Since Alex Murdaugh appeared at the Lexington County courthouse in June, prosecutors’ only court filing so far has not been on the unresolved issue of where his new murder trial should be held or whether Murdaugh’s team can independently test evidence found under his slain wife’s fingernails.

Instead, the state attorney general’s office has asked the judge to unseal files in two peripheral matters. One is the court inquiry into juror misconduct during Murdaugh’s trial in 2023. Another is the state investigation into allegations that the clerk of court tampered with the trial jury.

Murdaugh, a former prosecutor, is charged with fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, at the family’s Colleton County estate in 2021. Murdaugh maintained his innocence but was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison following the six-week trial in Walterboro.

A juror who was dismissed for misconduct, Myra Crosby, has repeatedly asked the courts to release the transcripts of a closed-door inquiry into complaints that she ignored the judge’s order not to discuss the case.

Crosby, who is identified in court documents as Juror 785, has denied wrongdoing. A major reason for her transcript request is to obtain information that could help her defend her reputation, The State has reported.       

In court papers filed July 3, prosecutors asked Judge Debra McCaslin of Lexington County to release the transcripts and investigative materials related to the juror’s dismissal — after protected information has been redacted. McCaslin is overseeing Murdaugh’s retrial, which has been scheduled for April 2027.

Prosecutors also asked the judge to unseal documents and video interviews from a police probe into allegations that Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill had influenced Murdaugh’s trial jury with her comments.

“The public interest strongly supported unsealing the records for public use since the jury matters were generally no longer in controversy,” Deputy Attorney General Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor, said in court papers. 

The S.C. Supreme Court threw out Murdaugh’s twin murder convictions in May, saying Hill’s “improper external influences on the jury” denied the disgraced attorney his right to a fair trial. Witnesses said Hill wanted the jury to reach a guilty verdict, which would bring more sales to a book she was planning to write about the murder case.

Hill, who resigned as clerk of court in 2024, pleaded guilty last year to showing a reporter sealed court exhibits in the Murdaugh murders and then lying about it. She was sentenced to probation.

Murdaugh is now suing Hill in federal court, saying her interference deprived him of a fair trial. He is seeking financial compensation, including recovering $600,000 that Murdaugh said he’d paid his trial attorneys.  

Murdaugh, who appeared at the Lexington courthouse in shackles on June 29, remains under the custody of the S.C. Department of Corrections. He is concurrently serving time for state and federal financial crimes, including millions of dollars he’d admitted stealing from the legal settlements of his vulnerable clients. 

Prosecutors argue that Murdaugh killed his wife and 22-year-old son to gain sympathy for their deaths and divert attention from the investigations into his financial crimes.

Murdaugh’s attorneys are requesting that his retrial be held outside the 14th Judicial Circuit, saying he won’t be able to get an impartial jury in the Lowcountry area where his first trial was held.

His lawyers have also made a court request for independent lab testing of DNA evidence collected from underneath the fingernails of Maggie Murdaugh, 52. State police previously tested the evidence, finding it belonged to an “unknown and unrelated male,” but investigators did not do further analysis, Murdaugh’s team said.