Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Cup of Justice Bonus 14: The Most Aggressive Form of the Truth: Dick and Jim Push the Limits in Latest Motion

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Murdaugh Murders Podcast co-hosts Mandy Matney, Liz Farrell and everyone’s favorite attorney Eric Bland take a hard look at Dick and Jim’s last-minute attempt to stop a blood spatter expert from testifying against Alex Murdaugh this week. Also, they talk about the weaponization of the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the extraordinary greed threatening the Beach family settlement and whether anyone can get away with murder these days. In other BIG NEWS! since publishing this episode, Cup of Justice launched on its own feed and hit #1 on Apple on the first day!!! Please consider giving our newly launched Cup of Justice a 5 star review on Apple & Spotify to help us in our mission to expose the truth wherever it leads!! COJ on Apple: https://apple.co/3HHT9av COJ on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3WMKkAI We all want to drink from the same Cup Of Justice — and it starts with learning about our legal system. What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. Consider joining our MMP Premium Membership community to help us SHINE THE SUNLIGHT! CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. SUNscribe to our free email list to get alerts on bonus episodes, calls to action, new shows and updates. AND by sharing your email, we'll send details on exclusive content only available from our SUNScription email list - CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3KBMJcP And a special thank you to our sponsors: Microdose.com, VOURI, and others. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! Find us on social media: Facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ Instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ Twitter.com/mandymatney YouTube.com/c/MurdaughMurders Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 *The views expressed on the Cup of Justice bonus episodes do not constitute legal advice. Listeners desiring legal advice for any particular legal matter are urged to consult an attorney of their choosing who can provide legal advice based upon a full understanding of the facts and circumstances of their claim. The views expressed on the Cup of Justice episodes also do not express the views or opinions of Bland Richter, LLP, or its attorneys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, it's here y'all. Today is the first day of jury selection, an Ellic Murdoch's murder trial. The Luna Shark team will be in Walterboro every day for however long this trial goes on. Right now, it's scheduled to be at least three weeks. To follow along with the trial, a number of outlets will be broadcasting the one and only pool video feed. But the only way to watch our coverage and interact with our team is to become an MMP

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get your podcasts. In the meantime, we have today's episode. Eric Bland, Liz Farrell, and I hung out last Thursday to talk about some of the major pre-trial issues, namely the 63-page motion that Dick and Jim filed Wednesday afternoon, asking the court to bar the Bloods Better Expert from testifying. We also talk about the extreme greediness it looks like we're seeing in Elix former law partner Johnny Parker, Palmetto State Bank, and Greg Parker, all of whom are a more objecting to the proposed settlement agreement between the Bo-Crash victims and

Buster Murdoch in the estate of Maggie Murdoch. So let's get into it. Guys, this has been a crazy 24 hours for all of us. Just nuts. We had Dick and Jim's filing. We had Johnny Parker and Palmetto State Bank's filings. Eric, you have some news for us. Let's first talk about Brian Walsh real quick here, because I know this isn't our thing,

but he is sort of Alec Murdoch adjacent. We were talking earlier, I think in the last episode, a little bit about what his Google searches were, but they were far more extensive than what we knew last week. And I could not believe what some of them were, especially in this day and age. To put on your son's iPad, how to dispose of a 115-pound woman, how long does it take to inherit property, how long does it take for a body to decompose. I mean, that's the first thing that people do. They go to your computer to see what your searches are, depending on what crime you're

being accused of. And we talked about how difficult it is to commit the perfect crime today, because there's always the watchful eye in the sky, or you have your phone with you that can record. We were saying unless you can walk someplace at the dark at night, and there's no cameras anywhere, and maybe hold the knife yourself in the gun, you could do something. But then you still got to get away with the body, it creates noise, the gun creates noise. I just don't think you could get away with crime anymore. Unless you live on Moselle.

Unless you live on Moselle. But Mandy was telling me earlier today about, what is it Mandy? It's like a technology that you can plug into a car, and it will tell you everywhere the car's been, but also your text messages and stuff. Well, something like that. Wow. That's what I learned today from a really good source of mine, who's been dead on accurate this entire time.

There's a computer program that law firms can access, apparently, that they can download all of your car data, and all of the cameras that are on your car, even if a car has- Yeah, I've done that. But they can also erase it. Didn't know that. So in Prox Live Building cases, we always do the download, which will tell you how fast the car was going at the wreck, or on average, what their average speed limit has been the previous 12 hours.

Did they break? It has stuff like that. But I didn't realize you can erase. I guess a super special program can, a super expensive special program. So I know for a fact that, getting right into the Alec Murdoch situation, that sled was having trouble accessing the GPS of his vehicle. And I don't know if they ever actually got it. I hope they did.

Are you suggesting that there's lawyers then that would delete things off their client's car to possibly help their client? Lawyers doing that? That's stunning to me. And I mean, I am saying that. I have not heard that. Maybe not their client. I just know that a law, a certain law firm, has the ability to do that.

I haven't heard of that. But wow. Yeah. Oh, is it a law firm we all know that they do a lot of projects that they work? I think we all would be very familiar with this law firm if I said the name. So that's something that's concerning. And like Liz said, it really is. This could be a real how to get away with murder case.

But the question that I keep asking is, Alex didn't cover all this up alone. If he did it, can I just throw that in there? The Brian Walsh case and the Idaho case, I kind of feel like I keep talking about this over and over, but it's just been stunning to me. And the Brian Walsh case too, the public has gotten a nice few pages as to why the state has probable cause to arrest him and what led them to the arrest of murder. And here we are seven months after he was arrested, after Alex Murdoch was arrested with murder, and we've gotten more with the motions, but we haven't gotten that condensed.

Here's the evidence. The public can rest now. We got the guy. I've always been critical because Alan Wilson has never gotten in front of the microphone one time to my knowledge on this Murdoch case. And it's a completely different way of doing law enforcement, I guess. It just doesn't put the public at ease in the way that I feel like we deserve. I just had a moment watching, I think it was the prosecutor in the Brian Walsh case.

He didn't have a press conference, but at least he had a video saying, we got him, here's the deal, blah, blah, blah. And they had several press conferences in that case, I believe. We haven't gotten a single one in a year and a half. There's not been one opportunity for the press to ask any questions openly about this case. There has not been. It has just been done very weirdly and differently, and Alan Wilson does do press conferences. I've seen him do it for other things.

