case, which is sad. Also, it's nice because of the side story's curse. It was wrapped up

already at least. Okay. So that's already already happened. She was really, she escaped. She was already recaptured by the time the news cycle was over. Hell yeah, man. Well, that's so exciting. But it made me sad. So we're going to, we did get the the Epstein chits finally coming out, but it hasn't

come out yet. It's all going to be so redacted. It's going to be so redacted. It's going to be giant black squares. The fact that they all said that they were to do it all the sudden means like, oh, it's just all redacted. Every one of these fucking slime balls can each one of them beat a fucking dick. At least we know that they're going to take down all the Democrats.

I mean, I know. At least like, honestly though, at least like some people are going to get fucked. Yeah, I guess. Which is nice. It's like, but I want all of them to get fuck, Daddy. Yes, I want all of them too, but we can start, well, they're going to start rolling. Yeah, get all of them. You know? Oh, yes, they should. Yeah. They should be doing it. What if they go arrest Bill Clinton? He's like, yeah,

Trump blew me. I, like, why don't know what a Trump's Fuck my fucking dick. Bill Clinton needs to put out the pictures. He's going to die any day. The pictures when it shows with Donald Trump would come on his lips. Oh, because you know if he had a camera phone

in the moment. Oh, yeah. They're taking a selfie. Well, they didn't have camera phones back then. No, would you believe this is hilarious. No, this is funny. I can't even believe. You got to something. I got to say to here, Donald. I've had a lot of blow jobs from all fat girls before and you're one of the best I've ever had. God damn. I love your map pussy.

I just got to say. You've got the best gut I've ever seen since Petunia Richardson, who I met it at the Cracker Barrel in Tuscaloosa. I swear to God, when you were giving me a blowjob, I thought I was fucking you in the ass. Come on, can you push your bottom of your belly together? I want to imagine I'm a teddy fucking, I want to imagine I'm a teddy fucking, my cousin. Oh, my God, there's shit coming out of my penis. Guys, don't worry.

This is going to be a fun news cycle. Can't wait for the rest of that news. I say we dig up no much. Johnsky's still alive, right? Who cares? He's going to fall. Let's get his fucking ass. All right, so this is it.

So now we are going to, because this is a holiday break, this is happy Thanksgiving. It's the worst intro for a senator ever. Eddie did this incredible interview. It's really good. It's a really good interview.

He's a fucking senator. I was so scared. I was losing my mind. I was terrified. Henry's like, I'm sick. I can't make the interview. Yeah. For the senator?

Yeah. For the Alex Murdoch defending senator? I have to do this by myself. Mr. Mordock. Mr. Mordock, how does it feel to be a charge with the capital crime of mortal? He's like, yeah, no, don't worry. He wrote, he's got this new book coming out about Pee Weak Asking. I'm like, who?

Yeah, exactly. So I had to fucking study for a day and a half. But Ed Larson sat down with the, I believe, the head of the defense team for Alec Murdoch, who is a former senator. He's friends with the Murdof family, which we got into a little bit. Very fascinating, but Ed did this and such. I'm so glad I wasn't there so that you could do what you do best, which is you kind of innocently push buttons on the senator that loved you for it.

So you got, I mean this. Honestly, I have a respect for this man, even though I'm not sure if he's evil or not. But the book seems good. You guys got to check. He's got a new book coming out. All about Peewee Gaskins. Pewee Gaskins tried to kill he tried to kidnap his daughter. Yes, he

prosecuted Peewee Gaskins. He then switched over to the other side to make that money. We became a senator and then advocated for the firing squad during his time being a senator, which I talked to him about. And then after that he defended Alex

Murdo. You got to see that you got to go and check out this interview. Ed does with Dick Harputtlyan. Check this out next. And we will be back next week. After Thanksgiving, everything's just going to go worse. And that only means we get funnier. Hey, Henry, did you know that the, apparently the Department of Homeland Security's Twitter account is based out of Tel Aviv?

Ha ha! Nothing says home like another country. So go check it out. Hail Satan. And enjoy Ed's lip service to old dick. Oh, and I want to hail Jimmy Cliff. He passed away today. One of my favorite artists of all time.

Also, strangely enough, Udu Kier died as well. Really? Yeah, the great actor. Oh, man, what a fucking day. And all on Bootsie College's birthday. What are we supposed to do with all this information? Listen to the Dick Harpulian interview starting now. Yep.

Right from your grave. Thank you and welcome, honored, and loyal Patreon list. of last podcast on the left. I'm sitting here with the most prestigious man I've ever talked to, Dick Harpoolian, former senator of South Carolina, Democrat Senator of South Carolina, not very common that you get one of those. And you were a Democratic senator from 2018 to 2024, but we're not talking about that today too much. Today we're talking about his new book, Dig Me a Grave, and it tells the story of Harpoolian's real-life prosecution, of Donald Peewee Gaskins.

Wow. So you were the prosecutor on one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Well, the largest serial killer in South Carolina, I convicted of murder number 14. This guy really liked to kill. He arranged, we don't think for money, but he arranged with the son of two folks that were gunned down during an armed robbery, hired Gaskins or arranged for Gaskins to kill the perpetrator

of that armed robbery and murder, who was on death row. And Gaskins smuggled in, a quarter of a pound of C4 explosive, blasted out to the most secure wing of the most secure facility in South Carolina in 1982, and blew the guy's head off. How do you smuggle in C4 into a prison? That's a great question. You know, we have it. Gaskin's tape recorded his conversations with Simo. We know what he said to do, which was to mail it to him, mail it to him in a radio.

