Two Taps and Friends

Dye | Murdaugh Appeal Bombshell: What Happens Next? #76

• Daniel Rosenberg • Episode 76

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In this follow-up to our deep dive on the Alec Murdaugh case, Daniel Rosenberg and returning guest attorney Michael Dye examine the South Carolina Court of Appeals’ decision to reverse the conviction due to egregious juror tampering by the clerk of court. They walk through the full timeline—from the family’s powerful legacy and the fatal boat crash that exposed cracks in the Murdaugh empire, through financial theft fueled by opioid addiction, to the brutal double murder at Moselle and the high-stakes trial. With fresh insights from the recent Netflix documentary, the conversation explores circumstantial evidence, Alex’s damaging testimony, the white T-shirt mystery, and the profound implications of official misconduct. Whether you followed the case closely or are new to it, this episode offers measured legal analysis on justice, accountability, and what comes next in one of America’s most complex true-crime stories.
A reminder that real justice requires integrity at every level—inside and outside the courtroom.

⏰ Timestamps ⏰
00:00:00 👋 Intro
01:14 🎙️ What made the Murdaugh family so influential in South Carolina’s Lowcountry?
03:59 🚤 How did Paul Murdaugh’s boat crash become the beginning of the end?
12:34 💊 What drove Alec Murdaugh’s financial crimes and opioid addiction?
17:24 🏠 What really happened the night of the murders at Moselle?
22:44 📱 How did cell phone data and the kennel video unravel Alex’s story?
30:54 ⚖️ What circumstantial evidence defined the original trial?
35:14 📋 How did the clerk of court’s actions lead to the conviction being overturned?
42:04 🔄 What happens next—new trial, venue change, or a plea?

Do you believe the clerk’s interference fundamentally compromised the trial, or was the original verdict still sound?

#MurdaughTrial #murdaughmurders #truecrimecommunity #CourtroomDrama #LegalAnalysis #BeckyHill #LawAndCrime #CriminalDefense #justicesystem #CrimeDocumentary #LegalSystem #CourtCase #LegalReview #truecrimepodcast #criminaljustice #trials #LawAndOrder #lawyer #realtalk #debate #TrueCrimePodcast #truecrimestories #attorney #investigations#LawyerLife #CriminalLaw #law #Justice #LegalTips #twotapsandfriends 

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SPEAKER_00

Part two of the Alec Murdoch analysis that we did.

SPEAKER_07

And you've been able to lie quickly and easily and convincingly if you think it'll save your skin for well over a decade.

SPEAKER_00

Defends like, well, he doesn't have any blood spatter. There would have been blood spatter. The uh appeals court came back and reversed the trial court's decision or guilty verdict, uh, based on juror tampering. So it's highly inappropriate for the clerk to show any bias.

SPEAKER_06

The clerk wanted a guilty verdict because she was writing a book and she needed a guilty verdict in order to, you know, generate sales.

SPEAKER_00

She gets charged with misconduct in office, count two obstruction to justice, uh, count three perjury for lying. She lied on the stand about it too.

SPEAKER_06

Because if they can ever connect the email to her, I think that's what they're gonna do, is they're gonna charge her with jury tampering.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they should.

SPEAKER_06

So the prosecutors now gone ahead and said, Well, now we're gonna seek the death penalty. Right. Which they cannot do.

SPEAKER_00

Attorney Michael Dye coming back to us.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Two Taps and Friends. Grab your favorite drink, get comfy, and let's dive into another episode of Two Taps and Friends.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to Two Taps and Friends. I'm the host of the show, Danny Rosenberg. Today I have my pretty much co-host on the show, attorney Michael Dye, coming back to us. Welcome back, Michael Dye. Thank you. All right, perfect. So, today what we wanted to do, we're gonna do a part two of the Alec Murdaw analysis that we did because um not long ago the appeals court came back on Alec Murdaw. And uh, if for those of you that don't know about the Alec Murdaw case, I'm gonna take you through a recap again, maybe go a little bit slower, try to get into more details. Um, but the uh appeals court came back and reversed the trial court's decision or guilty verdict uh based on juror tampering. We'll get into that more. Um, but I thought we would cover it a little more, me and you cover it more in depth. There was also a Netflix documentary that just came out that we just watched. It's a 30-minute error for the listeners and viewers who want to go watch it. It talks more about the jury and the juror and it gives really in-depth analysis of what happened there. But to go back on a recap and jump in whatever you whenever you think I'm missing stuff. So the Murdoff family, um, this is down in Low Country, South Carolina. Like I said in the other episode, I'm from South Carolina. I mean, I went to high school, elementary school, middle school, so I know the area. Low Country is the southern part of South Carolina by Buford, Waterboro, those areas down there. Um, the Murdoff family is basically a legacy down there. They have generations and generations of running those towns, that town, pretty much that county, okay? And uh they were what they call solicitors in South Carolina, what we call prosecutors. You hear his reference prosecutors on our show a lot. These are the lawyers for the state of South Carolina that prosecute the crimes, okay? Um, they also owned a very prestigious and the top injury firm in that area down south, uh big buku firm. It's a little bit unique, right? That you can be a prosecutor and own a private firm at the same time, or I think one of them would be the prosecutor while the other brothers ran the firm.

