Murdaugh Murders Podcast - TSP #136 - The Alex Murdaugh Circus Is Back In Town (Again) as Dick and Jim Argue for New Murder Trial (Again!)

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Will Alex Murdaugh get his murder convictions overturned?  Investigative Journalists Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell recap everything that went down Wednesday when Team Murdaugh and state prosecutor Creighton Waters argued their cases for and against a new murder trial in front of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Despite a performance that can only be described as legally underwhelming, Alex Murdaugh may be closer than ever to getting a new murder trial.  To the surprise of no one, Dick Harpootlian used his time in front of the justices to do some good ole boy flirting, telling stories about himself and… Aaron Burr…? Mandy and Liz dig into the systemic rot underneath the theatrics: the two-tiered justice system that keeps men like Alex Murdaugh in the game, the media's troubling tendency to smooth the jagged edges of truth, and why a new trial would have absolutely nothing to do with innocence and everything to do with power, ego, and money. Lot's to cover… Let's Dive in… 🥽 Episode Links “Murdaugh attorneys head to SC Supreme Court in quest to overturn murder convictions” - The Post and Courier, Feb 10, 2026 South Carolina Juror’s Oath (found on page 2) 'On The Record' Bonus: Alex Murdaugh Murder Appeal — South Carolina Supreme Court Oral Arguments (Full Audio) Stay Tuned, Stay Pesky and Stay in the Sunlight...☀️ Learn more about LUNASHARK Premium Membership at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lunashark.supercast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get bonus episodes like our Premium Dives, Wherever It Leads..., Girl Talk, and Soundbites that help you Stay Pesky and Stay in the Sunlight. Plus BTS content from Murdaugh: Death in the Family AND Mandy's book Blood On Their Hands. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support Our Show, Sponsors and Mission: https://lunasharkmedia.com/support/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quince⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hungry Root⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bombas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://amzn.to/4cJ0eVn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ *** ALERT: If you ever notice audio errors in the pod, email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and we'll send fun merch to the first listener that finds something that needs to be adjusted! *** For current & accurate updates: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lunashark.supercast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.com/mandy_matney⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   |   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.com/elizfarrell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bsky.app/profile/mandy-matney.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bsky.app/profile/elizfarrell.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TrueSunlight.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠facebook.com/TrueSunlightPodcast/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.com/TrueSunlightPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/@LunaSharkMedia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tiktok.com/@lunasharkmedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know if the South Carolina Supreme Court will grant Elyke Murdoch another murder trial. But after a lengthy and fiery hearing on Wednesday, where his defense repeatedly fumbled and stumbled over their own arguments, unfortunately, we feel like he's closer than he's ever been to getting a new murder trial. And we need to tell you why. My name is Mandy Matney. This is True Sunlight. podcast exposing crime and corruption previously known as the Murdoch murders podcast. True Sunlight is a Luna Shark production written with journalist Liz Farrell.

Okay, I'm angry today, so let's just start off the show with that. I am angry because there are a million better things that our Attorney General's office and our Luna Shark investigative team could spend their time and energy on right now. But here we are again, covering Ehrlich Murdoch's Supreme Court appeal hearing. that took place on February 11th. I am angry because Elyke Murdoch is closer than ever to getting a new trial and that has nothing to do with his guilt and everything to do with the system that is built for and by men like him. I am angry because Ehrlich Murdoch will serve the rest of his life in prison for the financial crimes that he admitted to alone. And unlike the thousands of backlogged

cases on the South Carolina docket that our state refuses to dedicate a fraction of their time and resources that they spend on Murdoch, the outcome of this Supreme Court hearing and a new trial would have no effect whatsoever on public safety. The bad guy is already behind bars, forever. What worries me the most, though, is that powerful people on both sides of this case could benefit from a new trial. I worry that Attorney General, General Alan Wilson, who has a stunningly strong chance at winning the governor election this year, wants a new trial to remind the public of that one time that his office actually did good and took down a powerful person who believed he was above the law.

I worry that Dick Harputlian and Jim Griffin desperately want to redeem themselves from the National Face Plant Fest that was the trial for them. I worry that the media covering this case, perhaps more than that the case, than anyone, wants a new trial because the world hasn't seen audience numbers in a case like Murdoch since that trial. In those numbers require very little journalistic lift. We will talk more about that in a minute, though. Now I want to rewind quickly, because it's been so long since we last talked about Murdoch and remind y'all why we are still choosing to cover this case when so much is going on. So, everything started for us in February 2019 when 19, when

19-year-old Mallory Beach was killed in a boat crash outside of Paris Island, South Carolina. 19-year-old Paul Murdoch, the spoiled grandson of a legal dynasty, was driving the boat. We were told by tipsters at the time when we worked at the local newspaper, If you don't cover this, they will cover it up. Liz and I understood the assignment, and we clung tightly to those words for the next seven years, literally. And the same statement rings true today. If you don't cover this, they will cover this up. So we need to tell you exactly why this case, including the last hearing,

demonstrates to the public so clearly that there are two systems of justice in the United States. One built for and by powerful good old boys like Ehrlich Murdoch and another one for the rest of us. On June 7, 2021, Paul and Maggie Murdoch were shot to death on their family's sprawling hunting property called Moselle in Island and South Carolina. Hours after the murders, Liz and I actually texted each other that we believed it was someone within the family who killed them because we knew how fearful people in the low country were of the Murdoch dynasty. And that's something that has always set our coverage apart

from every other reporter covering this story since the beginning. There is always a Murdoch factor at play. And that factor includes three generations of solicitors, South Carolina's district attorney slash top law enforcement officer in the region and nearly 100 years of legal domination on the civil side of the law through the family's law firm formerly known as PMPED, now known as Parker Law Group. The Murdoch factor is that this family operated above the law for over a century. This family was the law in the five-county district of South Carolina's low country. The Murdox were locally known for being able to get out of anything that they got into. For literally 100 years.

That has to be considered at every twist and turn of this saga. This is a murder case like none other because of the Murdoch factor. So in March 2023, almost three years ago, a jury of Elyke Murdoch's peers found him guilty of murdering his wife and son. He was sentenced to life in prison times two for those crimes alone. Later that year, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison for his 44 state and federal financial crimes that he pleaded guilty to. However, back then, we all knew that this case was far from over.

We all knew that Dick and Jim were not necessarily hired for their trial skills, but for their trickery and deep connections in the system that allow them to go further with nonsense claims. In a highly unusual move, four months after the trial ended, clerk of court Becky Hill published a strange book called Behind the Doors of Justice. It was basically a small town gal's diary as a clerk in one of the nation's most-watched trials where she ooed and awed over people like Nancy Grace and clapped hard for her buddy Joe McCullough. You know, Dick Harputlian's bestie, who is suspiciously given a media pass by Becky and sat in trial every day.

should have known then how much frickery was afoot. In September 2023, Elyke Murdoch's defense team dropped the bomb that we were all waiting for. They filed a motion for a new trial, claiming that old book-writing Becky tampered with the jury, and they claimed that they had the evidence to prove it. Now, typically in a case of jury tampering allegations, the claims are made during or almost immediately after the verdict, but not in this case. In this case, Dick and Jim claimed that they only heard about jury tampering allegations after Becky Hill's book was published, which was, again, an extremely abnormal situation. And of course, that made her an easy target to discredit.

