The Re-Trial Of Alex Murdaugh

Alex Murdaugh’s Housekeeper Confronts the Defense’s ‘Other Suspects’ Claim — and Agrees

The defense team says other suspects committed these murders. Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson — twenty years inside the Murdaugh household, a key prosecution witness at the first trial — agrees that other people were involved. And her agreement is the worst thing the defense could hear. Because Blanca isn’t saying someone else did it. She’s saying Alex always used someone else to do everything — and the murders fit the same pattern.Blanca’s theory is specific. She believes Alex had a Plan A that involved another person being at Moselle the night Maggie and Paul were killed. When that plan fell apart, she says he executed it himself and built a story around the boat crash families. Her basis: two decades of watching how this man operated. Curtis Eddie Smith cashed four hundred thirty-seven checks. Relationships served as cover. Deniability was engineered into every arrangement. The question Blanca poses to the defense is the one that should follow them into every hearing: if Alex Murdaugh never did anything alone before, why would this be the one time he started?Attorney Eric Bland — the lawyer who built the financial fraud case the prosecution used as motive — adds the retrial calculus. The Supreme Court ordered financial crimes evidence sharply limited. The defense claims new DNA and third-party leads. The AG is considering the death penalty. Bland explains what survives into round two, whether Alex should take the stand again, why the kennel video may land differently with a jury saturated by three years of documentaries, and his own prediction: reconviction is likely, but a hung jury is possible. He describes the holdout juror — who they are and what gets them there. This is the retrial breakdown from the two people who know the inside of this case better than the lawyers trying it.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #BlancaSimpson #MurdaughRetrial #MurdaughCase #EricBland #CurtisSmith #Moselle #MaggieMurdaugh #TrueCrime #SouthCarolina

Transcribe →

Is Alex Murdaugh’s Retrial Already Tilted by the Judge’s Connection to Harpootlian?

1w ago00:36:07Tap to summarize

The woman now overseeing Alex Murdaugh’s retrial reportedly rented office space from his defense attorney and named him under oath as a lawyer who shaped her career. Judge Debra McCaslin was handed exclusive jurisdiction over every Murdaugh proceeding by the South Carolina Supreme Court — the same court that reversed his murder convictions and ordered a new trial in the killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. Nobody has filed a motion to remove her.Defense attorney and former felony prosecutor Eric Faddis examines whether McCaslin’s reported connection to Dick Harpootlian is a genuine problem or a headline, what her reportedly tough sentencing record tells us about how she’ll run this courtroom, and the ruling that could matter more than any testimony. The Supreme Court said the first trial’s financial crimes evidence went too far. McCaslin decides how far is too far the second time. That decision shapes what the next jury sees, what it never hears, and whether prosecutors can build a murder case without the motive theory they leaned on the first time.Attorney Eric Bland adds the perspective nobody else can. He built the financial fraud case. He represented the Satterfield family and watched his clients testify about what Murdaugh did to their lives. The Supreme Court said some of that testimony had “zero probative value.” Bland confronts what that language means for the people it was taken from. He also responds to Harpootlian’s six-hundred-thousand-dollar civil rights lawsuit against Becky Hill, which claims any recovered money goes to Murdaugh’s financial crime victims. Bland represents those victims — and his take on whether that promise carries weight lands hard.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughRetrial #DebraMcCaslin #MurdaughCase #DickHarpootlian #EricBland #EricFaddis #BeckyHill #TrueCrime #SouthCarolina