SPEAKER_06

I I don't know exactly how it worked in South Carolina. I do know that uh certain states, they when there's a small population, they don't necessarily have in certain areas, they don't necessarily have a dedicated prosecutor. It's they'll have an individual who's a private attorney who can also handle other cases like family law and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00

Which looks like what what it was here, right? Because uh he was, it seems like the family was always with the injury cases and solicitor. And just for the listening viewers, normally when you have a government position as an attorney, you can't have a side gig. They don't let you. If you're a judge, you can't have a side gig for obvious reasons, right? Like, don't you think it's such a conflict? Imagine if you're a judge, you're running the town, and then you're soliciting for injury cases in the town. Isn't that bizarre?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, that would be a little strange. I mean, it's it's probably one of the reasons why, you know, they did so well with their their private firm because you know, you you want the guy who's extremely politically connected to be you're gonna get better rulings, you're gonna, you know.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, they ran this town, they ran the the the neighboring town. So just let's put up uh Dan, can you put the picture of the family tree a little bit? We have this is like uh a meshup, but we have the family tree uh for the Murdaws. Dan, if you could pop that up, that picture for me. Yeah, while he's getting that. So this is the the family basically it was generational. So Alec Murdaw was the latest of the solicitors, and and there we go right now, or we're looking at it over here. Can you put it on the back screen? We see it over there. You go. So it looks like he's this is Alex Murdaw, and then the father, this is the father, I believe the father's name was Buster, right? And then so he was I think that was the nickname. Well, he was, of course, it's Richard Alexander Murdoch. Then he was a solicitor before, and then above him, I think the the grandfather was running it. So you're talking about three generations, and it was even before. They were all the solicitors, they all ran to town. Um, and look, all these are Murdochs. Apparently, the grandfather was really a lot of shady stories with his family. Like people would disappear if they crossed him. Like pretty much the mob in South Carolina was the family, the father as well. So Alec was uh the youngest son. There was two, I believe it was two sons or three. So he had a two brothers or one brother? I think there were two. He might have two brothers. They ran the firm together, but Alec was the next in line, literally took over solicitor's office, was the the one, the charismatic one, the trial lawyer, the one that could talk. And then he had two sons. The oldest one was Buster. Buster is it was off at USC again in law school, right? And then and got in through his grandfather through connections. And then the son Paul is the subject of a lot of this because he was the problematic one. Paul, now they all were big drinkers. So if you read any of the uh the test, if you read any of the backgrounds, you're watching Netflix, you see that he drank a lot, a lot of alcohol. The family was like a big drink. It's a South. They drink, you know what I mean? Just like anywhere else. Well, they do fishing and they do what do they do? They uh fishing and drinking go together. Yeah, exactly. That's what that's what it was. But the Paul, they would all get really drunk, and even Alex has a lot of like surrounding. Like I think in college, his friends would get busted, they'd all get pulled over, he'd get pulled out of the car, and he'd be the only one not going to jail, the rest of them would go to jail, and he was not known to be a good guy, okay? But so it they had a I think they had like a I don't know what they call it, a clam fest or an oyster fest, an oyster bake is what they call it down in South Carolina one day, and they were all drinking pretty heavily. Paul and a bunch of his friends go and they have a boat that they would take out. They, this is really kind of the story of the downfall. It starts from this point. They go out on this boat. Paul is known to be shit faced when he gets drunk. I mean, he used to get so drunk they said that he would get we his fingers would get all weird and straight, like a lydric guy does. And they had a nickname for him. They called him Timmy. So it was either Paul was when he was sober, Timmy would drunk, and Timmy was a real, real nasty, you know what, right? Uh he slapped his girl around. I mean, not a good dude, just a piece of shit, right? Seems like a piece of shit from what we hear. Uh good had his best friend on there, a couple of his best friends, and then the they were dating two girls, and the girls was his girlfriend, the two other girls, one of them was Mallory Beach. They were a really, really tight unit. I don't know if we have a picture of Mallory Beach. Let me see if we have a picture of Mallory Beach. Did I send one over?

SPEAKER_06

I think it was on the original screen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. If we go back to the original screen, Dan, um, the Mallory Beach, she's the girl that is uh she was dating. I don't think she's on the Is that it? No, that's not her. But anyway, it's not on her. You guys can look her up. Google her, but Mallory Beach. She was dating one of Paul's friends, um, his best friend. They were on the boat and he they were coming back from the wherever they were going. They went to a party, they were drinking, they took the boat, they were riding around, it was all like marshes and little river arrays, so they were taking their boat to get around places. Paul insisted on stopping at a bar, which they didn't want to do, even though he was trashed. There's a video of them going in the bar. He's clearly belligerent. He's stumbling. You saw that video, right? Stumbling down the pier. Um, they're all trying to convince him not to drive. He won't have anything of it. Apparently, the testimony is he gets on the boat, he's belligerently drunk, pulling his shirt off, screaming at his girl. I think he slapped his girl. Um, and his friend has got his girlfriend Mallory in the back, and they're sitting there scared, uh, you know, trying to get him not to drive, but then he just guns it. He guns the he guns the boat, he's going full speed on a speedboat at night, drunk, um, saying, I know the river, I'm the only one who should be driving. Basically, they're all petrified. They're sitting there bracing because they know at any moment something bad's about to happen. He runs into the side of a bridge, going full speed on a boat. Everyone flies out of the out of the boat. I don't know if everyone did it, but Mallory Beach and the girl and the boyfriend definitely flew out of the boat. They all sustained serious injuries. They all come up, but they can't find Mallory Beach. They freak out, they're looking for her, they're all on the side. Cops get called, they all come, they all know this is Murdaw's son because that name gets dropped. So all these agencies, and oh remember, this is a small town, so all the cops know who Murdaw is. He's the solicitor. So for all the prosecutors watching and defense, you know how tight the, you know, prosecutors and the cops know each other. They work together every day, so they all know who he is. They know who his grandfather is. Especially in a little town like that where there's probably 10 cops. Right, exactly. Right. So it's probably someone's grandson that he was cousins with, you know. That's the kind of towns we're talking about.

