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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: Tonight, a South Carolina braces for the Alex Murdoch double murder retrial.
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Speaker 1: Two small town cops currently.
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Speaker 2: As we go to air, being investigated for hiding the Murdoch murder weapons, according to reports.
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Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 3: Tonight, bombshell allegations that two small-town police officers are being investigated for allegedly hiding the Alex Murdoch murder weapons.
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Speaker 1: Hanging in the balance. Another conviction, another reversal. What do we know?
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Speaker 2: Straight out to special guest Jennifer Wood joining us, director of research, Fitznews.com there in South Carolina.
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Speaker 1: What is going on? That's always been the missing piece, Jennifer. Where's the murder weapons?
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Speaker 2: What do we know? We're hearing tonight two low country cops. One, the chief of police in that jurisdiction, the former chief of police, being investigated. for hiding the weapons?
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Speaker 4: That's correct, Nancy. He's actually the current chief of police for Yemesee, which is in Hampton County, an area that Murdoch controlled for years legally, is allegedly under investigation by the statewide grand jury. Well, we don't know the exact manner of this investigation because state grand jury investigations are secretive. you know, very strongly indicated by the defense that it is tied to the disposal of the weapons used to kill Paul and Maggie Murdoch.
00:02:16
Speaker 1: Jennifer Wood.
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Speaker 2: Now, if this were something the defense team was concocting, I would just give them all the credit.
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Speaker 1: And completely dismiss it.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 2: Because defense attorneys very often when they're faced with a losing case, they got their back against the wall and They will grasp at straws, but that's not where this claim originally came from. It's my understanding that a retired, then-retired South Carolina dispatch officer, a lady, now dead, was suspicious because she observed that chief of police and another man going where she thinks... was to the disposal of the weapons. I've just got so many questions, but I do know this much.
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Speaker 1: Straight out to.
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Speaker 2: Franz Borghardt joining us. He is a veteran criminal defense attorney out of the bayou there in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, founder of the Borghardt's law firm, former prosecutor Franz.
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Speaker 1: That is, that's huge.
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Speaker 2: That is a bombshell for the defense, a torpedo to the state. If that were to come out, of course, I guess in the big picture, if the weapons were recovered, then it would be a torpedo to the defense. But right now, any police misdoing, any suggestion of police misdoing is horrible for the state as they prepare for retrial April 5th.
00:03:46
Speaker 5: So, you know, it doesn't take much to get an indictment. So if they were to indict these two officers, I think that that would be huge. The mere investigation, it's not going to blow my skirt up yet because if they don't indict, well, I don't even know if that comes in. But as a defense attorney, I certainly would try to show that that murder weapon disposal, that murder weapon tainting, basically creates reasonable doubt as to the murder weapon, if it in fact is the murder weapon.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Let's follow your claim through to its logical conclusion, because we hear the banner, the bombshell, police misconduct, police hiding.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: The murder weapon, according to reports. But wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Speaker 2: It may be bass-ackwards, Borghardt, and I'll tell you why. Let's think this thing through.
00:04:44
Speaker 1: If the nearby chief of police and a cohort.
00:04:50
Speaker 2: Got rid of the Alex Murdoch murder weapons, and I'm going to go to Joe Scott to explain what they were based on the evidence that we've got because we never have found the murder weapons. If they got rid of the murder weapons, that may turn out to help the state. Number one, what if the weapons were recovered and they're proven to be those belonging to Alex Murdoch? But then back to Jennifer Wood joining us, Director of Research FitzNews.com, who's been all up this case's tailpipe three inches. Jennifer, you originally started by saying that that chief of police, now under investigation, was in Murdoch-controlled territory.
00:05:36
Speaker 1: Why did you say Murdoch-controlled?
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Speaker 4: So for over a century, the Murdoch family has had control of that judicial circuit. From granddaddy Murdoch to Randolph Murdoch, Ellick's father, they held the role of solicitor, which is the chief prosecutor. for that circuit for over 100 years.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: Okay, now I get it.