Juror Z, the egg lady in the alternate juror who says Becky Hill jilted her on media interviews, as well as clerk of court Ron McElvey, who testified against Becky at Ehrlich's new trial hearing in January 2024, did not register any complaints with Judge Newman. It was only when Dick and Jim went knocking on jurors' doors, literally, again, after Becky's book was published. After that, then they decided that there was a problem. And also, let's not forget what some of the jurors said in their written statements to sled, that Dick was aggressive and threatened them to lawyer up. Ultimately, in January 2024, two years ago,

Justice Jean Toll found that the defense did not meet its burden approved for jury tampering, after a hearing in which each juror testified under oath about a verdict they rendered 10 months prior. During that hearing, Justice Toll declined to hear testimony from the Egg Lady juror, but did allow an alternate juror who did not render a vote to testify in impeachment of Becky's character. Ultimately, Justice Toll denied Elyke Murdoch's motion for a new trial. trial, which, of course, Elyke immediately challenged by asking Justice Toll to reconsider her decision. She declined to do so. So here we are. Because Ehrlich's legal team, much like babies, actually, threw an entire bowl of legal spaghetti at the wall to see what happens. Meaning,

Eleg, because of his ability to purchase this level of legal scrutiny, has made this just about as complicated as a person can, and in doing so, Ehrlich got to skip the line again. On Wednesday, it wasn't the state court of appeals who heard Ehrlich's case. Sorry, cases. These were cases, plural. Ehrlich had turned his murder case into a double-barreled appeal, two cases that then had to be consolidated by the state Supreme Court which took over from there.

That decision by the Supreme Court to allow Ehrlich to, to skip that first, tedious, and years-long step of matriculating through the Court of Appeals docket was either yet another sign of Elix ability to access corners of the justice system that just don't exist for the rest of us. Or it was the state Supreme Court justices saying, let's get this guy out of here and fast. But stick a pin in that for when we talk about what actually happened Wednesday. First, let's talk about what went on leading up to this week. Starting with the puddles of drool, We've had to step around from the same people in the media who have been encouraging this loud, troll notion that Mandy and I have been desperate to hold on to this Murdoch story and that we'd

have no podcasting career beyond it, which obviously jokes on them because y'all know what we've done and what we're about. But I'm not going to lie. There's a particular petty satisfaction I get in watching those same members of the media, and I'm using the word media really loosely here for some of them, expose themselves as they trip on their own giddiness about the prospect of a new murder trial. But this isn't about them as much as they wanted to be. What I'd rather talk about is how the media writes about cases like Elek Murdox. This is more important. Words are so important because we are in the Epstein era, right? We can't just sit back and make life easier for wealthy, powerful men and the people who protect them as they continue to destroy and harm and hurt.

Those days have to be over. Journalists can't continue to act like they're just being objective as they strip their stories of context and unflinching truth, because that's the world that helped create and protect Jeffrey Epstein, and it's a world that sure as heck has protected Elyke Murdoch. Ehrlich fell apart in 2019 when he started to realize how much had changed since the 1980s and 90s when his reckless behavior could be easily covered up. That brand of corruption could not withstand the unrulyness of the free speech on social media or the modern appetite for true crime stories.

That said, it is wild to see media outlets still not get this. They write about ELEC like the murders of Maggie and Paul are just a character flaw, and not a total act of greed and weakness and depravity. For instance, this line from the posting courier on Monday. Prior to the trial, Murdoch repeatedly denied being at Moselle near the time of the murders, only to change his story when he took the stand. Which totally accurate, but only to change his story when he took the stand is a really polite and deferential way of saying Elyke got caught in a lie

and was forced to account for it. The operative word that the media prefers to euphemize. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, liar. Changing your story is what you did when you were 16 years old and your parents asked you why there was sand all over their car if you, quote, only went to the movies last night. Now, that requires a change in story. And oh yeah, we stopped by the bonfire for like a minute, totally forgot to mention that. Knowing full well that you didn't forget, but now that it's out there, you have to say it. That is a big step away from, oh yeah, I was at the kennels right as it was getting turned into my wife.

wife's and son's murder scene, which, by the way, the post and courier later described Ehrlich as being at the kennels, quote, shortly before his wife's and son's deaths. Again, accurate, but also not finally tuned to the truth at all, because actually Ehrlich, who lied about being at the kennels altogether until he was forced to acknowledge evidence to the contrary, while on the stand, was with Maggie and Paul five minutes before their phones were used for the very last time by them, which is presumably around the time both were killed. Five minutes. This lack of writerly precision is what converts the truth from the jagged, impossible to ignore rocks that they are, the kind that cut up your feet when you walk over them, into smooth

stones that get heated up and used in relaxing pedicures, where you get lulled into a false sense that it, whatever it might be, isn't actually so bad. Honestly, I could spend hours dissecting how the media covered Elyke Murdoch, right down to the words of old Kathleen Parker, the longtime columnist for The Washington Post, and the most disappointing person I've ever met. But I will save all of that for a master class, because the second thing we need to talk about before getting into what went down in the oral arguments is this, the monster briefs that got filed by Team Ehrlich, and Team Ehrlich is the murderer. So like I said, Ehrlich has two appeals in front of the Supreme Court. Those two appeals were consolidated

but ELEC was allotted two sets of times so he could argue them separately on Wednesday. The first appeal is based on the jury tampering allegations by clerk of court Becky Hill and Justice Jean Toll's decision not to grant Ehrlich a new trial. The second appeal is based on what Team Ehrlich says are evidentiary errors made by Judge Clifton Newman

during the first trial. The final brief submitted by Ehrlich's attorneys is 130-something pages. It's very repetitive and it's full of lies like just blatant lies, or what the state calls mischaracterizations. It's basically like this. Let's take that classic scene in The Shining, when Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance takes an axe to the locked bathroom door,

where Shelley DeVall is trying to squeeze out of a window to escape him because he has gone absolutely effing insane. You might not have seen the movie, but you've probably seen that still photo of Jack Nicholson smiling through a broken part of a door, saying, here's Johnny. It's a terrifying scene. Jack Nicholson tries to open the door while reciting the three little pigs line

from the Big Bad Wolf. You know, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your huss down. Okay, so if Dick and Jim were Jack Torrance's attorney, here's how they would characterize that scene in their final appellate brief to the South Carolina Supreme Court. Quote, Mr. Torrance, concerned about his beloved wife's well-being,

attempted to gain access to the room she had locked herself in. Seeing that the door wouldn't budge, he became deeply worried and took immediate action. In the interest of making sure Mrs. Torrance wasn't within strike range of the door, he recited a favorite nursery rhyme in the hopes of keeping the situation light and calm. It was then Mr. Torrance was able to gain access to the room with a common shed tool, with the door now partially open. Mr. Torrance made sure his wife knew she was safe by announcing his private, presence, Johnny is here. Literally, guys, if you have a strong sense of justice and an intolerance

for hypocrisy and dishonesty, do not read Dick and Jim's filing in this because it is really tough to get through. And you'll want to scream at people, plants, and animals. But also, I recommend doing that. And then reading the first 30 or so pages of the state's final brief, because they're two completely different takes on what happened during Eleg's trial and what led to the guilty verdict. And only one of them, is accurate. So again, the second appeal from Ehrlich is about the underlying issues in the trial.