SPEAKER_06

There's a lot of nepotism.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So basically, the the Murdaw kid knows that he's he, you know, assumes he's untouchable and immediately starts calling, you know, he wants to call the father and his grandfather because they start doing the cleanup. That's when it all starts. So they all end up in the hospitals. Alex Murdah comes with his dad, I think it was Buster, I think the dad's name is. They come and immediately start injecting themselves with the kids trying to get a storyline. They're trying to get a storyline. They try to convince one of the kids to say he was the driver, which is nasty, but that's what they did. And they were trying to really manipulate and control the story. Now, there was one investigator there that was kind of not having it and and and kicking them out of the rooms. They were coming into these rooms while these kids were getting stitches, getting, you know, and and trying to like coach them on what to say. So it ends up the storyline, it does come out that he's driving the boat, but there's multiple stories. Some of them are saying he's not driving, he's driving. Paul's acting like a complete idiot on the, you know, he's a complete moron, he's drunk, he's hitting on the nurses. It's a real piece of work. That's excusable. Right. Well, that's that's your opinion. Um, so end up, they end up getting uh I I think at some point no one gets arrested that night. Mallory Beach, they don't find her. Um, and that's the concerning thing, obviously. They're worried about her. Um the family, you know, the families, her parents are called, they go down to the scene, they're not even allowed down by the by the water while these people are searching for her body, but they let the Murdaws come down freely, you know. So it's just a really nasty situation. They end up finding her, I think it was a week later, they find her body. She died tragically. Um he ends up getting charged. Paul Murdaw ends up getting charged. Um, and there's all these recusals that happen because it's in a town where all the judges know who the kid is. And uh he gets charged, and you know, he gets the best defense attorney in the state who's buddies with Alex Murdaw, right? I think he ended up being his defense attorney later on, right? And um the big thing is is a civil lawsuit gets filed against Alex Murdah because you know they're known to have money. They get a the Mallory family, the Beach family goes and gets a uh a personal injury attorney, a really good one, and he files a lawsuit immediately and starts digging into some, wants to get into finances, right? Because, you know, Alex Murdaw probably should have handled that situation pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But turns out he's having some severe financial problems because he's a drug addict, the major drug addict. He's addicted to opioids, right? You have an add-on or anything there?

SPEAKER_06

I mean, it was it was no and alcohol and opiates, I think, were his two things.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it was oxies, and it was a lot of oxies, and he was apparently like doing an immense amount of oxies. So the money, and I think the money went other places too, because I have a hard time believing he's squandering millions and millions on oxies. I mean, I know it's expensive, but yeah, you think that that makes sense? That drives it from made sense to me.

SPEAKER_06

The further north you went, the more expensive they got. You got to remember that the the main source of the pill mills was right off of Oakland Park Boulevard down here. Yeah, right. Where they have all they have like the eight pain clinics right in a row. Right. And there would be buses that would show up and park across the street in the parking lot at Publix. Wow. And they were taking people from West Virginia, Kentucky, and bringing them down here and just so that they could go along and they'd pay these guys like 600, 700 bucks just to go on the trip. And the people who live out in the hills, and then they automatically turn over their prescriptions to the trafficker.

SPEAKER_00

So it got more expensive the further away.

SPEAKER_06

The further north you go, the more expensive it gets.

SPEAKER_00

So literally, Broward County, for listeners and viewers, I believe is the capital. Was or was the capital of these pill mills, right? Um was the capital of these pill mills like you every they were literally how many pill mills were down here at that time?