00:06:03
Speaker 2: So we're going to have to go dig up great-grandpa, daddy Murdoch. And it goes all the way back, all along throughout this case, to Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us, renowned psychoanalyst out of the LA jurisdiction. You can see her on Hulu. You can see her on Bravo. You can see her on Peacock. She got a brand new podcast, the Dr. Bethany Marshall Podcast. And you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. See, that's something I don't like. I don't like the fact. And I'm not saying Jennifer Wood is wrong. I'm saying she's right. That that whole jurisdiction, I think she called it Yemesee. Yemesee County was Murdoch controlled. You've got law enforcement, Murdochs. You've got judges, Murdochs. You've got prosecutors, Murdochs. That's why she said Murdoch controlled. She's not fantasizing that.
00:06:55
Speaker 1: And that gives me distrust in the system. I don't like that. And a jury won't like that either. You know, Nancy, absolutely.
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Speaker 6: This family picked up power over the
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years, intergenerational wealth, power to do whatever they wanted to do with impunity. One of the stories that keeps coming to mind is when Murdoch at a 4th of July parade, brought all the high school kids over to his office and served them alcohol. And what that tells me is that he was just allowed to do whatever he wanted to do with impunity. Now, what also comes along with that power is having a lot of dirt on the people around you. See, I think this is what powerful people do is they insinuate themselves into the lives of others and they get just enough knowledge about the wrongdoing of others to that they can get other people to do their bidding. So I'm sure there are a lot of minions out there who would be more than happy to get rid of weapons or to cover up crime.
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Speaker 1: Bethany, look at your screen.
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Speaker 2: Look at your screen. Okay, I'm going to tell you what I just saw. He's crying, crying, crying, crying, crying. Then he puts his hand to his nose.
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Speaker 1: He looks up, looks right at the camcorder. And then he stops and he goes, oh, still on camera.
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Speaker 7: Oh, there I go.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I got to start crying again. I love that. You know, I'm so tempted to, you know what? Giving in to temptation. Control room. You don't have to do it right now because we're on the air.
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Speaker 2: But I want you to slow that down because there's another juncture where he stops all the boohooing and the snotting and starts looking, scrolling through his cell phone, which I also love.
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Speaker 7: Okay.
00:08:32
Speaker 1: Getting off subject. Back to this.
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Speaker 2: Jennifer Wood, I'm going to follow through what Board Court said. You said that that county was Murdoch-controlled. Now we've got the chief of police, the MSC chief, Greg Alexander, and another man allegedly disposing, there he is, disposing of the murder weapons. And this is not some fanciful claim. This is from a former police South Carolina dispatch officer, a female that saw them and was suspicious. And it's not just her. It's not just a woman imagining things. This has turned into a full-blown investigation. Now, if the weapons are recovered, if this is proven to be true, I don't see how that can help Murdoch.
00:09:28
Speaker 4: That's right. And I think that's exactly why there is a state grand jury investigation. That has always been one of the big missing pieces in their cases is where are those weapons? And, you know, why they're doing this statewide grand jury investigation now is interesting, but maybe they feel like they need that.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: And isn't the end of that thought, Jennifer Wood, you don't know why they're doing it now because this claim, this rumor was swirling a long time ago, and nothing was done.
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Speaker 4: I've been working on the story for quite some time, and the Chief Greg Alexander rumors are not new. In fact, we do know that he was indicted in the mid-2000s for drug money that disappeared. from their evidence room. He took that to trial. Ellick and his father sat on his side of the courtroom. He was ultimately found not guilty. And then a month after the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdoch, there was a check written to Greg Alexander for $ 5, 000 from Ellick Murdoch. Now, Greg has said that that check was a loan for his father, but the timing certainly is questionable.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: Can that loan be verified?
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Speaker 4: Oh, I've got a copy of the check, but I don't know. I can't verify. I have not verified the loan other than what Greg told us.
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Speaker 2: So you've got a copy of the check from Murdoch to the chief of police.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: Is it Yemesee County?
