Murdaugh's Investigator Problem Started With One 2015 Interview

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
On June 17th, a South Carolina judge threw out a murder indictment. Judge Roger Young ruled the state had withheld evidence that helped the defendant and that it sat on that evidence for nearly a decade. The lead investigator on that case was a sled agent named David Owen. Owen also led the investigation into the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. But that case I was talking about there? Not theirs. On August 5th, the 2026, Alex Murdaugh's lawyers filed a motion in his murder case. They want prosecutors ordered to search every file, every agency and every personal record, then turn over anything favorable to the defense. They also want the state to confirm in writing that nothing else exists. They're asking for all of it within 30 days. A BradyMotion is what it is. A BradyMotion sounds like courthouse paperwork. This one is aimed at everything that's changed for the state since 2023 Fishing expedition, right? They're out there just to see what they can get. Maybe somewhat, but they're fishing in the pond that knows. They know they have some fishing.
We already just talked about there at the front of this. Judge Roger Young ruling that the state had withheld evidence that helped a different defendant.
And the lead investigator on that case where that information was withheld was SLED agent David Owen, the same one from the Murdaugh case.
There's some fish. Doesn't mean they're biting, though.
Doesn't mean anything improper went wrong either in the Murdaugh case, but there's been fish on other expeditions.
The name, the Brady violation, the BradyMotion, if you will, I should say, the name comes to us from Brady v Maryland, 1963 US. Supreme Court case. The rule it created when the state investigates a crime, some of what it finds can help the defendant. The law says the defense gets that evidence. If there's things that can help, it's evidence. Evidence doesn't have a side. Evidence is evidence and it lands where it lands. And it can't be held back just because it doesn't go down. The narrative, you want it to go down or think it should go down. Wanting and thinking are not fact.
Break the rule and the remedy runs from a reversal of a conviction to a tossed indictment. It's basically saying, put all your cards on the table so we can play fairly.
The duty doesn't cover every scrap of paper. It covers evidence material to guilt or punishment, which means information that could actually change the outcome. The second case, Gilgo v. United States or Giglio, I should say, versus United States, extends the rule to the state's own witnesses. That one came out of a prosecution that hit a deal with its star witness, plea deals, promises of immunity, misconduct files, anything the defense could use to challenge a witness's credibility.
Also has to be turned over. The duty also reaches the whole team courts. Read Brady to cover favorable evidence in the hands of police and crime labs, even when prosecutors never saw it. It's part of why this motion demands searches of agencies and personnel, not just the prosecution's case file. South Carolina adds one more layer, rule five of the state's criminal procedure makes disclosure a continuing duty that doesn't end when a trial ends or the first batch is delivered. And Murdaugh's lawyers argue the obligation ratchets with full force upon retrial.
Alex Murdaugh was convicted in March 23 of murdering his wife and son. The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned those convictions in 2026 over former clerk Becky Hill's prejudicial comments to jurors. The retrial was now set for April of 27 before a new judge, Judge Debra McCaslin. Murdaugh remains in prison for dozens of financial crimes that he has pled guilty to. The new motion was filed by his defense team, Dick Harputalin, Jim Griffin, Philip Barber, Maggie Fox and Andrew Hand. It renews a discovery request. The defense first filed in July of 2022 and adds 10 categories of material the state would have to search for and produce. In plain English, the state would have to produce any new or change deals with its witnesses. It would have to turn over new witness statements and any statements that contradict old ones. It would also have to hand over updated personnel files, disciplinary records and internal affairs materials on the investigators and forensic analysts who built the case, of which there are some updated files. The demands cover new DNA testing information, search warrants obtained since the first trial and anything from the appeal that bears on the integrity of the verdict or the conduct of trial participants. The last category in this case includes a clerk whose conduct already erased one verdict. The forensic demands go granular, down to proficiency testing on the analysts and the software used during the investigation. The motion reaches past the murder case too. It demands favorable material from SLED's investigation of the September 2021 roadside shooting involving Curtis Eddie Smith and from SLED's file on Murdaugh's alleged drug activity. The defense's argument comes down to time. Their filing says the people and agencies involved have continued to generate, receive and become aware of information since the original discovery closed before the 2023 trial. Behind the legal language, the claim is concrete. In the three years since investigators retried, retired this, one got fired, some have actually retired, and another murder case has completely fallen apart. David Owen was SLED's lead investigator on the MurdaughMurders. At the 2023 trial, defense attorney Jim Griffin pressed him on why SLED waited three months before searching Elmita, a family property where investigators theorized the murder weapons went. SLED had permission to enter the whole time. Griffin asked whether that was an opportunity missed, and Owen's answered, probably yes. Owen was also the lead investigator on the Michael Colucci case. Colucci was charged in 2016 with murdering his wife, Sarah, who was found dead outside one of the couple's jewelry stores in Somerville in May of 2015 The defense argued Sarah took her own life and his first trial ended in 2018 with a deadlocked jury. Then in June of 25, days before jury selection for Colucci's retrial, prosecutors turned over evidence the state had held for nearly 10 years.