In other words, the parts of the trial where Team Ehrlich says Judge Clifton Newman erred in his judgment. There were nine questions the defense posed, and I'm just going to give you the basics. They argued that Judge and Newman should not have allowed the testimony about ELEC's financial crimes because, one, they claim the defense didn't open the door for them to do that, as Creighton had argued,

and which Judge Newman agreed with. And two, the defense says, it was way too much testimony. In fact, they cite Tony Satterfield's testimony as going a bridge too far, saying that the testimony served no other purpose than to make ELEC look like a monster, which, if the horns fit, right? We're not going to get into this too much today, but it's important to understand for the rest of this episode. Evidence like this is tricky, because its probative value has to outweigh its prejudicial effect. Meaning, it can't just make Ehrlich look bad. There has to be another more significant reason to bring it up. And that reason, in the state's opinion and ours, is

duh. It's all part of the pressure Ehrlich was under when he snapped. The defense also argued that Judge Newman should not have allowed a deputy from Charleston to testify about Maggie's phone. That deputy said that just because the phone didn't light up where the state says Ehrlich threw it from the car doesn't mean that he didn't throw it from the car. Dick and Jim say that the deputy didn't come to that conclusion scientifically, and that is a problem, deserving of a new trial. Again, stick a pin in that. Another argument they made was that the state should not have questioned Ehrlich when he was on the stand about why he continued to lie about being at the kennels. At the trial, Crichton was basically like, look, you're saying that you didn't want to be dishonest and you had to be

because you were paranoid about the police, but you've had plenty of opportunities since then to come clean. So why didn't you? Team Ellick argued that this question infringed on Ellick's right to remain silent and his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Another argument was that the state should not have been allowed to enter the family's guns into evidence because they weren't the actual murder weapons, which was said many times in the trial, by the way. In fact, Team Murdoch got to make that point clear when they questioned SLED. They also argued that Slead's analysis of the cartridges found outside the gun room should not have been included in evidence. We will dive deep into those arguments from Wednesday after a quick commercial break. So going into Wednesday, we knew that Dick would be presenting the arguments about why Team

Ehrlich believes Justice Toll erred in her decision to not only deny Ehrlich a new trial, but to deny him what's called a rumor hearing, where all the evidence of Becky's alleged comments to the jurors would be rolled out, and the burden of proof would be on the attorney general's office to prove to prove. prove that the jury wasn't influenced by her words. Let's talk about that first. In their final brief, Dick did all of his dick tricks. He routinely referred to Becky as having secretly advocated for a guilty verdict because she wanted to sell more books and get a lake house.

Even though the facts that relate to the actual verdict are this. Juror Z, formerly known as Juror 630, originally said in an affidavit that the other jurors caused her to vote guilty, not Becky. On the stand, though, Jurzee, whose very sad meltdown on Julie Grant Show opening statements seemed to hint of being only capable of repeating what she is being told, in our opinions, while she told Justice Toll that Becky influenced her vote. Upon further questioning, Jor Z said that her first affidavit, more accurately reflects why she voted guilty, meaning the pressure from other jurors.

After she stepped down from the stand, Jor Z appears to have been swept up and taken to a metaphorical kinkos, where she swore another affidavit. This one, saying both things are true. Becky and the jurors influenced her to vote guilty. Anyway, back to Wednesday's hearing. All that said, a Dick Harputian opener is a hard thing to handle so early in the morning.

Also, he has aged but not matured. Because, of course, he started out with a smarmy attempt at good old boy flirting. Yes, sir. Good morning. Good morning. And as I understand your instructions, I get five minutes without being interrupted. That's right. Wow. And, of course, he wasted his allotted 20 minutes by making this about Dick. So this is not a simple matter.

But before I get to that, I want to just remark on this. As I came into this courtroom this morning, I'm reminded that half a century ago, I sat right about there as Justice, Chief Justice Woodrow Lewis had a stand. and hold our hands up to be sworn in as new members of the bar. All of us could fit in this room. That's how long ago that was. But one of the things that impressed me that day was the oath, and part of that oath was that we swore to uphold the Constitution.

And as I stand here today, I'm honored to be arguing about how to interpret that Constitution, the Sixth Amendment specifically. I think I speak for everyone listening when I say no one cares about your life, Dick. But what's super interesting is how Dick raises the point of the importance of taking an oath. Of course, his point was that it's his sworn duty to fight for Elex rights. Or, in our opinion, take Elex money to fight for Elex rights. And our point is this. After rendering her boat that she claimed was influenced by Becky and the jurors,

Jure 630, aka Jure Z, was, along with the rest of the deliberating jurors, polled individually. Why? Because Team Ehrlich asked for that to happen. Here, take a listen to what happened on March 2, 2023. Madam, four lady, and members of the jury, if that is a verdict of each and every juror, please let it be down by raising your right hands. All right. Thank you. Any individual polling request? We do. Madam Clerk, you'll need to individually poll the jury according to their jury juror numbers. Number 193.

Was this your verdict? Yes. Is it still your verdict? Yes. Jury 22, I'm sorry, J. 254. Is this your verdict? Yes.

Is it still your verdict? Yes. Jury 3-26. Was this your verdict? Yes. Is it still your verdict? Yes. Juror 6. Jury 530.

Was this your verdict? Yes. Is this your burden? Yes. Jury 544. Yes. Was this your verdict? Yes.

Is it still your verdict? Yes. Jure 572. Was this your verdict? Yes. Is it still your verdict? Yes. Jury 578.

Was this your verdict? Yes. Is it still your verdict? Yes. Jira 5-8-9. Was this your verdict? verdict? Is it still your verdict? Your 630?

Was this your verdict? Yes. Is it still your verdict? Yes. It goes on from there, but my goodness, Miss 630, she answered quickly, didn't she? There was no pause, not a single bit of space between the questions and her answers. So, to us, in watching Dick argue this on Wednesday, again, it's like, at what point does that moment matter? At what point does it count that Jersey, Ms. 630, swore under oath that this was her verdict? Not only did Justice Toll find Jersey's testimony to be ambivalent and self-conflicting, literally her words on that, Jersey is the type of person who would vote yes to put a man away for life just because, because what, actually?

What does feeling influence by Becky, telling her to pay attention to Alex's body language? language look like. You mean, with all the other evidence presented, it wasn't until Becky Hill allegedly said watch Eleg's body language and don't be fooled, which by the way, is word for word what the prosecution said in their closing statements, that Jersey was like, I know I swore an oath to come to my own decision based on only the evidence presented in the courtroom, but Becky Hill must know that Ehrlich is guilty. So I'll go with that. I mean, please.

Anyway, there's the oath juror 630 took as a juror. There's the verdict she swore to under oath. And there's the jury instruction Judge Newman gave before they deliberated. When he again made it very clear that the jurors were only to consider the evidence and testimony heard in the courtroom.

No one else's opinion mattered but their own. And based on the four corners of that strict instruction. Justice George James, seemingly giving Dick room to say this dumb argument on the record, which I hope is a good thing, asked Dick for his thoughts on Justice Toll's view that any fleeting comment made by Becky was cured by Judge Newman's instructions to the jury. And how about her finding that those comments were cured by Judge Newman's overall jury instruction that the verdict was to be based on the evidence presented and the law as he gave it and not on anything else well then you would never have as long as the judge gave the appropriate

charge at the end of the case you'd never have a case of jury tampering you could have somebody bribing a juror and according to her reasoning they yeah i took the money but i'm not going to do what i said i do i mean it's it's i don't believe uh for a minute that that uh that uh that uh you that that is an appropriate analysis of the law, whether I believe it or not is really irrelevant. So what Dick is basically saying here is that a judge's instructions mean nothing. An oath, the thing we had to listen to him wax nostalgic about at the beginning of the oral arguments, means nothing now. What a stupid argument. It is illegal to bribe a juror and it is illegal to take a bribe as a juror.