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Speaker 4: It's the city of Yemesee, town of Yemesee.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Okay. So there's a $ 5, 000 check from Murdoch to him.
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Speaker 2: And he, the former chief, says it was for a loan, but nobody can verify the loan to his dad?
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Speaker 4: Don't know what the loan's for, but that's what we were told when we asked about it.
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Speaker 1: Okay.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: What could possible motive be? If there really was a loan and that was repayment, what could be the possible moment for that chief of police, Yemesee, chief of police, What could the possible motive be for him to get rid.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: Of the murder weapons? And who was the alleged accomplice? It's a really good question.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: And I think Bethany stated it quite well when she said that that family had dirt on everybody. And that's how they operated. They leveraged what they needed to leverage when they needed it leveraged.
00:12:05
Speaker 2: Tonight, a former radio dispatcher for the South Carolina Highway Patrol states, She suspects the Yemesee chief of police, Greg Alexander, and another man of disposing the murder weapons in the Murlog double murder case.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Where?
00:12:23
Speaker 2: In a marshy area in the unincorporated community of McPhersonville, South Carolina. So, Jennifer, where is that marshy area as it relates to Colleton County?
00:12:39
Speaker 4: So it is, it's nearby. Um, you know, it's like, like most of the low country, it is filled with swamps. It's, um, it's remote. Uh, I mean, even just Moselle is, you know, a thousand acres of swamp land. Um, and that, I mean, that's why they've done so many dives, the South Carolina law enforcement division. for those weapons as they kept getting leads and they would send the dive team out to dive into these swampy areas.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
00:13:20
Speaker 2: So more than one lead is indicating the murder weapons are in that marshy area in McPhersonville, South Carolina, unincorporated. This is not the first time this allegation has been made.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: Now we know that in September, a.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: State grand jury was revealed to be investigating the claim made by a former
municipal judge in the embassy that the chief and another officer, another officer helped transport and conceal weapons and bloody clothing from the scene by temporarily bringing them to the embassy town hall, which at that time housed The local police station. So let me understand this. Okay, they got to have technical legal terms. Balls the size of coconuts. So am I understanding, Jennifer Wood, that according to a former municipal court judge, the chief of police and another officer bring their murder weapons first to the police station before disposing of them.
00:14:29
Speaker 4: My understanding is they brought them and they put them in the evidence room. And they were not there just for a short time. They were there for a hot minute. People saw them and they weren't quiet about it, which is interesting. I mean, like I said, this has been the rumor that I've not been able to verify for quite some time.
00:14:53
Speaker 1: Well, Jennifer, don't they have cameras?
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Speaker 2: Don't they have surveillance cameras there at the police station?
00:15:01
Speaker 4: And that's one of the things, like, I haven't been able to verify the rumor, and it just seems so far-fetched that, you know, come on. In the evidence room of the police station? I mean, on one hand, it feels kind of like the perfect hiding spot. On the other hand, yeah, aren't there controls over this room? Aren't there cameras?
00:15:21
Speaker 1: Who goes in and out of that room? It's crazy. This is knocking me out.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: To Chris McDonough joining me, former homicide detective, 300-plus homicide investigations under his belt. He is the star of a YouTube program, The Interview Room, and he's director of the Cold Case Foundation.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: Chris, thank you for being with us.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: This is damning. Now, it's damning to the police station, but it's also damning, if it's true... Now, you heard Borghardt stating, well, this is going to help him because there's police misconduct. But it's police misconduct, allegedly, by Murdoch's own clan that owe him money, owe him favors. And apparently they didn't even make it a secret. What's going on in South Carolina, for Pete's sake?
00:16:16
Speaker 8: Nancy, I think this is actually a remarkable development for the prosecutions.
00:16:22
Speaker 7: Because you get a threefer here.
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Speaker 8: You get dirty cops, you may collect the weapons, and then of course, now you get accessories after the fact, and maybe a conspiracy through the murder charge.
