Prosecutors to retry Alex Murdaugh in deaths of wife and son after high
court overturned convictions
[May 14, 2026]
By JEFFREY COLLINS
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and life
sentence for the deaths of his wife and son were overturned Wednesday by
the South Carolina Supreme Court because the court clerk at his trial
suggested he was guilty.
But the disgraced lawyer won’t be leaving prison anytime soon.
Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there
will be another lengthy trial for the case that because of the
combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a
true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling
books and dozens of true crime podcasts.
Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing
around $12 million from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year
federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his
financial crimes.
Prosecutors promise a retrial that the court says will look different
Prosecutors haven't closed the door on appealing the ruling, but said
Wednesday they are concentrating on aggressively seek to try Murdaugh
again on the murder charges preferably sometime in 2026. State Attorney
General Alan Wilson saying he respected the court's decision but no one
is above the law.
Murdaugh's lawyers pointed out that trial will look a lot different, as
the justices also ruled days of evidence at the murder trial about how
Murdaugh stole from clients, many of them in dire straits, shouldn't be
allowed next time.
Still, the ruling is a win for Murdaugh, who admits to being a thief,
liar, insurance cheat and bad lawyer, but has adamantly denied killing
his wife Maggie and younger son Paul since he found their bodies outside
their home in 2021.
“Alex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We
look forward to a new trial,” Murdaugh’s lawyers Dick Harpootlian and
Jim Griffin said in a joint statement.
The defense has detailed the lack of physical evidence — no DNA or blood
was found splattered on Murdaugh or any of his clothes, even though the
killings were at close range with powerful weapons that were never
found.
Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the
evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming.
Murdaugh told investigators for months he hadn’t seen his wife and son
for about an hour before they were killed. But investigators eventually
cracked the passcode on Paul Murdaugh’s phone and found a video with a
barking dog and Alex Murdaugh’s voice admonishing it five minutes before
the young man stopped using his phone.
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex
schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were
starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention
and buy time to find a way out of his problems.
Court said clerk attacked Murdaugh's credibility with jurors
In their unanimous ruling Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court
said the conduct by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill
“egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors
his testimony could not be trusted.
A few jurors said Hill, assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury
during the trial, told them to watch Murdaugh's body language when he
testified in his own defense and to not be fooled, confused or thrown
off by what he might say.
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Disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh arrives in court in Beaufort,
S.C., Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/James Pollard, File)
“By urging the jurors not to be fooled or convinced by Murdaugh’s
defense, Hill essentially implored the jurors to find him guilty,
the ultimate issue in the case,” the justices wrote, adding that the
comments insinuated there was something unusual and suspicious about
his decision to testify.
Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying
Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the
justices wrote. “Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that
every person is entitled to a fair trial."
Justices say Hill was looking for celebrity
The court said Hill's motivation was the “siren call of celebrity”
and her goal was to increase sales of her book on the trial called
“Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.” It was pulled
from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.
“As her book’s title suggests, it turns out Hill was quite busy
behind the doors of justice, thwarting the integrity of the justice
system she was sworn to protect and uphold,” the justices wrote in
an unsigned 27-page ruling.
Hill’s attorney in her criminal case didn’t return a phone call or
email seeking comment.
Hill has pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did during
the Murdaugh trial, including showing graphic crime scene photos to
several media members. The journalists were not named and the photos
were not described at her December hearing.
“The court rightly described her conduct as "‘breathtaking,’
‘disgraceful,’ and ‘unprecedented in South Carolina,' ” Murdaugh's
lawyers said.
Justices say financial crime evidence also improperly used
The justices also had a warning for the next judge to try the murder
case — be cautious on how much evidence of Murdaugh's thefts from
his law firm and clients to allow those jurors to hear.
Some brief evidence of how Murdaugh stole is fine and how it might
connect to him killing his wife and son. But the court said details
like how some of the people Murdaugh stole from were disabled or
vulnerable could unfairly turn against him jurors who should be
focused just on whether he killed his family.
The chief prosecutor in the case said he doesn't regret piling on
all the financial crime evidence he could in the initial trial
because if the jury finds Murdaugh not guilty, they can't try him
again,
“You don’t hit a home run if you’re afraid to strike out,”
prosecutor Creighton Waters said at a Wednesday news conference.
Wilson is a Republican running for South Carolina's open governor's
seat this year. He said politics won't play into any of his
decisions on this case and it is the employees of the office, not
its elected leader who will the backbone of the prosecution.
“The decision on whether to nor to purse this case is not going to
be built on who the next occupant of my office” is, Wilson said.
"It’s going to be built on should we seek justice or not.”
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