Alex Murdaugh lawyers say top investigator lied to grand jury, want murder indictments tossed

Updated on: November 13, 2026 / 11:50 AM EST / AP

Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh are expected in court Friday to ask a judge to throw out the original murder indictments for killing his wife and son, alleging the chief investigator in the case lied to the grand jury.

Murdaugh is facing a retrial on the murder charges after the South Carolina Supreme Court threw out his convictions and life sentence, ruling that a court clerk improperly influenced jurors against him during his 2023 trial.

Even if the longshot request to dismiss the indictments is granted by Judge Debra McCaslin at Friday's pretrial hearing, it may not stop or even postpone an April retrial for the disgraced lawyer. Prosecutors can seek another set of grand jury indictments as soon as next month, and defense attorneys said they won't stop them.

But a ruling for Murdaugh would be another rebuke of the chief investigator, State Law Enforcement Division agent David Owen.

A judge last year threw out a different murder case Owen was involved in because the dead woman's mother told the agent about a suicide threat her daughter made days before she died that Owen never relayed to prosecutors or…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/