00:16:35
Speaker 7: So, you know, cops involved in stuff like.
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Speaker 8: This, and they have been in the past and in other cases, they're the easiest type of witnesses to twist and defendants, ultimately.
00:16:49
Speaker 7: And I'm looking forward.
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Speaker 8: To the day if, in fact, this is actual, you know, verified information that they take them out specifically and point this is exactly where those weapons can be found. And if so, Murdoch's got some real problems.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: Joining us tonight, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: He is a star of the YouTube hit Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan.
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Speaker 1: But for our purposes, he is a death investigator with.
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Speaker 2: Literally thousands of death scene investigations under his belt. Joseph Scott Morgan joining us. Joseph Scott, the case obviously was proved before without the murder weapons.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: That's not the be-all, end-all.
00:17:33
Speaker 2: However, it would really be the icing on the cake for the state if they could find those murder weapons. And especially if they could tie Murdoch to the disposal of those weapons. Okay.
00:17:47
Speaker 7: Yeah, it could.
00:17:48
Speaker 2: But what can we prove without finding the murder weapons?
00:17:52
Speaker 9: Well, what you can say is that the rounds, the fatal rounds or the ejected casings are consistent with weapons that Murdoch was known to have owned. The first set, you know, when we're thinking about this is, for instance, this Benelli shotgun, the extractor marks on the shell casings that were found It's indicative. They're consistent with this particular platform of shotgun. All right. Now, here's the twist in this. The curious thing, Nancy, is that you have two long arms. That is shoulder fired arms. They're involved in this. We have a shotgun that's firing 12 gauge ammunition. And then we actually have a blackout. It's a 300 blackout. This is an example of one of the rounds right here. That's what Maggie was shot with. Paul was shot with a shotgun. Two separate types of ammo.
00:18:51
Speaker 7: Hold on, hold on, hold on.
00:18:54
Speaker 2: I don't want to interrupt you, but you have so much information. You stated very quickly that's what Maggie was shot with. Could you explain how she was shot even when she was down on the ground? The victims were shot multiple times.
00:19:13
Speaker 9: Yeah, and here's the curious thing, Nancy. It almost seems as though that when Maggie is shot, this individual is advancing on her. Much like you initially shoot somebody, they go to the ground, they have an awareness they've been shot, and still advancing, advancing, advancing until you get to the point where he is adjacent. they are adjacent to her to the point where they fire the coup de grace into her and kill her with a 300 blackout. To that point, Nancy, out of all the cases I've covered throughout my career, I have never, to the best of my knowledge, I don't recall working a case where I had a single individual that was using two separate long arms allegedly at the same time, having to operate these vehicles these weapons, a shotgun, a rather robust shotgun, by the way. This is something you would take out and hunt birds with. You can fire buckshot out of it, too. And then this AR platform, which is much akin to what our troopers carry all around the world. It's called an M4
platform that we've seen all of our troops deployed with. It's just that it's in the caliber of 300 blackout. Again, that round It's a, it is a 30 caliber round. It's actually smaller than what you would see.
00:20:44
Speaker 1: That is nasty looking.
00:20:46
Speaker 9: You hold that back up.
00:20:48
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker 1: Let me see it again, please.
00:20:50
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:20:52
Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing. Don't show me bore carts. I want to look at this weapon, but I want to bore carts. That's the kind of thing I would love to hand to a jury and let them pass it around.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the tip of that.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: Bullet going through Maggie's body as she is lying down? And we know that she was trying to protect her son, Paul. I mean, wouldn't we all take a bullet for our children? Trying to protect Paul. She shot. She's face down. And she shot again. And a bullet like that pierced her body. Look at the point on that thing, Borghardt's. I bet I know something that's puckered up right now.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: What about it, Franz?
00:21:43
Speaker 5: So, I would be very concerned about that, but I disagree still with y'all's assessment about those two officers and that hurting the defense.
00:21:53
Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
00:21:55
Speaker 7: I'm sorry.