SPEAKER_06

I think well the the big the big stretch of them, I think it was like somewhere between five and eight. It was right off Oakland Park Boulevard, right? Immediately east of 95 on the north side.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean just listen to viewers, these are like kind of shady doctors that would just dish out these pills. And a lot of them got arrested, a lot of them got charged, but it was bad. So he he was running low on funds and he was doing all kinds of really shady things. So he's getting these settlements in injury firms. So listeners and viewers don't understand. When a lawyer gets a settlement, the insurance company will write a big checkout, but the insurance company will write the checkout to the sometimes to the law firm, a lot of times to the law firm. It's always to the law firm, right? To the trust account. The trust account, then the law firm has to carry a trust account, an escrow account, if you will. They put the money in there and then they do a closing where they just they look and they take the medicals that are owed, they pay the doctors off, they pay expenses, they pay their percentage, and then they give the rest as a settlement check to to the uh to the client. What this guy was doing is he literally would steal settlement checks. I mean, I don't know why. I mean drug addicts, the problem with drug addicts is they don't really plan their things out. At some point, these crimes get caught. Because how he would take the entire check, not deposit into the escrow account, create, he created another account, he just deposited the whole check into his account and kept the money. I mean, you're talking millions of dollars that he would just keep. Now, I don't know how he thought he would get away with that because at some point people are gonna be asking. He's Murdoch. So that's how drugged up and and out of his mind the guy was. So he was doing all that. So he's covering all of this up. He's always trying to cover up his wife, and he's got money. He goes and travels everywhere. So he goes through that, and then the trial, as the trial goes on, the heat starts coming on to him more. He starts getting, and things happen along the way, um, shady things. Like I his his maid, uh, his maid trips, uh, maid that raised the kid. She trips at the house, hits her head, ends up dying. He convinces the sons, who, you know, he they're like second sons of him, to sue his homeowner's insurance, get a huge handleman check, and steals that money. Um, so it gets to a point where the he's playing really cocky narcissists with the other attorney. So you would think that if you're hiding this amount of stuff, you would probably want to make these cases go away, right? There comes a point where finances come out, and and the the personal injury attorney had filed a motion with the court asking the judge to order Alec Murdoch because he wouldn't, the the attorney was asking for bank accounts and financial statements, and he kept withholding it. So he filed a motion we call a motion to compel, making the judge, hey, judge, you gotta order him to give me these accounts. He won't give them to me. So the hearing was coming up. That's about to come up. So if the financial accounts come out, he goes down, right? Yeah, clearly he goes down, right? Um, so then right as all this is happening, and there's other stuff. If you watch the documentaries, there's drama. I mean, he's having trouble with his marriage, and you know, he's he's a drug addict, he's cheating on his wife and all that kind of stuff. Um, so apparently him and his wife had separated. They had this property called, I don't know if I have a picture of Moselle. We put we showed it last time. Moselle uh is the is it's like a like a ranch almost, like it's their hunting grounds. It's a huge property. They have a main house and they have dog kennels that are in the back, and they had dogs they would keep like hunting dogs back there. And um, they're down at the dog kennels, and that's where the family would stay a lot. When the boat thing happens, it happened in an adjacent county as well. That was an issue when they got to the hospital. They had issues trying to control the narrative because they weren't as connected there uh as they were like. So anyway, Maggie Murdaw is staying at another beach house. She's separate from she's separate from him at the time because they're fighting. He calls her back over. They go back to this property, and at the property, um all of a sudden they get the 911 call comes out. He calls 911 saying that there was uh that his he came to the house and he found his wife and Paul, who was there too. He called them both over the property. They were executed. Point blank rage, and that's where the case really takes national attention because it's a double murder that happens. His position is he claims that there was no, you know, there was no, he had nothing to do with it, uh, that he has no idea who it is. And like we talked about the last episode, there's a lot of motive for other people to commit murder here, right? A whole lot of he whole he owed the whole town money. He got this girl, his son got this girl murdered. Paul, especially, Paul, the the son was getting a lot of death threats. Yeah, just forget that picture. Uh, Paul that was getting a lot of death threats, and it could have been anyway, but the let's put up the video. Dan, do you have the when he when they show up? Uh the cops show up, he calls 911 himself, and when he shows up, they they show up and and there's a picture of him. Do you have the image of him? The body cam, Dan, can you put that up? Perfect on the back screen. So they show up, and this is the body cam of the law enforcement when they come. So this is the dog kennels, as you can see there. And they are they they go there and he's literally like distraught, beside himself, fumbling, you know, acting like someone that just walked up on his son and daughter that got murdered. Is that a gun in his hand or is that his phone? No, he's got a it looks like he's got a flashlight. No, I think it was a phone. It was a flashlight. He had a flashlight in his hand. He had his phone as well, and he's beside himself, and he's wearing this white t-shirt that becomes relevant in a later time. So the cops come and when they walk on the scene, it's a brutal, brutal scene. Um, they find Paul laid out in front of the kennels, and he has a point blank gunshot with a rifle, a high-powered rifle to the 300 blackout, really brutal. Like apparently, like his brain came out of his head, they said, because he got shot up very close. And then they find Maggie Murdaw laying on her stomach, um, laying on her stomach, um, and she's got multiple wounds in the back, in the head. It looks like someone, it looks like someone literally just stood over an execute her. She got shot stomach first, right? 12-gauge shotgun. Right. 12-gauge shotgun in the stomach, and um, and then someone stood over her from behind and then shot her as well. Um, so they go and they find it, they collect the evidence. His position all along was that his position was that he was asleep in the main house. So it was about a five, not even like a two-minute, you had to take like a golf cart or they had like a way TV to get to this dog panel. So his position is that he was asleep in the main house. They were down by the dog kennels, and he also says that he went to visit, he left, he said he wasn't there. He said he went to visit his father, who was very ill, which was, I don't know, how a couple miles down the road, right? Yep. He went to visit his father, and that when he came back, this is what he found. Okay. Now, the cell phone becomes his cell phone triangulation becomes an issue later. And more importantly, Paul's cell phone becomes an issue later. So he has a direct interview with these guys. He says he wasn't there, he sticks to that story. Now they pull Paul's cell phone, okay? And then in a minute, if you could pull up the kennel video, and on the video, they pull up. So what happened is Paul is boarding one of his friend's dogs in the kennel. So it just so happens, right around the time of the murder, I think literally seconds before, the friend texts him, hey, can you give me a picture or send me a video of the dog letting me know how he's doing? So he videos the dog and he sends that video like moments before they figure out the time of the murder was. The issue is when they do play that video, they hear Alex Murdoch's voice on there. Correct. Right? Do you guys have that video, Dan? Can you pull that up? All right, here's the video. Again, this is him showing in the dog.

SPEAKER_07

Just four minutes after that, they're gonna stop it.

SPEAKER_00

So moments after that, he gets murdered. So now the timelines don't make sense anymore for Alex Murray, right? Did you hear that? I mean, you you heard that. Yeah, I heard.

SPEAKER_06

I mean, obviously I can't identify his voice, but there there's another person the male there.