Transcribe →

What Alex Murdaugh’s Retrial Judge Told State Lawmakers About His Defense Lawyer

1w ago00:39:01Tap to summarize

Years before the South Carolina Supreme Court handed her the most closely watched murder retrial in the state's history, Judge Debra McCaslin stood before legislators and named the lawyers who left a mark on her career. One of them was Dick Harpootlian — the man who will stand at Alex Murdaugh's side when his double murder case goes back to trial for the killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.The connection runs deeper than a compliment on the record. McCaslin reportedly rented office space from Harpootlian when she was building her practice. They collaborated on a class-action involving video poker litigation. She sat as judge in a separate murder case where Harpootlian defended the accused — and when prosecutors sought to hold his client before trial, she reportedly refused. Every layer of this history was available the moment her name was announced. And yet both sides looked at the same facts and said nothing.Eric Faddis has prosecuted felonies and defended against them. He breaks down what the Harpootlian connection means inside a courtroom — where a judge's warmth toward one attorney can show up in sustained objections, evidentiary rulings, or simply the tone that shapes how a jury reads the room. Then he gets to the decision that could rewrite this retrial before it starts: the Supreme Court ruled that twelve and a half hours of financial crimes testimony was excessive and that any retrial must sharply limit it. McCaslin alone decides where the line falls. If prosecutors lose their motive backbone, the evidence that remains may not carry the weight the first jury felt.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughRetrial #DebraMcCaslin #DickHarpootlian #EricFaddis #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh #SouthCarolina

Transcribe →

Does Eric Bland Think the Murdaugh Retrial Changes Everything for Stephen Smith?

1w ago00:48:52Tap to summarize

The Murdaugh retrial doesn't just affect Alex. It touches every case, every family, and every unresolved question connected to the Murdaugh name. Eric Bland represents the Satterfield sons whose testimony the Supreme Court dismissed. He represents Sandy Smith whose son's homicide investigation was reopened because of the Murdaugh murders. And he built the financial crimes case that prosecutors are now being told to scale back.In this full-length interview, Bland takes the long view. He covers the ruling — what it means for his clients and whether the court got it right. He covers the retrial — whether the state can win a narrower case, what the defense's new evidence might be, and why a hung jury is a real possibility. And he covers Stephen Smith — the sealed autopsy, the eleven-year wait, the fifty-thousand-dollar reward, and whether the retrial opens any legal mechanism for Sandy to access new discovery.This is the one interview that puts all of it together through the perspective of the attorney who's been inside the Murdaugh case from the financial crimes to the murder trial to the Stephen Smith investigation. If you follow one conversation about what comes next in the Murdaugh saga, this is the one.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #EricBland #StephenSmith #MurdaughRetrial #Satterfield #SandySmith #MurdaughCase #TrueCrime #SouthCarolina #HiddenKillers

Transcribe →

Who Is the 'Powerful Older Man' in Eric Bland's Stephen Smith Theory?

1w ago00:14:01Tap to summarize

The Murdaugh name appeared more than forty times in the original investigation of Stephen Smith's death in 2015. Stephen was a former classmate of Buster Murdaugh. He was found dead on a road miles from the Murdaugh family's hunting property. When SLED reopened the case six years later, they said it was because of evidence found during the Murdaugh murder investigation. They never revealed what that evidence was.Eric Bland has said publicly that he has no evidence the Murdaugh family was directly involved in Stephen's death — but that they may have known something. That's a specific claim from the attorney who represents Sandy Smith, who helped expose Murdaugh's financial crimes, and who has relationships with investigators on both cases.In this interview, Bland addresses what that claim is based on. He talks about where the "powerful older individual" thread leads and why it hasn't produced an arrest. He explains what the sealed autopsy results mean and whether Sandy's legal team has seen them. And he tackles the Buster Murdaugh defamation settlement — a legal outcome that resolved one set of claims while the underlying questions about Stephen's death remain completely unanswered.With the Murdaugh retrial potentially generating new discovery, this is the moment where Stephen Smith's case either moves forward or stays frozen. Bland tells us which one he expects.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#StephenSmith #AlexMurdaugh #BusterMurdaugh #SandySmith #EricBland #SLED #MurdaughFamily #ColdCase #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers

Transcribe →

Does Eric Bland Buy Murdaugh's Third-Party Killer Theory?