00:21:55
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:21:55
Speaker 2: I respect you, Franz, because I know what you're doing. You're saying, don't look at Joe Scott.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: And that pointy bullet. Listen to me talk about the bad cops, bad cops. How many times can I say bad cops? Okay, the bullet.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: Is there any way on God's green earth that you could keep me, the prosecutor, from handing that bullet to the jury and saying, pass it around?
00:22:19
Speaker 5: I think the bullet comes in as a demonstrative, yes. I think your problem is going to be the weapon.
00:22:24
Speaker 1: I can hand it to the jury.
00:22:27
Speaker 7: I think so, yes.
00:22:28
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker 1: You know what? You got me over a barrel right there. But remember, refresher.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: The state already got a conviction on Murdoch without the murder weapon. So you and I can go round and round and round about if the MSC chief of police did hide the murder weapons for Murdoch, would it help or hurt Murdoch? It's going to hurt him no matter what. If that murder weapon, those murder weapons are found. I don't care if the angel Gabriel came down and hid the murder weapons. I would cuff his hands and tie his wings.
00:23:03
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: So back to you, Joe Scott, while Franz tries to think up something to say about how I could keep that bullet away from the jury.
00:23:12
Speaker 1: Not going to happen. Let's go back to that bullet.
00:23:15
Speaker 7: Yeah. Here we go.
00:23:19
Speaker 9: The dynamics of this thing, it can, it can, here's, here's an interesting bit about the 300 blackout, Nancy. This thing, you know, you can use, I've actually got friends that hunt, hunt wild hogs.
00:23:30
Speaker 7: Okay.
00:23:30
Speaker 9: And this is, they're preferable. round that they use. But you know, this round can actually be a subsonic round as well, which means you don't hear the normal crack with this. As say, for instance, you're talking about firing a 5.56 that our troopers carry overseas. You're thinking about 308, maybe a 30-06. This thing can go subsonic. So depending upon the load that he's using, It's not going to have the same sound necessarily. Not that you would need that out there because as we know, this place is so isolated, so out of the way. It's just an interesting point relative to the round that this individual chose to use. You've got this, and if you can hold it on that shot, I don't know, where they're making their way down. Do you see that right there? Beautiful. That weapon right there with the magazine protruding, that black box, That's very similar. I can't say definitively that that is in fact the 300 Blackout, but that's what that round or that's what that weapon platform looks like. Just like that, that's what would be tossed away into the swamp or wherever it is. If you take a look at those other weapons that are adjacent to it, the shotgun, for instance, Nancy, this is not like taking a 25 caliber pocket pistol and tossing it, you know, out in low country in the swamps. These are very robust weapons. They would take some time to get out there. There would be some thought that would go into this. Here's another thing. I'm wondering if they did not, if whoever got rid of these weapons, and I think that they probably were gotten rid of somewhere out there. I don't know that he had enough time to do it. I'm wondering if they were weighted down or something like this so that they would go to a deep area. I don't know if it's just like superficially stuck in the mud. There's a lot of questions. Searching these areas, I've done this in Louisiana, for instance, over the years when I was an investigator down there. It is, to say the least, very, very treacherous. This environment is very similar to the one I trained in.
00:25:45
Speaker 2: Joe Scott, I've done water searches.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: I've done dives, but never in mud.
00:25:51
Speaker 7: A swamp.
00:25:53
Speaker 2: A swamp is a whole nother animal. Let me tell you something to add credence to this claim. And Jennifer, please, everybody on the panel, jump in. I'm not your fifth grade school teacher. You don't have to wait for me to call on you. This is what I understand, Joe Scott. These are the areas that have already been searched. This is not a rumor.
00:26:14
Speaker 1: This is real.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Already the little Sakahachi Swamp has been searched by SLED. The Coosahatchee River swampland has been searched by SLED. A large team was assembled. The Buckfield Pond and McPhersonville area have been searched.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: And the Broad River Marsh was searched.
