What Alex Murdaugh’s Cop Friend Did at the Crime Scene

Tony Brueski (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski.

Tony Brueski (0:11)

On June 7th of 2021, somebody used a shotgun and a rifle to execute Maggie and Paul Murdaugh at the Family's Hunting Estate in the South Carolina Lowcountry known as Moselle. Five years later, neither weapon has ever been found. Alex Murdaugh was convicted without them and granted a retrial without them. Nobody can tell you where they are or can they? Some shocking new reporting is coming out and these are allegations. They are just that. They're being investigated as we speak, but allegations not proven in court. Against some very specific people in this specific circle of folks in the Lowcountry, FITSNews reporting. On September 25th, it's SLED investigators and statewide grand jury prosecutors are now investigating allegations that a small town police chief, one of Alex Murdaugh's closest friends, helped make those weapons disappear.

Well, this story just got weirder.

Witnesses have allegedly testified before the grand jury that they saw the murder weapons in the police chief's hands in the hours after the massacre. These are the allegations. Before we get into who allegedly had those guns and what that means for the retrial, you need to understand something. The missing weapons aren't just a loose end. They are the single biggest hole in the most high profile murder case in South Carolina history. And that hole has been open for five years. Here's more.

On June 7th, 2021, at the Moselle hunting estate, Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were murdered. The perpetrators used two distinct firearms. Paul was killed with a 12 gauge shotgun and Maggie with a 300 Blackout semi-automatic rifle. But when law enforcement secured the property, the guns were gone. In the years since the murders, neither weapon has ever been recovered. Despite missing the actual murder weapons physically, prosecutors convinced a jury to convict Alex Murdaugh of both homicides in March of 2023 Now the legal landscape has shifted. Murdaugh was granted a retrial currently scheduled for April of 2027 Complicating that retrial is a development from late 2026 A statewide grand jury is investigating unconfirmed allegations that a local police chief, Greg Alexander, helped dispose of the murder weapons in the hours after the killings. That is the allegation. With the weapons still missing and police corruption alleged, the prosecution's 2027 case must rely on the same circumstantial forensics used in the first trial. Evidence that is now facing intense scientific scrutiny to connect the Murdaugh family to the murders without the actual weapons. Prosecutors focused on spent ammunition. Here we are looking at a spent brass shell casing next to a forensic measurement scale, exactly like the 300 Blackout casings recovered near Maggie's body. A SLED tool marks expert testified that the medical extraction marks on the casings found near the kennels match casings found at two other spots on the Moselle property, including the family shooting range. Investigators also found Maggie's touch DNA on these spent casings. The state used this to argue that the family had physical possession of the ammunition, but the defense is now attacking the methodology used to make those physical matches. This diagram breaks down the AFTE methodology, which lacks a measurable objective threshold for what constitutes sufficient agreement between two casings. Recent studies suggest real-world error rates for this method may be significantly higher than what the jury was first told. The state also leaned on the type of weapon used. They told the jury the 300 Blackout was a rare caliber, implying the casings found at the scene likely came from the custom-built rifles Alec bought for his sons. Free trial data from 2026 contradicts that claim. While the prosecution argued the caliber was rare, SLED has actually entered 720 distinct 300 Blackout cartridge cases into their ballistic database since early 2021 Then there's the timeline of the night itself. This timeline maps the evening. The murders occurred between 830 and 849 p.m. But the first officer did not arrive until 1026 p.m. That creates a 96-minute void. Prosecutors use cell phone and vehicle pings from Murdaugh's Chevrolet Suburban to track his movements during this exact window. The prosecution's theory is that Alec Murdaugh used these exact 96 minutes to move the guns off the property using a blue raincoat as the vehicle for transport. Investigators found a blue raincoat in a closet at Murdaugh's parents' house. It contained over 30 particles of gunshot residue on the inside, a pattern the state argued was consistent with wrapping a recently fired weapon. To place Murdaugh at the home, the state relied on the family housekeeper who testified to seeing him at his parents' house on the night of the murders. This entire explanation for the disappearance of the weapons rests on a raincoat and a 96-minute window. A window the defense intends to challenge with new data at the retrial. Any attempt to reconstruct the night of the murders is complicated by severe crime scene management failures. First responders used a porous sheet on Paul's body, which allowed rain to fall through the open kennel roof and contaminate the surrounding area. Protocol breaches included law enforcement walking through the scene without protective shoe coverings, unchecked foot traffic from Murdaugh's law firm and a strand of hair in Maggie's hand that was never tested. These early failures are central to new biological challenges. Independent testing recently revealed a higher contamination of unidentified male DNA on Maggie's right hand than SLED originally reported in 2021 Testing alternate theories about that DNA is hindered by the loss of the physical site. The kennel area where the murders took place has since been demolished. Because the physical space is gone, SLED's original 3D scan data is now irreplaceable. The defense is currently demanding access to the raw files from that scan to conduct their own analysis. The destruction of the physical scene and the allegations of police involvement have shifted the focus of the 2027 retrial. The upcoming legal battle will test the limits of circumstantial forensics in a case where the murder weapons remain missing.