2w ago00:16:53Tap to summarize

Jim Griffin went on national television after the Supreme Court ruling and said the defense has evidence nobody's seen — including an unknown male DNA profile found under Maggie Murdaugh's fingernails. He said it wasn't properly investigated. He said it changes the case. And now the defense walks into retrial with subpoena power and the ability to build a full third-party culprit strategy around it.Eric Bland has seen more of this case's financial discovery than almost anyone outside the AG's office. He's been watching the defense signal its strategy for weeks — the DNA claim, Harpootlian's argument that SLED had tunnel vision from night one, the push for a venue change and attorney-led jury selection. He knows what the prosecution has to work with now that the Supreme Court has limited the financial crimes presentation. And he's making a prediction that splits the difference: reconviction is likely, but a hung jury is possible.In this interview, Bland explains what makes the hung jury scenario real, whether the unknown DNA has the forensic weight to support an alternative suspect theory, and why Creighton Waters may be walking into a fundamentally harder case than the one he won. He also answers a question nobody else has put to him — whether anything in the financial records he's reviewed could be reframed by the defense in their favor.The lawyer who built the state's motive case gives his blueprint for trial two.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughRetrial #EricBland #DNA #MaggieMurdaugh #Harpootlian #TrueCrime #SouthCarolina #HiddenKillers #ThirdPartyCulprit

Transcribe →

What Did the Murdaugh Ruling Cost the Families Eric Bland Fights For?

2w ago00:21:19Tap to summarize

Becky Hill wanted to sell books. Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions are gone. And the financial crime victims who sat on that witness stand are now being told by the state's highest court that some of their testimony had "zero probative value." Eric Bland represented those victims. He's the attorney who exposed the financial schemes that prosecutors used as their entire theory of motive. And he's furious.The Supreme Court's ruling turned on Hill's conduct — the improper comments to jurors, the pressure to convict, the book deal that allegedly motivated her interference. Hill has since pleaded guilty to obstruction and perjury. She received probation. And now Murdaugh's defense team is suing her for six hundred thousand dollars under a federal civil rights statute, claiming any money recovered goes to the financial crime victims Bland represents.Bland wasn't consulted. He has questions about that promise. He also has questions about Harpootlian's "lone wolf" theory — the suggestion that Hill may not have acted alone in influencing the jury. That's not an idle question. If the defense can establish that someone else was involved, the entire first trial becomes even more radioactive — and the prosecution's job at retrial gets exponentially harder.This interview is with the lawyer who knows where the financial bodies are buried, who has watched this case from inside the machinery since the beginning, and who is now watching the court system tell his clients their suffering didn't count enough. That's a conversation worth hearing.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #EricBland #BeckyHill #MurdaughRetrial #Satterfield #FinancialCrimes #SouthCarolina #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #MurdaughCase

Transcribe →

Alex Murdaugh and His New Judge Graduated From the Same Law School Just One Year Apart

2w ago00:24:13Tap to summarize

Alex Murdaugh finished law school at the University of South Carolina in 1994. The judge who now holds his future finished at the same school in 1993. Twelve months apart, same building, same degree — and two lives that could not have run in more opposite directions. He walked into a family firm with a century of Lowcountry power behind it. She walked out with law books other people had to buy for her, opened a solo practice, and spent twenty-five years grinding before the General Assembly ever put her on the bench. Now those two paths collide in the biggest retrial this state has ever seen.If you've followed every turn of this case, this episode is your full briefing on Judge Debra McCaslin. We trace how Chief Justice Kittredge's order handed her exclusive control over every motion, every hearing, and the retrial itself. We dig into her real history with Dick Harpootlian — the shared office space, the video poker class action, the murder case where she refused to revoke his client's bond. And we look hard at the other side of her ledger: the triple-murder trial where she sentenced both defendants to life, and the DNA challenge she shut down that the appeals court later upheld.Then the stakes: McCaslin will decide whether this trial leaves Walterboro, how a death penalty demand gets handled if the Attorney General follows through, and how much of the financial-crimes evidence the next jury actually hears after the Supreme Court said the first jury heard far too much. Every road in this case now runs through one woman — and the Murdaugh name means nothing to her.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#MurdaughRetrial #AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughMurders #TrueCrime #DebraMcCaslin #Harpootlian #MurdaughNewTrial #SouthCarolina #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh

