WALTERBORO, S.C. — A new motion in the double murder case against Alex Murdaugh gives graphic details of the injuries that killed his wife and son in June 2021, and suggests prosecutors may have identified a murder weapon from the guns seized at Murdaugh’s rural family home the day of the murders.
Testing at a State Law Enforcement Division facility, a SLED agent concluded that “some of the .300 cartridges retrieved from the firing range and near the residence were fired and/or loaded into, extracted, and ejected by the .300 Blackout rifle taken from the property,” according to a motion filed as jury selection got underway Monday at the courthouse in Walterboro.
The same analysis did not, however, conclusively identify that the shells found near Maggie Murdaugh’s body were fired from the gun recovered by investigators.
The defense team of Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin has asked Judge Clifton Newman to exclude that evidence from the trial because it’s based on an “inherently subjective” analysis.
Maggie’s injuries were caused by a bullet from a .300 cartridge, mostly commonly fired from an AR-15 assault rifle, according to separate analysis that details the victims’ injuries. That report was submitted by a blood splatter expert who is being challenged by Murdaugh’s defense team.
Oklahoma-based expert Tom Bevel compiled the report based on autopsy information, photos of the victims and evidence collected by the crime scene investigators.
That evidence details fatal injuries to both mother and son.
Maggie, 52, had five distinct gunshot wounds, the report says. A gunshot wound to the left side of her torso and head include injuries to her left breast, lower jaw, ear, skull and brain. Other injuries were identified to Maggie’s left wrist, left thigh, her upper abdomen through the lower back, and a downward-trajectory shot to the right back of Maggie’s head, injuring the skull, brain stem, cerebellum and the right side of her upper back.
Murdaugh’s youngest son, Paul, 22, had two distinct gunshot wounds to his chest and shoulder and head. The latter included an entrance wound to the left shoulder and side of the neck, proceeding upward from front to back until the gunshot exited at the right side of the apex of Paul’s head. This injury produced “aspiration of blood” into Paul’s upper airway.
The second shot produced a “cookie cutter pattern” in the left side of Paul’s chest, and then continuing through his left arm.
Analysis also identified blood stains and body tissue from Paul on the entry door, threshold, frame, and wall and ceiling above the door. Splatter was also identified on items on the floor and shelf to the right of the doorway, including a sack of dog food.
Other evidence identified at the scene includes hair found on the top of the door and wall, skull fragments on the floor, brain tissue on the outside walkway and footwear patterns in the blood on the floor. Paul was found resting face down just outside the doorway, with his right foot and shoe inside the threshold.
The analysis indicates Paul was shot in the chest first, then shot in the upper left shoulder and face as he was moving toward the door.
The report concludes Maggie was shot four times, with one shot injuring both her wrist and upper body. Six fired cartridge cases were found in a “walking cane handle shaped pattern,” indicating that both Maggie and the shooter were moving as each shot was fired.
Bevel’s report concludes that an evaluation of the T-shirt Murdaugh was wearing at the time found that “six (6) recognized Bloodstain Pattern experts all agreeing the best explanation for the stains on the shirt are spatter from approximately the bottom third up to the top of the shirt,” while blood on the bottom third could be transferred to the shirt from contact with the bodies after they were shot. “All agree they cannot identify some other mechanism to create the distribution and sizes of the questioned stain spatter,” the report says.
The defense is challenging Bevel’s analysis as flawed.
They argue the blood was transferred from the bodies to Murdaugh’s shirt by contact after Paul and Maggie were shot, and that Bevel changed his analysis after meeting with SLED agents. They also say that they were unable to run their own tests on the T-shirt because it was destroyed by Bevel’s analysis.
———
