COLUMBIA, S.C. — Attorneys for accused double murderer Alex Murdaugh have asked a South Carolina judge to bar a key prosecution trial witness from discussing blood spatter evidence they describe in a new court motion as merely a flawed “science fair” effort.
In their 63-page motion filed Wednesday, defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin detail numerous alleged missteps by a prosecution’s technical expert who analyzed purported spatter evidence.
Further, the motion decries alleged “selective and deceptive leaks” about the purported blood spatter evidence they argue the prosecution made in an improper effort to convince the public that Murdaugh is guilty before he is tried for shooting his wife and son.
In response, South Carolina Attorney General’s Office spokesman Robert Kittle said, “As is our policy, we will respond only in court or in court filings.” State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, whose agents were involved with working up the spatter evidence, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Murdaugh, 54, is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, at the family’s Colleton County estate in June 2021.
Jury selection for Murdaugh’s murder trial is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection in Walterboro. He is pleading not guilty.
Maggie was killed with a rifle, and Paul was killed with a shotgun inside the dog kennels at the family’s hunting lodge, known as Moselle, according to court documents. The death weapons have not been found, multiple sources have told The State.
What do Murdaugh’s attorneys want?
Harpootlian and Griffin want trial Judge Clifton Newman to prohibit testimony from Oklahoma-based expert, Tom Bevel, about blood spatter and anyone “whose opinion derives from review of Bevel’s work product.” In their motion, both criticized the prosecution for its “deliberate refusal” to comply with the court order requiring they turn over any documents related to Bevel’s testimony.
In a court hearing in early December, attorneys sparred over the blood spatter evidence, which could be central to the prosecution’s argument that Murdaugh was at the scene of the shooting on the 1,700-acre estate where Maggie and Paul were killed.
Newman had not yet ruled on whether he’ll allow the spatter evidence, and testimony around it, to be introduced at trial.
Spatter evidence is made up of ricochets of tiny bits of blood or flesh that travel from the victim to the shooter if both are in close range when a projectile hits flesh. Similar to fingerprint or DNA evidence, it potentially can be crucial evidence in a trial involving shootings done up close.
Since April 2022, spatter has been publicized as a possible component in the case, particularly after journalist Mandy Matney, then with online news blog site FitsNews, published a story titled, “High-velocity impact spatter directly ties Alex Murdaugh to double homicide, sources say.” The sources were not identified.
In their motion, Murdaugh’s defense attorneys said the “state” — presumably either prosecutors or SLED agents — “deliberately leaked the information” to a “news-blog site.”
“The only possible motive for this leak was to convince the public that Mr. Murdaugh was guilty of the murders before trial, even before he was formally charged,” their filing said.
Three months after the article was first published, in July 2022, Murdaugh was indicted for his wife and son’s murders.
“This leak was an extrajudicial statement made on behalf of the state with the deliberate intention to prejudice the present judicial proceedings,” the defense filing said. “It was also a lie.”
Defense attorneys did not specify where they believe the alleged leak originated from.
Will Folks, FitsNews’ founding editor, declined to comment on his sources, saying his site “has a longstanding tradition of guaranteeing confidentiality.”
Matney, who now runs her own independent media company and airs a weekly national podcast focusing on Murdaugh matters, crime and corruption, also declined to discuss sourcing.
“I would never reveal a source, but I stand by my reporting and I’m looking forward to seeing the evidence at trial,” she said.
Judge to decide whether spatter evidence can be used
The defense motion Wednesday described FitsNews report as centering on a T-shirt allegedly worn by Murdaugh June 7, 2021.
The shirt, the site described, contained evidence of “a significant amount of high-velocity impact spatter on it from at least one of their bodies,” referring to Maggie or Paul. It did not say whether that particular spatter was blood.
The spatter “could only have come from one thing. ... The spatter indicates that Murdaugh was physically close to one or more of his family members when they were shot,” Matney reported then, according to the defense motion.
Defense attorneys say in their motion that the blood spatter evidence was actually the result of a flawed analysis performed by Bevel, the technical expert, who the defense claims was influenced by SLED agents.
Attorneys said in their motion that a draft report obtained by the defense showed Bevel, a former Oklahoma city police captain and “crime scene consultant,” found “the stains on the white T-shirt are consistent with transfers and not back spatter from a bullet wound.”
The motion goes on to say that, after a visit from SLED agents last spring, Bevel changed his opinion, writing to investigators that the had been able to use Photoshop to highlight areas of blood spatter.
“I don’t see any other mechanism to get so many misting stains onto (Murdaugh’s) shirt other than the spatter created from the shotgun wounding (of Paul Murdaugh),” Bevel wrote, according to the defense filing.
The defense had previously requested all files, including original Photoshop files, that they argue would show Bevel re-evaluated his initial determination that the shirt contained no evidence of back spatter. Defense attorneys allege that because the prosecution has failed to produce those records, they should be barred from using any of Bevel’s analysis in the upcoming trial.
The motion also asks that the court consider awarding Murdaugh attorney’s fees incurred related to the spatter issue.
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