Eric, how was your day? It started well. I went to the doctor, you know, I've had COVID and I wanted to see where I am with everything and my blood work was great, best cholesterol I ever had. So I kind of came home, I was smiling. And then I turned on my computer and lo and behold, another grievance came in where I got notice from the ODC that somebody had filed a grievance in connection with my exchange that I had with Parker's attorney in May of 2022 that they were interfering with the approval

of us getting the $4.3 million confession of judgment from Alex in favor of the Satterfield family. And I took a deep breath and I said to myself, are they starting to weaponize the ODC? Are people using it as a tool to stand people down instead of trying to get resolution of real ethical issues? Why would somebody wait nine months to file a grievance against me or if it was filed in May, why did the ODC wait until February of 2023 right before the trial, right before the trial when they know that I'm on a podcast, they know that I go on TV, they know I'm going

to be an analyst next week together with you guys. And, you know, the timing of all this just really is suspect Parker, who isn't even a party to our lawsuit that we had pending at the time against Alex Murdoch, seems to indicate that he's going to object to the confession of judgment, but doesn't copy me on that objection. Mark Tinsley actually provided it to me and then I got a phone call from the receiver. And so I merely said, look to this person, you're not a party to our case and I'm tired of Mr. Parker exerting his influence over all these cases.

I just think it's a disgrace. Plus, it was a lawyer from out of state that hadn't been admitted Prohack Vichy in the case, which is to be admitted so he could practice in South Carolina. And I just voiced my objection pretty forcefully, which I think I had a First Amendment right to do. And I wasn't doing to the press in a pending case because the Murdoch case was over. I already had gotten the confession of judgment, but somebody filed a grievance against me. I don't know who filed that grievance against me, but now I have to answer it.

And it's the second grievance and there's still another grievance that's up there at the ODC, which is when Dick Harputlian reported me for some of the statements that I made about Alex. When we were going toe to toe in the press, Dick would make some statements that I felt I had a right to respond to under the rules of professional conduct. But Dick thought that I was engaging in what's called pretrial publicity where I was trying to influence the proceedings. That's absolutely rich coming from him, by the way.

Right. A guy who's a 44 caliber quote machine that'll get in front of any microphone that you stuff in front of his face, but be that as it may, there was no trial on the horizon for Alex Murdoch and the Satterfields. There was no jury to influence. I had a right to correct a narrative that Dick was putting out there. And so he filed a motion to gag me, as you recall, but that got resolved when the case got done.

But then weeks later, Eric, so they filed the grievance against you. Never withdrew it. Never withdrew it. And it's weeks later that Elik is like, I'm going to confess judgment in the Satterfield case. He tells the judge overseeing his bond hearing. They were using that as sort of a look judge. I'm a good man.

I'm trying to make it right. Yeah, but don't forget three weeks before that, Dick was saying to the press, Eric Bland needs to look at other people. He's already been made whole. He needs to look at Corey Fleming and his law firm and other people. Alex doesn't have to pay. Then all of a sudden, three weeks later, Alex gives us the confession of judgment. So it was a real whipsaw.

And then nothing comes of it from you. I mean, Dick doesn't do the right thing because he wants to hold the grievance over you, most likely, I would assume. Yeah, and the grievance is still sitting out there. But I mean, the ODC should be able to see right through that and do something about it, I think. I have a grievance now in connection with the confession of judgment that I got that the bar ODC used to disbar Alex Murdoch two days later.

The timing too, Alex got disbarred, what was it, like a couple days before he was charged with murder? It was very boom, boom, boom. But it seemed like the bar also got word that Alex was getting charged with murder and they didn't want South Carolina lawyer. Good point. Hey, somebody just sent me a text and said, Dick's birthday is on Monday. How funny.

But yeah, how about that? I'm not buying on my top. No, I'm not buying anything. I'm buying a bag of coals when I'll buy them. So I wonder how old he's going to be on Monday. 74. He's going to be 74. 74.

Yeah. So happy birthday to him. I'm sure it'll gut him something really nice. There was a big, I don't know what, a love story, I would call it, in the post and career about Dick and Jim and how wonderful of attorneys they are and they're, they're good. They're good. Don't underestimate them. Okay, but they're good.

Fine. I agree. I totally agree. After reading that latest mention, I totally agree. I think they're crafty. I think they're smart. 100%. I don't.

But I also think that they've made a lot of big mistakes in this case and the article does not mention that. They have. Dick has, no question. Specifically, I think the biggest one that was the most shocking to lawyers specifically was when Dick went on the Today Show and admitted that his client committed crime. That's like lawyering, defense lawyering, one-on-one. You don't do that.

And also in our bond hearing when he said, our client knows that he's going to go to jail for a long time by what he did to the clients. All before you said anything. Yeah. That's the thing that's funny. I guess it's okay when they say it, but not okay when anyone else weighs in. But I think you guys are going to be surprised when Dick dials it in and gets ready for a trial and assuming that he still has that skill set, which I think he does, he's really

good. I think you're going to be surprised how good that is. Yeah. I don't know how we could be surprised though, because I feel like every bro in South Carolina has told us how great Dick is. I didn't. This is a guy that's tried a hundred murder cases. So I'm just saying, you got a guy with Jim Griffin who has a lot of experience that

knows how to sow reasonable doubt and where to start those fires. And Creighton is like a first round draft pick who's now being thrown into the NFL to go quarterback his first game. Now I'm not saying he's not good because he is, but there is a wealth of experience on the other side of that courtroom that you should not discount, and especially in a circumstantial evidence case where you can create that reasonable doubt, it would be really much harder for Dick and Jim if there was a recording or a video or something like that. It's like Brett Farve in his later years, like quarterbacks, deteriorate with time.

LeBron James is averaging 38 points a game at 38 years old right now. Sports analogies are a little over my head, so we'll use the office analogies. I think Creighton is Dwight Schrute. I think that he is going to come on strong. He does not put up with anything from anyone, and he sticks to the rules. So I'm pulling for Dwight. Going back to what you guys said or what Eric said about the timing of this now, I mean this was based on an article that I wrote in April of 2022, and that was based on the

filing that they had put in. So I guess what would be the benefit of them doing this to you right now? I guess to somehow chill what I may talk about next week. The other thing that they assumed in their motion that I called you on the phone and told you this, and that you don't have any other sources other than Eric Bland in April of 2022, that you weren't talking to anybody else other than Eric, which is so far from the case. Yes, I talk to you the next day in the newspaper, but you talk to many people in that case,

many of the lawyers involved, and for them to just assume that I have a direct pipeline to you, and I could call you on the phone and you'd write an article, you knew about the Parker case. I did not. I was not involved in the Mallory Beach Parker case at all. So I didn't follow it. I would, whatever I read in the paper, yes, for them to say, well, I called you on the phone at 11 o'clock at night, and you wrote the article.