And I actually at some point during this process can play a couple minutes of that conversation if you find it interesting or I could send it to you. Oh, please send it over. I'd love to hear that. but we'll add that in. In fact, we'll hear it right there. I need one electric cap and as much of a stick of damn dynamite as you can get.

I'll take a damn radio and rig it end up bomb the way he plugs it up. That son of a bitch will go off and it won't be no damn coming back on that. Okay. I'll get one of these battery, like that type's up in one of these old cheap things and put it in and give it to him

and when he plugs that son of a bitch out, it'll blow him on in the hell. But one electric cap, and as much as a stick you can get in, as it's as pure as you can get. He told me to call you and maybe over the weekend you can find one stick somewhere and get it down if I can't fix him up. Okay, I'll probably get, at least the plastic explosion. Well, that'll be good. I can handle as long as I've got that electric cap where it'll go out when he plugs it in the wall socket.

All the trouble will be able to. If I thought about that a long time ago, they'd already been over with him, because he's in a cell by a cell. And it ain't done nothing. It doesn't make him sick as hell. That's make him sick as hell. He'll look pale as hell for a day or two. And that's it.

Give it to him. I've got about one more dose. I'm going to give him in his egg during the morning. That's the only bet you're about running me crazy. All right. Well, I'll get that stuff going this week. And I can get there. I know where I'm good.

Good, good. Just get me enough to do the damn job and listen for the bang. So he was hired to kill. So as a conviction, he's already on death row with us. point. Give you a history. Gaskins was convicted and sentenced to death for two murders in the 73, 70, I can't remember the exact time, range. U.S. Supreme Court decided a case called Furman v. Georgia, which set aside virtually every death penalty conviction or sentence in the country, including Gaskins. Gaskins was told that they would re-prosecute him for that.

and get him the death penalty unless he confessed to every other murder he had done for which he had not been caught. So he confessed to 11 other murders, actually took him out, dug up the bodies, helped them dig up the bodies, but 13 victims were, were, bodies were recovered total, including the two who was convicted of. And he got, you know, 12 or 13 life sentences. Now, Now, in 1975, when that happened, the penalty for murder was life. However, they had never changed the law that said, if you got life, you're eligible role in 10 years. So technically, he was eligible to get out in 10 years.

So, and he was the model inmate. So they made him the building man, they call it, for the cell block in which Dell death row cell block two, death row was contained. And he became, he was the head trustee. And he had a background of, he could fix the plumbing. He could fix the electrician, the electrical problems. He basically was the maintenance guy and he picked all the other trustees. So he had a tremendous amount of power in that cell block. And again, he, now one of the sort of overarching issues in Pewey's life was he was probably the worst, the most virulent, racist you could ever imagine.

One of the murders, or two of the murders in the book, early on in his career where a woman he had dated, I used that term loosely, a few years before, shows up in his doorstep, pregnant with her two-year-old child who she admitted was a mixed race and she was pregnant by a black man. So in Peewee's mind, those folks would not, if they realized how bad and how awful the situation was, would not want to live. So he took him to a little pond behind his house where he drowned the pregnant woman and then beat the two-year-old to death with a hammer and then buried them in the swamp. So the tyner, who's the guy on death road is African-American, killed two white folks. And so I'm not sure he was hired to do it. I think he

did it because he wanted to do it. And that was the final one, the 14th murder, was the one I convicted him of. He was sentenced to death and executed about six years later, no, about eight years later. And at the time he was executed, I was the elected DA, and he attempted to have my four-year-old daughter kidnapped and held hostage two weeks out to try to get me to get him brought up to the courthouse where he thought he could escape. And how did that go down? Well, his son, a teenage son was visiting him, and his name was Donnie. He said, Donny, look, they're going to kill me unless we can find a way out.

And here's what you do. You go kidnap Swister Harpoon's daughter, put her in the trunk of your car, hold her hostage, call him and tell him to have me brought up to the courthouse for a meeting with him in his office. Now, Gaskins somehow knew I had a private entrance and exit. Not many people did, but he knew that, and he thought, if he could get up there, he could escape. And he said, and this is in the young Gaskins' statement he gave later on, what am I supposed to do if he won't do that? He said, killer. Now, little Gaskins, young Gaskins, went to a friend of his and tried to recruit him, said, his father,

they pay him $5,000 to help him pull off his kidnapping. That kid, well, his background had plenty of criminal activity in it, knew this was a bridge too far. So he went to the sheriff, told the sheriff what was going on. They took young Gaskins in the custody and this kid in the custody. But there were other people out there that Gaskins may have talked to. So we live, my four-year-old, my wife and I lived with police, special agent. living with us armed with automatic weapons for two weeks until they executed him. So he made it personal, you know? Yes, he did.

That is, it couldn't be more personal. And what happened to Young Donald? What was his sentence after that? Well, he didn't actually effectuate anything. So they held him for a while and then let him out. I mean, once his dad was dead, he was no longer a threat to me. Okay. And his father went to the electric chair.

