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South Carolina’s top court on Wednesday undid the murder convictions against Alex Murdaugh, the lawyer a jury had found guilty of murdering his wife and one of his sons in a trial that captivated the country. In a unanimous opinion, the state’s supreme court said that “shocking jury interference” by a court clerk who oversaw jurors during the 2023 trial meant that Mr. Murdaugh’s convictions must be overturned. The nearly six-week trial ended with his conviction in March 2023. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before determining that he had killed his wife and son. Prosecutors had described the...

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted in March 2023 of double homicide of his wife and son. The court ordered a new trial, saying that Mary Rebecca "Becky" Hill, who served as the court clerk in Colleton County, exercised "improper external influences" during Murdaugh's first trial. Murdaugh's attorney Dick Harpootlian said in a statement that Murdaugh will remain in custody. The state supreme court voted unanimously on the decision. "Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but...

The murder convictions and consecutive life sentences for Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South County attorney who was found guilty of killing his wife and son, were overturned on Wednesday by the state's supreme court. Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 for killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at the family's estate in 2021. He will be given a new trial. Murdaugh, 57, also pleaded guilty to a series of financial crimes in September 2023 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Lawyers for Murdaugh pushed for a new trial based on "improper" conduct by the county clerk, Becky...

The South Carolina Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the killings of Murdaugh’s wife and son. The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh’s double murder convictions and life sentence, ordering a new trial in the killings of his wife and son. In the latest twist in a winding legal saga, the state’s top court ruled that Murdaugh was denied his right to a fair trial because of Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill’s “improper external influences on the jury.” “Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice,” the court wrote in...

Alex Murdaugh is returning to a South Carolina courtroom, but this time the convicted killer, disbarred attorney and admitted thief won't be fidgeting in the spotlight. Instead, it's the jurors who found him guilty of the shooting deaths of his wife and son who'll be questioned by a judge. The unusual hearing Monday comes in response to allegations by Murdaugh's attorneys that a clerk of court tampered with the jury that convicted him of murder last year. Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill also is expected to be grilled by lawyers for Murdaugh, whose fall from his role as an attorney...

For a year and a half, Alex Murdaugh denied he was anywhere near where his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, were brutally killed. But it was one of his victims -- his son -- who would provide key proof after his death that legal experts say exposed his father's web of lies and ultimately led to his conviction in the double homicide. "It is ironic, in the end, that it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder," Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Florida's Palm Beach County, told CNN Thursday night. Murdaugh, a now disgraced former South...

Murdaugh trial has gripped nation O.J. Simpson gave his take on the ongoing Alex Murdaugh double-murder trial on Thursday as jurors in the case began their deliberations after weeks of testimony. The jury will determine whether Murdaugh, 54, is sent to prison for possibly the rest of his life for allegedly gunning down his 22-year-old son, Paul, and his wife, Maggie, 52. Prosecutors have argued that he slaughtered Paul and Maggie on June 7, 2021, near the dog kennels on the family's hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, in a desperate act of self-preservation. Dozens of witnesses have taken the...

A son and mother found shot to death on their Lowcountry property. News of the deaths of Paul Murdaugh, 22, and Maggie Murdaugh, 52, has led to national headlines. Not only for the mystery surrounding their murders but for the ties to other death investigations in the area: Stephen Smith in 2015, Gloria Satterfield in 2018 and Mallory Beach in 2019. 1920-2005: For three generations, members of the Murdaugh family serve as the South Carolina 14th circuit solicitor, the top prosecutor representing Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, Allendale and Colleton counties. July 8, 2015: Stephen Smith, 19, is found dead on Sandy...

South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh orchestrated his own shooting in a botched assisted suicide scheme for his surviving son to collect a $10 million life insurance payment, investigators say, in the latest twist in the ongoing murder mystery surrounding the family. Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was arrested on charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Smith, from Walterboro, South Carolina, is a former client of Murdaugh, 53, who represented him in minor traffic matters as well as a 2015 lawsuit that Smith filed against a forest...

A spokesperson for South Carolina's Law Enforcement Division confirmed to Fox News that state law enforcement had been asked to investigate a shooting in Hampton County and that the victim was the 53-year-old Murdaugh, but he could not release additional details. "I have been told he is going to be OK," his brother, John Murdaugh, told Fox News... Murdaugh was found on Salkehatchie Road in Hampton County Saturday afternoon... Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, 22 and 52, were found shot to death on a family property in Islandton on June 7. The homicide case remains unsolved. Shortly after Paul and Maggie...

Investigators are probing the possibility that 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh — who was facing trial in connection with the death of a young woman — may have been the one marked in the attack, The Island Packet reported. The University of South Carolina student and Maggie Murdaugh, 52, were found shot to death Monday on their sprawling estate in the center of the state. It remains unclear if the shootings were related to the 2019 tragedy, the report said. No arrests have been made. Sources told the newspaper that Murdaugh was shot at least twice with a shotgun, while his mother...