Shocking Twist: Killer Alex Murdaugh to Be Re-Tried for Murders of Wife and Son in Bombshell Court Ruling

Alex Murdaugh is getting a new trial, it's been revealed, three years after he was found guilty of killing his wife and son.

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the disgraced former attorney will be re-tried for the murders of Maggie and Paul, who were both fatally shot on the family’s Colleton County hunting property in 2021.

Murdaugh, 57, was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to two life terms in prison after a six-week trial in Walterboro in 2023.

In February, Murdaugh’s defense team argued in a hearing that a new trial was justified, claiming the clerk of court influenced the jury and the judge shouldn't have allowed his financial crimes to be brought up.

“Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, May 13, stated.

According to Fox Carolina, the double murder case is being sent back to a lower court for a re-trial and the South Carolina attorney general's office is responsible for deciding whether to prosecute a new trial.

Murdaugh's defense team alleges that former Colleton County Clerk of Court Hill interfered with the jury who unanimously found their client guilty on both murder charges.

One of his attorneys Dick Harpootlian claimed she said things to the jury like “look at his body language” and “watch him closely.”

Hill also notably published a book Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders just months after his conviction.

“The best way to sell books was a guilty verdict,” Harpootlian said, apparently quoting what another court employee heard Hill say. “A guilty verdict would be better for the sale of books.”

Hill pleaded guilty in 2025 to misconduct in office, obstruction of justice and perjury, and was charged with taking more than $11,000 in bonuses and using her public office to promote her book.

She also reportedly leaked sealed crime scene photos to members of the press and lied under oath in a hearing. Hill was sentenced to probation and community service.

Circuit Judge Heath Taylor said she would have faced more severe penalties had the state be able been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had tampered with the Murdaugh jury.

S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal declared in 2024 that any inappropriate contact Hill had with jurors did not directly result in Murdaugh's conviction.

Murdaugh is also serving prison time for stealing millions from his former clients and law firm Parker Law Group.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin claimed that despite protests from Murdaugh's lawyers, prosecutors called 10 witnesses to the stand to discuss Murdaugh's financial crimes. They were not able to prove they motivated the murders, he said.

Griffin cited a previous case that “presents us with the likelihood that the jury convicted the defendant because of his character and not because of the evidence surrounding the murder. In these circumstances, these errors cannot be regarded as harmless.”

“We agree with the State that evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes made the State’s theory of motive more probable,” the ruling stated, before adding that "the trial court allowed the State to go far too long and far too deep into aspects of Murdaugh’s financial crimes that were not probative of the State’s theory of motive.

The Supreme Court claimed this "gave rise to considerable danger of unfair prejudice, and therefore should have been excluded.”