That's just not true. Well, if they knew anything about me, they wouldn't know I'm embedded at 8.30, so that's ridiculous. I'm stating that you don't have any other source other than Eric Bland, which is just poppycock. They don't want, yeah. And I think that's the thing how sourcing works, too, is it's not just, you know, it's not the people you always think it is.

And going back again to the timing, it's, I think this might have to, let's just say pretend that the timing is an assurance that this was done very, very purposely. I don't know that it has as much to do with the murder case as it might do with the other people standing in line. Palmetto State Bank and Johnny Parker trying to get money from Maggie's estate, because you represent another source of money with that confession of judgment, right? Right. And I also represent the Plylar girls that are currently suing Palmetto State Bank, too,

and that's more money out of their coffers as well. Yeah. So I hope that the ODC isn't, because this is the thing we have, how much, like, what percent of faith do you have in the ODC, Mandy? Point, er, I'll give them 5%. 5%. 5%. Okay.

Eric, I'm not going to put you on the spot. Yeah. I have no comment. Yeah. I just don't. The Carmen Molin thing was very depressing for me, and I'm sure, I can't imagine what it was for you, Eric. Yeah.

She popped up on a motion that we have in the Plylar case for February 8th on a motion for summary judgment that we filed against the bank as a result of the testimony and the conviction of Russell Feet. And we had to write the court as well as the clerk of all the courts and said, Judge Molin is recused from hearing anything having to do with Blam Richter, because we reported her twice. All I'm asking for here is a suspension. There's enough for a suspension.

I just want it to be fully investigate all of the allegations, because there are many. And we keep finding out how she was more and more involved with these other cases, like she signed the search warrant for Eddie Smith. Well, that's problematic. If the ODC cares about the justice system, they really, really need to care about those at the top of it. And that starts with Carmen Molin, and them not doing anything speaks volumes, in my opinion. Yeah, how do they want us to trust them?

They won't even admit it to like, we're doing an investigation, guys, chill out. They won't say that. No, it's ridiculous. And that secrecy is what causes what's happening right now to Iraq, which is using it as a weapon, because the more secret you are about it, the more you can do that stuff and get away with it. I don't want to beat this to death, but the fact that they haven't dropped the first grievance is ridiculous.

And the fact that they accepted the second grievance is also ridiculous. And we'll be right back. Do you guys want to talk about the motion, the 63 page motion that Dick and Jim filed yesterday? I have a question that somebody asked me on Discord today to start this one out. Can attorneys lie in motions, and is there repercussions for that? We have a rule 11 that says that we have to swear or affirm that what we put in a motion is a good faith basis and argument.

We have a good faith basis to do it. We're like car salesmen. We can puff a little bit, so we could take a fact and maybe puff it up a little bit. But no, we cannot lie. We have rules of professional conduct, which says under rule 3.3 that we have a duty of candor to the court, and we have a duty of candor to the opposing counsel, and we have a duty of candor to the public. We cannot outright lie.

And when we file a motion, we have to have a good faith basis to do it. However, in that motion, we can turn an inhale into a mountain, and it's called puffing. Yeah. Now, if you guys did that, your journalistic integrity would be immediately questioned. Well, it reminded me of when we were at McClatchy Liz, and for headlines, they trained us on the most aggressive form of the truth should go in your headline. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a nice way of putting it. Yeah. The most aggressive form of the truth. That's really interesting. I have to say, if we're talking about enjoyable motions, if there ever is such a thing, I enjoyed reading the latest one, though it has me a little terrified. I don't know that there's... Terrified from what?

Because, one, it was super thorough, but again, going with the most aggressive form of the truth, I think that's exactly what they did. As far as the lying, it's not that I could say that they were lying in it. I think it's more that they are, first of all, they're super slanderous, very defamatory. I don't know how they can just call the blood spatter expert a liar, and that he... Fantasyland or something. Fantasyplace or something. Science project.

Science fair. Science fair project. There you go. Yeah. The science fair project. That in and of itself is the least of the insults that they said. They outright call this, say this guy is conspiring with sled or sled agents, specific sled agents, to fabricate the evidence in this case.

Now, let's first talk about... There was a question about the blood spatter, obviously, a while back, and it was, how does this blood spatter expert come from? He has this one opinion that there is nothing on the shirt that shows what's called back spatter, I guess, showing that he was the shooter, that the shooter was wearing. But then he comes back a few months later, and Dick and Jim want us to believe it's after he got visited by two sled agents and given the shakedown or something. He finds more than a hundred spatters, I guess you could say, that indicate that he was in

fact there in close proximity when they were shot, one or both of them. This blood pattern expert is saying that the reason he had... Here's the discrepancy in these two opinions is because he got new information in between, which is obvious. We knew that was going to be the answer. The new information is these photos, this set of photos. It's the raw file of the photos of the shirt. This is a normal way of determining whether there's spatter on something by the way.

You look at the photos, this happens all the time. He gets the higher resolution versions of these pictures and now he can see better what's on the shirt. Now, Dick and Jim are saying that the blood spatter expert and the state, which includes obviously the AG's office and sled, are defying an order to give them all the information. We've seen in the past, Mandy has said this over and over again, starting with when Jim Griffin swore that Ellick got shot in the head and was in Charleston. Once you fool me once, fool me twice kind of thing, Dick and Jim have done this before

where they have taken the most aggressive form of the truth, which is that the night before they tell Creighton, hey, we're going to want this stuff, and Creighton's like, yeah, yeah, that's cool. We'll get that to you. Then the next day, they're filing a motion that's like, the state won't give us the evidence, so you need to order them. And now the judge has to have a hearing. They have the hearing.

And then they're like, we had to go and have a hearing to get you to give us the evidence. So it's all a bunch of dramatics. But this was so tight and so well written and so inflammatory that I'm worried that they're going to lose the blood spatter evidence, being like the ability to be able to present that to the jury. No, they won't. You don't think so. Oh, this is good.

OK. No, they won't. So let me kind of educate everybody on what an expert witness is. An expert witness is somebody that comes in that can educate the jury on an ultimate issue and based on their scientific credentials and subject to peer review. The test used to be, you'll hear in the court, the fry test, but it's now the kumo tire test, and that is if what that expert is going to testify is subject to peer review where people have studied blood spatter evidence.