Transcribe →

Murdaugh's New Judge Has Sent Killers Away For Life

2w ago00:14:39Tap to summarize

For everyone who has followed the Murdaugh case with their heart in their throat — waiting, again, for a verdict that finally holds for Maggie and Paul — here is what we actually know about the woman now in charge.Judge Debra McCaslin was handed the entire Alex Murdaugh case by the South Carolina Supreme Court: every motion, every ruling, and the retrial itself. And while the internet fixates on her reported history with defense attorney Dick Harpootlian — the office she once rented from him, the praise she reportedly offered during her rise to the bench — her record tells a different story. This is a judge described as tough, fair, and impossible to rattle. A judge who has reportedly handed down life sentences in murder cases and stood with law enforcement when defense teams alleged foul play.Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis joins us to make honest sense of both halves. He explains what one judge can truly decide in a case this size, whether the Harpootlian connection is a genuine problem or a headline, and the ruling that matters most to anyone who wants this retrial done right: how much of Murdaugh's financial-crimes evidence the next jury will hear, after the Supreme Court found the first trial crossed the line.Because the first verdict was lost to a court official's misconduct — not to doubt about the evidence. The families connected to this tragedy, and everyone who grieved with them, deserve a second trial that no court can ever take apart. Faddis lays out exactly what that requires, starting with the judge.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #DebraMcCaslin #MurdaughRetrial #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh #TrueCrime #EricFaddis #SouthCarolina #HiddenKillers #JusticeForMaggieAndPaul

Transcribe →

Why Does Blanca Simpson Believe Alex Murdaugh Had A Plan A And A Plan B?

3w ago00:43:34Tap to summarize

Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson spent twenty years watching Alex Murdaugh use other people to do his work. Curtis Eddie Smith cashed four hundred thirty-seven checks totaling roughly $2.4 million. A network of enablers kept the financial machine running for years. Alex moved money through other people's hands. He used relationships as cover. He built deniability into every arrangement. He never did anything alone.So when the defense says "other suspects," Blanca doesn't flinch. She has her own theory — and it doesn't point away from Alex. She believes he had a Plan A that involved someone else being at Moselle that night. When that arrangement fell apart, he executed Plan B himself and built a story around the boat crash families. It's not a guess from the outside. It's a reading of behavior from twenty years inside the household — watching the visitors, the phone calls, the shifts in Alex's behavior in the months before Maggie and Paul were killed. If he never operated alone in any other part of his life, Blanca asks, why would the murders be the one exception?She also goes deeper into what she saw the morning after than she ever has before. Blanca walked into the Murdaugh house twelve hours after the killings and noticed things that didn't fit — items moved, cleaned, or wrong. Small details a forensic team would miss but a woman who knew every cabinet, every towel rack, every morning routine would catch in seconds. She testified for three hours in 2023. Prosecutors asked about the shirt, the towel, the pajamas. She says they barely scratched the surface.With the Supreme Court stripping away the financial crimes testimony, Blanca's granular knowledge of the household may carry more weight at retrial than it did the first time. She separates grief from scene management. She confronts the moment Alex came back months later and tried to rewrite the shirt story. She explains what the jury loses now that Moselle has been sold and torn apart — and what her memory of that property gives them that no photograph can replace.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#AlexMurdaugh #BlancaSimpson #MurdaughRetrial #MaggieMurdaugh #Moselle #PaulMurdaugh #CurtisSmith #MurdaughConspiracy #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime

Transcribe →

All episodes

Alex Murdaugh’s Housekeeper Confronts the Defense’s ‘Other Suspects’ Claim — and Agrees

Is Alex Murdaugh’s Retrial Already Tilted by the Judge’s Connection to Harpootlian?

What Alex Murdaugh’s Retrial Judge Told State Lawmakers About His Defense Lawyer

Does Eric Bland Think the Murdaugh Retrial Changes Everything for Stephen Smith?

Who Is the 'Powerful Older Man' in Eric Bland's Stephen Smith Theory?

Does Eric Bland Buy Murdaugh's Third-Party Killer Theory?

What Did the Murdaugh Ruling Cost the Families Eric Bland Fights For?

Alex Murdaugh and His New Judge Graduated From the Same Law School Just One Year Apart

Murdaugh's New Judge Has Sent Killers Away For Life

Why Does Blanca Simpson Believe Alex Murdaugh Had A Plan A And A Plan B?