Alex Murdaugh’s defense is taking a “high-risk” gamble on new DNA testing as it seeks evidence pointing to another possible killer, a prosecutor argued, citing the defense’s own expert.
Judge Debra McCaslin sided with Murdaugh’s attorneys over prosecutors’ objections Friday, approving additional testing of swabs from Maggie Murdaugh’s cellphone and clippings collected from beneath her fingernails. The process is expected to consume nearly all of the remaining testable material. McCaslin said due process requires defendants to have “a meaningful opportunity to present a full and complete defense.”
Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and their son, Paul, at the family’s Moselle property in Colleton County. The South Carolina Supreme Court later overturned those convictions, ruling that former Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill improperly influenced the jury.
His retrial is set to begin April 5, 2027. Murdaugh has continued to deny responsibility for the killings.
Alex Murdaugh at a pretrial hearing in Lexington, South Carolina, on Oct. 16, 2026. (Tracy Glantz of The State and Henry Taylor of The Post and Courier.)
The defense plans to hire Othram to perform a Y-STR test. The technique isolates DNA from the Y chromosome, allowing analysts to develop a profile from a male contributor when female DNA is more abundant in the sample.
Murdaugh’s lawyers say all three samples contain unidentified male DNA and want to determine whether the material came from the same man. Defense attorney Phil Barber said the results could exclude certain people as contributors and might offer ancestry information. However, the test cannot distinguish between men who share the same paternal lineage.
Alex Murdaugh’s attorney, Dick Harpootlian, speaks at a pretrial hearing on Oct. 16, 2026. (Tracy Glantz of The State and Henry Taylor of The Post and Courier)
The defense estimates that the testing will take about 90 days.
Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor, described the proposed analysis as “high risk” and said it was unlikely to produce meaningful evidence.
“When we talked to their expert, he said, yeah, that’s pretty much a sole source sample. This would be high risk and unlikely to generate anything, and [it] appears that that’s the case, because when we got back the quantification from [Othram], it’s goose eggs on the Y chromosome,” Waters said.
Barber acknowledged that the unidentified male DNA could have an innocent explanation but said its repeated appearance justified further investigation.
Alex Murdaugh in court on Oct. 16, 2026. (Tracy Glantz of The State and Henry Taylor of The Post and Courier)
“Maybe it’s different male DNA. Maybe it’s the same. Maybe it’s red herrings … But as we keep progressing from one hand to two hands and now the phone, you know, it’s starting to look less and less like a red herring,” Barber said. “If you have an unknown person under both her fingernails and throwing the phone out the side of the road after she’s murdered and it’s not him. I mean, that’s extremely important to the defense.”
Both sides acknowledged that performing the test would leave too little material for any future testing during post-trial proceedings. Murdaugh agreed to proceed despite that consequence.
“To perform the test, there is enough to perform the test, but there’s not enough to perform the test and then have enough left over,” Barber said.
“My client just informed me that he will waive that,” Barber said, referring to any post-conviction retesting.
Alex Murdaugh arrives for a judicial hearing on Monday, June 29, 2026, at the Marc H. Westbrook Judicial Center in Lexington, South Carolina. Murdaugh will be retried in the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife and son, after his original conviction was overturned due to jury tampering. (Tracy Glantz/The State via Pool)
Former prosecutor Joshua Ritter told News Media that the strategy could backfire. He said the defense might have been better served by leaving the DNA untested and using the unknown male profile at trial to create reasonable doubt.
“They could make an argument, hey you found samples, it was unknown male DNA. That DNA did not come back to our client, correct? There’s somebody else out there who could potentially be linked to this crime,” Ritter said. “Now, unless it comes back that it’s a person who does have some reason to be suspicious, they’ve got a problem because if it comes back to a person with a rock solid alibi or a person with an innocent explanation as to why their DNA would end up underneath her fingernails, they’ve foreclosed any argument that they could have made.”
Alex Murdaugh, right, is shown here with his family. (Fox News)
“It’s one of those situations where sometimes it’s better left unknown for the defense, but they seem to be determined to try to figure out who that DNA belongs to,” he added.
Murdaugh is due back in court on Nov. 13.
News Media reached out to Murdaugh’s defense team for comment.