They can testify to it. Now, under our rules of evidence, believe it or not, expert witnesses can formulate their opinions from many different sources, scientific books, from their own study, from looking at other tests, from taking information from people. They can even take hearsay information under our rules. An expert witness can take hearsay and use it and formulate it and come up with an expert opinion, even though hearsay can't come in the court, usually unless it's by a dying declarant, somebody who's dying and their dying words are usually before they're going

to meet their maker, true words or it's an admission by somebody who's a party, but they can take hearsay and put it into their opinions. So I think what Clayton's going to argue is these were preliminary opinions. This guy looked at the shirt, didn't do the entire testing. Experts change their opinions based on new information, and that is perfectly fine. Because in depositions, when I depose an expert, I will say to him, have I given you an opportunity to formulate your entire opinion? Is there anything else you want to add?

And a good expert says, as of today, Mr. Bland, you have my opinion, but it is subject to change if I'm provided additional information or documents. And that's all that happened here. Now, I love what you said, Mandy. It's taking the most aggressive form of the truth. That's what Dick's doing. So an expert doesn't have to make an opinion in June, and it stays the same.

Let's give this expert a chance. Now, the judge is going to let him give us an opinion, and he's going to turn it over to Dick and its Dick's job to attack the credibility of that opinion. But as far as the miscibility of that opinion, it's going to come in. So do you think, though, the state might be a little timid because they really tried to paint the picture in this motion that Creighton was embarrassed, like even Creighton was embarrassed by how the work of this blood spatter expert in Oklahoma.

Sure. We never want an expert to not do the right test from the start or not have all the information before they render an opinion. And I'm sure it's going to be a preliminary opinion that this guy, Bevel, is that his name that he, um, he rendered, but it just goes to credibility. It goes to the same thing that Dick's going to put up an expert to say, it's not spatter. And Creighton's going to say, well, did you do this test, this test, this test?

Did you know this information, this information? And the expert's going to say, well, no, I only had this, this and this. A battle of the experts, they usually cancel each other out. It comes down to jurors like to hear from witnesses. Witnesses mean more because experts are paid. You know, Bevel's going to be paid for his testimony to come here. Dick's experts are paid. So jurors want to hear from normal people, not, you know, yes, they like lawyers,

but lawyers, you're going to hear this jury charge in the beginning of the trial. And at the end, what the lawyers say is not evidence. It can't be considered by you as evidence. Only what comes from the witness stand or would I admit. So I think the most important thing in this trial is going to be Judge Newman. The same way in Russell Lafitte's trial, it was Judge Gergel. I think Judge Newman is not going to be Judge Edo. And I think Judge Newman is going to keep this thing moving.

He's going to stick to the rules of evidence. He's going to permit experts to testify. And he's going to say, Dick, go have had it on cross examination. You want to cut this guy to shreds and say that he's bozo the clown? Go do it, but do it on cross examination. They're asking for sanctions against Creighton Waters. And they're asking for sanctions against Tom Bevel, who is the blood spatter expert. And basically, they're saying that they didn't turn over all the evidence.

And it is this is 63 pages because it includes a timeline. It includes a very labyrinthine sort of way at, I guess, that aggressive form of the truth. So it's it's not that it's difficult to follow, but there's a lot to consider. And there's nuance there. So so essentially, we know that they had a problem with the shirt. And we know they had a problem with the way the blood spatter expert came to his opinion, which, again, like I said, there was the first opinion, which was there's nothing. And the second opinion is there's something you throw into that.

This other issue, which is that and I don't want to get into like the chemicals, mainly because I can't remember them right off the top of my head. But there's the first test that sled did on the shirt, which was like the regular test to detect for blood. The second test they did was a hema. I think it's called hemochrome, something like that. And it came up with no blood. And you've heard Dick say you can't have spatter without blood, right?

But what this expert is now saying, and this is what the science fair experiment that they were referring to in the headlines is, he's saying that there there are times when if you've used this first chemical and then you use the second one, it'll test negative for blood because of the testing that previously happened. So there's two things that are going through my mind right now. One is hopefully I live in South Carolina. I work on a podcast that questions the system itself repeatedly. So I do have that piece in my mind that is like, this better not be some good old boy

and sled that did some nonsense. The second thing that's going through my head is will Crainton be able to be nimble enough on his feet, nimble? That's a great word. Nimble enough to be able to untie this knot for Judge Newman. And then if if they are, will they be able to do it for the jury later? Because so the sanctions sorry that they want is they want to prevent the testimony of Tom Bevel.

They want that to be the sanction that the judge decides on. They want the cost. They want Elec to get the money that it costs to write this 63 page motion, etc. And the third thing that they want is that anyone who has written a derivative opinion of Tom Bevel's report also to be disincluded because there is another man who is out of Orangeburg. He is the chief deputy of the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office. And he's a PhD, which how often are you seeing a PhD these days

in South Carolina Sheriff's offices? So Bravo to him. He wrote a very interesting report. Now, when they say derivative of Tom Bevel's report, yes, that was one thing he considered and Eric, you explained all that, that they're allowed to consider all these things. It is one of fiftieth of what he considered in writing his report. And his report, they said, was just a beat for beat reproduction of Tom Bevel's.

It absolutely was not. It was a different report. Now, I want to note in this motion, they have called sled. They've called sled is corrupt. Sled is fabricating evidence. Tom Bevel is fabricating. He's a liar, essentially. I don't know why they're allowed to say that.

They put a picture of his house with his driveway and his car in it. They did fuzz out his license plate. They put a picture of his partner, his partner's house. And I don't know that there was a reason there's a debate online about whether that was called for or not. And then additionally, they've included some pictures from the crime scene itself, specifically the dog kennel closet that Paul died near. And in it is a mannequin that I guess stood in for Paul and to sort of

recreate what happened. So there's some graphic elements to this, too, which wasn't entirely clear why they included those graphic, why they needed those pictures to me anyway. And then a fuzzy photo of Alec from the body camera wearing his dumb shirt. Now, the bottom third of the shirt has transfer blood on it. So that is off. Like nobody cares about what the bottom third is. But on the top of the shirt are specs that aren't necessarily visible to the naked eye.

So going back to what we've said, I think previously, Mandy, this is where I think Alec got caught up. He didn't see the blood on his shirt. So maybe he didn't take that off. And it looks like it's like something that you might wear as an undershirt. So is it possible that he had another shirt or a jacket on over that prior to if he did it prior to the police arriving, took that thing off, looked at himself and he's like, oh, you're good.

