Transcript of Talking Dateline: In the Matter of Alex Murdaugh

Hey everyone, I am Andrea Canning and we are talking Dateline. And today I'm joined by Dateline producers Carol Gabel and Hayley Barber. Thanks for joining us today.

Hey Andrea, thanks for having us.

I feel like we'll, we'll, we'll never stop talking about this story.

No, because we are talking about In the Matter of Alec Murdaugh. And ladies, the revelation that has gone around the world about this new trial is just incredible. Our friend and colleague Craig Melvin is the correspondent on this episode, and he did some really great interviews and reporting. Before we get to that, can you just give us a really quick recap about this case?

It started with a call to 911 with Alec Murdaugh, who is a very prominent Hampton County attorney, and he's saying that his wife and son are dead, and he's found their bodies. And, uh, investigators rush in. Uh, it starts a very intensive investigation led by the state law enforcement, uh, division. And we learned that in fact it's Alex who is the chief suspect in this case, that all of the information from his car put him at the scene And then, of course, we get to the trial, and we had the verdict that was seemingly conclusive.

Alec had been sentenced to back-to-back life sentences and appealed the murder conviction. Since then, a lot has happened, Andrea, um, and a lot of the kind of drama surrounding this case has centered on the clerk of court, Rebecca Hill. And after the trial, there were some allegations that she had maybe done some things with the jury that weren't above board. Alec appeals his case to the state Supreme Court. They agree to hear it, and ultimately that's how we ended up here with this kind of landmark-breaking decision.

Yeah.

Wow.

Becky, Becky, Becky. Uh, as the, the justices said, she put her finger on the scales of justice, which really just threw a grenade in all of this. So At Dateline, we don't always get to watch every episode because, you know, we are very busy. I would love to say I watch every single one. Wow. I mean, when I watched this, it was incredible. I mean, first of all, all of you did such a good job, like, putting this story together. But I mean, trying to fit all of this into a 2-hour show was— I— my head hurt trying— just trying to imagine all the details that probably didn't even make it.

Yeah, it's hard to summarize these past years, Andrea, since this murder happened in 2021. But the other thing that we sometimes forget in light of the murder coverage is that Alec was also accused and ultimately pled guilty to so many financial crimes. He was stealing from his clients, who we have met some of them, and a lot of them don't have the means that he had. And People often ask, what is it about this case that has just so captivated the world? And I think the curtain was really lifted on this small town where this family really was so trusted by such a group of people. And the betrayal that is still felt when you go there is really something resounding.

You could really sense just the power that this man had, Alex, and just the family, you know?

Well, they straddled two legal universes. On the one hand, you had Alex's dad, who'd been the district attorney for years and years and years. And then the law firm that certainly made a name for themselves in so many product liability and other personal liability cases, and just have made a fortune. And there's so many courtroom stories about Alex's dad dad. I mean, he would walk up to a jury, and while he was waiting for things to go, he'd say, "Hey, Elaine, how's the baby?" You know, he just knew everybody, and they all knew him. So it's very deep. It's generational. And, you know, now books, movies, podcasts about this.

It's everywhere. Yeah. I was actually thinking, as as Alec is waiting for the police to arrive, and you see the body cam, and you know this history of this man and this family. And even though police— obviously, law enforcement, you know, has to keep an open mind from the get-go, right? But at the same time, you're thinking— I, I'm, I'm thinking, I wonder if their first instincts are like, no way could he have done this. You know, he's, he's this lawyer. His, his family, you know, have such deep roots in this community.

Well, they did not seal off the house immediately for the crime scene. They sealed off where the bodies were found. But, you know, friends and family were gathering already quickly because the news spread amongst their circle and people rushed to the house. And that was not cordoned off as part of the crime scene. And I don't know if that was— you could call it a mistake or you could call it sort of acknowledgement of who this family was, and that they, you know, were definitely gonna get together. Yeah.

I mean, and I was thinking to myself, all those guns in the house, wouldn't you want to immediately secure that to, you know, for testing, and like, to see if maybe they were shot by one of those weapons? I don't know. Just seems like it would've been a smart thing to do for law enforcement.