Now, his father went to the electric chair, and you prosecuted him, and you also, you prosecuted some other people who went to the electric care as well, right? Like 12 people total? No, I prosecuted probably 15 death penalty cases. Post-Ferman, I prosecuted one, Gaskinson, one more where he was sentenced to death. Our state Supreme Court affirmed it. I argued it in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. court. And it got, his death sentence got commuted to life by the Supreme Court of the United States. A little bit of a side note, Justice Souter had just been appointed by George H. Bush and turned

out to be not the conservative that George H. Bush thought he would be. And he was vehemently anti-death penalty. And while he was on the court, he always voted against it. And look, I'm not a death penalty fanatic. I think in limited circumstances where the act is an act of self-defense. I mean, Gaskins, you know, gets sentenced to death, then gets a break, commuted to life, and then he tries to, I mean, not tries. He does assassinate somebody on death row. I mean, if not him, who? I mean, how are you going to stop him? In prison, he continues to kill. This other guy was a serial rapist. He prayed on women in their 80s, beat

one to death. He beat them all up, but beat one to death. He was an animal. He was just a, you know, someone that every minute he's breathing air, somebody's going to get hurt. So also, speaking of capital punishment and death penalty,

you've advocated for firing squad to be brought back, correct? As a senator, I introduced legislation to bring the firing squad back. And the rationale for that is, in my mind, pretty simple. When Gaskins was executed, his hair caught on fire, his eyes exploded. I mean, it's a horrible way to die. And, you know, we're better than him. So for a number of years, we had the option of electric chair, they picked, electric chair, lethal injection. And almost everybody picked lethal

injection. And then the drug companies would not, would, they stopped furnishing the drugs. So the only option was the electric chair. And so I'd read a number of articles, including an opinion, including an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, a liberal, that she felt that the firing squad was much more humane than the electric chair. And by all accounts, it is. Now, the inmate, now we've gotten the drugs back here, so you can choose firing squad, lethal injection, or the electric chair. And I think most of them are going for lethal injection again, although a guy a few months ago picked firing squad. So it's their choice.

They made some bad choices in their lives. They get to make one more. So when someone's executed by firing squad, is that true that one person has blanks or is that just a myth? That's a myth. That's a myth. So how many people, can you explain the process to me? So in South Carolina, it differs from states or state that have this.

There's three people. They're about, I think, 15 feet away. The condemned where a hood, there's a target put over, paper target put over their heart. They use a 30-odd-6, which is what you shoot a grizzly bear with. I mean, it's a big gun. Yeah. And they have laser sights on it. So, you know, you're not going to miss it.

Yeah. You're not missing. All three, no, they're using a loaded weapon, and all three shoot with the intent to kill. Who are, who gets hired for this job? What is that? Oh, man. They had hundreds of volunteers.

I bet. But you've got to be a Department of Corrections employee to begin with, which narrows it down. And then you have to have some skills. You have to show you have a background and being able to handle a weapon, aim a weapon, and, you know, be effective at it. So it's a very confidential process. But, you know, recently there was rumors that the gentleman who was executed by firing squad, somebody missed because there was only two holes, entrance wounds. And what they found was that because of the laser sites, one bullet went in right where the other bullet went in.

So, I mean, it's really hard to miss, especially if you're a professional and with the laser sites, it's impossible. Do you believe that firing squad is the most humane way to administer a death penalty? You know, I think it is more humane than the electric chair. There's no question about that. whether it's more humane than lethal injection. There have been reports of people that some of the inmates yell out and scream. They're in pain before they actually go out. I don't know.

But my goal, again, the only option when I put this bill in and got it passed was the electric chair. Is it more humane than the electric chair? Absolutely. You can see case after case after case where people don't die. They're in agony for minutes. They take a second. It takes a second jolt. their hair catches on fire. Their eyes explode. Their skin burns. I mean, you're basically burning

somebody to death. Have you ever, have you ever been in the room? No, I was invited to Gaskins, but, you know, there was, there was, and maybe this, it's in the book during the trial, which lasted about six weeks, on lunch break. And by the way, Gaskins was an extraordinarily five-foot but two, tiny little guy, very engaging, very friendly in all the years that I prosecuted cases. I'd never had a defendant referred to me by a first name. But during this process, the pretrial hearings and the trial, as Gastons would come into the courtroom, he'd say, hey, Dick, you know, it's a big smile. And, of course, at some point you say, hey, Pee, we, you know, it's just doing a job.

So we're sitting in the courtroom one day at lunch. I'm working at my table, the prosecution table, on getting ready for a witness in the afternoon. And Peeley, the Gaskins, are sitting over at the defense table, and they were letting him eat his lunch up in the courtroom because the holding cell is not conducive to any quiet or privacy because there's a whole bunch of other inmates down there. And he's eating his lunch, and I'm working,

and I hear his high-pitched voice say, Dick, Dick! I said, what Peewee would he want? on. He said, you know, you're a lot like me. And I said, uh, what? What are you talking about? I'm not a lot like who. He said, yeah, yeah. He said, six foot tall. He said, he said, no, no, no, no, he said, you like killing. I said, what? He said, you like killing. He said, no, I don't. He said, well, I've been watching it. You like killing me. You're enjoying it. I said, no, no, I'm, I'm just, I'm just doing my job. I'm trying to see Justice Dunn. He said, no, you like kill it. So what he's basically

saying is trying to get in my head. I'm the same as him. He kills. I kill. And so when I was, I mean, first of all, I don't want to watch anybody die. But secondly, I'm better than Gaskins. I wasn't going to go watch him die. He enjoyed watching people die. That's not what I, I mean, I enjoy doing my job, which is being an effective advocate for my position. But watching him die, and I had that opportunity. I turned it down. I probably. And by the way, I would have had it left my family who was under guard, you know,

because of the assassination of the kidnapping threat, which I wasn't about to do. I got a call about midnight from the head of our law enforcement division saying he was dead, and I got a good night's sleep. I bet you did. That must have been a very trying time, and I appreciate you. That was a very, and by the way, I quit six weeks later. Really? Yeah, no, it was traumatic.