Alec wiped his face off, did whatever and didn't realize that those microscopic not visible to the human eye, the naked eye rather, those things were on there. So the way these guys are fighting this, obviously, I think this is going to be very, very damning and important evidence. And Eric, you're saying that it's going in. Mandy, what was your impression of the motion itself after you read it? Well, I have a question after reading the motion, like why would what is the point of Dick and Jim doing this before trial versus just destroying Bevel on cross?

If he's so if the evidence is so bad and like, why don't you just do that? Because he's trying to seed the jury pool. Remember, jurors still listen to the TV. They still read the newspaper. We're not going to get 12 jurors that are under a rock that haven't read anything. We're going to get 12 jurors that are going to swear that they can be fair and reasonable. He's also trying to salt Judge Newman and soften him up to say to him, you should have some reasonable doubt.

This is all it's all building up to a cake. And it's just another ingredient that goes in that Dick is doing this. He's not going to leave it for trial. This is a court of public opinion. The more journalists now are starting. I got a call from a journalist who said, well, you know, this is starting to look like it's going to be a difficult trial. It's made. Do you think that it is possible that Alex didn't do this was a question that I got.

That tells me that Dick and Jim are effective in their strategy of hearts and minds, swaying a little bit of the hearts and minds of people to get them open. Remember, up until, you know, months ago, everybody, if you said Alex Murdoch, we're not going to give him any better for the doubt. Now all of a sudden people are trying to see, well, now we want to hear the whole story. The point of this is that we don't know how close Alex was when he shot, if he shot. Paul, God forbid, could he have been 12 feet away so that that spatter is missed spatter? It's not a magic marker spatter, but it's misted spatter.

Do I question whether he should have tested the whole shirt or if he saw a spatter, should they have cut it out? That's subject to debate. Did Bevel, could he have done something not to destroy the whole shirt? We'll hear that. We'll hear the testimony. But like you said, Liz, so much goes into these opinions, not just the initial test, but where were the markings on the ground?

Where are the footprints? This testing, so we just don't know yet. Look, I applaud Dick and Jim. They're creating a lot of sound and fury, and that's a good thing if you're a defense attorney to create sound and fury. The question is, does it signify anything, or is he going to be the proverbial idiot from Steinbeck? But it's interesting that, and I had that same opinion too, Eric. I thought that it's specifically for planting seeds of doubt in your potential jury pool,

because I don't know why else you would do this. And Judge Newman, don't forget, soften up that judge. That is doing exactly what he's accusing Sled of doing in the emotion. They again mentioned my name and mentioned my article from a long time ago, talking about the high-velocity blood spatter, in that they're accusing Sled of trying the case in the media. That they leaked it to you. And they're doing the same. And by the way, they, I mean, the statements are completely false.

Correct. Completely false. That's just assuming that you just had a pipeline directly to Sled, which he has no knowledge of. I wish that he did. Right, right. And the other thing was the words that they used to describe what was going on at Sled at the time, like Sled frustrated with this. It's like, you just made that up.

Yeah, again, the most aggressive form of the truth. But I just can't, and then my main takeaway was like, if I have direct knowledge of this, that, and that, and I know that that's false, how much of this is like a very, it's not even aggressive form of the truth. It's like a warped, almost a lie, but not quite. It could be almost hyperbole without being a full-blown lie. Again, we have Rule 11 and we have the 3.3 candor to the court, but nobody ever gets called to the carpet on it.

Nobody's going to call Dick Carputlian on this and sanction him. The state is not going to be sanctioned. This expert witness is not going to be sanctioned. It's not going to happen. Well, that's the other thing to mention. There is no case law that addresses the situation. It's the second time that they've done that. Remember what Judge Newman said, you're asking me to disturb 100 years of jurisprudence

and do this on a bill of particulars? No, I'm not going to do that. Right, so I think they're anticipating that with here because they obviously address, you know, there's nothing really out there to no case law out there that we can really cite. The closest is this and this is the threshold for that. But I think you're right, Mandi, it's sort of galling when you read it because it would be a good case study for any college to take that motion and talk about how to write something that's persuasive based on the thinnest thread of the truth.

Because even I'm aware of these techniques when I'm reading it, as a writer especially, I love there is this one part in there where after the blood pattern expert returns his second opinion where he says, oh, actually, I found that there was 100 plus spatters on there. The slight agent wrote back a short email and he was basically like, oh, cool, thanks, Bob, you know, or whatever his name was, and he put an exclamation point after the thanks. And Dick and Jim took that exclamation point, that one exclamation point in that very short email. And I forget what word they used. It was like excited or exuberant or celebratory. Where you're listening or you're listening to me when I told you to go back and find the spatter,

you know, something like that, that there's a collusion that automatically that means there's a collusive nature to this new opinion. Here's a red alert, guys, a little news alert for everybody. Law enforcement colludes with their experts. That's okay. They're entitled to talk to them and provide them with information and debate them and say, well, what about this? I do it all the time when I hire an expert witness and say, look, how about if you look at it from this angle? Would your opinion change? What about this? I mean, that's the healthy debate. You just don't, in sterile, provide experts with information and then never talk to them. Oh, no, Eric, this was like literally one of those things where you're like, hey, I got the

thing and the guy's like, cool, thanks. And then Dick and Jim have taken that one thing and they've characterized it as like, like the sled agent got up and started clicking his heels and was like, right, but they also said that the sled agent bullied this guy and the changing his opinion. That's not bullying. That is rightful collusion, rightful representing the state. You have a right to debate with your experts. Now it's discoverable. And if the state did not turn over all this stuff and the expert in a subpoena did not turn it over, that's a different story. Well, we were talking about that. Do you think that that's, do you think there's any way that Creighton has not turned over everything that should be turned over? I don't think he intentionally

didn't turn something over. Whether there's a paper that slipped through because the guy didn't ever forward that paper or a test to Creighton, it could be. But remember, it has to be an intentional oversight and intention on his part not to turn over a document. So I don't think that's going to exist here. I think Creighton has really, he's a straight shooter. I don't find him to be a guy that's going to shave the corner to do it. I think he's going to do it on the playing field. I don't think he's going to try to do it in the dark. And I had a thought, these motions are almost like the movies that are based on a true story, right? Because it's like, you watch a movie and I wikipedia what really happened and there's little