There's a separate standard to deal with all of that. And no reasonable court in perhaps the world would ever say, yeah, there's solid evidence of bribery here. But the lower court judge did tell the jurors to only consider their own opinions on the evidence and the law. So there's nothing we can do about this. Why do people continue to bow at the feet of Dick Harpulian? I hope to God the justices don't consider that to be a credible argument. And more than that, I hope they deduct whatever.

metaphorical points they had in Dick's column for that. It's still so annoying to me that we have to talk about this. I am sick of talking about juror Z, but I guess it's not as annoying as having to hear about the egg lady juror. Oh, wait, here's the very first question that Dick was asked by Justice James. Can we consider the egg juror's affidavit? When this happened, it was like, Come on. Literally, that's the first question you're going to ask here in this serious, much-awaited, and high-stakes forum. Justice James asking Dick, can we consider the egg juror's affidavit as like asking your dog whether it's okay to leave his food bag open and unattended? In what world are either Dick Harpooline or the dog saying no to that? So needless to say, right off the bat, we were like,

Oh, no. Because again, the egg juror's opinion is, in the words of Joey Tribiani on friends, moo, like a cow's opinion. Doesn't matter. Egg juror, or as she's more formally known, Egg Lady, was kicked off the jury on the last day of the trial before deliberations after an investigation showed that she had spoken to people outside the courtroom about the case, counter to Judge Newman's instructions every single day for six weeks. And not only that, she got caught lying to Judge Newman. So let's not forget that. So let's have a listen to how the dog responded to the question about his open bag of food.

I mean, how Dick responded to Justice James' question about whether the court could consider the Egg Ladies' affidavit. I'd like you to. Well, in the record, of course, you mentioned during the hearing, she's across the street. Judge Toll said, no, she's not going to testify. She let the alternate juror testify for impeachment of Ms. Hill. That's what her stated reason for was during the hearing. What was the rationale for her not allowing the egg juror to testify? I don't know.

Because as you point out, if juror 741 was to impeach Becky Hill's credibility, now, of course, she was not a deliberating juror. Neither was the alternate. Correct. You did testify. Correct. So my question is this, and I'm sure Mr. Waters will cover this, if the egg juror's testimony was just as theoretically impeaching as juror 70 or the alternate juror's testimony, 741,

why wasn't the egg juror allowed to testify? I'm not sure that she stated a coherent region otherwise, other than she wasn't going to. I am honestly not sure why Justice James cares about this. Because, like we said, Becky's credibility was already impeached by Rhonda McElven, juror 630, and alternate juror 741. What else was needed to know that Becky wasn't fully credible? We're all on the same page there. Becky lies. She lied to our pals in the media when she indicated to them that Judge Newman had kicked Liz and I out of the courtroom.

during Elyx trial. No such thing ever happened or came close to ever happening. Becky lied when she took a reporter's full draft of a story that that reporter accidentally emailed to Becky and presented it as her own work in the foreword of her book. Becky lied when she said that she didn't show members of the media photos of Maggie and Paul's dead bodies. You know, sealed evidence. Which, by the way, little did Becky know how little she could trust her pals in the media to be discreet with that, because one member, allegedly Jen Wood of Fitznews, appears to have emailed at least one of those photos to at least one woman who she met in a Murdoch Facebook forum, giving away not only the time and date of when that

photo was taken, but where it was taken. And I don't know what happened under questioning from Sled if Jen actually gave up her source. But Becky was a woman. criminally charged with perjury because she denied doing this on the stand. This is all to say that we know Becky is on the record as a liar. But so is Egg Lady. So why would Justice Toll put her on the stand? She already had what she needed to not believe Becky. In our opinions, it was super nice of Justice Toll to allow the Egg Lady's affidavit to be entered onto the record,

which means she considered it in her decision. So what's the deal, Justice James? Why ask about that? Is this a sign that the justices are confused about the egg lady's role in all of this? But wait, pause. How funny is it that the state's highest court that robed justices all referred to juror 785 as the egg lady?

For anyone who's forgotten how she got that name, When Judge Newman kicked her off the jury and excused her from the stand, he asked her if she needed a bailiff to get any personal items of hers from the jurors' room. One of the jurors had brought everyone eggs from their farm that day, so she asked the bailiff in front of the whole world to get her eggs. You left some stuff in there? What do you have in there? A dozen eggs, ma'am. Say it again? A dozen eggs. Once the other jury, drawn in eggs for everybody from the car.

Oh, okay. My purse and not water. All right. Well, you're going to leave the eggs? You want to leave the eggs or take the eggs? You're going to take the eggs. So, Mr. Bailiff, can you retrieve from the jury room her dozen eggs, her purse, and what else, and a bottle of water?

And the attorneys and justices literally referred to juror 785 as egg lady slash egg juror a whopping 23 times throughout this hearing, which was funny. Okay, so one of Dick's focuses was on the theatrics of this whole thing. He seemed to really want to convey to the justices the romance behind them being these legal minds who are positioned to preserve the nation's integrity on behalf of South Carolina. He wanted them to know over and again that even bad guys like Elyke Murdoch deserve a fair trial, and that Becky Hill had influenced a juror. And therefore, the court had no choice but to honor the rights of even bad men and scrap the verdict and start all over again. Never mind that this is all based on the very dodgy word of said juror.

Now, I'm going to play you this one funny part, and for fans of Hamilton, get pumped. 1776, New York City. You know, this Sixth Amendment, I was going to go somewhere historical. I'm not going to do that. But, yeah, I am. The Sixth Amendment was based on, as you know, English common law. In the trial of Aaron Burr in 1807 for treason, this is not for killing Hamilton, this is for trying to sell part of the United States of Mexico.

He was a piece of work. Chief Justice Marshall quoted from Lord Cook or Coke, who said, a juror must be as indifferent as he stands unsworn. His verdict must be based upon the evidence developed at the trial. This is true regardless of the heinousness of the crime charged, the apparent guilt of the offender, and the station in life which he occupies. You can't say it any clear, and that's with the Sixth Amendment guarantees. And that didn't happen in this case.

We understand that everyone, regardless of the heinousness of the offense, the character of the accused or the apparent guilt of the accused in no manner diminishes the right to a fair trial in your effort to set up that this is a man for all seasons moment. We understand the gravity of the situation and the entitlement of every individual to a fair and impartial trial. Your Honor, I never doubted that for a moment. I think I was saying that more from me than you

because it's such a great quote and again, came up during Aaron Burr's trial, who's such a terrible person, but even he was entitled to a fair jury. Ooh. Dick got slapped. Now, during Dick's arguments and then Creighton Waters' arguments about whether or not Justice Toll's decision should stand,

it felt like there was a bit of a vibe change with the justices. We've been told not to over-analyze the questions that the justices ask because they are not always indications of how they plan to vote individually. But things got a little weird. More on that after a quick commercial break. We'll be right back. Despite Dick's buttering and grandstanding, it did feel like the justices went easy on him for the most part. With Creighton, they were far more challenging. And Creighton did a great job of media. those challenges. To us, it felt like the court wanted Crichton to give them a reason to rule in the state's favor. Because practically speaking, a new trial is an extreme solution in this case,

to these issues that likely wouldn't even be getting raised if Alec and Murdoch were anyone else. You think public defenders are out there knocking on doors asking jurors to have a chat about their verdict? Do you think public defenders or even other regular hardworking attorneys who aren't part of the Good Old Boys Club can get Joe McCullough to represent a juror who, upon reflection, months later, wants to change her verdict vote. But the court also seemed to be unhappy with Justice Toll's decisions, specifically not allowing the Egg Lady to testify, which again is a misguided thought. And, more importantly, the court seemed to consider Justice Toll's logic to be rather cafeteria style, meaning that she picked and chose the pieces she wanted and put them on the plate

while leaving the rest. The justices seem to really have a problem with Justice Toll, saying that though she found Becky not to be fully credible, she believes that Becky's comments were fleeting and foolish and had no effect on the jury, at the very same time that there's one juror saying, yes, she affected my verdict. The justices didn't seem to be able to understand

how those two pieces could exist together. How can you acknowledge that Becky likely did say, watch his body language, and don't be fooled, but also argue that the same. statements didn't affect the jury when a juror is saying we did. Crayton's answer to that was that Justice Toll found the rest of the jurors to be more credible when they said to the extent that they heard any such thing and almost none of them did, their verdict still wasn't influenced by Becky, which is problematic, right? As the court pointed out Wednesday, you need to have 12 and partial jurors,

not 11. But again, how much credit can the court give to juror Z's word? And to us, that's what this comes down to, her word. And do these justices want to encourage a system that if you have enough resources that allows for a case to be so picked apart and allows for a juror to come out months later saying that she only voted the way she did because the clerk of court told her to pay attention? And is this court going to seriously not acknowledge? Even in discussions among themselves, the possibility of Jersey being unduly influenced by her attorney, Elegs attorneys, and her alleged landlord, the egg lady? In our opinions, Jersey does not seem capable of saying what the defense needs her to say without them absolutely holding her hand.