The prosecution, and that was my third death penalty case in like two years, the preparation, the intensity. And then on the Gaskins case, it was six weeks, longest criminal trial in the history of the state until two years ago when I would participate in a case as a defense attorney. representing a guy named Alec Murdo. Oh, yeah. That's a very crazy case as well. Now that's the longest criminal case in the history of the state. 40 years apart, I did both of them. Of course.

Man, well, you got to call him the best guy for the job, apparently. So Alex Murdo, I do want to talk more about, let's get to Alex in a second. I want to talk more about peewee in your book before we talk about Alex Murdo because that's a whole other can of worms. I want to stay on peewee for a little bit. But Pee Wee Gaskins, you said he was a model prisoner. Did he, is it true, he escaped a couple times? Well, it's sort of a long history.

But when he was, he was born in 1933 and went to what would be called a reform school today when he was 14 in the 40s. and he was a little guy and 50 of them slept in one big room he was sexually assaulted every night and I think it's part of what twisted him the way it was but he escaped from that reform school

six times, seven times over a short period of time and during his criminal career if you will he escaped a number of other times at one time from a courthouse during a trial he was so small

he bent the bars back on a second floor this is back before we had air conditioning in courthouses and so they just had an open window you could close the window and he got the bars got out dropped down broke his ankle actually

he walked with a limp later on in life but he hit under a police car when they found out he was gone they'd spread out when they came back the next morning written in the dew on the windshield of one of the police cars was, I was here, ha-ha, pee-wee. So, and he escaped two other times when he was incarcerated in county facilities. Now, having said that, after he confessed and was incarcerated, occasionally he would say,

at least two occasions. I talked to agents that went with him, said, you know, I killed somebody else. I can't remember the name, but I buried him. I can show you where I buried him. And he went out one time. I talked to a guy named Tom Henderson who was out there, a sled agent, a state law enforcement agent, went with him. And he kept looking around, and across the field, there was a car sort of driving back and forth. And they believe that it was, Gaskins had arranged for a car to be there and he was going to puff it across the field and they told him, Pete, we see that guy

over there. If you make a break, we're going to shoot you. So, and they always had ankle things on, you know, bracelet on. So, and cuffs. So he couldn't run very fast, but there's no question. He was always looking for a way to

break out. Even during the trial, he and of course the courthouse he went, he went to, in 1983 was different than any courthouse he'd ever been in here in richmond county it was a brand new courthouse no windows okay no windows what's good for him okay and so no way to break go through a window the holding cell was in the basement and again no windows no way to get out of there um so he figured we believe uh the only way to get to escape and he wanted to escape was to

do this. They, he had gotten a prescription for Valium for Xanax, one of the other, to take one every day, quote, calm him down, which I'm sure was a faked diagnosis. I imagine he was a little high strong. So he saved him up and took like 10 at once. And so in the middle of the trial one day in the courtroom, Gaskins just falls over hard face down on the table. And they carried him downstairs to the holding cell where he thought they would put him in an ambulance and take him to the hospital. But they brought an EMS in there. Now, if they take him to the hospital, we think he had maybe had an associate ready and willing to help him escape from the hospital. Once he was outside those walls, he thought he could get away. But they brought

EMS in, who treated him, gave him some fluids. Maybe, I don't think they pumped his stomach, but he was fine by the next morning. When he was getting ready to be executed the day before, he cut his wrists. Now, A, where did he get a razor? And B, he cut him, you know, he cut him knowing it wouldn't kill him. And he wanted again to go to the infirmary or go somewhere less secure than death row. They sewed him up. and the day he was to be executed

he told the war and he said you know I'm not going to make you look for that razor that I used and he like coughed it up I don't whether he had in his stomach or not pulled it out and gave it to the warden

I mean that was incredible I mean he was a killing machine he really was now cunning very cunning yeah he's on record you said for 14 officially officially and wasn't there someone in prison

that he, like, didn't he slit the throat of another man in prison? Early on, he stabbed an inmate that it threatened that, I mean, I say early on in the 60s, he was in there on some minor charge, and he had a beef with this guy, and he stabbed him, yeah.

So that, he didn't even get prosecuted for murder that. He got prosecuted for something else, but, I mean, it wasn't any significant sentence. Gotcha, gotcha. And his daughter is on record saying that he killed 105 people. involving the coastal murders, and that seems ridiculous, right?

