What SLED Never Tested — Unknown Male DNA Under Both of Maggie's Hands

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is HiddenKillers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

Tony Brueski (0:10)

Well, here we are, Alex Murdaugh on Trial, again, part two is what, well, it'll be getting next year at some point. But as we all know, some of the biggest things in trials take place before the actual trial ever starts, the hearings, the motions deciding what gets in, what gets out. And it was an eventful day the other day in court with Alex Murdaugh. Today, we're going to break down some of what took place.

That might be helping Alex Murdaugh. And what might be hurting Alex Murdaugh? We're going to go through all of that. I'm in a different setting today because the computer in the studio decided we're going to update over the weekend and not really fully update.

Jennifer Koffendaffer (0:52)

Jen's got a new background too.

Tony Brueski (0:54)

Jen's got a new background. Robin's got his normal background. That's our panel today. Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and master class instructor and Jennifer Koffendaffer, retired FBI special agent and host of the Break the Case podcast. Welcome everyone. Let's just jump into the world of Alec Murdaugh and that hearing that took place just the other day.

It was eventful. I will say that it was eventful. Alec was back. There was no snot this time. That was good, but he didn't really talk or anything. He just kind of stood back and he watched the action. At the first trial, the state's crime lab reported unknown male DNA under Maggie Murdaugh's left fingernail. DNA that was not Alec Murdaugh's. Nobody tested it any further though. Now the defense dropped this bombshell the other day. It's not just on one hand.

Let's see what happened in court. We'll talk about it on the other side.

SPEAKER_4 (1:55)

Well, when we got the quantification from Austin, it turns out that's not the case. There's also this unknown male DNA under her other hand. And in fact, there's twice as much under that hand as there was under item 70 That made me suspicious. So I went back and started going through the underline and we've attached some of it to the motion, some of those numbers, underlined data, and I discovered that 25.1, the swabbing from the cell phone that was thrown at the side of the road, I think the state would say by the persecuted, the murders.

Their test result at trial, that we had a trial set, results, a partial DNA profile was developed due to limited information obtained and the inability to determine the number of contributors, no further interpretation will be offered, period. That was it. We had no idea there was anything there. I go back now, prompted by what we found from Othman on 71 and find out that there's unknown male DNA included in some genetic material that is not present, Mr. Murdaugh, meaning a contributor who's not him on this phone.

Right. So now we have both fingernails of hers and her phone, all has this unknown male DNA. Now, maybe it's different.

Tony Brueski (3:07)

Unknown male DNA underneath her fingernails and on her phone.

That's interesting. I mean, these are devices that are used a lot. A lot of people touch him, could be really anybody, I would guess. But you were talking about a murder case, some dead bodies, anything where it could lead to some place, at least just to check the box, to figure out whose it is, dismiss it if it's nothing, should probably be run down, should it not? Jennifer, what do you think?

Jennifer Koffendaffer (3:37)

Oh, yeah, I say you always run down everything. But it's very confusing how he says this. He says other contributors. I mean, we know you can't separate more than two DNA contributors. That is impossible scientifically right now.

So a lot of it's really confusing. What kind of DNA is he talking about? I believe he's talking about touch, but he never really says that. So many people could have touched Maggie's cell phone at any time. You know, with touch DNA, there's no timeline as to when that would have been touched. As far as her fingernails, remember, this was a crime that was committed with a long gun at some distance. There's never been any information that there was some sort of violent assault that took place and she would have had defensive wounds and defended herself in this way.

That could be from anything. So I don't really put too much into this, but I still say you run it down.

Robin Drake (4:36)

Yeah, 100 percent, you got to lead, you got to follow it up, you have data, you got to analyze and throw into the mix. But I'm with Jennifer on it. I don't think it's going to go anywhere because it just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit anything. Like she said, there's no evidence of a struggle there. It was a long gun and all the supporting data, I look at stats all the time on this stuff and there's nothing else that supports.