And that should matter. During Creighton's arguments, Justice James asked a very interesting question. I'll play for you now, along with Creighton's answer, and then we'll discuss. Help me out with this. If we craft a standard based on the length of a trial, and heaven's nobody wants to try this case again, how do we create a standard based on a lengthy trial versus a day-long trial when the constitutional right is the same? Absolutely, the constitutional right is the same.

And what I'm not asking is this court craft a different standard for a long trial versus a short trial. What I am saying is what is relevant to the ultimate inquiry that this court engages in is the timing of when these comments took place. Okay, well, let's talk about that. So one of Creighton's arguments to the court was that this case is so specifically unique and complex that it requires a different way of looking at it from the court. It requires them to regard Becky Hill's alleged statements to juror Z as part of the whole.

as a degree. But to what degree, if any, did she affect the outcome of Alex's verdict? Is it reasonable to hinge all of this on the word of Jersey? Now, Dick and Jim want the court to believe there's a military band playing the battle hymn of the Republic in the background of their decision on the Becky Hill matter, and that the entire backbone of the state's justice system relies on this moment, here, and how they decide on Aaron Burr? And Creton's point is basically this. That this doesn't have to be about the system. It can just be about the case and the circumstances, which he's right. The court can write an opinion that is limited to just the facts of this case. It is not something unusual either. They do that often, we are told. So it's concerning that Justice

James appears to be thinking of this. this decision the way that Dick and Jim do with the battle him of the Republic playing in the background, and this court creating a standard for future rulings. When the justice is adjourned for a 10-minute break after the whole Becky Hill argument, not going to lie, we were both like, so, new trial, huh? And maybe that was a bit premature. Maybe we would get a different sense during the second part of Eleg's double-barreled appeal. In phase two of the hearing, more than an hour and 15 minutes in,

Elex attorney Jim Griffin argued the underlying evidentiary issues stemming from the trial. Now, unlike Dick Harputlian, who wasted several minutes of his time babbling about yesteryear, Jim Griffin, thankfully, got right to the point. Chief Justice Kittred's members of the court, I'm Jim Griffin. I'm here representing the appellant Alec Murdoch. This appeal presents five fundamental evidentiary errors that individually and cumulatively denied Alec Murdoch a fair trial. First, the court admitted testimony from a cell phone forensic evidence who confessed that he had never actually done a physical experimentation like the one about which he testified and knew nothing more than anyone else in the courtroom. Two, the court admitted a gunshot residue evidence from a blue raincoat, despite the fact that the only connecting witness definitively testified that what she saw was a blue tarp and could not be confused with a rain jacket.

Three, the trial court admitted unfairly prejudicial evidence over six days regarding financial crimes spanning six years, the crimes that were committed by the appellant. Four, the prosecution violated Doyle v. Ohio by repeatedly impeaching Mr. Murdoch regarding his post-Miranda silence after being arrested on the murder charges. In five, the court admitted firearms identification testimony based upon unprecedented methodology that the expert himself could not state to any reasonable degree of certainty during the council hearing. And the interest of time on that fifth issue, I intend to rely on the brief unless the court has any questions about about. about that evidence. The evidence in this case did not conclusively prove defendant's guilt

such that no other rational conclusion could be reached. Therefore, none of these errors were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Ah, that old chestnut. The evidence wasn't strong enough to convict Eleg. Boy, they love saying that, don't they?

Unfortunately for Team Murdoch, maybe, I guess, I'm not even sure what matters anymore. Jim started rambling more. Alex Murdoch's interactions with others after he left the kennels that night and before he returned and called 911 was normal. He talked to his son Bustery. He talked to his brother John Marvin. He talked to another lawyer, Chris Wilson, about the case. He all said his demeanor was normal. Visiting his mother, there was nothing out of the ordinary about his demeanor. There's no time of death established. The coroner did a finger test under the armpit.

the state relies exclusively on cell phone data inside the phone to establish a time of death, which was unreliable, in our opinion. The cell phone data showed at 8.45 p.m., there's a kennel video. And Alec had lied about previously in his interviews about being at the kennel with his family. But there's a kennel video at 845, but there's nothing on the video that would lead someone to believe that there's a murder about to happen. It portrays a normal family. At 849, Paul's phone, Paul uses phone for the last time. It had very little battery left on it. At 855, there was some action on Maggie's phone, and at 906, Maggie's phone registered movement for the last time, some 20 minutes after

Alec testified that he left the kennel. We submitted an expert on acoustical testing, and it was uncontradicted that if you're in the house with the door closed and the TV on, air conditioner on, you could not hear gunshots down at the kennels. And then Alex's testimony himself denied killing his wife and son. So this was not an overwhelming evidence case. This actually reminded me of the first time Brittany Spears publicly testified about the abuse she had been facing under the conservatorship of her family. She was so clearly not used to being heard and being told to stop talking, that she seemed like she was trying to get out every word and every detail before inevitably getting shut down, which is a trauma response. So who's hurting

you, Jim? Because that was something. Also, those phone calls to Buster and Chris Wilson were under two minutes altogether, and it's called creating an alibi. One of the reasons I hope there's not a new trial is because I do not want to hear Dick and Jim talk about the kennel video portraying a normal family one more time. That video portrays a grumpy man and two people who couldn't imagine ever being killed by that man. And please, God, no more, armpit corner fingers. We get it. Things are done differently in Murdoch country, but how much does anyone reasonably think that affected the time of death? And how much does that change a single thing about Ehrlich being with them five minutes before the last

time both of them used their phones and still being on the property for another 16 minutes after that. That said, Jim Griffin then started hyper-focusing on something that actually surprised us. The state was allowed to present expert opinion testimony about a test that was done during the middle of trial from a cell phone forensic expert, a deputy from Charleston, who had previously been testified about chain of custody and other issues that during the weekend after after our expert testified and it's critical to know that maggie's phone was found on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile down moselle road and 15 feet off the side of the road and when we finally got the GPS data during trial from from general motors and the own star data

Allick went by that location doing 42 miles an hour at 908 p.m. As I mentioned earlier, Maggie's last phone activity, orientation change in the phone was at 906. The question is, if Alec had thrown the phone out at 908, would it have registered an orientation change? Would there have been anything in the phone to record him tossing the phone out? And the testimony that the defense presented was, Mika Sturgis talked about the rise to wait feature.