nuggets of truth and then the rest is just embellished and just made up. So it's basically like the crown though, like how people sort of look like Princess Diana, but it's not her. And they just made up this narrative of like Sled was frustrated, so they called Mandy. No, like none of it, they just, they found like, yeah, I did write a story, you know that part, but then you made up the whole part about how I got there. And don't forget, unlike life or unlike letters, the longer a brief is, the more it must be important. So if it was a three page brief, you would say, God, that's just a perfunctory motion. But the fact that it's 63 pages, you're going to snap back and say, well, there's a lot of meat in 63 pages. No, there's a lot of fluff

in 63 pages. It probably could have been written in 20. You can also with a 63 page motion count on the fact that reporters are going to skim for the most salacious parts or the most quotable. So they're going to pick up on that repeated use of the word science fair project. They're going to pick up on which they did, of course, they're going to pick up on the frustrated. They did what Dick and Jim wanted them to do, which is good. Great. But sometimes, you know, a murder comes down to real basic elementary facts. And to me, I think it's great. We're all talking about spatter and we're talking about footprints or whatever. But to me, the most important text message is still Maggie texting

her friend on the way. I think he's luring me. What is he doing? He's up to something. And then what are those back end text messages look like? And the ones that preceded them, what is she going to testify to? Did Maggie call her on the phone and say, I'm really scared? What are the text messages between Alex and Maggie? Are there any that show tension there? There's so much evidence I think we don't know about unless you guys already know that there aren't any text messages. But I got a feeling there's going to be some deep breath moments in there, both from the state where we say, wow, that's a big fact, just like in the Russell Lafitte trial, when Emily stood up and just casually said, oh,

by the way, on the morning of the murders, he was confronted by people in his law firm about missing funds. And we all were like, wow, where did that come from? And I think Dick's going to have some of those aha moments. So everybody's holding their power. Nothing, not everything's out on the table right now is what I'm saying. Well, one question I have is it was my impression that in addition to the blood spatter expert that they hired, that they also were double checking this stuff with the FBI to see if they reached the same conclusions. I don't think that we're going to see a situation where it's just the expert's opinion. I think that we're going to find out that there were matching opinions coming from other sources as well. So I'm excited to see how that plays out

because that's important, obviously. I mean, that's why it took a year over a year, right, is so that they could check this stuff. Yeah, I was thinking about this today. And I worry about them over complicating things. But I also kind of want them to complicate things because I want other people to be exposed in this. And that would come with those shocking like the moment in the in the wrestle trial where Emily said that about PMPED. But then looking back on it, I'm not really sure why that came up, you know, and that might have confused jurors a little bit because it was kind of a distraction a little bit in the actual case. So I think that that's going to be one of the hardest things in this is that to keep it as simple as possible for

the prosecution because the defense wants complication, they want distraction, they want confused jurors. Can I ask you guys, do you agree that the motive was the financial pressures, the financial crimes all coming to roost that that broke him? Or is there another motive? Is it do you agree with the state's motive? Let me ask you that as they've expressed it so far. Yes. Yeah, I think it shows it's a state of mind issue. I think that there's probably other, I mean, nothing is just one thing, right? There's other benefits. It's not as simple as I hated my wife and my son and I'm just decided I'm going to off on that day. It's not that there's more to it than that.

Yeah, I think Alex cared about money more than anything else in the universe. And the name. Totally agree. I think the name too. So when you think about murder and a lot of a lot of like men under like murder their wives sometimes because that's the thing that they care the most about in the universe and they cheated on them or whatever like it. So if you think about it in that sense, because a lot of people are looking for that very simple type of motive. Maggie cheated on me and so she's dead. I understand, but to a parent, we can kill spouses. It happens every day. We read about it every day, but you really rarely read about a

parent killing a child except a deranged mother killing a baby or something like that. Well, if a deranged mother can do it, then a deranged father can do it too. And when especially when you have, you know, I would say the deranged Paul wrecked his idealic life. Is that what you're saying? Well, Paul, I think was very infuriating. And so I think if we're looking at crimes of passion where you lose your temper and yours, look, this, this was a hunting lodge for a family that was very gun happy and very aggressive, very aggressive family. I would say they played fast and loose with their guns. I would say that it seems right, Mandy. Like it feels like they were very casual about them. So, you know,

it's super casual. Are we talking about a guy who had a shotgun in his hand and lost his temper and used the thing that's in his hand? Did he mean to kill him? That's another thing. Was he, was he even aiming at him? Did he hit him the one time and figure I have to finish him off because it was worse than I thought it would be? Like has been shot before, like before the Salcahatchee, the old Salcahatchee road situation. What? From what we've heard. What? From what we've heard. This is like, this is a thing out there. Like they have like minor accidents with guns. When he got buckshot, he was shot with buckshot hunting in the field. Do you remember that story, Mandy? Barely. Yeah, it's ringing a lot of bells. It's Sunday. I mean, yeah, I've heard that several

times though. Yeah, like a Dick Cheney kind of shot. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, but yeah, they played fast and loose and then the other with their guns and I think it'll be very interesting to see what narrative the state comes up from motive for killing Paul specifically. If Paul was on to the finances, Paul defended on his parents financially and we know his credit cards were getting canceled and we're getting denied at bars and things. And if it was as simple as like Paul being like, what's going on, dad? Like, where's the money? And Maggie may be asking too, what's going on with the money? And him being on his last string. I mean, I think it's possible, but I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the motive in a lot of ways. And I think it's just

because they don't understand Alex. What do you mean? They just want it to be a lot more simple. They're looking for a motive that's like any other crime story and this isn't. But it's kind of like, I think they're misunderstanding again, like it's again, going with that word sympathy, I think that sounds lunatic. Like, you sound crazy. Like, if you're saying somebody would kill somebody to get sympathy, but it's not about the sympathy. He eliminated two problems in his life and he got deference. He got time to clean up the situation with Chris Wilson. And that really was the name of the game. And it's not just one thing. So I hope the jury is able to see sort of the well roundedness of these motives. I wouldn't say it's

one motive. Listen, I have, I've talked to a lot of people, including Dick and Jim early on, people that are on their defense teams, people that know them. And they honestly, to a person, every single one of them in that orbit believes that he's not guilty. And I'm stunned about that. And it causes me to pause that, you know, oftentimes, oh, my client's not guilty. They honestly believe that Alex is innocent. Is it possible? I don't know. I don't know. That's why I'm going to wait till the trial, you know, I'm going to wait till the trial. But they really do. And I'm telling you, if you put them on a lie detector, everyone to a person on that defense team, all the way down to the paralegals. Well, then they done a very bad job of

convincing the public of his innocence, because I think my big takeaway is that like, it's going to be really hard to convince a jury that I don't know, the whole alibi thing has never made any sense to me. And it's just been as simple as, if he didn't do it, why can't he tell us a simple here's what happened in my day, here's where I was. Instead, it's like changed a hundred times. And that has been, again, I think a mistake on the defense's part. It should have said nothing. Well, like Brian Walsh, I think that Alec Murdoch is going to get the shock of his life if he hasn't gotten it already and going through the discovery of what story technology can tell about you counter to the story you want people to think about yourself. So I'm actually that if