Yeah. And it's a sprawling and confusing crime scene in a lot of ways. You know, Alex is down at the kennels, but the house is actually a ways away. This is a big property. And the one thing I think that Colleton County really did well was they called in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division right away. They said, we need backup, we need help. But by the time those agents arrived, you know, this was late into the night and it's pouring rain. The crime scene had been sitting out there for a long time. You know, this lead sled investigator, Agent David Owen, he kind of reflected on the magnitude of arriving at that scene. And a lot of people, even if they weren't familiar with Alex, they had heard about the boat accident in 2019 that had happened with Paul. And even those first investigators that arrive, you can hear them on the body cam saying, "Did you hear what the name is? This is the Murdaughs." Wow.

And yeah, and, you know, the boat accident is brought up immediately. You know, it's—

Well, and I think, in fact, Alec says— Alec brought it up. He brought it up right there on the scene that, you know, he thought that perhaps this was revenge or some sort of get back at the family because of the boat accident when Mallory Beach was killed.

So, I was wondering about the timing of all of this. You know, where he is supposed to appear in court to, you know, hand over his financial documents, to disclose what's going on, and then his wife and son are murdered.

Well, I think one thing we've heard is that, um, Alex had been delaying turning over this financial information for a long time, kicking that can down the road. And that he was told by— the Mallory Beach legal team that if you don't turn this over, then I will sue Paul and Maggie in Beaufort County. Now, what that is— what that really means is, I will sue your family to get this money, but in a county where you don't hold, right, this kind of influence. And there's also an element, I think, that he was afraid that when he started turning over financials, somehow there's the strong suggestion that he thought this would be the string that would unravel all of these financial misdeeds that he'd been doing for years. But, you know, you then have to, as a jury, think that that thread that was unraveling led straight to motive. And boy, that is a jump, that you think because you're about to unravel completely financially that your remedy is your wife and son. That's a big step to make.

And that was something else I wanted to talk about. I mean, obviously, we unfortunately see too all too often husbands killing wives. You know, I don't think that's any surprise to a Dateline viewer at this point, or listener. But to kill your own son, that's the part that— I mean, both are obviously horrific, but that one is harder to wrap your brain around.

Yeah.

And I think we should probably importantly say that the defense really disputes this motive that Alex would commit such a heinous crime to distract what was going on in his financial life. They would tell you, and they say Alex would tell you, he was extremely close to Paul. And by all accounts, there's a video of Alex and Paul riding around the property in the evening, hours before this murder takes place, and they're looking at the sunflowers and you can hear them laughing. And why?

You know, it just doesn't make sense.

It's very hard to fathom.

Well, which begs the question that when you've got them all being pretty jovial on that infamous video down in the dog kennels, it You know, you're then having to believe that that tenor of that conversation turned quickly because they're dead moments later. So then who did kill them? And that is something that the defense has said, that they've got some leads on who it possibly was. Now, they did not present those at the trial where he was found guilty. So we'll see if they come up with more.

And as we, as we get towards— I want to talk about the next step in all of this, but I'm so curious what you thought, what people, you know, who are watching the trial, covering the trial— Alec really is emotional, or appears to be very emotional on the stand, to the point where like actual snot— pardon my language, that's not a bad word, but it's kind of gross— but, um, it's coming out of his nose. And I mean, I just thought to myself, "Oh, wow." Like, you know, normally, if let's say he wasn't, you know, being looked at for these murders, I probably would buy it, you know, 'cause he did look very emotional. But given that he's on trial for a double murder, what were people's thoughts about his— these tears and his nose and all of it?

I just think they didn't believe it.

Okay.

You know, but during the trial, I think Hailey and I observed that, you know, he sometimes would rock back and forth. He would sometimes— I mean, I think he had— I think the blow your nose thing, frankly, was something we had seen during the trial.