SPEAKER_00

Now, I'm gonna tell you that I've watched a lot of these. I've watched his whole testimony. I I've studied this case very well, and I could tell you that my opinion is that's clearly his voice. Okay, but it becomes it is it bec it turns out it is later, because he actually admits it, right? Yeah, because he can't figure that timeline out. So they call him back in and they say, Hey, explain to us why you say you weren't there. And um, you know, you say you weren't there, but now we have you on the video. So he literally comes back and takes the position. You know, he admits that he was there and he got his timeline wrong. And what would he say about it?

SPEAKER_06

Basically, he he he was afraid that it would look suspicious. Right? That was his main thing. Yeah, it would look suspicious if he was around there at the time of the murders. So he said he wasn't there. Right. And you know the express the Latin expression is uh phallus and phallus andum, phallus and omnibus, which is if you lie about one thing, you're lying about everything.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Now, the relevant thing, and now another thing that so they end up going, he gets charged with murder, goes to trial. The trial is very publicized. We all watched it, okay? Uh he and you remember the guy's got a big, big ego, okay? He's a narcissist. So mistake, one of the biggest mistakes um was, you know, we talked about it. He took the stand, right? Yeah. But we'll get to that in a minute. So we what do they have at trial, right? Let's talk about what they had at the trial before we get to this overturning, right? So what do they have?

SPEAKER_06

They had no murder weapons. Right.

SPEAKER_00

Uh guns are never found.

SPEAKER_06

Essentially, they had the fact that he had lied about his location. Um, and then they they had to come up with a motive. And the motive what seemed to be, you know, a lot of speculation on the part of the police. They I think the motive that they went with to the jury was that um he knew that his financial world was gonna collapse around him. So he wanted to have everybody's sympathy for being having his wife and kids recently passing away. Right. Which to me sounds like a real stretch.

SPEAKER_00

Um or the other angle I heard was that you know he just wanted uh he just wanted attention off of the financial distraction. And what happened though is right after this murder, they dropped that injury case. You know that, right? So the injury attorney, no, the injury attorney goes and voluntarily dismisses it because they did feel bad for him because the whole town was like, oh my god, this is terrible. You watch this kid get executed. Now it worked, it it worked temporarily, obviously till the starting the timeline started not working out. So, also what's missing, a big thing, the prosecution um is missing the guns. And there's a lot of another issue is is the clothing he was wearing, right? Because the defense was like, listen, he's wearing a white t-shirt. If he would have executed close range, and let's show some of the before we get to that, let's show, yeah, the t-shirts. So if he would have executed someone close range, this on the on the right side, this is what they found him with. Literally, earlier in the day, he's riding around with Paul, his son, and they're videoing it that same day. And and he this is before the shooting, a little bit before, not much longer, because I think it was almost like dusk, and this happened like right after right after nightfall. Um, and that's the shirt he's wearing, right? So he's saying the defense, like, well, he doesn't have any blood spatter. There would have been blood spatter. We'll show you the injuries, they were brutal. Not the injuries, but the at least how close they were. Uh so everybody's question is where is this shirt, right? And they never find this shirt, right? And that's the big thing. Because if he was wearing, he clearly is not wearing that shirt if he did commit the murder. You agree with that, right?

SPEAKER_06

Not necessarily.

SPEAKER_00

But well, I mean, what do you mean? If he executes someone close range, do it.

SPEAKER_06

It's simple physics. If you if I shoot you from here, the blood splatter goes that way.

SPEAKER_00

Uh uh he's a sh a how a high-powered rifle. Even more head off, you don't think some splatter would come this way?

SPEAKER_06

Not necessarily. It depends on what range. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I mean Well, you would think, not that we're scientists or we know there's experts for this that we call into the stand, but you would think that it wouldn't be, and this shirt would be highly relevant, and mysteriously that shirt disappeared. Okay. Now, can you show the pictures of uh Paul Murdaw's uh gunshots? All right, this is Murdaw. This is how apparently he was standing turning, he was in the kennel trying to get food. Again, he was in a room, like a supply room in the kennel getting food. And when he turned around, he ran right into his assailant, who was blocking, they determined was blocking the doorway, and he got shot with first he got shot in that shoulder, that first shoulder wound. He apparently was able to, like, that didn't kill him. He stepped towards the shooter, and a second rifle was grabbed, and from down up was executed close range in the head, and that's the really brutal shot that you know his brain came out. It was really, really bad.

SPEAKER_06

There was two different rifles used? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Two different rifles there. They said that he switched. One was a shotgun and one was a rifle. And then with Maggie, he used a rifle. You can pull up Maggie's. Maggie, they found she was laying face first, and they put and this was a high-powered rifle, not a shotgun.

SPEAKER_06

No, no, the Maggie was a 12-gauge.

SPEAKER_00

No, I think Maggie, Paul was a 12-gauge of the head.

SPEAKER_06

Paul, I thought was a 300 blackout.

SPEAKER_00

Well, well, either way, they were different rifles. Okay, but this one, there's a shot to the stomach. That first one there, they think was the first shot. And then there was uh one, I think when he was walking up from the other angle, he shot a shot or then, and then from the other angle, he shot the leg, and then he walked up on top, or whoever the assailant was walked up on top and then finished off with a couple of other bullets. So, either way, these were brutal. Some of them were up close. You would think there would be blood spatter on the case. Okay. Now, case goes to trial. They're going through all this, they're showing all that. The side, the cell phone triangulation also becomes an issue because they're looking at where the cell phone was. Maggie's phone was thrown, was found, what was it, a couple miles down the road in the business like that?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They think whoever tossed the phone. Now, the thing is, is they found the phone in between Paul, Alex Murdaw's, the in in Moselle, the ranch, and his father's house. So the prosecution's position is he executes his family, then goes to the father to create some kind of an alibi or something. So he's witnessed there and then comes back and reports it, and the bodies were there the entire time. That's the position. So the cell phone being dumped along the way makes sense. Now, this is circumstantial evidence, right? We talked about this. You want to explain circumstantial evidence for the listeners and viewers again?