Well, he wrote a book before he was killed, executed, called The Final Truth and was published afterwards, where he claimed to have killed over 100, picked up girls hitchhiking, tortured him, mutilated him, ate part of the body, he killed him. And, I mean, again, I spent a lot of time with Gaskins. He always wanted people to think that he was a big guy at 5'2 and 110. pounds. He obviously had some issues about being the biggest, the best, or whatever. And again,

in 1975, he was told, if you tell us about a murder, you won't be prosecuted. You won't either be prosecuted. It will give you life for it. So he had to get out of jail free for every murder that he'd ever done. And by the way, he never got out of jail after 75. So he couldn't, he didn't have an opportunity to commit any of those murders he talks about. They all had to be pre-1975, 73. Don't believe it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a murdering, uh, her daughter was up some renown. Her name was cut know. A guy named junior Pierce in Georgia, uh, was convicted in sentence for that. Gaskins claimed, um, at, at, at some point that he committed the murder. And then they found out he'd been communicating with Jr. Pierce was his name,

the guy in Georgia. So he was just doing that to misdirect. Again, Master of Chaos, Master of murder. That is wild. So do you believe that his number's 14? Or do you think it's a different? You think it's a different? It might be a stray one here or there. But again, he had to get out of jail, not get out of jail, but avoid prosecution card for simply telling about all of them. It didn't matter how they happened, didn't matter, whatever. And he confessed to 13. And so Pee Wee Gaskins, what was his job in life? I know he drove around a hearse, but he wasn't, you know, he wasn't a grave dinner or anything. He, um, you know, he was a guy that worked as a roofer. He worked as an electrician. He worked as a plumber. He had all those skills. Um, he also was

very good at dealing with mechanics. He could fix the car, you know, back in the day when you didn't need a computer to do that. He was subtle, you know, mechanical. He could, he was great with cars. He could put a bomb in a cup. He, well, and you know, people say, well, how did he put a bomb in a cup? And by the way, the cup was about this size. This is my Yeti, about this size. And what he did was he had a soldering iron, which the prison allowed him to have because he was working on their electrical work, melted a hole in the bottom right here, put a female plug there, connected it on the inside with the blasting cap, put the C4 on top, and then nuts and bolts, any sharp piece of metal he could think of, and then he glued a speaker on top, and he

convinced Tyner, this was an intercom, and had it delivered to him. and they would they had communicated peewee's cell was on one side of the tier if you know what a tier in a prison looks like it's like a battleship that comes out of the ground yes and there's cells on the ground and then tier two and tier three this was tier two one side was death road the other side was just regular inmates but there were vents in the back of the cells across from each other as you go down and gas can cell was one was one was offset by one but Tyner's cell. So he used to yell at him or communicate through those vents.

I'm sure it was lovely. And he got Tyner, he befriended him. He got a marijuana. He got him, and he could have extra food delivered to him because he was the building man. And we found out later on he was putting poison. I'll send you that tape. He talks about how they're trying to poison, Tyner, won't work. So Gaskins finally says, look, I've rigged up this intercom.

He has delivered, when the guy delivers his food, he brings that with him too. And he said, and he'd run a wire because he had access to that area between the back of the cells, a wire from his cell to Tyner's cell and has a mail plug on it. He told Tyner to plug it up and put it up to his ear, which he yelled through the thing, can you hear me? And then he plugged his end into the 110. And I'm telling you the pictures. And we have him in the book.

He's missing a hand. That speaker went into his brain. I still have the shrapnel they took out of his body from the autopsy. But it took him a while to die. Really? Even after all that? Yeah. I mean, apparently, I mean, I don't think he was conscious,

but it took him a while for, when I say a while, 10, 15 minutes was hard to stop. That is truly awful. And then Peeley pulls the wire back through, cuts it up, laying on his bed, went, whoa, what was that? Runs outside like everybody else. If he had not tape recorded his phone calls with Simo, the guy whose parents were killed by Tynor, he would have gotten away with it. And what happened to Simo?

So after Peewee was convicted, we talked to Simo. And here's what we found just from an informal sort of focus group of potential jurors. Most of the jurors we talked to, or potential jurors we talked to, said, this guy waited for the South Carolina criminal justice system to give him justice. It didn't work. And what all he did was what the state was trying to do anyway. kill the guy. So we put him guilty. He served a couple years to some accessory thing, served a couple years and got out. Simo, and you'll see this in the book, Simo was twisted up about the death of his adopted parents. They adopted him. His house was right near the store, and he saw Tyner

walking towards the store that night while he was watching TV, dogs were barking. He thought about checking into it and didn't. So when he finds out later that night that Tyner's killed his parents, he blamed himself. And ultimately, he killed himself after all of this. So he paid.

Wow. That is a lot. I'm very excited to read the book. Dig Me a Grave. It comes out this December 16th and 2025. And you can pre-order right now. Just go to dig meagrave.com. You can pre-order.

And so... Where'd you get the title? From Gaskins. One of the people, who he didn't kill, but went with him on one of the killings. Gaskins hands him a shovel to, wants to bury the guy out in Islam. He says, quote to the guy he handed the shovel to, Digmy a Grave. that's a quote from peewee and i'm i'm sure he said it more than once how many associates did he have and how would he have any like who who's going to take this guy seriously

he he was sort of charismatic and of course the floats and jetsum of society gravitated around him um you know time men thieves uh people that committed crimes with him stole uh cars or fenced, stolen goods. I mean, there were all kinds of people, some on parole, some that just gravitated towards him for a couple reasons. One, he always had young girls around him, young girls. And he said he was married six times. We can't find any official record of him ever being married or divorced, but from time to time

he'd have a different wife, wife. And some of these wives ended up with, you know, know one of these losers that gravitated towards him and they were all miscreants they were all nobody i mean and he was smarter more cunning and he was so affiable i mean there were judges i know from where he did where he lived sumter in florence and nor charleston knew him because he might have done help put a roof on their house or fix the car or in some other way did some odd job for him, because everybody knew Peeley could do just about everything. And they loved him.