He did an in-court demonstration. I was going to bring my phone on paper. If you lift it up, it lights up. The phone, why? Oh, right. It is the pet cause of the pro-Elect trolls. They believe it proves that ELEC didn't kill Maggie and Paul because the GPS data of ELEC's car

shows them passing the spot where Maggie's phone was found the day after the murders, where it was tossed into the wooded area on the side of the road, coincidentally on the way to Elyke's mother's house, and that time doesn't correspond with the time when Maggie's phone registered as lighting up. Judge Newman allowed testimony from a law enforcement officer who said he had tossed the iPhone onto the floor of his office several times to get a sense of whether it would automatically light up every time,

and it didn't, which we'll talk more about in a bit. In fact, though, this officer noticed that the harder he threw the phone, the less it automatically came to life. And the reason it baffled us that Jim was focusing on this, was because, really, you're going to waste your time, your limited time on this? Do you really think the phone issue is strong enough grounds for the verdict to be overturned? Or was this whole thing just to confuse the court? Huh, I mean, four-fifths of the justices do look like they can't hold a conversation with their grandkids

that doesn't start with something's wrong with my iPad. Or did Jim raise the point about the phone knowing that Justice John Cannon-Few would perk up and seemingly only want to talk about that for the rest of his life. Similar question. I don't think you have to have a theory. That's the state's burden. But when we're looking at your argument that Eleg didn't throw the phone out when he drove by because it didn't light up, that raises the question of how it got there.

Somebody put it there. And it never lit up. So the point that you're making is it's wrong for the state to be able to prove that it might not light up. But to me, it looks like it definitely didn't light up because whoever put it there, unless it was at 906, the phone did not light up. I'm raising the question of whether this even makes any difference. I mean, this isn't crime con, sir. But sure, ask your Murdoch case fan questions. Share your Murdoch theories. Also, did he say Ehrlich? Like, they're buddies? Why not Mr. Murdoch?

Several attorneys texted us during the hearing about how weird it was to hear a Supreme Court justice calling an appellant by his first name and pronouncing it in that strangely particular way that Elex's family and friends do with a natural South Carolina accent. But back to the argument at hand. Team Murdoch wants Elex case to be overturned, in part because Judge Newman allowed a witness to talk about his unscientific experiment. Thank goodness for Justice Letitia Verdon, because she said what we were thinking. Team Murdoch got to thoroughly cross-examine this witness and make these points back in 2023.

And the prosecution never presented the phone guy's testimony about the phone lighting up as expert testimony. Everyone was clear on what this was and what it wasn't. So a lot of time seemed to be spent on this phone issue, and it really seemed to us that Jim had lost the narrative. Good thing he had Chief Justice John Kittred's there to help him refocus. And I have some questions, I'm sure we all do, for Mr. Waters, in terms of the expanse that was allowed under 404B.

But what about like Ms. Secondger's testimony, for example, on the day of the discovery of the theft of the Ferris fees? What about the impending motion to compel hearing in the so-called boat case a few days later that would have arguably exposed the extent of his financial misdeeds? Why wouldn't that have some relevance for 404B motive purposes? Well, we have the benefit of extensive in-camera hearing, not in camera, but hearing outside the presence of the jury. and where all of these matters were testified to. Ms. Sackinger said that on June 7th, she went to confront Alley about this Ferris fee. Now, I understand this Ferris fee is a one-off situation from all his other scams and schemes. This was attorney's fees that were due to the law firm that he diverted to himself.

That's the Ferris fee. And that's what was their concern, and their testimony was they weren't concerned that he was stealing money from the firm. They were concerned that he was hiding money from civil discovery from the boating case. And they didn't want any part of that. She also says when she's in there talking to him, he gets a phone call. They put his dad back in the hospital and I took my CFO hat on and I put my friend hat on, my mama had on, and I started comforting him. And that was the end of him. Do you all hear that stumbling and fumbling? It was almost offensive to see how nervous this man was, considering the fact that Team Murdoch started this hearing off on

third base, and considering also how much he gets paid no matter what the outcome. And what, did you say, Mama Hat? Jeannie Seconder is like Alex Age, and his co-worker. Anyway, Justice George James then asked what we think is one of the better questions that the court asked of Team Murdoch. What if the financial questions had been more expansive? Meaning, the defense is arguing that ELEC was denied a fair trial because Judge Newman allowed all this evidence in that they say cumulatively harmed ELEC. But Justice James was saying, how would it be any different if the prosecution asked broader questions,

like, did you lie to your partners about not stealing millions of dollars? In other words, would ELEC's financial crimes have come into play anyway? Even Jim had to say yes to that, but of course, continued to contend than allowing 10 witnesses to testify to Elyx dishonesty was overboard. Stick a pen in that. At that, Jim, whose time had definitely run out at that point, made a move to return to his seat. But oh no, the justices stopped him. So, of course, they could help him. Here, Chief Justice Kitchardt asked about the defense's argument that the weapons should not have been. allowed into evidence. Wait a minute, we're just getting started. We have a question.

We want you to argue about the admissibility of the weapons that were seized and introduced that were from the Zelle. Yes. So, and the weapons that were introduced in the evidence that were seized from the home, there was no testimony from anybody, even there, They're, well, beyond that, the experts admitted that he could not identify it as a murder weapon. Well, he said he couldn't include them or exclude them. And so, as we said, these guns, we know nothing more about them today than we did, you know, any other day. Yet they were allowed to put those in the evidence. And we've got State v. McConnell and another case where I think McConnell, where they put 22,

caliber bullets in evidence on a shooting case. And the person was shot and killed with 3-57 Magnum. And that case was reversed. That case was reversed. There was another case that we also cited, lost my place in my notes, but that... What was the purpose, as you understand it, for the admission of the weapons that were seized from Muzil? To prejudice, Alec Murdoch. I mean, that was the purpose. It had no, it made nothing more relevant or not relevant. I mean, didn't you suggest, though, that the police who investigated this had failed to do a complete job, and in particular that they had failed to properly seek out and find the murder

weapons? Absolutely. And that stands true today. Wouldn't simply a simple response to that suggestion be, we looked at every 12-gauge and 300 blackout weapon on the property in here for them. So again, these guys are so hard to read. It seems like Chief Justice Kittridge is helping the defense here with these questions. But he's also saying, y'all accuse the police of sucking at their job and not looking for

the murder weapons. So how is it not okay for the prosecution to present evidence that they did search for the weapons? And they found models that match the murder weapons but can't say either way what they are. Jim conceded that, sure, that's okay to do. but show a picture of the guns, he said. Don't enter them into evidence, which, again, is one of those points that gets raised only because of Alex's money. Would a defense attorney waste time on arguing this otherwise? Because that case, Jim cited, it's about a completely different caliber of weapon from the

murder weapon being included as evidence. It had no bearing on the defendant's guilt. Whereas in Alex's case, the prosecution was showing the jury that they inventoried the family's weapons and two were missing. One was a 12-gauge that was Ellick's preferred weapon, and the other was Paul's 300 blackout. Both weapons that were used in Maggie's and Paul's deaths. Seems logical to us. Overall, the justices seemed to be very polite and extra chummy with Jim, which became even more apparent when Creighton got up to make his arguments. Like I said, they were far more challenging and even aggressive with him at times. And we'll talk more about this after a short time. break. So, as we are watching this hearing live on Wednesday morning with our amazing

premium soak-up the sun members, I noticed a pattern in the comments. In general, our audience, who is overwhelmingly rooting for no new trial for Ehrlich Murdoch, for obvious reasons, felt hopeful when both Dick and Jim were speaking by themselves. Neither Dick nor Jim, in our opinions, made compelling arguments. But when it was time for the justices, to ask questions, the comments from our Luna Shark members shifted to feelings of concern and worry. Several times in the hearing, it felt like the Supreme Court was actually moving the needle for Team Murdoch, while Dick and Jim just seemed to be struggling to stay afloat. But again, have to say this, they could have just been asking questions for the record and not necessarily

