Murdaugh murders: AG to seek life without parole as judge orders state to turn over blood-spatter analysis

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Prosecutors allege Alex Murdaugh waited one hour before calling police

Correspondent Laura Ingle reports the latest on the Murdaugh murder mystery

South Carolina prosecutors said Tuesday they will seek life without parole for Alex Murdaugh, a day after a judge ordered them to turn over blood-spatter analysis files about the night his wife and son were murdered.

"After carefully reviewing this case and all the surrounding facts, we have decided to seek life without parole for Alex Murdaugh. Because this is a pending case, we cannot comment further," South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement Tuesday.

That followed Monday's decision by a South Carolina judge who ordered state prosecutors to turn over communications related to a blood-spatter expert who analyzed the white T-shirt Murdaugh wore the night of the killings.

"Copies of all written and recorded communications…copies of all electronic or physical documents sent to and received from Mr. Bevel, regardless of mode of transmission" must be disclosed to the defense, Judge Clifton Newman ruled. 

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Alex Murdaugh sits in court with his legal team, including attorney Margaret Fox, during a judicial hearing before Judge Clifton Newman in the Colleton County Courthouse on Monday, Aug. 29, 2022.  ((Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))

The decision came in response to a motion filed last month from Murdaugh's attorneys accusing the state of trying to present "false testimony." 

Murdaugh, the once powerful scion of a legal dynasty, is slated to go to trial in January for the double slaying of his wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and his son Paul Murdaugh, 22, on June 7, 2021. 

Oklahoma-based forensics expert Tom Bevel concluded that the T-shirt is "stained with high-velocity blood spatter resulting from shooting Maggie and Paul."

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But Murdaugh's attorneys, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, allege in their motion there was no "human blood in all areas of the shirt where purported ‘spatter’ is present."

In a Feb. 4, 2022, draft report, Bevel allegedly wrote that "the stains on the white T-shirt are consistent with transfers and not back spatter from a bullet wound," according to the filing.

From left, Buster Murdaugh, 26, his mother Maggie Murdaugh, his brother Paul Murdaugh and his father Alex Murdaugh. Alex is accused of fatally shooting Maggie, 52, and their son, Paul, 22, June 7, 2021. (Facebook)

Under pressure from investigators, Murdaugh's lawyers allege that Bevel changed his findings and concluded that there was no "possible way those stains could have been created other than spatter from shooting Paul with a shotgun."

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The white T-shirt is a critical piece of evidence for state prosecutors, who have suggested in court papers that the family patriarch shot his wife and son over mounting debts and fear his decades-long corruption schemes would be exposed.

Murdaugh's attorneys argued that understanding how Bevel changed his analysis on the T-shirt is "material to the credibility of his opinions on spatter evidence." 

A booking photo of Alex Murdaugh, 54, embedded in an image of the Colleton County Courthouse where Alex Murdaugh will stand trial on charges that he murdered his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital/ Orange County Department of Corrections)

On Tuesday, Murdaugh's team filed a 12-page motion arguing that evidence related to their client's alleged financial crimes should not be admitted at trial. 

Just last week, the disbarred attorney was hit with a fresh indictment accusing him of nine counts of tax evasion for failing to report $6,954,639 of illegally earned income between 2011 and 2019. 

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He faces a total of 99 financial crimes charges stemming from 19 indictments.