{"id":45553,"date":"2026-08-15T01:03:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45553"},"modified":"2026-08-15T01:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:03:55","slug":"alex-murdaugh-granted-change-of-venue-for-murder-retrial-past-testimony-allowed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45553","title":{"rendered":"Alex Murdaugh granted change of venue for murder retrial, past testimony allowed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260814-alex-Murdaugh-ew-154p-4becb5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-3f73f8\" class=\"body-graf\">A judge ruled Friday that testimony <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/crime-courts\/alex-murdaugh-found-guilty-murder-summary-timeline-rcna38026\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Murdaugh<\/a> gave at his first murder trial can be heard by jurors in his retrial. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-32d768\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWhen you testify in a case, there are consequences,\u201d South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin said at a status hearing. \u201cI\u2019m going to allow it in, subject to what is being testified to in the trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e30039\" class=\"body-graf\">McCaslin<strong> <\/strong>also granted the defense\u2019s request to begin independent testing of DNA evidence recovered from Maggie Murdaugh\u2019s fingernails, and agreed<strong> <\/strong>to move <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/alex-murdaugh-back-court-hearing-murder-retrial-rcna352295\" target=\"_blank\">Murdaugh\u2019s double-murder retrial<\/a> out of Colleton County. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-50c4e6\" class=\"body-graf\">Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian, noted that people have been stopped on the street for interviews about the case, arguing the county has become \u201cpoison\u201d and that \u201cthe courthouse is the scene of the crime.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d2e7e6\" class=\"body-graf\">Prosecutor Creighton Waters countered that the issue is \u201cnot pretrial publicity,\u201d but whether potential jurors will need to \u201chonor their oath to be fair and impartial.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-c4f837\" class=\"body-graf\">The judge sided with the defense on venue, saying she does not believe \u201cthe defendant can get a fair and impartial trial\u201d in Colleton County. She noted that during the 2023 trial \u2014 later overturned by the state Supreme Court \u2014 \u201cfewer than 1 in 7 prospective jurors were qualified to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-90abec\" class=\"body-graf\">McCaslin said she will wait to decide which county will host the retrial. \u201cI will issue an order, a formal order, on the transfer of venue and will also designate the county,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-05de83\" class=\"body-graf\">Murdaugh <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/embattled-attorney-alex-murdaugh-indicted-slayings-wife-son-rcna38032\" target=\"_blank\">was indicted by a grand jury in July 2022 <\/a>on double-murder charges in the 2021 deaths of his wife, Margaret, 52, and the couple\u2019s younger son, Paul, 22. Murdaugh found their bodies on the family\u2019s hunting lodge estate; a coroner said they had been shot multiple times. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-0ff759\" class=\"body-graf\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/jury-finds-alex-murdaugh-guilty-murders-wife-son-n1303261\" target=\"_blank\">jury found Murdaugh guilty in 2023<\/a>, but the state Supreme Court overturned the convictions and life sentences earlier this year, ruling he was denied a fair trial because of comments then-Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill made to the jury. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-29a2f2\" class=\"body-graf\">A motion seeking a new trial accused Hill of advising jurors \u201cnot to believe Murdaugh\u2019s testimony and other evidence presented by the defense,\u201d pressuring them toward a quick guilty verdict, and misrepresenting material information to the trial judge in an effort to remove a juror she believed favored the defense.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-97260f\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">Hill, who resigned as clerk, denied the allegations but later pleaded guilty to showing sealed court exhibits to a photographer and lying about it in court, plus two counts of misconduct in office, including promoting a book she wrote about the trial. She was sentenced to a year of probation. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A judge ruled Friday that testimony Alex Murdaugh gave at his first murder trial can be heard by jurors in his retrial. \u201cWhen you testify in a case, there are consequences,\u201d South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin said at a status hearing. \u201cI\u2019m going to allow it in, subject to what is being testified&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260814-alex-Murdaugh-ew-154p-4becb5.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}