00:26:39
Speaker 2: They already were familiar with that because of the Mallory Beach case. Now, Joe Scott, I went out on the Mallory Beach case and went through the marsh there which.
00:26:51
Speaker 1: Is each one of these marsh areas.
00:26:55
Speaker 2: Are vast, and it's a whole different thing than just a simple jump in a river or even jump in a lake or even jump in the ocean.
00:27:05
Speaker 1: It's very murky.
00:27:08
Speaker 9: Yeah, it is. And let me give you another little bit here. The swamp holds onto your feet if you're on a search team. So it's a real labor thing. I would really like to know how they went about this search.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: Hold on, Joe Scott. McDonough, jump in.
00:27:25
Speaker 8: Yeah, hey, Nancy, I just want to kind of, you know, dovetail on what Joe's saying about that rounding of itself. It not only is, you know, what he's talking about is subsonic, you know, the speed of this round, but sometimes these types of rounds, they start to tumble.
00:27:44
Speaker 7: Because they're going so fast.
00:27:46
Speaker 8: Now imagine Maggie coming towards her son and that perhaps the autopsy report shows us that there are tear type of wounds in her body when the round hits. So if you think about this round tumbling, okay, it's now not only just that small.
00:28:08
Speaker 7: It is that big.
00:28:11
Speaker 8: Okay, because it's hitting you straight on and tearing your body apart. That's why those rounds are so dangerous because when they hit the body, I've had cases where literally guys and victims, their body parts have been torn off of their body because of the velocity of these particular rounds. And the second point I want to make dovetailing of what Joe is talking about is, you know, Alex Murdoch has a habit.
00:28:41
Speaker 7: Of handing out his dirty work. And what do I mean by that?
00:28:46
Speaker 8: If in fact, what Joe was talking about, having to manage both of these weapons, these platforms, a shotgun and this AR-15 platform, who's to say there isn't a second shooter who takes the guns and takes his clothing? At what point does he pass his clothing off if in fact these other cops maybe could or could not be involved in any of this. I think that's an investigative angle that needs to be looked at.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: I want to follow up on what you were mentioning, that he, Murdoch, parses out his dirty work to his minions, to the good old boys that have surrounded him. Dr. Bethany Marshall, it stinks. It stinks to high heaven. the way that Jennifer Wood was accurately describing that that particular jurisdiction was Murdoch-controlled, if that's true, and we already know he had a $ 5, 000 check. We know he's been indicted for stealing drug money. Again, was acquitted on that with the help of Murdoch. just that people will go along with that type of illegal behavior, hiding.
00:30:03
Speaker 1: Murder weapons, just go along with it. Don't think anything about it. Even bringing it to the police station.
00:30:14
Speaker 6: That tells me how many people were in on this, Nancy. It was a culture of corruption. It was also a culture of homicide and a culture of love of killing machines, love of weapons. And You know, Nancy, we human beings, we know when somebody wants to rape us, murder us, steal from us, we just get a feeling. And Maggie Murdoch was in an environment where there were all these corrupt people. We know she drove miles just to get her nails done, to try to get out of that town. And you know, she was married to somebody who was romancing those weapons, loved those weapons. His whole life was organized. around hunting, killing.
00:30:56
Speaker 1: Kind of like a mob boss, Bethany.
00:30:58
Speaker 7: Exactly.
00:30:59
Speaker 2: All these people working for him in cahoots with him, his tentacles running even into law enforcement, allegedly in other counties. Hey, Franz Borghardt, I want to follow up on what Bethany is saying, but also I want you to hear this from Jennifer Wood. Now there is a claim, which I don't believe is true, by the way, that in Carlton County, A grand jury indictment was originally obtained on falsified information.
00:31:30
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about blood spatter evidence.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Jennifer would give Borghardt the facts and let him give his response.
00:31:39
Speaker 4: So, yeah, the defense is claiming that when the state took this to the Calleton County grand jury, because the state grand jury does not have jurisdiction over murder, that the blood spatter evidence was basically false.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: Falsified.