I'm going to say I'm excited about the trial, because I'm not, then I that's the only thing I'm excited about really is is that. So I want to talk just real quick before we end this about while we were recording this, we got a message. And I think it sort of explains going back to the beginning of the episode, Eric, why you have gotten this grievance today. Today was a hearing in the beach case regarding the settlement between the beach family and some of the other boat crash victims and Buster Murdoch and the estate of Maggie Murdoch, which we've told you guys about. And the hearing was to discuss a motion that's been put in by Johnny Parker, and then Palmetto State Bank came in late yesterday with their own objection to this

settlement. And today there was another person objecting to the settlement, and that's Greg Parker. And so going back to what you were saying, Eric, back in April, when you were quoted in that article about Greg Parker's objection to the Gloria Satterfield Settlement, well, look at look at them here today doing the same thing. I mean, look what he's done, he got on TV, he bragged about hiring, you know, six sets of lawyers. He said, I'm going to be the pioneer that changes the law and joint and several liability. I mean, he's tried to go after Mark Tinsley. I mean, this is, you know, he's he's a serious defense litigant that will scorch the earth and he's got the money to do it. And so this is just a continuation of what he's done all along

today. Doesn't surprise me, surprise you. I don't think so. No, I mean, these guys are greedy, and I've never seen such open greed. They do not care about doing the right thing. Johnny Parker is a man in his 70s who cut his bones suing CSX Railroad for accidents that happened all around the state. The law firm itself, the building is the house that CSX built is the rumor moniker that they get. He's a tremendous was maybe still is a tremendous trial lawyer, very good in front of juries, certainly knows his locale, certainly knows the people, very confident, and he has been highly successful and done a lot of good for a lot of injured people. So what we have learned about Johnny, which we never knew is he runs a corner loan store.

He he, you know, loan shop and loan, come on in and I'll give you a loan and it's a hard money loaning lending and it's got a higher interest rate that you would pay at the bank and he was interested in loaning money to lawyers, to bankers, to rustle feet, which is surprising. He's an old score, definitely an old score. So Eric, do you think though, so talking about those ones first, when PMPAD tried to remake itself, they remade themselves into the Parker law group. So he is the titular head of whatever PMPAD wants to be in the future. The face. Right, he's the face of it. And I'm not sure at 77 years old whether I would want me, if I was successful like he is and I'm not, that I want to be the face of the law firm. I think younger lawyers would say we got to carve

our own reputation, but that's the power that he still holds in that firm. Yeah, they don't want to let go of that power and they're just recycling it basically. But going back to the loans thing, do you have, what are the odds that Johnny has a formal agreement with Alec that he can refer to? That's a thing. Did he produce a promissory note and different stuff like that? And does he have enough standing in this case? Does he have standing to come in on the estate of Maggie Murdock? She didn't know of money. He says he holds a judgment, a confessed judgment, just like I hold a confession against Alec. We'll be right back. I'm just getting this straight. Since they reached a settlement at the beach case,

we've had three seems like greedy parties enter the game and say don't give those people that have been victimized and have been like drugged through the mud through this whole, I mean, especially the beach family. Bless them. I mean, they have held on, they've been in this for a long time and they just want peace and justice for their daughter and yes, and they were so close. And now all these greedy, selfish people. Sometimes you don't do, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. Just because Palmetto State Bank can object doesn't mean they should have objected. They have an image to rehab. Whether they know it or not, their image has been tarnished and justifiably so. Maybe the better course of action should have been,

you know what, we need to work on getting rid of the Lafitte bad image, rebuild ourselves, rebrand ourselves. But all they're doing is playing the victim card again, the same way that Russell tried to play the victim card, the way the bank tried to play the victim card in Russell's trial. And somebody's giving them some bad advice. Yeah, and is it worth it? I mean, like, it's weird for being for somebody like Johnny Parker, who I've been told could have retired a very long time ago and been a very, very wealthy man. It's weird for him to fight like this. Mandy, the bank is fighting over $49,000. They write that off in an hour. They wrote off, excuse me, they wrote off Alex two loans for $300,000 in 2014. They're shady loans that they gave him. So this is what's crazy.

They're upset about the late fees. They're trying to get in front of the victims to collect late fees on the mortgage, which they didn't charge. Russell didn't charge himself late fees. He didn't charge Alec late fees when they were taking money from Hannah Piler on the on the down low. So it's real rich that these board members who say they care about the community and that they're part of the community are basically saying like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to do this the right way. Staying with Johnny Parker. I don't care what's right is right. I understand Alec owes him money. But you're the one who loaned Alec money. And I think what we want to see is the dates Mandy David and I were looking at this, the dates that Donnie gave those loans to Alec in

2021 all line up with one was on May 19th, which is the date that Alec was first confronted, I could believe, at least when the firm first found out that there was a discrepancy in the fees. The other one was in March, which is when the Hirschberger case situation happened. And the other one happened in July, which means he gave him a loan of several hundred thousand dollars after knowing that the firm had confronted him about that missing fee and that they didn't believe him when he said that that money was not taken and put somewhere else. So that's extraordinary. And so let's also talk though real quick before we have to end. Greg Parker's strategy here is he does not want this settlement to go through because it removes Buster from

the code offender list, which means that now the spotlight goes on to Greg Parker. They have no more buffer. They can't vilify Buster. They can't do anything to take less of the burden, I guess, off of them with the jury. So they want to keep Buster in this, right? They want to keep the estate of Maggie Murdoch in this because now without them, they are alone. It's just them and Alec and the state of Paul. I don't understand why Parker's doing this. I don't understand it. Well, is that possible? Tell us what you think of having Buster and the estate of Maggie Murdoch does to Greg Parker strategically when they're looking as a defense team at what this could mean for them in terms of the jury. Because he's going to say that Buster knew that he was given his