I mean, he was just a friendly, I mean, unless you were a threat to him, or he felt, you know, he should kill you for one reason or another. You know, the first murders that we know of that he's admitted to and we found bodies for, it's sort of interesting story. He had a niece, a little bit younger than 18, probably a little bit over 17. named Janice Kirby, and she had a good friend named Patricia, I'm going to be sure to get these names right, Patricia's, Alsbrook, and Peewee driving that hearse around, goes into a drive-in restaurant one night and sees his niece and this girl with a bunch of other girls, and they're drinking

beer, and the Altsburgh girl seems, and she's probably 17, somewhat. intoxicated and his niece expressed some concern about that. He doesn't want her driving home. I tell you what, why we drive over to my place and she can sober up and then go home. And they said, fine. So both of them get in the car and they go over to his house. And when they get to his house, Kirby, his niece, goes to the restroom. When she comes back out, Pee-wee is pulling this drunk girl's pants off.

He's got a butcher knife. and threatening them, and they push him out of the way, and they take off and go into the woods. He grabs him, he has got a little barretta, he chases after him, brings him back to the house, and then uses the gun and beats both of them to death. Okay? Now, he then puts their bodies in that hers

and drives them to a house where he knows there's a septic tank, and he puts their bodies in a septic tank. Now, for your viewers that don't know what a septic tank, tank is. I used to have one. Okay. Well, you know what it is. It's a place where the sewage percolate.

It goes into this chamber. It percolates. But the bulk of the sewage stays in that chamber. And occasionally you may have to get it drained. But nobody ever, ever looks in a septic tank. No. And the smell. It's awful.

It's awful. And it's going to be awful whether there's a decomposing body in there or not. But later on, he took police there. And they found. on the remains. So that's the first time we know, other than that prison stabbing, that he actually killed somebody. And it was his niece and her friend, the friend, and he had a thing for young girls, virtually, meaning married a 14-year-old, married and a 14-year-old. And these girls, and one girl, Kim Gelkins, later on, probably the last murder he committed,

he was afraid that she was pregnant by him and she was very young and she was going to tell people that he was the dad so he killed her and anybody that crossed him and of course one of the great love stories of this book okay there's a woman named suzanne owens also known as long legs she was about six feet tall she had a boyfriend and who broke up with her and promised her to give her a house and all and didn't do it. So she paid Gaskins $1,000 to kill him, which he did. He cut his throat, killed him. And she helped.

And she ended up getting convicted of accessory to murder. It got a, I believe, a life sentence also. One of them, sort of, they continued to correspond even after Peewee was on death row. And he tells her in a letter or maybe it was on a telephone call that we got a copy of that look, your custody is minimal security now, get a job where you work on the gardens around the gate and just one day go out there and just walk off, which she did. and she stayed gone for almost 10 years. She was on escape when, and of course, Peewee said, I'll escape and meet you somewhere. But she was on escape when this plot to kidnap my daughter was going on.

So even after we had Donnie in custody, we didn't know where she was or who else might be involved. That's why we locked down for two weeks. Well, you probably see her coming down the road, six feet tall, you know. Well, remember now he's five foot one. Yeah. She's feet tall. And there's no question they had a physical relationship after he killed her ex-boyfriend.

So they were lovers. I mean, if you want to, I don't have no graphic section in this book. Love finds a way. Yes. So, all right, I want to switch gears from Pee Wee Gaskins. I can't wait to read this book. It's going to be incredible. You have a bevy of information that I'm sure is unbelievable.

comes out around Christmas. You've got a true crime fan in the family. Let me show you something. And this is why I can tell you this book is virtually 100% accurate. This document right here is a transcript. And when Gaskins confessed to all the other murders,

a prosecutor named Ken Somerford had a court reporter there and took it down. That's what this is. This is 500 pages of Peewee describing each and every murder. So when we have details in this book, they're from Peeway. Or we had other witnesses too, but primarily from Peewee. All these stuff were exhibits in the 1983 trial.

And when I got elected solicitor in 1990, took office in 91 a few months before he was executed. After he was executed, the court of court came to me and said, we've got all these exhibits, this transcript, and da-da-da-da, all pictures. and physical evidence, we're getting ready. We normally would just throw this stuff out. I said, no, no, I'll take it. So I put it in storage back in 1991. And then when I began in the process of writing the book,

I mean, this is the only copy of this transcript that exists today. Wow. And it would have been thrown out. So this book is based on not only my observations, but Peewee's observations. Wow. And how much of that can we actually trust, though? Well, he was making, remember now, when he's giving this statement, the more he tells,

and the more accurate he tells it, locks down, the promise not to prosecute him or give many additional time for it. It was his get out of jail, free card. So it's much more accurate. If you read his book, The Final Truth, and compared to what he said, you know, before 20 years earlier, this is much more accurate. And the sled agents, I mean, if he said I buried the body in such and such a place, they went out there and dug it up. He took him out there and showed him where it was.