I sent you— I sent you ladies the screengrab as I was watching it this weekend because I kept seeing you in the gallery. And of course, That led Carol to our text conversation about those horrible benches in courthouses across America. And they are the most painful thing to sit on for hours on end.

If we're headed for another 6-week trial, chiropractically, I'm not sure I can survive.

Well, why don't— I mean, I've seen this in trials before where some people will bring in, like, you know, almost like the little baseball pads they bring to baseball games or they give out at baseball games.

I have a stadium seat. It has all kinds of padding.

You have that.

I have tools. I bring my tools and I share. Yeah, absolutely. It's—

it's awful.

Haley and I, though, have learned the hard way through this trial is you can stay home and watch it on a live stream in your bunny slippers, but you learn so much more about what's going on.

Yeah.

If you're there, and there's no substitute for being there.

When we come back, we'll have an extra clip from Craig's interview with Murdaugh's attorneys. I want to know, you, you two lived and breathed this case so much. And Craig, take us to that moment where you find out that Alec is getting a new trial? Where were you? What did you— just immediately call each other? How does this all— how does this all come about?

Another one of our colleagues started calling me again and again, and I was on— one of our associate producers on this case, who are our legs of the operation, and I thought, that's strange, they continue calling me.

Oh, give them a shout out. Who is it?

Oh, it's Javier.

Oh, Javi.

Oh, we love—

we love our Javi.

He is calling me, and I was on another work call, and I see that he's calling my personal phone again and again.

Yeah.

In my head, I thought, "He's got a new trial." Murdaugh.

Yeah.

And I called Carol right away, and I said— And Carol answered like she— You know, Carol and I are very close in real life.

Yes.

Besties.

And she said, "Hey." And I said, "Carol?" She said, "What?" I said, "Elliot got a new trial." And I don't think I should repeat here what she said.

Can you give us the— The mild version?

Oh.

Oh, no.

Okay.

Oh, boy.

Well, and we just know what's coming.

You know what's coming. And that's the big part of this, right? Is that it was such a long trial, so many witnesses, to do all the pretrial hearings. I mean, to do all of this all over again is just daunting.

Oh, no, but there's a whole other— There's another layer of drama here. Because we're in the middle of an election in South Carolina.

Yes.

The, the pro—

the attorney general, he's running for governor.

He's running for governor. And we have a wholly new person that's not really on the radar of what we know about the Murdaugh case, who's— well, several people running for the AG's job. And that's why in our interview last week with Attorney General Alan Wilson, he says he would, you know, is doing all he can to to make this case be retried before he leaves office in January.

And maybe, Carol, as death penalty this time, as they're saying.

Death penalty, he said, is on the table.

That was the news on Friday, yeah.

What was so wild for me was watching the episode when you go back in time, 'cause now you know what you know, and Becky obviously, you know, made some major mistakes here, the court clerk. You go back and you hear Allan giving this press conference.

I call her Becky Booth.

That's her nickname.

But Madam Clerk, wherever you are tonight, I want to be careful here because the defense lawyers were talking about this last week and there was a very, there was a very rare camaraderie that the media had at this trial because it was 6 full weeks and we sat in the same seats together. And I will say that at the time, Becky— it's not unusual for us, and you know this well, Andrea, that a clerk of court is a very integral part of their—

absolutely, absolutely—

are providing us hearing times. They are helping us understand what's going on in the courtroom. We get exhibits from them. Um, and there have been so many allegations, and Becky has ultimately pleaded guilty, but yeah, I think before we point any fingers, we were all just kind of getting through this trial in the best way that we knew how, which was to do our jobs and work with the clerk in a professional way.

Well, and to be fair, she was a first-term clerk of court, and this was, by any measure, a huge— would be a lifetime huge trial. And Haley and I met with her months before the trial because logistically, You know, journalists need a place to sit. We need to know, "What do you want us to do about parking?" We want to know, "How are you—" Just the logistics of covering a trial. And I think while we were living it, you know, she did a very good job of wrangling a lot of things.