SPEAKER_06

There's direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. Uh, best ways by example, uh, direct evidence would be a uh bloody thumbprint right at the scene.

SPEAKER_00

DNA.

SPEAKER_06

And DNA, right? Uh a video tape that shows him pulling the trigger, something that it clearly identifies the person, uh connects the person to the situation. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that logically leads you to a conclusion.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So that is and now circumstantial evidence is evidence, right? We say that in jury in jury selection. It is evidence and instructions. Like you have to consider it, but you know, it's attackable. It's a lot more attackable because remember, if you can show or if there's a reasonable doubt it happened, you have to could you have to give a not guilty verdict. So it's attackable. So this is an all-circumstantial evidence case. Normally, me and you are handling this, or me and Larry, or whoever the lawyer is, Fred probably, even Haddad, would not put the client on the stand, right? No. We almost never put the client on the stand. And we talked about that because a lot of things can go wrong. Uh, they're subject to cross-examination by the prosecutor. And if the state's burden is their burden completely, they have to put up the entire case. If we don't think they have enough, then we can just get up and talk about how they don't have enough. There's no reason for our guy or our girl to sink themselves on the stand. Or even if they didn't and they're innocent, they make one mistake or sleight of word or anything like that, and the jury is gonna is gonna light them up. But this guy had to take the stand. And I we have an opinion on that.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, it's uh it was his own ego. Uh he didn't seem to be capable of sitting back and letting other attorneys call the shots in his case.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And and look, he was a very good trial lawyer, apparently. So I could see that. But if you're a good trial lawyer and your ego is not swollen, a lot of trial lawyers have a swollen ego, but like if you're you're able to know when to sit down and when to shut up and when let somebody else take over. So he takes the stand and it ends up being catastrophe. Okay. Um, number one, he comes out and he just admits to lying about everything, right? I think his position was like, let me just win the jury over with my charisma. And he admits to lying literally over and over and over again. And the prosecutor eats him up. He literally like, all right, well, you lied about this, and you lied about that, and you lied about this, and that repeatedly lie, you lie, you lie. That sits subconsciously, it sits in the jurors' heads, and they'll never believe a word you're gonna say now, right? And just if we can place some of the cross, we have some of the cross, we figure we watch it for a minute, just so you can kind of see how this went down.

SPEAKER_05

Any alibi in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_00

Can you turn are the viewers hearing this?

SPEAKER_01

Murdoch insisted someone else was responsible for killing his wife and son on June 7, 2021.

SPEAKER_04

The person or people who did what I saw on June the 7th, they hated Paul Murdoch.

SPEAKER_01

But prosecutor Creighton Waters insists Murdoch is the killer and grilled him for nearly six hours about his repeated lying.

SPEAKER_07

And you've been able to lie quickly and easily and convincingly if you think it'll save your skin for well over a decade.

SPEAKER_01

Murdoch told investigators he never went to the dog kennels the night his wife and son were murdered. But prosecutors say this cell phone video places him there.

SPEAKER_05

I did not tell them that I went to the kennel.

SPEAKER_01

Showing cell phone records, Waters points out Murdoch's cell phone, which was recording his steps, became very active 13 minutes after prosecutors say his wife and son's phones locked for the final time.

SPEAKER_07

What were you so busy doing? Going to the bathroom?

SPEAKER_05

No, I don't I don't think that I get on the trail. No, I think you get on the trail.

SPEAKER_07

Jogging plates.

SPEAKER_05

No, I didn't jog in place. No, sir, I did not do jumping yet.

SPEAKER_01

During that time, Murdahl also made several phone calls, something the prosecution says was intentional.

SPEAKER_07

You are up at 9 02, finally having your phone in your hand, moving around and making all these phone calls to manufacture an alibi. Is that not true?

SPEAKER_05

Absolutely incorrect.

SPEAKER_01

Nikki Batiste joins us now. Nikki, what was the movie?

SPEAKER_00

So I mean, the the it did not go well for him on cross. No. Now look, he's got that southern charm that, you know, he's got the southern accent, but he I he doesn't realize But everybody's there is used to it. I get it. And he doesn't realize like how the gravity, it seems like he doesn't understand like how bad he looks. I don't know. But either way, it ended up not going well. Jury deliberated for literally, I think it was 90 minutes, I think. It was three hours of deliberation. Three hours. And they came back with a uh they came out with a guilty. Now, it just comes back on appeal. Now, what happens on appeal? Juror, turns out that the not the juror, the clerk of courts. She was the clerk of courts of the county, by the way. Correct. Her name was Becky Hill. Can you put up Becky Hill, the clerk of court? Dan? Here's the picture of the girl swearing in. That's her. So she is the clerk of court. And for the clerk of court, for the listeners and viewers, that's the record keeper of the county. So their job is to create all the files, keep the files, bring documents to the courtroom, organize the documents. That's their role. They're the record keepers for the county. So there is the clerk of court who is the elected official. That's her job. And then she's got a bunch of clerks that work underneath her for her, right? So every courtroom has an assigned clerk of court. Now, in this little town, the clerk of court is sitting in the courtroom with the judge. And I think she's probably on the biggest case there is. That's why they had her in there.