communicating their votes in the way that they asked questions. That said, we would like to personally thank Creighton Waters for bringing consistent big Creighton energy throughout this hearing and keeping hope and sanity alive on behalf of the state. Here is Creighton arguing against the appeal from the underlying trial issues, aka the evidentiary issues. Yes, sir, Mr. Waters. Thank you, Chief Justice. I may please the court. I'll start out by saying, and again, I'm not going to, unless this court would like me to to go through the extensive facts that were presented here. But fundamentally, our case boiled down to four important points. Number one was motive, and I know we'll talk about that,

and I believe that the motive was very compelling here, and we'll go into that. But the motive pointed to Alec Murdoch. Number two was the means to commit this crime, and what the evidence showed were two family weapons were used to commit this crime, both of which could not be accounted for after the crime was over with. Number three, opportunity. And this was huge, that timeline that was very detailed that, frankly, the defendant tried to use to be exculpatory, actually was very inculpatory and showed that not only was he at the crime scene with the victims

just moments before they died, but, importantly, had been lying about that to anyone who would listen. And that evidence was particularly strong when you look at the fact that when we look at that kind of evidence, we look at patterns. And what was also so important about him being there is that his phone showed no activity, as Justice James mentioned, from about 809 to 902. And then from 902 to 904, he had 283 steps, far, far more than he ever had at any comparable period during the review period that we had. So you had that evidence of opportunity showing that he was the one who had the opportunity to commit these crimes. And then finally, you had multiple acts of guilty consciousness of the various things that he told law enforcement and all the rest of it. So that's classic case. It may have been a long case and put it all together, but it boils down to basic good old, how do you determine who did somebody?

Motive means, opportunity, and acts of guilty consciousness. And I think the evidence was very strong with all of that. Creighton then argued in detail why the cell phone experiment was admissible evidence, and it wasn't just some gotcha moment, but it was a building block to a bigger narrative when you factor in all of the other pieces of cell phone evidence. Judge Verdon then circled back to the financial crimes evidence and asked why it should have been allowed. Creighton explained again that the evidence related to the financial crimes, specifically was a part of the 404B analysis, which should have been allowed.

which Judge Newman decided ultimately was relevant. At that point, it was exhaustingly repetitive to hear Creighton answer essentially the same question over and over, and several of the Supreme Court justices apparently failed to understand, or they seem like that, why Judge Newman found this evidence admissible. It's at this point where Chief Justice Kiddrich again really appeared to be siding with the defense, At least his line of questioning felt like that.

Kittrich appears to have good old boy mentality when it comes to understanding the motive in this case. Like we've all heard so many times before from other good old boys, he didn't seem to get why the jury needed to hear about how bad these financial crimes were in order to understand the motive. And reminded me of the old argument we have heard too many times, just because a person is a thief doesn't make them a murderer. But listen to this part. it sounded, to me, at least, like he was getting hostile with Creighton,

while basically saying that it was overkill to talk about the victims in the financial case. And that is concerning. That's what concerns, I mean, I want to just gently push back and give you an opportunity to respond. Yes, the judge is a gatekeeper. Unlike the federal counterpart of 404B, our case law has said that our version of 404B is a rule of exclusion not inclusion. And the gate here was just left open. And I couldn't find any example of financial crime evidence that was excluded.

And the granular detail in the expansiveness of which everything under the sun was allowed is arguably problematic. Even the nature of the victim, There are many examples here. And I want you to respond. I'll just share one. I think his name is Tony, Satterfield, was testifying. Well, we had to hear about the disabled brother.

How is that relate to motive evidence? That appears to be that not only is he a thief with a motive for murder, he's a despicable low-life character. I mean, the very evil that 404B is a victim is a victim. B is designed to prevent and then ultimately 403 as the final safeguard. Right. To which Creighton was like Yabro. This case is complicated and the Satterfield case absolutely was relevant to Elyke Murdoch's

motive for murder because it was part of a gathering storm. Tony had read my article before the murders about the settlement that his family didn't get and he called Ehrlich asking about his money. that was definitely a part of this case. At this point, when talking about Tony Satterfield, the Supreme Court justices got downright offensive. Listen to this line of questioning. But what did one of the Satterfield children's status as mentally disabled

have to do with any of that? Well, I think the point of that was just sort of the background of how Ehrlich had interacted with them and how he, this was a family that was. close to him. Did the fact that the young man was disabled add to the fact that he stole? I think what it added to, again, was we had a witness who was testifying for independent purposes, and that was just a background fact of the pressures on Allen, because he had taken this family under his wing, a family who had one individual that he had told, I'm going to help you, I'm going to take care of you,

one of whom had special needs. He had spent all of that money. They're asking questions about it. The sympathy directed toward the victims of the crime is not related to the motive. If he's a thief, and that was the motive for doing it, this extraneous information that tugs at your heartstrings is not related to that. When I asked you the question earlier, you responded by immediately segueing back to the financial crime itself. Right. Not this extraneous stuff of of every granular detail of his acts of theft. Right. And I will just say in putting that in,

that was just that we had a witness testifying. That was part of the background information that witness testified to. And that, again, it was part of his interactions with this family that was part of the pressures, one of a myriad of factors that were all coming to a head in June of 2021. If you had condensed your theory of motive, The whole gathering storm thing, down to the essentials and left out all the stuff that the Chief Justice and Justice James were talking about. And in my view, you could have done that in about an hour and a half or two hours. You took 12 and a half hours to do it.

And so then you're taking that condensed version. You're presenting it to the judge to try to establish a logical connection. The connection is not hard to follow, but apparently to our court's most powerful judges, it is perplexing. See how that interaction told us. a lot about how these judges feel. But also, I really wish Creighton had closed the loop on this more definitively. The bottom line is that Eleg had a closet full of crimes that he didn't want anyone to know about, which contributed to the gathering storm, to the boiling point, because that closet was getting more and more full and was at risk of being discovered. How do the justices

not know the difference between the community finding out you're a thief and the community, not just finding out that you're a thief, but finding out that you're the kind of thief who steals from men with special needs. You think Elyke Murdoch wanted to be known that way in June 2021? After several back and forths between Creighton and the justices, Chief Justice Kittridge's tone of voice changed, and he sounded angry and emotional when claiming to not understand Ehrlich Murdoch's motive for murder

and how it was connected to the financial crimes. Listen to this part where he raises his voice. The disconnect that the defense is getting at and that I'm trying to ask you about occurs when he takes the, what the judge called some sort of urgency, he had a nice phrase he used when he was ruling on it. How do you get from that to murdering your wife and son? That's the disconnect that the defense is focusing on. They're not focused on the disconnect between forge and stealing money.

Everybody understands that. And my question is, when analyzing that disconnect, what's the, point of law, what's the rule of law that we look at, that the trial judge looks at? Well, again, I think that the trial judge makes that determination of whether there's a logical connection and whether or not the evidence is clear and convincing. And I understand that under South Carolina, there is a gatekeeping function that is there. But I think that as long as that let me just throw out a couple of examples, and I'm going to leave this alone. Obviously, you think there's a logical connection. Is that enough for the trial judge? Or does the trial judge

have to decide for him or herself whether there's a logical connection, or does the trial judge have to look at whether there's a reasonable possibility that the jury might find there's a logical connection? I would assert that the trial judge should look to whether or not that is a reasonable inference from the evidence. And if it's a reasonable inference, and then it should go to the jury. I mean, that's what we do with all sorts of evidence is determine whether or not there's a reasonable inference from this evidence. And if so, reasonable inferences are for the jury. Again, Creighton was polite and repeated the same thing. Judge Newman found a logical connection there, and it was enough to present to the jury and have them decide if it was relative and if it was related to the motive and Elex guilt.