00:31:55
Speaker 4: They presented that there was blood spatter found on the shirt where there wasn't. They also presented that the shotgun that was used to shoot Paul Murdoch was loaded in a very specific way with buckshot and birdshot alternating. That apparently allegedly.
00:32:14
Speaker 1: Was falsified as well.
00:32:16
Speaker 4: So that's one of their big claims as to why these indictments should be dismissed.
00:32:28
Speaker 1: Okay, Franz, this is the way I understand it, guys.
00:32:37
Speaker 2: Joining us out of the bayou there in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a veteran trial lawyer, former prosecutor Franz Borghardt.
00:32:44
Speaker 8: Franz.
00:32:45
Speaker 1: Franz. This is the way I understand it went down. And Jennifer, jump in.
00:32:49
Speaker 2: Anybody on the panel, jump in if you've got a better idea of what happened. That at the scene, an officer believed that he saw blood spatter.
00:33:00
Speaker 1: He said that, and it made its way to the grand jury.
00:33:03
Speaker 2: Then, upon careful inspection at the lab, there was deemed to be, it wasn't blood spatter. So that's what they're claiming.
00:33:11
Speaker 1: Do I have that right, Jennifer?
00:33:12
Speaker 7: Sure.
00:33:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:33:13
Speaker 4: So what they're saying is that that shirt was tested before it was presented to the
grand jury and was found negative for blood spatter. So they had the presumptive positive with the LCV and then it came back negative, but they put it in front of a blood spatter expert and that blood spatter expert without seeing the negative report said that there was blood spatter on the shirt.
00:33:39
Speaker 7: Okay.
00:33:40
Speaker 2: So, Franz, what the state is arguing is that that one piece of evidence was just part of a mountain of evidence that was presented to the grand jury.
00:33:49
Speaker 1: So, it was insignificant.
00:33:51
Speaker 2: But the reality is that that blood evidence, which turned out not to be blood evidence, was never brought to the Pettit jury, the jury of 12.
00:34:02
Speaker 1: So, it never made its way into trial.
00:34:07
Speaker 6: So.
00:34:08
Speaker 5: Is there blood evidence, a blood splatter, or is there not? I'm a little confused, guys. That sounds like reasonable doubt to me. And I'm going to go one step further, Nancy Grace. All this talk about how everybody's on Team Murdoch and all this corruption, let's not lose sight of the fact that this joker is getting a new trial because a clerk tried to railroad him by jury tampering. So I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced about this narrative.
00:34:34
Speaker 3: You've done it again.
00:34:36
Speaker 7: I'm sorry.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: It's true. Why is he giving a new trial?
00:34:43
Speaker 2: You've managed to completely evade the question and talk about something that is beneficial to the defense. Another point, and yes, that is beneficial, that Becky Wood, the court clerk, made comments, probably without any malice, that did affect the jury. And there had to be a new trial today. On day one, when I heard what had happened, I said, there's going to have to be a new trial. I still think you did it, but there's got to be a retrial. That's not what I asked you, but a thank you for your soliloquy. They may need you at the.
00:35:18
Speaker 1: Globe Theater performing a Shakespeare monologue.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: But that said, Borgharts, what I'm talking about is that blood evidence.
00:35:29
Speaker 1: Or lack thereof never was brought on to the jury table. into the jury trial. So it's irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: This is just another smoke and mirrors brought up by Murdoch's defense team. And here's one thing he can't get away from.
00:35:49
Speaker 1: Please roll that beautiful footage.
00:35:53
Speaker 7: Get back. Get back.
00:36:03
Speaker 3: Quick, Cash.
00:36:03
Speaker 7: Come on.
00:36:05
Speaker 2: Right there at.
00:36:13
Speaker 3: The end, you.
00:36:15
Speaker 2: Hear Alex Murdoch talking at the end of that video, and that video was taken just before the murders. So Joe Scott Morgan, ballistics aside, that is Murdoch placing himself at the crime scene two to three minutes before the murders go down.
00:36:54
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, you're absolutely right.