SPEAKER_06

Well, there's probably only one courtroom going on in the county at the time.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So she's literally sitting there. Now the clerk, we talked about this last episode. The clerk and the main bailiff are the ones that interact with the jurors. Anyone that's done jury duty knows if you get picked for a jury, you're moving from room to room with the clerk and the uh not necessarily the bailiff isn't really moving you around, but the clerk is the one conversing with you. So if you have a question about the evidence, you talk to the clerk. If it's a scheduling thing, you talk to the clerk. The clerk lets you know when you're going to lunch, what time you're coming home, what time you need to come back, right? You're interacting the most with the clerk. So it's highly inappropriate for the clerk to show any bias, to make any statements. And this, she was outrageous. Did you see this?

SPEAKER_06

It was bad.

SPEAKER_00

She, when he took the stand, she made quotes, she said, This is an epic day, quote. Uh pay attention to his body movements. She said that's insane for someone to say that, right? Don't be fooled. This is the biggest one. Yeah. Don't be fooled by what the defense says. You can't get more egregious than that. No. You, if you're a defense attorney and you know that there's a person in the back who has a position of authority that these people are looking up to, and she's telling them just ignore what the defense is saying to you. That's uh clearly reversible. I mean, I don't think I don't know how anybody in the state can be.

SPEAKER_06

I don't know why the state didn't have just concede at that point.

SPEAKER_00

I would have just conceded. I would have called for a mistrial. I mean, it was too late. They found out after the fact, right? Um, but I would have conceded, I wouldn't have fought it. You know, they went and they fought the appeal. They said basically their position was, you know, it didn't affect the verdict. Harmless error. Harmless error, which is ridiculous. So they reverse it. Uh, well, first of all, they charge her along the way. She gets charged with misconduct in office, count two, obstruction to justice, uh, count three perjury for lying. She lied on the stand about it, too. These jurors came out and and they uh and they um and they testified to this. Now, they also really sketchy thing that this could documentary cover that I forgot, they removed the juror the day of deliberation. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_06

That was the egg juror. Right.

SPEAKER_00

But tell tell them why they called the egg juror. It's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_06

Oh, because uh the judge when after he'd removed her, said, Do you have anything left in the jury room? And she said, I think I have a dozen eggs.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_06

And so it's all laughed.

SPEAKER_00

Because she was eating the hard-boiled eggs for the day, you know? So they called her the egg juror, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_06

But the the problem was that um she had gone ahead, the clerk had gone ahead and uh told her, I forgot exactly what it was that the clerk told her. She said, you know, the egg juror said, Well, we're missing the two guns, and the clerk of court told her you're never gonna see those guns again. And the the clerk of court said something basically telling her that Murdaw was guilty. And the egg juror said essentially that she was gonna keep an open mind to it. Right. That's right. And so the next morning when they come in, there had been an anonymous public email stating that the egg juror had been discussing the case outside of the courthouse. Right. And because of that, the judge removed her. Of course, they haven't proved it yet, but the implication is that the clerk wanted a guilty verdict because she was writing a book and she needed a guilty verdict in order to, you know, generate sales. And so the clerk wanted a guilty verdict, and when she saw that there was a juror who wasn't going along with her program, she created the anonymous tip to have the juror removed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, this is crazy egregious. And she ended up with three years' probation. She should be put in jail.

SPEAKER_06

She should be in prison for as long as Murder is.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And clearly, like an anonymous, she literally has this. So they went to the scene. They went to the scene at one point to Moselle to where the murders happened, and like she's walking amongst them. I heard saying stuff like, Oh, can imagine how Maggie felt finding her son, like literally making it worse than it already is. Yeah. And then she gets an indication that this juror is not going to go in the way that she wants. And mysteriously, the next day, there's an anonymous email to the judge's chambers, right? It was to the judge directly. So clearly it got reversed, right? I mean, clearly the courts were going to reverse that. I think she should she got away with a lot more. And but the book thing is another.

SPEAKER_06

Well, they haven't charged her, they never charged her with jury tampering. So they're holding on to that one. Uh because if I think if they can ever prove that she uh there is no statute of limitations on felonies in South Carolina. Really? I know that for a fact because I had to do some research into that. I bet. And I don't want to know. It's a good story.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

And so at any rate, uh they're holding on to that one because if they can ever connect the email to her, I think that's what they're gonna do, is they're gonna charge her with jury tampering.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they should. And another part of the documentary talks about is the book. This woman was doing daily Zooms with a book publisher or uh editor, and talking about, I mean, literally, he he in the documentary, they show clips of her, like, oh, the jurors were treating us like they wanted my autograph. Yeah, she's a real piece of work, and she had a whole plan to put out a book the entire time. I don't see how this woman's not in prison.

SPEAKER_06

I don't either. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, literally, so that if you want to watch that documentary, it'll tell you more about this woman. So this is just a shitshow all the way around. Now, whether Alex Murdaw is guilty or not, I mean, honestly, at the end of the world, we talked about last episode. In the middle of all of it, he gets shot in the head. He like paid his cousin to try to shoot him. The guy wouldn't shoot him, so he shot himself and then shot at try shot at his cousin. Like, it's just a mess all the way around. It's the craziest story. It's worth watching all of them. Now, what we talked about last time is how is he gonna get an impartial jury now, right? Well, here's another thing.