Like we said, the questions that Creighton got felt a lot more difficult and pointed and hostile than Team Elex. In the final part of Wednesday's hearing, Attorney Phil Barber, you might remember him as the attorney that Mark the Tiger Tinsley metaphorically spanked on the stand during the Murdoch murder trial responded to the defense on behalf of Ehrlich Murdoch. Chief Justice Kiddrich yet again asked about the 404B evidence and set the defense up for their, whoa is Elek, who was a victim of the prosecution, because, oh no, they accurately described the crimes that he committed, and he was victimized to the jury, and that's unfair, because, you know, the system was made for and by abusive men like Elyke Murdoch, who do not want their own

actions allowed to be used against them. I was listening very carefully to all the arguments. Mr. Waters was trying to defend the admissibility of the expansive nature of the 404B. And I thought he made a very compelling point because one cannot fully understand, I think he's the word bowling point, without all of these interconnected parts. And so that's the logical connection that gives the judge the discretion to allow the fact finder to consider the evidence. So I'd like you to address that 404B issue,

and particularly that position argued by the state. Yes, Your Honor. I thought that the strongest point, I really counter that, was look at what was actually admitted. We had the victim impact testimony from the financial crimes, which I think the questions made clear have no connection. What did they connect to? Mr. Waters had a theme through his examination of all the witnesses.

He asked every one of them, did you know the real Alec? Did you know, did you really know him? That was a question that was asked every single acquaintance. Did you really know him? You didn't really know him, did you? The theme there, clearly, was that you didn't really know he's really capable of anything. He's a bad person. You don't know what he's capable of.

And that's why that evidence was, that's why you had the mentally disabled, you know, victim of a financial crime, which has nothing to do with the supposed motive of I need to conceal something because I might get caught, right? It has to do with, you don't really know me. I'm a really bad person, and because you don't really know me, you don't know what I'm capable of, so please speculate that I'm capable of murdering my wife and my child. That was the purpose of that evidence. We didn't have, whatever it was 12 days, a financial crime testimony just to prove the fact that he stole a bunch of money and might possibly have had some fear that he might one day be caught for having stolen that money.

And then the speculation is, well, he wanted a distraction. And we can talk about why this would, you know, the logical leap to I'll just murder my family and be the center of attention. And that's somehow going to get scrutiny off of me, obviously, doesn't make a lot of sense. and I think he, more than most people, is in a position to know, given his background, that putting himself at the middle of a high-profile murder investigation is not the best way to distract attention from his own affairs. So I believe that's why there's, that's the logical disconnect, and then the real reason that it's submitted is this trial theme that you'll see in every single witness who had a personal acquaintance with him,

every single one asked, did you know the real Alex Smyrda. And that's why that was admitted. Thank you, sir. Wea. It is not fair that one of the victims of his financial crimes happened to be disabled. It is not fair that Ehrlich was a duplicitous man who lived a duplicitous life of cheating, lying, and stealing, and therefore, everyone who knew him who testified in his murder trial said that they really didn't know who Ehrlich was.

Wea. It is not Ehrlich's fault that his decades of stealing as an attorney took 12 days for the prosecution to cover. That's them picking on Elyke. And when? It requires a logical leap to possibly connect Eleg's financial crimes to the murders of Maggie and Paul. Ugh. Can you hear my eyes roll? Pah, please.

Before the hearing ended, Justice Cannon View had yet another question about Maggie's cell phone. One that he had also asked Jim Griffin. And it was a good thought, but also had a hole in his logic. and to explain it here would be a terrible use of all our time and mental energy. So, please, someone, send this man an invite to your Murdoch discussion groups because he clearly wants in. As the justices continued to question Phil, Justice Cannonfew could not resist a good old boy joke. I'm just going to remark that it's not fair to you and Mr. Waters that y'all had to talk about every issue and these other two dead beats over here. only had to talk about half of them.

What the? Not fair to you? Deadbeats. I mean, okay, he's not wrong. Dick and Jim's biggest mistake was not letting Phil handle all the oral arguments because despite all the mischaracterizations and reframing, at least he can put together a sentence and not make the whole thing about him. So one thing we want to leave you with here is something a good friend of ours who is a lawyer

reminded us about. Only three out of the five justices need to agree. that ELEC's case does not warrant a new trial. Nothing that happened today is 100% predictive of the outcome. That said, if there is a new trial, fine. We'll do what we do. And we'll be able to do it even better because we've already been through the fire

and we've learned that we can survive it. So we won't automatically consider a new trial to be an injustice. However... Another good friend of ours who is an attorney reminded us of something else. South Carolina's all-white supremely court with four out of five of the justices being men, old men, old white men, doesn't really have any incentive to change. They benefited from the very system that created protected and continues

to defend Elyk Murdoch. In the good old boy world, when you can't win with the facts, it is perfectly okay to use the power that is accessible to you to bend the system in your favor. It is perfectly okay to them to move the ball when no one is looking. But here is our friend's point. Do we think that this court seems interested in paying deference to a woman, Justice Jean Tull, or preserve the rulings of a black man, Judge Clifton Newman? Or do we think they're more interested in keeping the system that has been most friendly to them intact? I think you can guess at our answer. And gosh, all of this makes us so angry, and we hope it makes you angry too. Team Murdoch is no closer to proving Elyx innocent or finding the quote-unquote real killers of Maggie

and Paul than they were three years ago. We're angry because this has absolutely nothing to do with the truth of Elex's guilt and everything to do with power, ego, and money. We are angry because Dick and Jim showed us yet again today that they do not have to be great attorneys doing great lawyering to win, not in the system designed for them. If Ehrlich Murdoch gets a new trial, it would just further prove the point that we have made all along that there are two systems of justice.

So if a new trial is granted for murderer Ehrlich Murdoch, it would not undo the work that we have done so far on this podcast. to expose the truth wherever it leads, give a voice to victims and get the story straight. The Murdoch case has shown millions of people how broken the justice system is, and this podcast has encouraged so many of y'all to work to fix it. Change starts with awareness, and boy, the world is aware of how particularly backward the South Carolina justice system is. Perhaps a new trial for Ehrlich Murdoch could inspire systemic change.

change in the form of resistance in a way that we have never seen before. We don't know when the court will rule. It could be weeks, it could be months, but we will be ready whenever they are. And something tells me Creighton is ready to. Before we go, a quick announcement. We find out later this week how we will be able to cover next week's highly anticipated stand-your-ground hearing in the Spivey case, depending on what the judge allows with technology. But no matter what, we promise to do what we can to provide Lunashark Premium members with timely updates from this hearing that could last three days. Telling y'all, now is the time to sign up for Lunashark Premium, as pretty much every single case we are covering is getting closer to trial. Premium members also get early access to Cup of Justice, which will be extensive and special this week.

with the Murdoch appeal, an update and Buster Murdoch's settlement with Warner Brothers, and the latest in the Beach family's civil conspiracy lawsuit against Greg Parker and cronies. So, click the link in the description to join today, and you will make my entire week. Seriously, I always squeal when we get new members. So today, thanks to Terry, Kim, Laura, Heather, Tyler, Thomas, Keely, Sarah, Leander, Kat, Michelle, Scott, and Heidi. I appreciate all of you more than you know. Until next time, stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight.

True Sunlight is a Lunar Shark production created by me, Mandy Matney, co-hosted and reported by journalist Liz Pharrell, research support provided by Beth Braden, audio production support provided by Jamie Hoffman and Grace Hills, case file management provided. by Kate Thomas. Learn more about our mission and membership at LunaSharkmedia.com. Interruptions provided by Luna and Joe Pesky.