Alex Murdaugh’s Key SLED Witness Just Got Fired

**Tony Brueski** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Interesting developments around the world, oh, Alec Murdaugh.
The man whose job was policing the police just got fired for his own misconduct. Yeah, allegedly. Ryan Kelly was the chief inspector of the Office of Professional Standards at the Charleston County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina. Internal Affairs. His entire job was investigating allegations against other officers, harassment complaints, policy violations, conduct, unbecoming. He was the person who decided whether law enforcement officers deserve to keep their badge. Kind of a big deal, you know? And then on June 8th of 26, Sheriff Carl Richie terminated him. The allegations against Kelly include harassment, unbecoming conduct, improper procedures and unsatisfactory performance. Kind of the same stuff he's supposed to be policing and making sure he's not part of the department. The separation paperwork from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy lists the category as substandard performance, excessive absenteeism, and sleeping on duty. He lasted a little over a year. No criminal charges were filed, no sled investigation into criminality. But the man who ran internal affairs could not survive an internal affairs investigation into himself. That would be a bad week for anyone. But Ryan Kelly isn't just any law enforcement officer. Before he took the Charleston County job in January of 25, this is where it matters. Because you're like, well, he's only been there a year.
Kelly spent more than a decade as a senior special agent in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division that you've come to lovingly know as Sled. And during that time, he was one of the key investigators in the sprawling criminal cases surrounding Alex Murdaugh. He even testified at Alex Murdaugh's trial back in 23 He was one of the last witnesses the prosecution called before resting its case. In the first hearing in Alex Murdaugh's re-trial, that is scheduled for not too far from this moment, June 29th. When Fox News asked Murdaugh's lead defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, whether Kelly's termination could affect the upcoming re-trial, Poot gave three words, not at this time.
Interesting, because when the Post and Courier asked him the same question, he said something very different. We will get to that.
Kelly isn't the only sled agent from the Murdaugh case whose credibility is crumbling. The lead investigator in the Moselle double homicide, David Owen, admitted on the witness stand that he gave inaccurate testimony to the grand jury that indicted Alec for Murdaugh. And he quietly retired. But Owen's story didn't end there. It got worse, much worse. And we will get to that too. As we do, your thoughts in the comment section on Substack and YouTube. We'd love for you to weigh in. Those links are in the description. Kelly was the lead investigator on September 4th of 2021 in the roadside shooting. That's the bizarre incident where Alec called 911 and claimed he'd been shot by an unknown assailant while changing a flat tire on a rural Hampton County road.

**Tony Brueski** (3:31)
He just came and he shot me. I don't know what was going on.

**Tony Brueski** (3:35)
I'm out here and I'm bleeding a lot. And I'm eating boiled peanuts and they're quiet. If anybody wants any boiled peanuts, I got a cup here. You can have some if you like. You want to boil? I'm bleeding, but you want to boil peanut? They're Cajun.
I say that because that's one of my only memories of Hampton County. I was down there last year for a short period of time, nothing to do with Alec Murdaugh, actually on vacation, heading to Charleston, drove through, stopped at a gas station and got some boiled peanuts. And it did make me think for a moment, hmm, Alec was right around one of these roads with a fake assassination attempt coming out of his mouth. He was taken to a hospital in Savannah with that, with what turned out to be a superficial gunshot wound to the head, a skull fracture and a subdural hematoma. It sounded like a random attack, it wasn't. Investigators eventually determined that Alec had orchestrated the entire thing. He arranged for Curtis' cousin Eddie Smith to be there. He was alleged drug supplier and the person prosecutors described as his money mule to shoot him, so his surviving son Buster could collect a life insurance payout. Alec later admitted to the actual scheme. The roadside shooting happened three months after the murders of Maggie and Paul. It was a separate crime, but prosecutors wove it into the murder trial as evidence of a pattern. Alec lied about the roadside shooting. He lied about being at the dog kennels the night Maggie and Paul were killed. The prosecution's argument was pretty simple. This is a man who lies. He lies to investigators. He lies to protect himself. He lied about shooting himself, and he lied about the murders. Kelly was the agent who walked the jury through that argument. He testified about DNA evidence recovered from a knife found near the roadside scene. He testified about the investigative steps that tied Smith to Murdaugh, and he made it one point, or made, I should say one point that mattered more than any of the others. Alec Murdaugh never identified Curtis Smith during the 911 call. He didn't name Smith during the ambulance ride. He didn't give up Smith's name during the initial hospital interview. Smith's name only surfaced after investigators started pulling apart the inconsistencies in his story. Kelly also told the jury that investigators found no evidence whatsoever connecting Smith to the June 7th, 2021 murders of Maggie and Paul. That mattered because it shut down alternative suspect theories that some observers have been floating. The cross-examination was heated. Harpootlian grilled Kelly about Alec's medical state at the hospital, whether Kelly should have interviewed a man on opioids and benzodiazepines, and whether Sled broke an agreement about how Alec would be arrested after leaving rehab. At one point, Judge Clifton Newman sustained an objection because Harpootlian was badgering the witness. Kelly pushed back hard. He told Harpootlian that Alec appeared coherent, that he was walking around on his phone, and that HIPAA prevented him from asking doctors about Alec's medical condition. Kelly was also one of four Sled agents that Harpootlian subpoenaed in August of 2022, months before the trial even started, alongside David Owen, Charles Ghent and Ryan Neal. Kelly was ordered to appear at a hearing where the defense alleged that investigators and prosecutors had improperly handled evidence and leaked information about the case. The defense strategy was already quite clear before the first trial began. Discredit Sled undermined confidence in the investigation, make the jury doubt whether the people who built the case could be trusted. That was the strategy in 22 And then the people who built the case started doing the work for them. Let's start with Becky Hill. She was the Collinton County Clerk of Court who managed the jury during the six week trial. Her job was to be a neutral officer of the court. Instead, the South Carolina Supreme Court found that she committed what they called shocking jury interference and a breathtaking and disgraceful effort to undermine the jury process. Hill pled guilty to obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office. She got three years probation. The judge said she would have imposed a harsher sentence if evidence had surfaced that she tampered with the jury. The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on May 13th to 26th overturned Alex Murdaugh's convictions and in fact ordered a new trial. Then David Owen, lead investigator, the centerpiece of the entire Sled case against Alex Murdaugh at trial defense attorney Jim Griffin exposed it. Owen told the Colleton County grand jury that Alex White t-shirt had high velocity blood spatter on it. That testimony was critical. It helps secure the murder indictment. There was one problem. Sled's own forensic laboratory had tested the shirt and found no human blood. The lab released those results. Owen testified he didn't learn about the negative results until a full year later. He said he didn't get the email. Owen also failed to search the Murdaugh family's Elmita property for three months. Despite having the family's permission and despite investigators later theorizing that critical evidence may have been actually there. It's a murder scene. You might want to look and not sleep on the job. The crime scene at Moselle was contaminated. It rained. Family members and friends walked through it. The housekeeper cleaned showers before Sled collected evidence. Clothes Alex was wearing in a Snapchat video taken an hour before the killings were never recovered. I want to acknowledge Sled didn't make an effort to find them.