She seemed really personable too. She seemed like the right person to be handling a trial like that. It seemed organized and—

Yeah, I was reading because actually we found out this morning, Andrea, that Alex Murdaugh is now suing Becky herself. And that's in civil court. In civil court today. He's kind of demanding that some of his attorney's fees be paid due to the suffering that he's been under because of everything that has happened. But in the complaint, it states how Becky's election was in 2020 and this crime happened in 2021. We went to trial very quickly, and I just thought, wow, imagine this being, you know, one of the first trials that you ever do as a clerk. And yeah, I've been at Dateline a long time. Carol's been at Dateline a little bit longer. I would say even for us, the media attention on this case has been unprecedented.

So yeah, it really has. I mean, and what did the justices say, the South Carolina justices? Something about stardom with Becky.

Uh, it was Justice Jean Toll who said that she was called by the scion of celebrity, and the justices ultimately agreed.

The defense team, Alex's defense team, has really hit the ground running with this. And we have an extra clip from Craig's interview with the defense team that we can take a listen to.

All 12 jurors are called in to testify. They're asked if they were in fact coerced. They're, they're, they're, they're asked if they felt pressured, um, influenced to vote guilty.

What did they say? Most of them said no. Um, only takes one though. I mean, the Supreme Court case directly on point, if one— she attempted to influence one juror, that's enough because you're entitled under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial, not pretty fair trial. A fair trial. 12 jurors who are not being influenced by extraneous influences.

And one juror said that it did influence her, but what's important is our Supreme Court followed the law that says you don't get to ask jurors, you know, what went into the mix to make up your mind. That's an unanswerable question after the fact. And so one of the things that the opinion does is says, you don't go there. What you have to do is you have to look at the conduct, the comments, the context in which they were made, and would that affect a reasonable juror, not how it affected those individual jurors. A hypothetical reasonable juror.

That is a really interesting quote because ultimately the Supreme Court decided even though you had 11 people say I was not influenced, how can you unhear that? For the ones that— all of them did not hear Becky say any of those things. But for the ones that did, even though they said it didn't influence me, I think the feeling is, should you be forced to unhear that? No. How would you know? Well, yeah.

I mean, what I said to you guys that day when the decision came out, I said Becky is having a very bad day. You know, this is her worst nightmare that this happened.

Well, and I think this trial was so long and so arduous and so painful for so many people that even if you're glad that the Supreme Court has remedied a problem they see with what Becky did, the prospect of doing it again, even if you think that's the fair thing, is still exhausting. It's exhausting. Yes. We should say that.

We have attempted to contact Becky as well as her lawyers in this case, and we have not received anything back.

Well, you two have a lot of work ahead of you. I will say that area is beautiful. It is. I saw that the— it was— I saw the Beaufort— the picture of the Beaufort Hospital after the boat crash. And I went there for a changing of command, a change of command at the base there. And it's— just the most stunning area. So, yeah.

I think that's why Pat Conroy wrote The Prince of Tides and set it right there. Oh, was that?

That was there? Yeah. Oh, I love that book and I love that movie. Nick Nolte.

I think it's so fortuitous too, Andrea, actually, that you brought that up. And I was talking to a few people over the weekend that are close we're close with the family and close to the situation, and we should just bring up that, you know, Mallory Beach's death in 2019, the other victims in this case, you know, there's just Maggie's family and the Murdaugh family, and there's just so much pain. But so much pain goes back to that night in 2019 in their original lawsuit, and you know, Mallory's death. So, you just brought up Harris Island, and they were out there on the boat, and how beautiful it is. And she was really a beautiful person. And, you know, it kind of all goes back to that. She was just—

Yeah. I mean, she was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous, Mallory. And you just look at her and you're like, "This is a girl who had her whole life ahead of her." Yeah. On that note, we are going to take a break and come back with questions from our viewers, our listeners, social media questions. Are you guys up for that? We sure are. Wonderful. Welcome back. And now we have some very curious viewers and listeners who have some observations and comments. That they would like to ask you guys about. So we will start with Bambi Workman. She is from Facebook, and she's— she says, I'm watching Dateline NBC. What a crazy turnaround. I was thinking that too, um, how, how you guys got that on the air so fast for Friday with all that new information and new interviews, and with Craig's schedule on the Today Show.