license to Paul and it's a family problem that they have alcohol and that they're the ones that are responsible. We sell alcohol. We had a clerk. She looked at a license. These people look like they're twins. Yes, I get it that Buster's taller than Paul, but don't blame us. The real problem here is they had a family that run amok. That's what's going to be the trial from the Parkers. They're going to blame this all on the Murdochs. They're going to say we have so much sympathy for Mallory Beach, but you're looking at the wrong people. The people you need to be looking at is Buster and Maggie for not doing her job as a mother and Alex as a father. So does this remove that for them? Can they not do that now? No, they'll point to an empty chair. They'll still raise

that issue and say, look, why are we the only people in the courtroom? It's amazing that the people who supplied the license and encouraged the kids to drink liquor, they put beer and let underage kids drink it from their cooler. Yeah, they're going to put the Murdoch family on trial. No question. So what the heck are they doing now? What is going on? Why is Greg Parker with? Why are all these people coming out of the woodwork? It's a mark. It's against Mark. Greg has such malice towards Mark Tinsley. He wants him not to get a victory of any kind, but I don't understand the bank. I don't know Johnny Parker, so I can't get in him, but I can advise the bank and somebody's giving them some bad advice for $49,000. You stay a

million miles away from this thing. I've heard that the bank believes that the victims have gotten enough money. I find that to be repugnant. And if I ever heard that or had evidence of that, I would jam it down somebody's throat. Don't tell a victim how much money they should get. When you made a fortune as a bank off Alex Murdoch and all your dealings in that law firm over the last 40 years, do not tarnish a victim by saying you got enough money. And they enabled Alex. Like he wouldn't have been able to, he had a bank of money to play with this entire time when he was committing all these crimes. And because of their CEOs who has been convicted of wire fraud, bank fraud, everything. I mean, these guys are making themselves

villains. They had an opportunity, I think we all in life have an opportunity to do the right thing. With Johnny Parker, I think the way I would look at it if I was him is, you know, do I need this money? I know it's, I know that it's a lot of money and it's something like $400 and some $1,000, I believe. But like I said, I questioned the circumstances under which he loaned him this money. I questioned anyone who's constantly giving money to Alex Murdoch. I don't believe for one second that there weren't rumors out there that Alex was constantly in overdraft. You're telling me that no bank teller at Palmetto State Bank saw that and didn't talk about it. And if you're Johnny Parker, and you're trying to rebrand your law firm, you don't want your name

coming up. You don't want your name coming up. You want to stay a million miles away from it. I tell my kids, walk tall, don't crawl small. He's crawling small right now. His name is coming up, not in a good context. And so there's a lot of people who are going to say, nobody's learning their lesson over at that shop. And I would say to Johnny, I say it to the bank, look, you can't say anything to Parker. He's going to do what he's going to do. The guy's a multimillionaire and he's, he's, you know, full of fire, piss fire and vinegar. Nobody's going to penetrate that cap, but the bank should have somebody that's given them some good advice. And certainly Johnny Parker's partner should say, Hey, may Johnny, maybe we should stay out of this

one. It's not like Mallory's family is getting a fortune from this settlement. They're not. And you're leaving Buster with $500,000 to try to rehab his life and figure out what the kid's going to do. He lost a mother. He lost a brother. He's losing a father. If you have any feelings towards the Murdoch and you benefited by that name, you know, let Buster get us some money. Let's also talk about that cyclical economy that you just referenced, Eric, because that's part of it. We've talked about it on MMP before and on COJ, but Johnny Parker and Palmetto State Bank are part of the Murdoch economy, right? Do you guys remember when in the jailhouse calls, Mark Ball was supposed to be delivering a check to Alec and Buster? That check was for part of the

firm that was part of whether it's the, the building itself. It was Alec's share in the firm. They gave the firm, this is after Johnny Parker filed a lawsuit after Randy Murdoch filed a lawsuit. It is after the confession of judgment that Alec gave both of them. And then the firm is giving a six-figure check to Alec while he's in jail. Why? Why if this, if this firm found that he was stealing from them and stealing from clients, at the point that these calls were happening in the jailhouse is at a point when the scope of what Alec had been doing was known to the PMPD, and why would they do that, right? You're saying that they wanted to keep him fat and happy and not talking? Would you give a check to a partner of yours that was found to have stolen the money

when you hold, they're holding on to Palmetto State Bank's $680,000 from the Arthur Badger situation? In an escrow account, according to the testimony court. Right. So would you give a check? Yeah, I would. If I was scared that he would open his mouth and take down my law firm, you'd all gone right, I would give him a check. There you go. And there it is. So we're here. I know how I felt before the Russell's trial, and I felt confident. I don't feel that same confidence. I'm scared on what's going to come out and what's going to happen. It's really a surreal feeling that this thing is going forward. I never expected it when Dick said, oh, we're going to go to trial in 90 days and let's set this trial for January. I thought Dick

would blink and say, well, I'm in the Senate or we don't do this. But it really looks like this thing has gone forward, guys. I mean, what are your feelings about it? I'm ready. My feeling is that I'm so ready. I'm sick of wondering what evidence they have. I'm sick of racking my brain for could this be possible? Could this be possible? I'm ready. I'm ready to see all the witnesses that both sides call. I think that will be very interesting considering how close-lipped everybody has been with this story. I go back and forth as to how much faith I have, but I'm just ready to see that. So if he gets convicted, everything the dominoes will fall into place, they'll probably plea then on these other financial charges. Are we closer to the end of the Myrtle story

with a guilty verdict or are we further away? Does the land get further away? What do you think, Liz? Well, I think for our purposes, because this goes beyond just ELEC, it goes to the enablers as well, it doesn't matter what the verdict is, but I will say if it's a not guilty verdict, I will be looking at real estate outside of South Carolina for sure. Agreed. And just want to tell everybody this is the first day of the trial and if you want to check out our coverage, definitely go to mmp.supercast.com. We're going to be covering this all day, every day for the next however long it lasts. Yes, guys, don't forget, on January 30th, we're out of the crib, we're on our own, COJ gets its own feed, we need your support, we need you to follow us, follow us to

witness rock and roll, that's all I ask. Yeah, you're going to want to follow us, it's going to get even better. Well, you guys, I'll see you tonight. I'm excited. Jury selection today was great, let's get it on. The Cup of Justice bonus episode of the Murdoch Murders podcast is created and hosted by me, Mandy Matney, with cohost Liz Farrell, our executive editor and Eric Bland, attorney at law, aka the Jack Hammer of Justice, from Luna Shark Productions.