He corroborated in many ways what he says in this statement, 500 pages of it. So you were a solicitor in South Carolina? Yes. What exactly is that job? Same as district attorney. You're the prosecuting attorney. Okay. Solicitor is a term that was used in South Carolina in colonial time.

times. And remember now, in England, a solicitor is a lawyer. So there's several states that still use the term solicitor, but it's more of a colonial term that people continue to use. That's what we call them here. Nice. And that's the same job that the Murdof family had, right? Not Alex, but his parent, his dad, and his grandfather. His great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his dad, yes. Did you know them? Absolutely. I knew his grandfather, Buster, the original Buster, not the original Buster, but the Buster, who was in when I got sworn in as an assistant D.A. in 1975, Buster Murdahl was sort of

the granddad of all Swisters in the state. I mean, everybody known him. He was famous for his courtroom drama, antics, whatever. And, of course, the Murdof firm, which was much smaller at the time, was renowned for the civil verdicts they got in that part of the state. Back then, the Swister, a DA, could also have a private civil practice. So not only was he prosecuting cases, he was trying civil cases and doing very, very well. He was very good in the courtroom. And his son, Randolph, was the solicitor or D.A. down there when I was a solicitor or D.A. in Columbia, where I'm from. So we got to know each other really well. I never knew Alec because he was the son of Randy.

I knew his brother, Randy, who was older than he was because I'd met him a couple times. He's still a kid when I was a I mean, you know, so, but the way I got into the case, the Murdoch case, was that Paul Murdoch, which who would have been Alex's son, Randolph's grandson, was charged in a homicide involving a boat. Mallory Beach. Mallory Beach. And when Alec talked to his dad about who would you get to represent him, who knew me well said you need to get to Carpuvian so I got involved I got Jim Griffin involved and we for a year worked on the Palmerdaw case involving the death Mallory Beach and what happened with that we was convicted right no no no he got killed before we went to

court he got killed before he went to court that's right and he was and then you then represented his father and obviously he was guilty and he got got the death penalty as well, Alex Murdoch, correct? No. No, he's just life in prison? Yes. So let me back up just a little bit. Alec, Maggie, his wife, Paul's mother, and Paul came to this office where I'm sitting right now

every couple weeks during a one-year period while we're trying to get ready for the trial in the Mallory Beach case. And so I spent time with them, watched them, observe them, watch the interactions. And so the night that Paul was murdered along with Maggie, Alec reached out to us. And actually, Jim Griffin, my co-counsel on the Paul case, an old friend of mine, went down to Moselle the next day I couldn't go and met with Alec and law enforcement. officers. Alec was convicted of Maggie and Paul's murders and got life now. Was it technically, could it have been a death penalty case?

Yes. The Attorney General's office chose not to go for the death penalty. I will also tell you that we were unaware, but obviously became aware, that there were two issues that we were unaware of. One was Alick had stolen about $12 million from his clients. Yeah. Nobody knew that. We found out when everybody else found out.

And he played guilty to that, by the way. He played guilty and gotten sentenced by federal authorities. He can't get out. He probably served 25 or 30 years on that. So the murder convictions, however, we're following a brief in a couple three weeks, our reply brief to the prosecutor's brief. I think we have a significant chance

of getting a new trial based on If nothing else, the Corka Court's conduct during this trial, the uncontradicted evidence is she spoke to jurors during the trial in such a way that indicated that they should not believe Alex when he testified and that she felt he was guilty. And you can't do that. A court official can't do that. Nobody should do that, but a court official can't. Number one, number two, the uncontradicted testimony. at her at the hearing we had on after discovered evidence was she told several people her employees and others that she was writing a book about the Murdoch trial and that it would she would could sell more books if there was a guilty verdict and she wanted to buy a house up on the lake so yeah motive and we believe that the judge that heard that hearing applied the wrong legal standard,

and that we'll get a new trial based on that, if nothing else. So Murdole was found guilty. You don't think he was guilty? I don't think he killed Maggie and Paul. You don't think he killed Maggie and Paul? Is there any suspects that lead to what that would be? There are, in my mind, there are others. But if you look at the testimony in the trial and evidence,

when the police got there that night, they decided Alec did it because he got dead wife, dead kid, and by the way, when they show up, he's holding a shotgun, okay? Not the gun involved in any of the homicides, but he's holding a shotgun. Paul was shot with a shotgun, wasn't he? Yeah, but not that shotgun. Okay. You know, shotgun shells make extractor marks.

Well, A, it was the wrong gauge, the one he was carrying as opposed to what Paul was shot to. They also make extractor marks when the shell is ejected. which are unique and can be compared by ballistics. Suffice to say, he had gotten the shotgun from the house after he found the bodies thinking somebody might still be around. But when the police got there, they immediately, we believe, based on what we saw, decided it was him, and they were not going to investigate.

They took no DNA, no fingerprints from the feed room where Paul was killed. When the fire chief got there, he saw the tire tracks leading from the murder scene going on a dirt road back to the highway. He went to the investigating agent said, you need to block this off. We need to, you know, somebody needs to get castings or whatever you had photographs to compare them to other cars. They didn't do that. Law enforcement, about five minutes obliterated those. There was a number of forensics things.

didn't do. And here's Keith, key point. Our expert and their expert testified, whoever shot Paul, shot him in the head. There's no question that the gas, it had to be a contact wound because the gas exploded his head. His brain literally shot out of his head, hit the ceiling in that feed room, and fell at his feet. Okay. Whoever did that would have been, would have had massive amounts of blood and brain tissue embedded in their hair and their face and their clothes, their shoes, you couldn't have just gotten in the shower, washed it off and take, I mean, it'd be embedded. You might even have blinded yourself. Forty-five minutes after the time the police say, the murder, or the sled said the murder was committed,

Alec is walking up to his mom's house, no blood, no blood at the house. They check the showers, no blood in the drain, no blood on clothes, no, no blood on clothes, no, and they know he rode down there in a golf cart and back, no blood on the golf cart. I mean, and here's another piece, there's two other pieces of evidence. One is, and this is sort of an interesting story, Alec was driving a GMC vehicle that night from the house at Moselle to his moms. And that's how he got there.