SPEAKER_06

The prosecutor is now running for governor. So the prosecutor's now gone ahead and said, Well, now we're gonna seek the death penalty. Right. Which they cannot do because of the fact that all right, he already got life in prison, and now because he successfully appealed, now you're gonna try to give him the death penalty. Yeah, that's it. It's stupid, and it's the what's it called?

SPEAKER_00

There's a name for it.

SPEAKER_06

Vindictive prosecution. And you know, the problem is that he's running for governor, he wants to make himself a problem. Right. He's a jackass.

SPEAKER_00

He is, I saw him. He was very upsetting too because he's clearly a politician. He's throwing sound bites on there. He had nothing to do with the first trial. No. Was he the prosecutor at the time? He's a newbie, he's like this young guy that's just running his mouth. We're gonna seek the death penalty now. And if they were smart, they would do a plea, like we talked, right? Yeah, often. Second degree murder, like maybe get him, I mean, how old is he? 58, give him 25 years, no parole?

SPEAKER_06

Second degree murder, Alfred plea, let him uh, you know.

SPEAKER_00

But I mean it might be But how does he get an impartial jury, though?

SPEAKER_06

He doesn't. There's there's no way.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you get a venue change, right?

SPEAKER_06

Well, yeah, you're definitely gonna get a change in the venue now.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, but what venue do you go to in South Carolina or that they don't know him, you know?

SPEAKER_06

Do you really want anybody on the jury who doesn't know anything? Yeah, that we talked about that too.

SPEAKER_00

Someone that's that disconnected? I mean, yes, clearly you do. They might be weird, they might be disconnected, but it's better than someone that's watched the HBO documentary, the Netflix documentary, the life documentary. I mean, literally, this guy's everywhere, and none of those documentaries make him look good.

SPEAKER_06

No. You know? No, no, he doesn't look that good.

SPEAKER_00

No, he doesn't he didn't make himself look good on the stand. You know what?

SPEAKER_06

There's a difference between being a piece of shit as a human being and being a murderer. There really is. And uh that's it's a pretty big thing. We uh we've represented a lot of people. But I will say that the pieces are pieces of shit.

SPEAKER_00

Not all pieces of shit are murderers, but all murderers are pieces of shit. Would you agree with that, Steven? Clip that one up.

SPEAKER_06

That's a good sound, but uh no, I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00

All murderers are not pieces of shit?

SPEAKER_06

No, because there's sometimes people need a killing.

SPEAKER_00

Oh God. All right. That was for for you, you were just joking there. Um he was just joking, it was a bad joke. But yeah, so it's interesting to see how this plays out in the next few weeks. Obviously, when there's updates, we'll come back to you guys on it again. What are your final thoughts on this whole thing?

SPEAKER_06

Uh, I agree with you. It's a complete shit show. Um I I think they're gonna I think the state's gonna have a hard time finding a jury that's pro-state. And I think the defense is I think it's gonna end up if it goes back to trial. A jury that's what? That is gonna be too pro-state. There's gonna there's gonna be too much mix in the jury pool. Uh, I think it's if they reach it, it's gonna end up in a series of hung juries.

SPEAKER_00

Um this would be the longest jury selection ever. You would strike. So listen and viewers, we for cause, we would get so many. What we're trying to do is strike jurors. So there's a juror strike that's for cause. It means they show an inability to be fair and impartial, and there's a peremptory strike, which is we could do it for any reason except for race, gender, and all that kind of stuff, right? So when you have people that have clearly watched all this, we'll be able to get these people stricken for cause. So they're gonna run out of people over and over, and it's gonna be impossible. The state's gonna have to get to a point where they want to cut a deal, but the defense might not want to cut a deal.

SPEAKER_06

If he's standing on principle, I'm not gonna take a plea, I will go to trial, I'll appeal everything. If he's standing on principle that come hell or high water, even if he gets the death penalty, he's never going to say that he killed his wife and his kid, there's gonna be a problem. Right.

SPEAKER_00

And then, I mean, he didn't plea, he went down in trial, he never did say that, right? And then the other caveat is the financial crimes, he got 40 years on that on a plea. He took a plea on that, so you can't reverse that. Maybe he could say he wasn't in his right mind and he could try to vacate that plea, but good luck.

SPEAKER_06

No, that's not gonna happen. But I mean, with the financial crimes, so he's doing 40 anyway, is what we're saying. If he gets 85%, what is it 85%? That would be somebody 34 years, and they could run the 34 years concurrently.

SPEAKER_00

Concurrent means running at the same time, two sentences. Yeah, but so what he gets out of what, 89?

SPEAKER_06

Well, it gives them a possibility.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we'll see how this plays out. I think at this point, this is all just optics and sound bites, and um, you know, we'll we'll see from there. But you have any other thoughts? Nope. So we'll we'll be bringing it back to you. We'll be watching just like all of you. I recommend you guys go watch the Netflix. There's a good one. There's Netflix, there's an HBO one. There was another really good one. I don't know. I don't know. I won't see it. It's worth watching. It's very it's a crazy story. We'll be bringing it back to you. Um, and thank you for coming on and doing this with me. And to all my listeners and viewers, thank you for watching two taps and friends. We'll be back soon with more episodes. Uh, we love you all. Please like and subscribe to the channel. Uh, we're everywhere. We're on Instagram. We just hit you know 10,000 followers on Instagram, which is great. Um, we're on uh YouTube, we're on TikTok, we're everywhere. The marketing team does a great job, the recording team does a great job. Um, we are we will see you soon. We love you all. See you next time. Goodbye.