We should really give all kudos where kudos are due, which is to Craig, because he He, to your point, wakes up at 3:30 in the morning, and by the way, manages to keep all of this stuff in his head. And he's from South Carolina, so he knows these people. It's very personal to him. But, um, it was a very tight turnaround. Haley's so right about Craig.

Even with his regular day job, he was still a very important reporter on our story Friday night. He was making calls. He was checking facts. You know, he just didn't stop.

Stopped. So yeah, because we, we had them, all of you, on Dateline True Crime Weekly, and Craig was working the phones, as were you guys, and he really knows the story inside and out, just like you do. Um, Rebecca Todd on Facebook, um, she said, how many other trials has this happened to, I wonder?

Oh wow, that's a good question.

There was not a lot of case law present in South Carolina. There's another case cited, um, in the order that was about a bailiff who had made some comments to a jury, but dating back years and years. And even some of the lawyers that we've spoken to, and our expert lawyer at NBC, Laura Jarrett, said this is truly unprecedented to see this kind of conviction overturned.

It feels that way. Yeah. Anecdotally, anyway, it feels that way. Yeah. Donna Perry on Facebook, Craig Melvin is going to solve this. Well, some people don't think it needs solving. I guess some people maybe do. I like to think it needs solving.

But if Craig can find those missing guns, that'd be a big step forward. And then we have a missing— what, Haley? $6 million still not accounted for. That's part of what money stolen from clients.

So This question is on to something with Craig because there are two things that he has never forgotten: where is the money and where are the guns?

Well, um, you know, some people are really good at hiding money, right, with offshore accounts. I'm not saying that's the case here, but, um, there are ways to hide money if you're savvy enough. Um, and if you believe the prosecution, you know, did Alex have enough time to hide those weapons, right?

When you look at the area around Moselle, you are right near the Saukahatchee River. So you have that. You've got miles and miles and miles of marshes and woods. There's just no shortage of places to put guns.

Yeah. Jennifer Blair Martin says, after the first trial and the millions of shows about it, how will they find any jurors for number 2? I guess jurors who don't have preconceived—

We ask that repeatedly to everyone that's key in this case last week. I mean, my first instinct was you'd have to go to Zanzibar to find a jury of people that didn't know about it. But, you know, I think we asked Alan Wilson that very question. He said, look, we have got a structure, as every state does, for how to question jurors and ferret out the ones that can understand a case and can set aside, you know, their previous, you know, convictions. And the other issue with a new trial and change of venue, which is the other issue people ask about, is to get a change of venue, you not only have to get approval, but you've also got to find a county whose demographics line up to be very similar from Colleton County. And so you can't just say, we're going to move it to the upstate because you've got to have a county that matches demographically. So I don't— it would not surprise me if change of venue doesn't really come up.

Linda LeBlanc on Facebook asks, did they say an approximate trial date? I've just heard so far that they want to do this quickly, but have we heard anything beyond that?

No. So what we know next, at least what the defense has told us, is that they will have to appoint a judge, um, because the trial judge, Judge Newman, from the first trial recused himself, um, and there will have to be a new judge. And then there will likely be a hearing that— there's just gonna be a lot of factors. Not to mention, if the death penalty comes into play, that puts this case in a whole different category. And then you have to seat a death penalty jury, which is even more difficult than seating a jury, um, that doesn't know about this case, potentially. So, yeah.

So, uh, Haley and Carol, thank you so much. For joining us today. And, um, you guys are just so up on this case, both of you and Craig. It's— you're the experts. So thank you for, for doing this.

Thank you, Andrea, for having us. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, that is Talking Dateline, uh, for this week. Thank you all for listening. And remember, if you have any questions about our stories, you can DM us your audio or video on our socials at DatelineNBC. Or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured right here. And you can watch the video version of Talking Dateline on Peacock or YouTube, or subscribe to the NBC News app. We'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.