That's what he drove from work. In the GMC, there is a black box just like any car. And with that black box, if you have access to it, you can determine where it's been driven, how fast it was driven, it's got GPS in it. So you see exact times and movements. SLED tried to get GMC to, or whatever, whoever makes it, the suburban, I guess it was a suburb. To give them or to download the contents, apparently it's difficult to, if you don't have the exact equipment or code, you can't get in.

And they never, and GMAC never, GMC never responded. During the trial, apparently the wife of one of the major officers at GMC was watching the trial and heard that testimony. They won't cooperate with us. She apparently called her husband, chewed his ass out, and the next day we get a call during the trial saying, you're going to have the stuff, you'll have the download tomorrow. So in the middle of the trial, we get this download. And the download shows that Alec drove that vehicle. to the house at Moselle, parked it. And then when he left, it would have been after the murders.

At the exact time, Alec was cranking his car to leave to go see his mom. Maggie's phone is being thrown out on the side of the road. We had an expert testify. It showed motion, and then it stopped. And it didn't have any other motion until it was found the next day. Okay. It's being thrown out on the side of the road while he's a half a mile away, cranking his car. I mean, it's extraordinary.

I mean, that piece of evidence shows, at the minimum, someone else was involved. Something else was involved. At the maximum, it ain't him. The state came up with some jackleg expert after we put our expert testimony up who wasn't qualified to do it, and it's one of the grounds for appeal. I believe that, and I believe there's a drug connection, Alec bought millions of dollars worth of oxy. I'm not sure all of it was oxy through his so-called cousin, Eddie Smith. Yeah, because two days after he went into rehab for opioids, correct?

Absolutely. And clearly, if you look at the records, he was horribly addicted to opioids. But I think what you'll find is, that the forensic evidence, I mean, the jury heard two weeks of how he stole money from orphans and disabled people and, you know, amputees and stuff. Once they heard all that, he was cooked. I don't care what evidence we had or they didn't have. That won't happen in a retrial.

Yeah. I mean, there's lots of crazy issues around the Murdof family also. Have you ever represented anybody? I'm not saying this is it, but have you ever represented someone that you knew was guilty and still represented them as a defense attorney? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Look, let me explain this to you. I'm a lawyer.

Okay? Now, if I'm a prosecutor, my goal, my sworn ethical duty is to see that justice is done. That means you don't hide evidence. You don't put a witness up that you know who's going to lie. because you bought his testimony because he's got trouble. You do everything that you ethically should do to see that justice is done. If you have a reasonable doubt about the guild of the guy you're prosecuting, you don't prosecute him.

You dismiss the case. Done that many, many times. When you're a defense attorney, your duty is to represent your client with these caveats. You don't fabricate evidence. You don't help. If your client comes in and you see this rarely, but if your client comes in and says, I did it. In my mind, that's fine. You can't put him on the stand to say he didn't do it. And if he insists on doing that, he called him to the stand. He gives his story. You don't ask him a

single question. And in final argument, you don't argue his story. I mean, those are the rules. And if you do that, you're representing people. And, you know, I've seen the system for 50 years. it's a great system if everybody plays by the rules. And the rule of law, and we hear a lot about that today, the rule of law keeps all of us free if people play by the rule of law. The idea is not winning or losing. This isn't a football game. Yeah.

Okay? This is about seeing, there's a system that's been constructed, and I think a great system. Our American criminal and civil justice system is great. And I like it. I love it. I've worked through it for 50 years, both civil and criminal. And a lot of people say, how can you represent somebody you know is guilty? Well, because they look, John Adams, second president of the United States, represented the six British soldiers who committed Boston Massacre.

Four were acquitted. Two were convicted. But he wasn't whether he liked him or disliked him. It's not whether he believed in what they stood for. He was a lawyer, and he was going to do his job. Abraham Lincoln represented 20 people accused of murder. I mean, he was a criminal defense lawyer before he was president. So, you know, it's not how do you represent somebody who you think, I mean, you don't know they're guilty.

They may even say they're guilty, but you make the system work. It's about can the state prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? That's the standard. That's the constitutional standard. And if you're accused of something, you want to make sure everybody presumes you didn't do it, and you get the benefit of every reasonable doubt. And that's what it's about. What was it like defending someone while being judged on a mass scale by the media?

Well, again, I've been doing this so long that the judgment of outside people were the media. And the only what I've heard consistently from everybody I've talked to and everything I've watched, even Nancy Grace, I say even Nancy Grace, was that we did our job. That's the highest compliment I can get. Now, did I get just horrible emails from people around the country? You know, my favorite still is, how can you represent? at that guilty son of a bitch. I hope you die of ass cancer. It's prostate cancer, please.

But why did they feel compelled to sit down and spew this vitriol, this hate towards me? I mean, they need therapy or something. Something's going on there. They're the problem, not me. Well, I really appreciate you sitting down with me, Dick. Dick Harpoolian, former senator of South Carolina. I really appreciate you coming in.

Pick up the book, Dig Me a Grave. It comes out December 16th. Get it for the true crime junkie in your family for Christmas. They'll love it. I really, you were amazing. I'd love to talk to you more again sometime about the Alex Murdoch case. We're going to do a big episode about that at some point. and I would love to talk to you again if it's possible.

Super. Super. Love to do it. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. You take care of yourself.