00:36:56
Speaker 9: So how do we make sense of this relative to the narrative that they're trying to put out, Nancy? in this area, you know, contained in there. And I think going back to the weapons, one of the things I've always wondered about this, Nancy, is were these weapons placed down there previously? Or is this something that he had in his truck and he had to go retrieve? Or is this something that if there was planning, which I believe that there was obviously, planning involved, was the shotgun planted down there in advance of Paul showing up, knowing that And again, this goes to intent and that sort of stuff. But, you know, in this idea of the shoulder fired weapons, you know, how do you manage this without drawing so that you can kind of draw them in to what essentially turns out to be an ambush? And what the prosecution is saying, this is a single person ambush. Nancy, do you know that neither one of these rounds or neither one of these weapons, the injuries that were inflicted upon both these victims, The state says that they were not close contact wounds. That means that every single one of these rounds was fired at a distance that cannot lend itself to interpretation for range of fire. We begin to think about the blood deposition that they talk about on Murdaugh's shirt, the infamous T-shirt now that is, by the way, is ruined. Nobody can go back and examine that because the agent that they used on the surface of the shirt You can't interpret it any longer. It's worthless now. So we talked about the power of these weapons, how the blood gets deposited. And I love it that you guys are showing this image right now because he is still contained inside of this vehicle. I've always asked why in the Lord's name was he not taken down to headquarters, sequestered down there? He's not allowed to talk to anybody else. And here they are in a squad car, chatting with him in the car. It just, this kind of violates the whole chain through this thing, because what do we always say, Nancy, you know, relative to when a wife is killed? We always look to the husband. You've taught me that over the years. You always look to the husband. You always look to the significant other. And here they are placing their damn hands on him relative to that shirt, that shirt has valuable evidence on it. And we assume that every single case that we're working anyway, and anybody in the beginning that has any association with it has something to do with a homicide. They're not treating him like evidence. It's old buddy, old pal time right here where they're trying to comfort him, quote unquote, inside the front of that squad.
00:39:42
Speaker 2: And he is up in the front seat. Why is he not in the back seat? But he is up front And look at what he's doing with his hands. If there was to be found GSR, gunshot residue, it's gone now. He has rubbed his hands. He's wiped his hands off on a Kleenex. He's changed shirts. You know he washed his hands, Joe Scott.
00:40:06
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would have to think that he would have at least some level of understanding of what we do. You know, it's not like he's not been in the legal system. He's heard about it, all right? And so the fact that he is still there You know, Nancy, there could have been depended upon the range of fire. He could have stuff underneath his chin. I've seen it on people's neck. I've seen it in people's hair before. And I'm talking about blood deposition. It all depends upon the range because the distance, the range of fire is kind of indeterminate here. Now, one of the defense experts felt as though that it was, in fact, a contact wound, Dr. Eisenberg, I believe it was, with a shotgun with Paul. But they couldn't make heads or tails out of that. So it was inconclusive. But at the end of the day, you know, the range of fire comes into this thing, particularly given the dynamic down at the kennels, given these weapons platforms. They're incredibly destructive, Nancy. And anytime you have destruction on biological tissue, you're going to have stuff thrown everywhere. So that's like, I don't know, it's like Detective 101. You know, when you're, when you're, don't give me the stuff about, well, we're in a rural area. We didn't know about all that. That's a bunch of crap. That's not the truth. You take him, you secure him. You take everything from him. You take all of his potential samples that you can do, GSR, the whole nine yards. And they flew the plane into the side of the mountain with us.
00:41:34
Speaker 2: The state is preparing the retrial scheduled to start April 5. If you know or think you know anything regarding this case, please dial 803- 896-2605. We remember American Hero Trooper Brian McMillan, Illinois State Police, just 24, killed in the line of duty, leaving behind his wife-turned-widow, Angela. American Hero Trooper Brian McMillan. Thank you to our guests tonight, but especially to you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night.
00:42:10
Speaker 3: And until then, good night, friend.